Shared during Sunday Worship on February 11, 2024.
God who Creates and Re-Creates-
As we gather together as a community, we remember that you meet us exactly where we are—on the mountaintop, in the valley, or even somewhere in-between, on the streets of Manhattan. We pray to you today, bringing you our pain and the pain of our families, community, and the world. We pray today with the hope and belief that you can transform anything and that you bring light into even the darkest situations.
As we reflect on our calling as Christians, we hear your urgent calling for all of us to see the humanity in each other and in all those we encounter. We admit that it would be more comfortable to think of you as only one thing, to think of you as only a translucent being on a mountaintop. But you remind us that you also are present in the brokenness that we encounter all around us. You are in all things and in all people, on the mountains, in the valleys, and everywhere in-between.
God who redeems and transforms, help us follow your calling to love humans. Help us to feed those who are hungry. Help us to give water to those who are thirsty. Help us to clothe the naked. Help us to welcome foreigners and those who don’t belong. Help us to care for the sick, in mind, body or spirit. Help us to visit the prisoner. And God, for those of us who feel the weight of the world, who feel broken ourselves, help us to feel your presence in us and around us. And allow us, O God, to receive the care that we need from people you send into our lives.
God, we thank you for chances, over and over again, to transform our pain as we learn what is to surrender to you. Quite simply, we ask you to help us to be human with other humans. We pray these things in the name of Jesus, who was transformed and who transforms all of us with his love. Amen.