God of Adam and Eve, you created light, life, woman and man, love, beauty....and exile
God of Cain and Abel, you created brotherhood and family, and allowed bounty to come from the herds and the fields…and then there was jealousy, rage, and murder
God of Noah, you destroyed everything there was and you saved a remnant. And you promised that you would never cut off all flesh by the waters of a flood, and you showed Noah and his family the rainbow – the sign of the covenant that you made with them and all future generations
God of our past and God of our future, you seem to give with equal parts chaos and life, destruction and promise…
…and even though it is hard to understand the floods, brokenness, death, loss, loneliness, and pain that we give and take we remember that time and time again you have brought forth new life out of devastation, you have created dry and open land for those of us who have wandered, you have comforted us when we have grieved, you have brought new people into our lives when we thought we were alone, and you shared with us your son, whose life and death answered the question once and for all as to whether we are alone and whether good will prevail
It is because we know that the covenant you have made with us is stronger than all of the loss, injustice, missed opportunities, failures, hopelessness, and even violence that we have suffered we pray to you now with confidence, believing that you hear us and work tirelessly for our flourishing…
We pray for those who live in lands ravaged by war, famine, and tyranny
We pray for every nation – poor and rich – who is struggling to preserve peace admist the global economic crisis
We pray for our fragile earth
We pray for those in our nation who are behind bars, and those whose lives have been changed by those behind bars
We pray for the elderly, whose bodies and lives are not as vital as they once were
We pray for those who are not well – in body, in mind, and in spirit
We pray for those we do not understand
And for all the needs of those here today, spoken and unspoken, we pray, using the words that Jesus taught us to use when we did not know what to say
our Father, who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name
thy kingdom come, thy will be done
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil
for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory
forever and ever. Amen.
(thanks to elizabeth hein)
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