God, you great Searcher of our hearts,
is this the place where remorse begins?
You know our lives through and through.
You’ve seen the wrongs we try to hide,
the wrongs we dare to do in plain sight
and the wrongs we don’t even notice.
As we pause in the awareness of your gaze on us,
is this the place where repentance begins?
Go into your week
knowing that the God of all care
will keep you safe from harm,
that the Spirit of care will fill your hearts,
and that Jesus himself
will walk by your side. Amen
God, make us truly faithful; body and soul.
Faithful to your love, your trust in us;
sticking close to you through thick and thin.
Faithful to those dear to us,
putting their needs first.
Faithful to our partners, if we have them,
loving their flesh as our own.
Faithful to the stranger,
honouring their humanity.
Faithful to the hungry and hurting,
sharing food and comfort.
We confess our unfaithfulness:
Remember your angels and their glorias,
their promise of “on earth peace”?
God Almighty, we are wondering what is going on.
Jesus was wonderful, and yes, in my heart there lives a melody,
but honestly, things are getting out of hand.
We need an intervention.
Hatred growing, prejudice spewing, greed hoarding, and
tick tick tick goes the doomsday clock and
drip drip drip goes the great Antarctic shelf.
What are we to do with all these new babies
hopeful and fresh faced, looking at us expectantly?
When it’s time to hand it over, what have we got?
The sun slides to the horizon
and our thoughts slide to you,
God of heaven and earth.
As the shadows lengthen,
we rest our weary bodies.
Let the peace of the evening
fill us as we pray.
Thank you for all that we experienced today:
moments of energy and engagement,
moments of inactivity and quietness,
God our Hope, be our guide in all the terrains of sinfulness.
When sin is glittering, and we have eyes for nothing else
and are oblivious to consequences;
be with us then.
When sin is disguised, and we do wrong things thinking they are right
because we are entirely misguided;
be with us then.
When sin is justified, and we know something is wrong
but we find a million reasons why we can do it;
be with us then.
When sin is a category we reject, and we follow our own way
Thank you, God, for deliverance.
Thank you that ________ has given birth
and that we can hold baby __________ in our arms.
Thank you for this mysterious process of childbirth,
the way a baby is formed and nurtured
tucked away in its mother’s womb.
Thank you for the intimacy of pregnancy,
with all its joy and uncomfortableness.
Thank you for labour pains, which opened a channel
to a new life out in the world.
The disciples also knew about resurrection. They saw Jesus raise a young girl and also Lazarus from the dead. Yet when confronted with death in their lives, in front of their eyes, death in all its brutality, Jesus at Golgotha, they were overwhelmed. They were defeated. They knew that death had the last word. That’s the story they knew by heart…death always has the last word. So when they see the tomb empty, all they can think is “That’s odd.” Mary sees the man outside the tomb and thinks, “He must be the gardener.“
Mennonites are part of a peace church tradition which means we don’t believe violence is the solution. We will not use violence to kill and we stand up for the defenceless, for people who are being attacked. Will we stand up for creatures that are under attack? They are truly the most defenceless. They cannot speak for themselves. The passenger pigeon could not write articles in newspapers to defend itself,or start lawsuits about their own demise or stage public protests in big cities. All they did was disappear.
I am a Mennonite pastor currently teaching theology at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario. I’ve served congregations in Ontario and most recently, Alberta.
I love to write and to lead worship! If you are finding my writing helpful, I would love to hear from you! Feel free to use or adapt the material here, it is all written by me. If printing material, please credit “Copyright Carol Penner www.leadinginworship.com” (and say whether you modified it). If publishing, please contact me for permission. Contact me at carol@leadinginworship.com
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