God of Grace,
everywhere we look in Niagara, there is bounty.
Orchards brimming with red cherries.
Vineyards heavy with purple grapes.
Fields carpeted in golden grain.
Green vegetables, row on row,
and bushes laden with blueberries.
And the good earth
hiding its white potatoes till harvest.
A feast for the eye and body,
all gifts from your hands.
The deeds are done,
the crimes are committed,
and many people continue to suffer.
How do we make things right
in the aftermath of great wrongs?
How do we do this when the wrongs
took place across centuries and continents,
and are still continuing today?
Thank you, God, for everything that is true and good:
for true love, and good friendships,
for true stories, and all who tell them,
for the good earth, which is truly a home for all your creatures.
Thank you for all who seek the truth;
journalists who try to reveal injustice,
scientists who figure out how things work,
judges who listen to every side.
Thank you for the desire for truth
that you put inside each one of us,
God of sea and sky,
God of this great earth laid out under the sun,
we come with thanks on our lips and praise in our hearts.
Thank you for life and breath,
and senses to experience the beauty all around us.
Thank you for the dear ones we love, those around us, those far away,
and those who we will only see again in heaven, by your mercy.
We ask for your comfort for those among us who grieve
and those who are sick, especially…
Loving God, today we give thanks for those who have fathered us.
We give thanks for fathers and grandfathers who have nurtured us,
and for men who have been caregivers and teachers and mentors.
They have loved us unconditionally, and made us who we are.
We pray for everyone here who fathers someone.
Give them strength to nurture, protect and provide.
Give them wisdom to be role models.
Give them joy as they watch their children learn and grow.
Give them patience as their children test boundaries.
“Jesus, looking at him, loved him” We haven’t heard this before, that Jesus looks with love one someone, and we don’t hear it again in Mark’s gospel. It’s striking because, in my mind at least, this guy is not a prime candidate for someone who might stir love in Jesus’ heart. You might think that Jesus will love the person with leprosy, or he will love the little child, or he will love one of his disciples, or how looking at his mother, he loved her…Why this man? Jesus just loves him.
Our church, First Mennonite, wants to tell you something about the land we live on…
the land where our church, our homes, our towns and cities and farms are.
We aren’t the first people to live here,
there were people here for thousands of years before we got here.
They are called indigenous people, and they still live here;
they have beautiful names: Anishinaabe, Haudenosauneee, Attawandaron.
Let’s say those names: Can you repeat after me? Anishinaabe. Haudenosauneee, Attawandaron.
We didn’t live up to the promises we made with them on how to share the land,
and it’s not been fair to them.
We have hurt the people with these beautiful names, the indigenous peoples.
We are trying to figure out how to make things right,
Creator God
thank you for Indigenous and Inuit communities,
strong after centuries of persecution.
Families with deep bonds of love,
wise with elders, rich in culture, lovers of the land,
speaking with powerful voices that cannot be silenced.
God of justice, God of love,
hear our prayer of lament for crimes committed:
for land taken, for children stolen.
for laws that hobbled culture,
for languages legislated out of existence,
for racist policies of every kind
that produced a wicked harvest of poverty.
You know how this toxic power dynamic
Creator God, hear our prayer for settlers everywhere;
for people living on land stolen
and traded unfairly from Indigenous peoples.
You know our cruelties, our disregard for cultures and histories,
our cavalier dismissal of treaty rights,
our personal prejudices, our institutional racism.
The colonial system is so insidious, we who benefit
often don’t even see it, even when it’s in front of our faces.
You are a God who names, and a God who hears.
You know the name of every missing and murdered indigenous woman.
You heard the cries of every child in every residential school.
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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