Sunday, November 13, 2016
Offered by Nanette Sawyer, Minister for Congregational Life

Gracious and loving God, we turn to you this morning bringing so many thoughts and feelings. We give you thanks that you invite us to pray and that you hear the prayers of your people. We believe in your incarnation God, that you took on flesh and blood and walked with us to teach us what it is to be fully human. You brought holiness into humanness. Help us to live out our faith in the flesh and blood of our daily lives.

We don’t want to believe that hatred and fear have power in our country, our home. But we have heard the testimonies and the stories of it taking root in some places. Don’t let it take root in our hearts.

Help us to overcome forces of fear by becoming a force for love. Let us live out a kind of love that makes us brave to act. Help us to get strength from the convictions of our shared faith, our faith in you, God.

We all want to be respected, and we want to give respect. We all want to be loved, and we want to give love. But sometimes we feel afraid and we lash out, trying to defend ourselves; sometimes we feel angry or disrespected by people who differ from us. Help us to do better, God, to be more courageous and more generous and more loving.

Help us to reach across the aisles and across all the things that threaten to separate us, and help us to take each other’s hands and know that we are one in the Lord, that we are all created in your image, God.

Our silence will not protect us, but you will protect us. Help us to protect others. Help us to be a place, a people, who refuse the temptation of silence and who stand up for each other, but who also stand up for those we don’t even know. And especially help us to stand up for all those who are very vulnerable these days. Let us follow in the footsteps of Jesus in this way. Let us stand up for love.

We give you thanks for all the people who have stood up for us. On today especially we give you thanks for veterans, who have given their lives or a portion of their lives to protect us. Heal them body, mind, and spirit from any injury they may have suffered as they sought to serve and protect.

Give us a strong and unbreakable compassion, and help us to live it out in our actions—not to prove that we are better than others but so that we ourselves can become better today than we were yesterday.

Holy One, as we seek to follow you as Jesus did and as we strive to be Christ’s disciples, soften our hearts when they become hard and strengthen our resolve when we feel weak. Jesus said to his disciples, “My peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.” We open our hearts to receive this gift of comfort, God, even as we pray as Jesus taught us, saying, Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church