Photo credit: Reba Spike, used with permission via Unsplash:
Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, August 25, 2024:
Loving God,
you created all that is in love
and you have created us
to live in relationships of justice and peace.
Into all our broken places,
you bring your healing power of reconciliation.
In Christ, we are a new creation,
called into your worthy work of reconciliation.
Each new day, you give us new breath and new life
to live lives of justice, healing, and peace,
and we give you thanks.
Knowing you are always right here with us,
in the midst of real life,
we embrace the hard but worthy work of reconciliation.
We pray for an end to every system that harms and hurts.
To the extent that we or anyone experience that harm,
we pray for your healing, comfort, protection, and strength.
To the extent that we are complicit in those systems of harm,
help us to stop.
Help us to see clearly the ways we are complicit,
and to not only stop, but to join your work of dismantling and rebuilding.
We pray especially for an end to systems that harm on the basis of race and gender.
We pray for peace, and particularly for the people of Gaza.
We pray for an end to the indiscriminate killing of Gazans,
for the return of hostages,
for an immediate and permanent cease-fire,
and for the restoration of systems and structures that provide the necessities of life,
water, food, health care.
We pray for peace – for peace with justice –
for a world where everyone can thrive.
In these days of climate unraveling, we pray for the well-being of the earth.
Lead us into ways that no longer waste and destroy,
but that sustain and mend and renew life.
We pray for those who are ailing or hurting, for healing;
for those who mourn, comfort;
for those who hunger, food enough and more;
for those who are unhoused, shelter;
for those who are lonely, companionship.
You have created us for life lived in Beloved Community, and so,
together, with everyone who has ever called on your name,
we join our voices with theirs, and in one voice,
pray the prayer that Jesus taught, saying:
Our Father/Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed be 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 sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. 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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