All around us we see beauty: the beauty of the ocean and beach and sky, of fairways and trees and lagoons, majestic birds and animals, dainty butterflies and intricate insects. It is God who created most of the beauty we see, but He also gave humanity creative abilities as well. Today we shall ponder how we humans are doing as the sole stewards of God’s terrestrial creation, the planet we call Earth. Therefore let us, with chastened confidence, gather together to give praise and thanks to our Creator-God.
Pastoral Prayer
We who are the beneficiaries of Thy creative goodness give Thee thanks for Thine entire creation, O God, but especially for the creation of the earth. We marvel at the exquisite interconnections of nature, and how each creature or creation seems to be related to many other creatures and creations. We pray, Lord God, that Thou wouldst instill in us who claim to know and understand Thee a much more committed knowledge and understanding of both the resilient strengths and the evident weaknesses of the world Thou hast fashioned from nothing. Teach us how to become much more committed to the sustenance of the world than to the sustenance of our own small place in the world.
We confess before Thee, O God, as individuals and as citizens of our particular nation, that we have been far too careless and thoughtless in how our technological and industrial advancements may affect the stability of nature. We create new inventions or systems or whole economies, but we give too little thought to what damage these purported advancements may cause to the environment in which Thou hast placed us. We acknowledge dangers, but we risk the dangers anyway, paying too little heed to the results of our decisions. The world’s people refuse to join together to protect our fragile environment, and politicians everywhere lack the courage to do what they know must be done, correctly fearing they shall lose elections or political power for making difficult but necessary decisions on behalf of an increasingly sick planet. Forgive us for our folly, Lord God, while there is still time to be forgiven.
We pray for people who are so overwhelmed by particular circumstances that they can concentrate only on those issues: the seriously ill, who cry out to Thee in pain or anguish; the forgotten or bereft, who feel abandoned by everyone close to them, including Thee; the financially destitute, who wonder where their next meal shall come from; the spiritually depleted, who fear they have permanently lost touch with Thee and Thy saving grace. Make us instruments of Thy grace to these and all others like them, that we may become little Christs to our neighbors. We ask these things in the name of him who comes to us by faith as the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Thy Son and our Elder Brother. Now we pray together as Jesus taught us, saying, Our Father….