Oct 26 08 Sunday prayer
Our nation, O LORD, is in the thick of a political campaign … and the whole world watches … LORD, you have given to us a place of influence among the nations – our wealth and innovation, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution – LORD, you have given much to us …
We bless and praise you, and we pray for our nation today … we pray for John McCain and Barak Obama; Joe Biden and Sarah Palin …
Bless our president and his family … Congress and the Courts … our governors and our mayors – for CEOs and Wall Street brokers … for newsmakers and those who report it … for the right and the left, and all in between …
Help us, we pray, as Christians, to be a light within our nation … to set the bar high for love and compassion, justice and kindness - to lead the way for acceptance and understanding of others, as Jesus himself welcomed everyone, turned no one away – healed the blind and touched the leper.
Help us, we pray, to have the character of Jesus … guide us with his words and wash our lives in his grace … help us to do more than just believe, but to follow him … to embrace the highest of all visions - to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with you, O LORD our God.
We are grateful, dear Lord, for the unfinished world you’ve given to us … for great tasks yet to be undertaken; for noble deeds waiting for noble hearts … to join with you and others of good will to bring this world to completion.
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven …
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Prayer - October 19, 2008
O LORD our God, we give thanks for grace:
The grace to live well,
To love much,
To pray often,
To make a difference in this world.
We gather in this place, O God,
A place of memory and a place of hope -
Covenant on the Corner.
We gather with one another …
As you would have it …
Not alone, but arm-in-arm …
To love one another as you love us …
We gather together:
To find hope,
To recast our values,
To think higher and better,
To leave behind the baggage of fear and suspicion,
To set aside the prejudice and ill-will that lives in the dark corners of every heart, every mind and every soul … LORD, we’re not without guilt in these matters … and we’ll not leave here today without coming to grips with the dark stuff of our soul.
In faith and trust, we face the truth boldly and hopefully …
We face Jesus, who touched the untouchable, who welcomed the outcast and invited the stranger … we come to Jesus … because he has the words of eternal life … his cross is our redemption … the empty tomb our hope that goodness and mercy have the last word.
Who are we, LORD?
A thousand questions fly through our mind:
Does life count?
Is faith for real?
Does this make any difference?
Are we just playing a game?
Is life a matter of getting all that we can?
These are the questions, LORD.
And we’ve made some choices, as best we can.
We believe … we trust … we serve.
We give ourselves to Jesus …
We love one another …
We stand with people of faith all around the world …
Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists …
When some divide, we bring together.
When some cast doubt, we honor and respect.
In your mystery, O God, in the mystery of the Trinity … there’s a wideness in your mercy … something for everyone … a way into the truth … a pathway for all to travel …
We thank you for your love …
For Covenant on the Corner …
For all that has been, all that is, and all that shall be
And most of all,
We thank you for Jesus our LORD …
What a joy to know him …
What an opportunity to serve him …
What a blessing to share his gifts of love and compassion with the world …
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …
The grace to live well,
To love much,
To pray often,
To make a difference in this world.
We gather in this place, O God,
A place of memory and a place of hope -
Covenant on the Corner.
We gather with one another …
As you would have it …
Not alone, but arm-in-arm …
To love one another as you love us …
We gather together:
To find hope,
To recast our values,
To think higher and better,
To leave behind the baggage of fear and suspicion,
To set aside the prejudice and ill-will that lives in the dark corners of every heart, every mind and every soul … LORD, we’re not without guilt in these matters … and we’ll not leave here today without coming to grips with the dark stuff of our soul.
In faith and trust, we face the truth boldly and hopefully …
We face Jesus, who touched the untouchable, who welcomed the outcast and invited the stranger … we come to Jesus … because he has the words of eternal life … his cross is our redemption … the empty tomb our hope that goodness and mercy have the last word.
Who are we, LORD?
A thousand questions fly through our mind:
Does life count?
Is faith for real?
Does this make any difference?
Are we just playing a game?
Is life a matter of getting all that we can?
These are the questions, LORD.
And we’ve made some choices, as best we can.
We believe … we trust … we serve.
We give ourselves to Jesus …
We love one another …
We stand with people of faith all around the world …
Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists …
When some divide, we bring together.
When some cast doubt, we honor and respect.
In your mystery, O God, in the mystery of the Trinity … there’s a wideness in your mercy … something for everyone … a way into the truth … a pathway for all to travel …
We thank you for your love …
For Covenant on the Corner …
For all that has been, all that is, and all that shall be
And most of all,
We thank you for Jesus our LORD …
What a joy to know him …
What an opportunity to serve him …
What a blessing to share his gifts of love and compassion with the world …
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Prayer - October 5, 2008
Prayer – Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008
There it was … a simple sign beside the road
“Estate Sale” – turn right …
I wonder what happened?
Everything goes in an estate sale.
The dining room table – many a Thanksgiving Dinner there … laughter and tears … Dad’s old jokes and Mother’s apple pie …
Glass goblets held high to toast a loved one …
Linen napkins used for the best occasions …
China and silver for company …
I wonder what happened.
The bed … where folks slept,
Or tossed and turned …
Where love was made …
Or unmade …
Look at all the clothes …
Retro … but that was the style then …
A teen girl buys that lovely old dress and hat … where in the world will she wear it? At a local dance club late Saturday night?
She’ll be the hit of the hip …
Boxes of knickknacks and doodads …
Pencils sharpened a few times too many …
Ballpoint pens from a furniture store out of business 15 years ago …
And shoes … men’s shoes … brown and black …
Women’s shoes … red and green and blue … pumps and flats, heels high and heels low …
Jewelry, beads and bangles … and some very nice pieces …
Books … murder mysteries and pulp romance … an old set of Encyclopedia Britannica … Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln …
Records … 33 1/3 … even some 45s in the bottom of the box … big bands and philharmonics … Frank Sinatra and Pat Boone …
The stuff of life, LORD.
We accumulate so much of it …
We store it, we catalogue it; we unpack it and repack it … we don’t know what to do with it.
We give it to the kids, and they don’t know what to do with it either.
We give it to the Salvation Army, and we hope that someone will enjoy what we enjoyed 25 years ago …
We have a garage sale, and someone buys what we bought at a garage sale two summers ago.
We’ve got stuff, LORD.
Piled high, piled deep …
Stuff used well, and some never used at all.
Why did we buy it?
What were thinking?
Jesus our LORD …
You remind us to go slow on stuff …
That life is more than clothing and more than food …
You remind us to treasure infinite things, eternal things …
Heavenly things … things that moths can’t eat and rust won’t stain … and to put our heart there …
The good stuff, the right stuff … the best stuff.
O LORD, help us make good choices …
At the end, LORD,
A good estate sale:
Faith,
Hope and love.
Grace,
Mercy and peace.
Comfort and courage.
Commitment and conscience …
A life well-lived,
Loving God and
Loving of neighbor …
The best stuff of all … the best stuff of all …
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name …
There it was … a simple sign beside the road
“Estate Sale” – turn right …
I wonder what happened?
Everything goes in an estate sale.
The dining room table – many a Thanksgiving Dinner there … laughter and tears … Dad’s old jokes and Mother’s apple pie …
Glass goblets held high to toast a loved one …
Linen napkins used for the best occasions …
China and silver for company …
I wonder what happened.
The bed … where folks slept,
Or tossed and turned …
Where love was made …
Or unmade …
Look at all the clothes …
Retro … but that was the style then …
A teen girl buys that lovely old dress and hat … where in the world will she wear it? At a local dance club late Saturday night?
She’ll be the hit of the hip …
Boxes of knickknacks and doodads …
Pencils sharpened a few times too many …
Ballpoint pens from a furniture store out of business 15 years ago …
And shoes … men’s shoes … brown and black …
Women’s shoes … red and green and blue … pumps and flats, heels high and heels low …
Jewelry, beads and bangles … and some very nice pieces …
Books … murder mysteries and pulp romance … an old set of Encyclopedia Britannica … Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln …
Records … 33 1/3 … even some 45s in the bottom of the box … big bands and philharmonics … Frank Sinatra and Pat Boone …
The stuff of life, LORD.
We accumulate so much of it …
We store it, we catalogue it; we unpack it and repack it … we don’t know what to do with it.
We give it to the kids, and they don’t know what to do with it either.
We give it to the Salvation Army, and we hope that someone will enjoy what we enjoyed 25 years ago …
We have a garage sale, and someone buys what we bought at a garage sale two summers ago.
We’ve got stuff, LORD.
Piled high, piled deep …
Stuff used well, and some never used at all.
Why did we buy it?
What were thinking?
Jesus our LORD …
You remind us to go slow on stuff …
That life is more than clothing and more than food …
You remind us to treasure infinite things, eternal things …
Heavenly things … things that moths can’t eat and rust won’t stain … and to put our heart there …
The good stuff, the right stuff … the best stuff.
O LORD, help us make good choices …
At the end, LORD,
A good estate sale:
Faith,
Hope and love.
Grace,
Mercy and peace.
Comfort and courage.
Commitment and conscience …
A life well-lived,
Loving God and
Loving of neighbor …
The best stuff of all … the best stuff of all …
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name …
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