Event – Lent

You gave us a holy book,
but we confess that sometimes
we use it in unholy ways. 

Sometimes it sits on our shelf, gathering dust.
We fail to wonder at it,
the miracle of stories about you,
preserved and collected.
We forget the sacrifice that was made
to write it, copy it, translate it, protect it.
We feel guilt about not reading,
but miss the invitation to communion
it offers every day.

Sometimes the opposite happens.
We become devoted to the book itself,
knowing it backwards and forwards,
able to quote chapter and verse.
The book holds a place in our heart,
where only God should be. 
We can wield it like a weapon,
wounding and pushing people away,
instead of seeing how it is a bridge
which can help us reach our neighbour.

Open us to the Spirit’s movement
in the words of this book.
Help us to hear your call to repentance,
and your eternal hope for renewal.
Fill us with longing to explore scripture.
Grant us delight in our encounters
and patience with what puzzles us.

We read this book as people together,
and as per usual, we won’t agree.
In the midst of conflict,
bless our bible-reading community.
Help us listen to the diversity of your people,
and not privilege the interpretations
of the loudest voices, or the most powerful.
Your Spirit gives insight
to even the lowest and the least.

Finally, may the words of our mouths
and the meditations of our hearts
and the actions of our lives
reflect the wisdom of this holy book,
which you have gifted to us all.

Today we confess that we fall short
in our most intimate relationships.
Forgive us for sour faces and cold shoulders,
for clenched fists and icy stares. 
Forgive us for hurtful words
and for silences that wound.
Forgive us for the way we remember
every hurt done to us,
while the hurts we do to others
are quickly minimized,
explained away or forgotten.
You call us to carry a cross,

We come to you
when our imaginations fail.
We cannot imagine
a way for conflict to end.
The bombs or actions set,
the bullets or words fired,
the bodies or relationships
dead on the ground.
Can these bones live?
Is peace even possible?
We don’t think so.
But you are
an impossibility specialist.
A resurrectionist of all
that’s lost and left behind.
We go in the morning
to the tombs to mourn
and we find them empty.
That moment, where we stand
in stunned disbelief,
and see a different future rising
hope bright on the horizon’s edge.
Thanks be to you, God our creator,
our redeemer, and sustainer,
our faithful friend forever.

Forgive the division and animosity
we have fostered
between churches of different kinds.
We’re so sure our little branch is superior:
we look down our noses at a whole tree
teeming with varying practices and beliefs.
We are so convinced of our special place
close to your heart.        
Cast out all casting out,
expel all expellings.
Open channels within us
for your love to flow
in life-giving ways.
Give us dreams of new flowerings
which we do not control:
hosts of vibrant, diverse congregations
multiplying in uncountable ways,
each one a witness to your power,
and not our own.

Forgive us, Creator,
for ignoring all the other days of creation,
zeroing in only on the day
you made us.
We disregard the sacred waters,
hang our heads
and miss the stars in heaven,
and think nothing of the wonders
of night and day.
We miss the botanical masterpieces
in boulevard and hedgerow.
We reduce the creatures of the earth
to those we eat,
and those that bother or entertain us.
Enough of that!
We want to live each day, fully alive,
tuned to the amazing frequencies
of creation around us.
To say, along with you,
“It is good.”

My devotion to prayer
is minute
and measured
in seconds
not hours.
I turn, turn, always turn
to the bright and shiny,
the animated and new
to avoid the hard work
of being me
in your presence.
Forgive my distractibility.
I want to give you
my attention,
and learn what’s needful.

God of grace,
in this season of Lent,
we ask for four gifts.

Courage to admit the harm 
we know we’ve done.

Insight to grasp the harm
we didn’t know we did.

Wisdom to apologize if we can,
and try to make things right.

And, finally, humility.
It is through your love
we are saved.