Prayers of Adoration & Confession

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Holy One who breathes through us,
We praise you for your Son Jesus of Nazareth, for the way he was so deeply at home with you.
We thank you for the courage and inspiration of the radical pattern of life that he lived.
We give thanks for the influence of Jesus’ life and death, on a cloud of witnesses,
both humble and magnificent.
May we hear your word today, and be restored in hope and faithful action
May we know God with us.
Amen.

With the Psalmist we say:
Serve the LORD with gladness
and come before God’s presence with a song.
Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving; go into the holy courts with praise.

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Great God,
sometimes we confess we would rather have a ruler and a set of rules than a Lover of freedom like you.
We want someone who will sort us out, sheep from goats, right from wrong, this side, that side.
Our ancestors sought this too. When they were oppressed, they wanted their oppressors punished.
And your word keeps telling us it is all about how we treat each other, here, now, on earth.

It is easy for us to hide from oppression. We turn away from or do not see the gouged earth,
the ruined rivers the razed forests that are the cost of our consumption.
We do not see the slave labour that provides the goods at prices we find attractive.
We do not see the dispossessed First Peoples and we are not ready to pay the rent.
We take belonging to our home, this country, Australia, as a right.
Our government repels refugees in dire need.
And then, we are so crushed at the thought of what is done in our name ,that we fall silent, overwhelmed, defeated.

Holy One, we ask you to forgive us, to stand us up again when we fall down
and to blow gentle and strong through us the winds of change,
of new understanding, of courageous action.  Amen.

This is the best of all:
when we are empty, God fills us;
when we are disheartened, God is compassionate;
when we are wounded, God brings healing;
when we confess our sin, God forgives.

Through Christ, in Christ, because of Christ
Our sin is forgiven
Thanks be to God

Julie Perrin, offered for worship 22/11/2020, Reign of Christ A

Prayers of the people

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For our prayers of the people today, I invite you to recall our prayers of confession. Those prayers were offered and heard; forgiveness has been declared. Some of the themes from those prayers have surfaced in other parts of the service.

As forgiven people, our vision is turned outwards towards the world. Prayers of the people are part of that turning outwards. As we do, we know that the very realities we confessed remain forces that effect us and others.  

So today, echoes of our prayer of confession will be the basis of our prayers of the people.

Let us pray:

 We pray, loving God, for those whose lives are subject to unjust rulers.
Open our eyes to our own comfort with injustice and our tolerance of unjust rulers. 

We pray for those entrusted with ruling: in government, institutions, businesses, churches
Open their hearts, minds and actions to fairness and humility.

We pray for those who rule with justice and compassion.
Open our hearts and voices to support, encourage and uphold them.

We pray for Australia’s First Peoples as they seek to be liberated from the rule that has dispossessed them of their cultures and their lands.
Open our ears to their cries that we so easily ignore.

We pray for those who have sought refuge in this land but who have been imprisoned by heartless rules.
Opens our lives to their need for justice and freedom.

We pray for our own other churches that we might discover and live by the compassionate rule of Christ
and stand with him amongst those we so often are unwilling to see, hear or touch.

 As people forgiven by him, we pray in his name. Amen.

Geoff Thompson, offered for worship 22/11/2020, Reign of Christ A