When we gather for worship, we do so as a people who are uniquely blessed. We live in a country which has been remarkably productive, and we are the beneficiaries of that productivity. Most of us have far more than we need to live adequately and comfortably. Much of that has nothing to do with who we are or what we have done, but rather where we live and what it has done for us. All blessings come ultimately from God, and we seek to thank Him for those blessings. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
O Thou who art the source of all that is or ever shall be, we thank Thee for the profusion of gifts we experience every day of our lives. We are citizens of a free land, a state filled with an interesting and unusually colorful history, and a community which is singularly beautiful, edifying, and exciting. Keep us from taking any of these gifts for granted, and help us to live each day in deep gratitude to Thee for Thy boundless goodness toward us.
We pray for all people who, because of their particular circumstances, are not so aware of Thy blessings at this time: those who are sick, or cry out to Thee from beds of pain; those whose lives have been turned upside down by financial reverses or disruptions in personal or family circumstances or where forces much stronger than they have engulfed them in a turbulence they have never before experienced. Help us through words we speak to them to be speaking Thy word to them. May what we say and do be perceived by them as Thine acts of compassion, Thy loving kindness, Thy tender mercies. Make us little Christs to our neighbors, O God, that our lives may be enlarged by Thy spirit within us.
We pray for scientific researchers who are working on ways to improve the health of millions through constant experiments in their laboratories, and especially for the eradication of COVID-19. Whether or not they believe in Thee, may what they do become yet more examples of how Thy miracles sometimes involve a very human touch, an undeniably earthly action, a visibly physical dimension. As we ask Thee to make us little Christs, we pray also that we may see ourselves more directly to be doing Thy work in Thy world. Keep us from insisting on the truly miraculous when the merely remarkable expands all around us. These things we ask in the name of him who personified Thy power and presence in the world, Jesus Christ, Thy unique Son and our continuing Lord. Now we pray together as he taught his followers, saying, Our Father….