[At first, Sunday's opening hymn during our worship service seemed out of place in light of the previous day's tragic and racist events in Charlottesville, Virginia. How can we "come with joy" when we have such heavy hearts? Verse 3 of this hymn reminds us. "As Christ breaks bread and bids us share, each proud division ends. The love that made us makes us one, and strangers now are friends, and strangers now are friends." The good news of our faith is that God's love can overcome any proud division and strangers can become friends. That's why we can "come with joy" even with heavy hearts.]
Loving God, thank you that there is always room at your
table for sinners and saints alike. Thank you for being a gracious God who
welcomes all to your bountiful feast.
On this Sunday that we focus on Joseph and his brothers, we
lift up to you relationships that have experienced strain and brokenness. We
confess the times when we have been careless and uncaring in our relationships.
Where possible and when given the opportunity, prompt us to be instruments of
your healing love with those we have wronged and those who have wronged us.
For those relationships that have deep hurts, wounds, and
painful memories, grant us patience as we trust in you to bring healing and
wholeness in your good time. Grant us your peace to accept the situations in
our lives that we cannot change and help us to move into the new future that
you have in store for us.
But on this Sunday that we focus on relationships, we are
especially aware of the broken relationships between countries and world
leaders. And so, we especially pray for peace to prevail throughout the world.
We pray for world leaders to exercise wise judgment and seek diplomatic
solutions with those nations that would threaten world peace.
O God, hold the tyrants of this world accountable for their
lust for power and dominance, and for their disregard of human life. In this
time of global uncertainty, remind us that you are the true ruler of this world
and you rule with peace and righteousness.
And Lord, we pray for our country, so filled with
hate speech and racist attitudes and actions. Forgive us for not being
the land of liberty and justice for all that you have called us to be.
As we prepare to ask you to “forgive us our trespasses,” help us to equally take to heart what
comes next in that prayer… “forgive us
our trespasses, AS we forgive
those who have trespassed against us.”
And so, as your people who need forgiveness, and who need to
offer forgiveness, teach us to pray together the prayer you taught your
disciples,
“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
No comments:
Post a Comment