Prayers of Adoration & Confession

Watch or 9:29

Maranatha, maranatha, come, Lord Jesus, come.
Maranatha, maranatha, come, Lord Jesus, come.

God of Jacob,
You invite us to come and learn your ways.
You offer us a vision of a time when swords will be turned into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks,
a time when nations shall not lift up swords against nations.

Christ, light of the world,
You shine a light into dark places
showing us the way in the midst of violence and conflict,
bringing hope, and a vision for peace and justice.

Spirit of life,
You come to us as new born child,
Fragile and precious, so small but full of so much potential and possibility
Hope born into the world.

Forgive us when we do not grasp your vision
when we do not answer your call,
when we do not live in your light,
when we do not celebrate life,
when we lose hope.

Maranatha, maranatha, come, Lord Jesus, come.
Maranatha, maranatha, come, Lord Jesus, come.

Word of Grace
Christ comes and brings hope into the world,
Christ’s light shines, showing us a new way of being.
And so we can say with confidence
Our sin is forgiven.
Thanks be to God.

Kirsty Bennett, offered for worship 27/11/2022, Advent 1A

SONG:  Maranatha is an Aramaic word meaning “Come, Lord.” Words: traditional liturgical text. Music: Louise Skibsted. From More Voices, United Church of Canada, Woodlake Publishing Inc.

Prayers of the people

Watch or 56:48

My name is Tim and I will be leading the Prayers of the People this morning. Our prayers today focus around a poem by writer and activist Barbara Deming, called Spirit of Love.

Please feel free to use the words of this poem as the basis for your own prayers, contemplation and communion with God.

There will be a time of silence after the poem. In that time, you may choose to light a taper, either from the candle at the front or in the chapel space as a way of expressing and making your own prayer. So, after the poem, feel free to come down to the front to light a taper as a prayer or to use the chapel space as well.

The prayer focuses on love, on greater connections and the cry of the Earth. You may want to concentrate on some of these themes and words in your prayers, in particular as we all remember and hold the Hunter family in our hearts at this time and there may be other people and situations that are on your heart. Please bring them too as your prayer.

Let’s pray: Spirit of love – Barbara Deming
Spirit of love
That blows against our flesh
Sets it trembling
Moves across it as across grass
Erasing every boundary that we accept
And swings the doors of our lives wide—
This is a prayer I sing:
Save our perishing earth!

Spirit that cracks our single selves—
Eyes fall down eyes,
Hearts escape through the bars of our ribs
To dart into other bodies—
Save this earth!
The earth is perishing.
This is a prayer I sing.

Spirit that hears each one of us,
Hears all that is—
Listens, listens, hears us out—
Inspire us now!
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat,
And also there within the flowered ground beneath our feet,
And—teach us to listen!—
We can hear it in water, in wood, and even in stone.
We are earth of this earth, and we are bone of its bone.
This is a prayer I sing, for we have forgotten this and so
The earth is perishing.

So please, as the musicians play, and in your own time and if you wish, feel free to light a taper as your prayer this morning.

Tim Budge, offered for worship 27/11/2022, Advent 1A