Help us to learn from the trees to be your people.
Like the strong oak with its deep roots,
establish us in your word, in community, in prayer.
Like the graceful willow bending in the wind,
strengthen us to withstand tumults and trials.
Like the tall jack pine, true and straight,
make us pure and single-minded, always looking to you.
Like the rustling poplar, shining and shimmering,
give us joy in the winds of life….
God of Wisdom,
As we remember the atomic blasts, the gas chambers, the killing fields,
as we remember the war machines and the military establishments,
as we remember Hitler and Pol Pot, Jim Crow and the Indian Act,
call us to account for our own whispered innuendo,
our own snubs, our own finger pointing,
our own eyes averted from injustice, our own cutting words,
our own shove, our own furtive slap.
Do not allow the grandstand atrocities to blind us to our own cruelties.
From the darkness of our bedrooms to skyscraper boardrooms,
from schools and churches to houses of parliament,
give us ears to hear your call to peace in our time,
peace with our own two hands.
God of grace,
financially, we are sometimes in the dark.
We don’t always know how much money we have,
or how secure our resources are,
or even what expenses we will have in the future.
We choose to give our money to you with light hearts,
gifting boldly and cheerfully,
knowing that our security lies in your grace,
and not in our bank accounts.
Accept these gifts from our hands,
for the work of your church. Amen.
Our call to worship is based on James 5:13-16:
Are any among us suffering? We will pray.
Are any cheerful? We will sing songs of praise.
Are any among us sick? We will call on the name of the Lord.
Have any committed sins? We confess our sins to each other.
We come to worship in the name of God our Creator,
Jesus our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit who sustains us.
Let’s pray together:
Thank you, God, for the invitation to worship
and for this congregation where we have found our home.
With your help, we will both give a blessing,
and receive a blessing today
because we do it all in your name, Amen.
A hymn of praise for fists uncurled!
Alleluias on our lips for ammunition abandoned!
Guns dropped, forgotten,
bombs defused, harmless!
Fervent thanks for tanks rusting,
for jet fighters permanently grounded!
This future, peace-bright,
hovers on the horizon of your kingdom.
It will dawn the day we remember
there are no soldiers—
only your children, beloved and loving,
there are no borders—
Words and images zoom through air,
ricochet in cyberspace,
bounce off tiny screens and speakers
to eyes and ears and brains;
yours, mine.
in fractions of seconds gigabytes
scatter and dart at our whim and call.
Human ingenuity sparkles;
we have taken the shout, the messenger,
the smoke signal, the letter, the telegram
and raised it to the nth degree.
We are the world connected.
And so today we stand with our tools in our hands:
you in your room in Israel,…
The story of love gone sadly wrong
and the cruelty of the wounded;
the story of misguided innocence
and wrong roads eagerly taken;
the story of bitterness carefully hoarded
and an accountbook full of tears;
the story of pain uncomforted
and loneliness at the sticking place;
the story of grief unrequited
and the collapse of unrealized dreams;
the story of sanity stormed at the gate
and the sharp stab of personal betrayal.
Congregational life in all its sadness….
Great webs of connection circle the earth.
They burrow in cables under the ocean,
they permeate the air with radio waves,
they bounce off satellites in space.
The world is teeming with nets of interaction,
a global feast of signals, prepared and digested
each and every minute of every day.
Byte by byte, God scans the fragmented world.
Comfortable with every platform,
fluent in every operating system,
God follows every thread to its ultimate conclusion.
God knows where you log on,
My first thought was, “It’s not going to be me.”
Jesus, in a voice barely audible,
told us we would all become deserters.
When I protested, he looked at me,
singling me out,
and said that I would deny him too.
After everything we’d gone through together,
after all I’d left behind, these three years of ministry…
how could he doubt me?
Was I not the only one who stepped out of the boat,
waves raging, my one thought to be at his side?
With all my heart, I’d told him what I knew to be true,
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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