Prayers for the Week of December 22, 2024

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship, Sunday, December 22, 2024:

Holy, Loving God,

with Zechariah and Mary and the shepherds,

with all those who have ached and longed for a better world,

with all creation loving you back,

we join the angels’ song,

and give you thanks and praise:

Glory to God in the highest heavens,

and on earth, peace for all people.

Help us to lay aside

the ways that we benefit from systems that harm others,

help us help you to turn the world rightside up,

and with the world, to turn us rightside up too –

as you bring down the powers that oppress,

and raise up those who for too long have been held low.

Give us humility and wisdom and courage and great love

to join, with all that we are, in the living out

of your good news for all the world

so that the hungry might have food enough and more,

so that those who are unhoused might find safe shelter,

so that refugees might find shelter and a home.

Help us bring healing where there is hurt,

companion the lonely,

and come alongside those who mourn, with quiet comfort and love.

Holy God, dismantle the powers – including our own privilege –

so that with you we might create economies based on sharing and mutuality,

where everyone has enough,

so that with you we might create a world filled with justice, healing, and peace.

With the whole world, we give back the song we have heard the angels sing,

joining our voices

with the voices of those in every time and place who have ever called on you,

praying 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.

Photo credit: Laura Nyhuis, used with permisison via Unsplash