Prayers for the Week of August 16, 2020

Please feel free to join us this week in the prayers we prayed in worship, Sunday, August 26, 2020:

Creating, loving God,

you made all that is: land and sea and sky,

plants and trees and fish

and birds and animals,

even humans, even us,

You created all that is

and you called us good,

and then, on the seventh day,

when you beheld and loved all you had made,

you invited us to rest with you.

In the quiet of this Sabbath morning,

we bring our prayers to you.

In a world whose pain throbs

in climate emergency,

we pray for all life that

lies in the path of

or is recovering from

hurricane, or derecho,

or wildfire, or excessive heat.

Help us to care for each other;

show us ways to live on this planet,

our only home,

in ways that sustain and repair and make whole.

We pray for an end to pandemic.

We pray for all those who are sick,

for healing.

We pray for all who have lost loved ones and friends,

for comfort and love and peace.

We pray for nurses and doctors and paramedics

and all those in the healing professions,

we give you thanks for their courage and their healing skill,

we pray that you will sustain them

and gird them with strength,

and put your healing touch in their hands.

We pray for better government.

We pray for leaders who are honest,

and filled with compassion,

who care for the needs of the most vulnerable in our midst,

who lead us in ways that bring healing not harm,

clarity, not confusion,

peace, not enmity and schism.

We pray for the freedom and well-being of all people,

and an end to all oppression,

particularly the evils of systemic racism.

Help us to see clearly all the ways that racism is at work

in the world, in the systems in which we live, and in us.

Give us hearts and the courage to dismantle what needs to be torn down,

and, listening to those who have been harmed the most,

to build a new world together and with you.

Make us aware of the work that is ours to do.

We thank you for the gift of community.

Gathered here, in so many places,

and yet together, in the body of Christ,

connected with you and each other and all creation,

we join our voices, with the voices of all

who have every prayed the prayer that Jesus taught, praying:

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.