Prayers for the Week of April 21, 2024

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, April 21, 2024:

Loving God, from the beginning,

you have stretched out your hand, and created all that is,

the stars, sun, and moon,

the Earth and all creatures who dwell here.

You have shaped us, and you weave us together

for  life lived in just and loving community.

We are the work of your hands,

and we give you thanks and praise.

You accompany all you have made, in love,

and, to all our broken places, you bring your healing power.

And so we pray healing for all the world’s hurt.

We pray healing for the planet—

healing for the damage we have done to the Earth.

Help us stretch out our hand,

and change our wasting ways.

Help us find healing, sustaining ways

that might ease the harm of climate unraveling.

We pray for peace around the world,

and particularly in Gaza and Palestine –

for peace with justice.

We pray for the people of Rafah –

over a million of whom are already refugees.

Protect them from further attack and harm.

We pray for the restoration of access to all that’s needed for human life,

water, food, medical care – freedom.

We pray for an immediate and permanent cease fire –

for a peace that comes with new systems – that honor the dignity of all people.

We pray for the dismantling of our own systems and structures that harm,

and particularly the dismantling of entrenched systems of American racism.

Where we are complicit in those systems, stop us – prevent us from doing more harm.

Help us listen to those harmed the most,

and to follow them, in reshaping a world where all can live free and thrive.

In all the hurts of the world, by the power of your Spirit,

place your healing touch in our hands,

so that together we might bring

food to the hungry,

shelter to those who are unhoused,

comfort to those who mourn,

companionship to those who are lonely,

healing to those who are ailing in body or spirit.

Stretch out your hand – and these hands –

to bring healing, signs, and wonders,

in the name of the Risen Christ.

Joining hands with all your people, in every time and place,

we join our voices with theirs, 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: Sergey Schmidt, used with permission via Unsplash