
Please feel free to join us in the prayer prayed in worship Sunday, July 14, 2024:
God of justice, healing, and peace,
you have created all that is in love,
created us to live life in relationships of love,
and you have shown us, in Jesus Christ,
what it is to love and live abundantly.
In that love, you call us to live and work
for the well-being of your whole creation.
We give you thanks and praise.
We gather this morning,
continuing to grieve the violence of this world,
in its many shapes and forms.
We pray for peace in a world of war.
We pray for an end to the violence in Gaza,
for an immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages,
for an end to the collective punishment of peoples.
We pray for a restoration of all the things necessary for life,
access to water, food, shelter, medical care.
We pray for peace with justice –
and a rebuilding of a world where all people live free.
We pray for peace in Palestine and Israel and Ukraine and Sudan,
peace wherever there is war.
We pray for the violence we see in our own nation –
we pray for an end to political violence –
an end to violent insurrection, to violent attacks on political candidates.
We pray healing for Donald Trump and for all who were injured yesterday,
we pray comfort for the family of the one who was killed.
Quell our warring madness.
Restore a sense of humanity and decency and dignity
to our political discourse and to our communal life.
We pray for an end to systems that do violence –
particularly American systemic racism.
Where we are complicit, stop us.
Help us dismantle all that harms,
and rebuild a world where everyone can thrive.
We pray for an end to the violence we do to your creation,
the harm of which falls most harshly on those who are already vulnerable.
Show us healing ways to live in love in the unfolding reality we have brought about.
We pray healing for all those who are hurting, in body or in spirit,
Comfort for those who mourn,
Food enough and more for those who hungry,
Shelter for those who are unhoused,
and a cool place of rest in these days of scorching heat.
In Jesus Christ, you have given us a new command,
one we should have realized from the very beginning:
Love one another. May it be so.
May the lives we live testify to the truth
of your boundless love for us in Jesus Christ.
In community with all you have created, with all those who have ever called your name, we pray 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: Frederico Respini, used with permission via Unsplash
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