Prayers of Adoration & Confession

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You may have heard of the Manna Gum tree, it is called that because during summer, soft white sugary lumps form on its leaves and fall onto the ground below where they can be gathered by hand or with the furry side of a possum skin cloak.
Just be careful not to put a lump of bird poo in your mouth by mistake..

Let us pray,

God of everyday miracles, creator of the majestic Manna Gum,
You send rain to fill swamps and rivers with life giving water,
hanging dampness in the air and seeping deep underground
to find roots that spread in search.

You send sunlight to fill our lengthening days,
golden warmth meeting branches that sculpt themselves towards the light,
forming shadowy shelters below.

You send wind to rock sleeping Koalas and rustle their leafy surrounds,
Winds that come bearing colourful birds and carry off warblings and chirps.

You send summer snowings of manna,
so soft and sweet that we could believe it fell straight from heaven.
Formed from sap that once carried the flow of life within the great tree,
we wonder at the miracle of life passing in, around and among us,
feeding us and giving us new life.

Forgive us for all the miracles that pass us by, unseen and without notice.
Show us how to sustain ourselves with your daily gift of life,
Seeking new understandings and continuing to pray as you taught us.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Amen

Jesus tells us: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Today, our eyes will be opened,
Today, we will be fed,
Today, we will follow Jesus and find new life,
In Christ, through Christ and because of Christ, our sin is forgiven.
Thanks be to God.

Amelia Ware, offered for worship, 20/09/2020, Season of Creation 1

Prayers of the people

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Dear Companion
If I’d been hungry in the desert I would have been complaining.
And I would have asked for something solid to fill me for an arduous journey.
But manna as delicate as hoarfrost settling fine and powdery across the ground?
I could have trampled on it, walked right through, without tasting it’s sweetness or gathering it’s fullness.

Great Creator, your world has always spoken your gifts, they have been present in your creation all along.
Forgive our suspicion of scarcity
our unwillingness to trust rest.
We have resisted turning from our enslavements to trust
the enough that is You.
You required your ex-slaves to stay home on the sabbath.
We have stayed home for days, weeks, months on end and often lost our sense of rest.
There have been moments when like your desert people we have felt trapped by fear and fury.

Enliven us in our walking out and in our gathering in,
to resist the fear of not enough
to live into the miracle of provision.

And even in that longed for day when we can leave home,
go bush, or gather with our tribes,
Let us not forget that You are our home.
You speak to us in creation, through the tenderness of manna, the coming of quail.

Help us to take hold of the intention to speak for Your creation.
To speak against the trampling, the reckless taking of more, the refusal to share wealth.
Our nation carries the grief of  refusal to acknowledge unceded land,
the long trampling over the light footprint of First Peoples,
the unspoken violence that ignores their life and their knowledge.

In humility may we hunger for your justice, that we might become a part of the contrition and the healing.
May we care for our neighbours seen and unseen, in the human and the more-than-human world.
May we find courage and unexpected ways to speak against the trampling of people and planet.

Julie Perrin, offered for worship, 20/09/2020, Season of Creation 1