Please feel free to join us in the prayers we prayed in worship Sunday, August 9, 2020:
Loving God,
whose mercy and steadfast love
are more expansive than our imagining,
you have created all that is;
you accompany all you have created;
your steadfast intention for good never wavers;
we give you praise.
We thank you for the blessing of our days,
and we come to you in prayer,
in the midst of a hurting and a troubled world.
We pray for the world, suffering in the midst of pandemic.
We confess the ways that
our national lack of discipline and compassion
has resulted in more harm and death
than could have been.
Help us as a nation to do better.
Give us leaders with compassion and courage;
give us the self-restraint and moral courage
to live lives that honor and protect the lives of others.
We pray for all those around the world who are sick,
for their healing.
We pray for all who mourn,
for their comfort.
We pray for all those in the healing professions,
with thanks for their steadfast work these many months,
continue to gird them with strength.
We pray for an end to racism.
Open our eyes to see the racism at work in the world
in systems and structures
in embodied lives.
As we participate in the harm,
help us to see and to stop;
as we experience the harm,
help us to heal.
We pray for people hurting around the world.
We pray for the people of Beirut,
as they grieve and recover from this week’s explosion.
We pray for all who are recovering
in the wake of Hurricane Isais.
We pray for the people of Madagascar,
and for people of all nations,
struggling through pandemic,
in the midst of political oppression.
We pray for the people of Palestine/Israel,
and for peace with justice everywhere.
We pray for this world you have created and love.
Help us heal the harm we have done.
In your providential love,
steadfast, always accompanying us,
bring us to a broad and spacious place,
where we can stand in your intention for good,
and with you, restore, repair, and re-create
new and better ways of living together in this world.
In community with all you have created,
and all those who have ever called upon your name,
we join our voices with theirs,
praying the prayer that Jesus taught:
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.