Eternal God, we give thanks … thanks for the day, these moments of worship … to be here with one another in the great fellowship of faith, to hear the words of hope and peace proclaimed in sermon and song … to feel the very presence of the saints - their memories linger here, O God, in stone and wood, glass and fabric, all of which speak to your high purpose and our task to bless the world.
With your Spirit, O God, help us to be attentive, to look with determined eyes, eyes to really see one another, the world around us, the beauty of our earth and the wonder of the universe … vast and mysterious, glorious and good …
That we might have hearts of praise … hearts quick to respond to goodness … eager to praise and give encouragement: to the child next to us, to the colleague across the table, to our lovers and our friends … to lighten the darkness, dispel gloom, raise up hope, and speak the words of peace to our troubled world …
Help us, we pray:
To be all the more devoted to seek humane solutions when others give way to violence … to preserve life in all its many forms … from the lions of Africa to the child living in a cardboard box … help us, we pray, to see the world with your eyes, and to apply ourselves as best we can to the great tasks of life … to never grow so weary that we quit, to never be so jaded that we give up, to never accept evil so that we cease doing good …
And so we pray today:
For all of those affected by the explosion in Tianjin, China …
For the refugees streaming out of Burundi …
For the nation of Greece …
For the Peoples of Palestine …
For Cuba and for Iran …
In a world distressed and great with danger:
We give thanks … holy thanks, for those who seek peace and speak truth: so we especially pray today for President Jimmy Carter and his family … we know, O God, that his doctors will do their best, yet the clock ticks onward, as it does for us all … and time quietly steals us all away.
May President Carter find solace in the greats works of peace to which he has devoted his life … and may all of us continue to learn from his vision for a better world.
We pray, too, for Julian Bond’s family as they grieve his passing today … what a legacy he leaves for us: faith, hope and love … bravery in the face of high difficulty, and a willingness to put his life on the line.
O LORD, our God, we thank you that we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, who speak truth to power, and who live the power of the Crucified and Risen Christ.
In their strength we are strong; in their wisdom we are wise … help US, dear God, to learn from them all.
With the courage of their faith encouraging us, we take up our cross and will never lay it aside, dear God … we follow Christ as he would lead, we go where the heart of faith calls us, we are brave in the face of difficulty, and will not turn aside, even though we tremble!
We will be as Christ to one another, so that life prevails in the goodness of love.
This we pray, in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ … Amen and Amen!
