We join hands and hearts with women and men of conscience and faith, all around the world, and across the expanse of time …
Ever-faithful God, that we should have the opportunity to know your grace and to love one another is quite amazing, and we thank you.
Your love makes us mindful of the spiritual depths all around us – the wonder of your Spirit still creating and making all things new – give us, we pray, the eyes to see your glory in the bud of a tree and in the eyes of a friend … the ears to hear the sounds of hope churning away in the tides of time, and to hear the millions of our fellow human beings who quietly cry for help.
To be here this morning, at Covenant on the Corner, is quite amazing.
To the human eye, O God, we’re a tiny place in time, but a place of giant faith and wide vision – connected to the great women and men of faith who have held high the light of reason and hope for their world and in their time, and, LORD, we want to do the same for our world and in our time.
We hope and pray to do it right, so that our grandchildren will look back upon us with gratitude for:
The truths we held,
The values we embodied,
The commitments we made to justice and peace.
Our prayer, O God, is simple: to remain steady.
That in these difficult times, we will not lose sight of your providential care – because you are the Good Shepherd, and you provide a Table set before us in the presence of our enemies – you anoint our heads with kindness and mercy and generously fill our cup to overflowing.
Remind us, O God:
That nothing can separate us from your great love given so freely throughout the ages … a love given in the cry of Moses on Sinai, the cry of the prophet in the city gate, the cry of a babe in a Bethlehem manger, and the cry of Jesus from Calvary’s cross – in those voices, O God, we hear your voice – to love one another as you have loved us … to forgive quickly and deeply … to fling wide the doors of our heart to every weary traveler – to turn no one away, but to offer the cup of cold water, and to prepare a place at our Table.
Help us, we pray, to keep on growing in thought and deed.
Save us, we pray, from weak resignation to the past – from old thoughts and tired ideas … help us to sort out the chaff from the wheat – that which is true for every age, and those things that need to be set aside.
LORD, challenge us with the fresh winds of your Spirit – because you continue to transform the church, revealing to us the ways of love, ever-fresh, taking us places we didn’t dream, and opening up doors of thought and service we didn’t invent.
And bind us together with women and men of faith all around the world … remind us that love trumps all doctrine; that respect is greater than all ideas, that mercy is the universal language everyone understands.
We pray 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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