PASTORAL PRAYER
O Holy God, the earth and its weary people cry out to you. The surround sound of these past few weeks and months pulses in our ears and hearts, and as much as we want to turn it off and close it out, we turn first to you. Keep us attentive to the wounds and hungers, rage and grief, hopes and dreams that surround us. We ask you, O God, to be with all those who suffer: with those who continue to contract and battle COVID-19, for medical personnel who continue put themselves at risk in order to care for their patients, for first responders and essential workers and all who give so generously for others. Thank you and thank them for their service. We pray for those who are out of work or beginning to return, trying desperately to recover, for those who wait in line for food, and those who fill bags and boxes in order to place them in trunks; for those who are trying to juggle more needs than they know how and who grow weary. For businesses that are trying to reopen, customers and clients who are deciding whether and when, how and for what to venture out. Keep us careful, and mindful of the ways in which our choices affect others.
As protests continue to fill the streets of this nation and countless cities and nations around the world, we pray, O God, for peace. Hear and hold and heal the rage that has been triggered yet again in too many, and open our ears as well as the ears of our neighbors and leaders; show us the path that can lead us forward to a new day, a day of justice and well being for all. Help us to recognize the difference between peaceful protesters, rioters who seek to sow violence and looters who destroy businesses; between police who do their very best to protect the needs of the weak, and those who’ve become too comfortable using excessive force. Pour out your wisdom upon the leaders of our country and all countries that they might lead and decide, serve and protect, build up and restore in the way of love.
Holy and loving God, we give you thanks for all of the ways you bless our lives and gift us with your presence; for the joys and wonders, mysteries and grace that fill us up and take our breath away. Send us out to do what we can to reflect your light, share your love, tend your creation and build up the Body of Christ. Hear our prayers, spoken and unspoken, and hear us as we join together in the prayer Jesus taught, saying: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
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