Prayers of Adoration & Confession

God of the harvest,
we worship you in our isolation.

We bring you faith like the land:
sometimes lush and ripe for harvest,
sometimes drought parched, scorched and lifeless;
sometimes rich and fertile,
sometimes stony, thorny and picked over by hungry birds.

Hear the praise we sing from the hungry ground of our faith, such as it is today.
Hear the love we have for you our creator, our redeemer, our sustainer
as we long for the planting, the growth and the harvest of your reign of love in us and in the world.

Forgive the failings of our faith, our hope and our love:
our lack of understanding and perception,
our falling away from you amidst the distractions of life.

Bring forth from our hearts and our communities the harvest of Christ your Sower –
the harvest of compassion, wisdom, love, justice, peace and hope.

We pray to you the Source of our life,
through Christ the seed bearer,
on the breath of the Holy Spirit
who brings the rain and light of growth.

Let us pray together in the words of Christ’s teaching:

Our Father in heaven
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive, as we forgive
those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever,
for ever and ever.
Amen. Amen.

SONG:  The Lord’s Prayer, musical setting by Dave Brown, PUBLIC DOMAIN

From the sea Christ speaks his word of hope.
On the land the sower sows his seeds of grace.
May those seed words take root in you and grow to bear much fruit.

For by the grace of God, our sin is forgiven.
Thanks be to God.

Ian Ferguson, offered for worship, 12/07/2020, Pentecost 6A

Prayers of the people

Defy the old dragon,
defy fear.
The world may rage
and quake,
But I shall remain singing,
in perfect peace.
  – Johann Frank (poet)

Our God, who holds all things together – our world cracks
and we are falling through the fault lines:

unfettered power
mindless prejudice
poverty
pandemic
a climate struggling for breath

You scatter your seeds,
but the ground is hard;
we search for fertile soil in beauty and grace and joy,
but we are struggling.
Yet we know that we live in Kairos, your time, the opportune moment,
and, for the most part, things are working toward the good.
Here is your world:
heal us in our brokenness.

We are your church, charged with the care of souls,
but we stumble down unknown avenues,
connect in unfamiliar ways,
seek to love and support when, we ourselves
struggle to find your face.

Remind us again, that you have not left the table,
that it is still set, the bread broken, the wine awaiting us.
We are your church:
hold us on the journey.

And life appears to continue:
the trucks still rumble, the children scoot, the coffee brews –
but we hardly feel like a community;
most everyone we meet is fighting a hard battle within.
May each one of us ‘add our light to the sum of light’.

‘We are like islands in the sea,
separate on the surface, but connected in the deep.’
Bless the space between us.
Remind us that spring is coming
And with it, the sweet scent of wattle and the bright buds of new growth,
Let us not miss it.

As the poet tells us:
‘Hope is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all.’

We are your people,
people of good heart who persist in hope.
Alight on us, Holy Spirit,
And lift us up.

The old dragon shall not prevail,
and we shall go on singing.
This is ‘our year of living dangerously’ – may we live dangerously well,
Amen.

(inspiration drawn from William James, the film ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’,
Judith Valente and the Benedictine ‘Rule’)

Peter McKinnon, offered for worship 12/07/2020, Pentecost 6A