Prayers for the Week of October 31, 2021

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship, Sunday, October 31, 2021:

Gracious God,

you have created all that is –

sun, moon, stars,

mountains, rivers, oceans,

every living thing,

the fish who swim, the birds who fly,

the rest of us who live together

on the solid ground of this world.

The Earth is yours and everything in it,

and you share it with all creation,

a home where all can live and thrive.

We praise you and we give you thanks.

We thank you for the gift of life lived in community,

for the gifts of worship and work,

practice and prayer,

life and love.

Creation overflows with your abundance.

Help us reform, dismantle, repair

systems we have constructed that

misallocate the resources of this world –

so that we can build with you a world

where everyone has enough

enough not only to survive, but thrive.

Help us build and embrace patterns of living

that acknowledge the damage we have done to your creation –

to the point of climate emergency –

so that we might find sustainable ways of sharing life on this earth.

We give thanks for your justice at work in the world.

Help us engage systems that oppress –

particularly systems of entrenched racism –

help us see the ways we participate, and stop,

and then work with you and others to dismantle and repair

what must be changed, so that all may live free.

We give thanks for your loving, healing power at work in the world –

the glimpses of healing we have seen in our own community this week.

We pray for all who are ailing in body or spirit,

may we be mindful of each other’s need

and respond with tender mercy.

We pray comfort for those who mourn,

shelter for those who are unhoused,

food for those who are hungry.

In response to the need of those we meet,

and the deep need of the world,

help us to respond with glad and generous hearts.

Thank you for the gift of life lived in community

more expansive than we could ever comprehend –

community in these places we inhabit –

and around the world –

and across the ages.

Connected with everyone in every time and place

who has ever called on you,

we pray the prayer that Jesus prayed, 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.