Call to Worship – February 1, 2015
The life of Jesus is a story told by four different men in four different ways almost two millennia ago. Our lives also would be described by us and others in different ways. Today we shall think about the narratives of our existence, and what these narratives mean to us, to others, and to God. We are grateful to God for our lives, and we seek His guidance to lead them as best we can. Therefore let us join together to worship the God who has granted us the gift of life with all its richness, possibilities, and pitfalls.
Pastoral Prayer
We bow before Thee, O Lord our God, to thank Thee for all Thy gifts to us: the beauty we see all around us, the people who have added immeasurably to the meaning of our lives, the teachers and mentors in the Christian faith who have drawn us into a closer relationship with Thee because of their own strong relationships with Thee, the innovators and inventors whose genius has transformed the nature of our lives for the better, the leaders of Church and state and industry and education who have provided the social glue which holds us together, and the very productivity of the earth which enables us not only to subsist but to thrive in a world of plenty. Guide those in positions of power to have the wisdom to distribute the earth’s bounty so that all may benefit, and not simply those who are intellectually or financially well off.
We pray for people whose lives are filled with wretchedness: the very poor, who struggle to have enough to eat or to establish a roof over their heads; those who are pawns in political or religious chess games played by powerful men, and who are thrust about from pillar to post with little hope of finding any solidity anywhere; those who are forced to make major life decisions, where none of the choices is good; women who become virtual slaves because they are forced into prostitution; the disabled and debilitated for whom every day is a struggle, and they may feel there is no end to their plight. Loving Father, help us to do what we can to alleviate the suffering of people caught in a downward spiral not of their own making.
We pray for the heads of state of powerful nations who have innocent citizens taken hostage by religious, political, or behavioral extremists, who are powerless to meet the demands of the cruel hostage-takers. We pray especially for the hostages themselves, in the terror and anxiety they feel immediately after they are seized. We pray also for all of us, whom such situations force us to decide for ourselves how we shall personally respond internally to the indifferent cruelty of weak people who take very strong and vicious measures to try to carry out their plans. Teach us always to remember the words of him who entreated us to love our enemies, but also to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Life is hard, O God, and we need Thee every hour in the often painful or ambivalent living of it. Our prayers we make in Jesus’ name, as we now join together in the prayer he taught us, saying, Our Father….