Great God of creative abundance. We come
before you this morning as a people in need of your generous blessing, and so
we offer ourselves to you, with open hands and receptive hearts.
Take away from us our pretensions of
self-reliance, and unmask for us our images of self-security. Help us to
realise that our fleeting blessings of health, wealth, and power are fragile
idols of sustenance, and that we entrust our souls to them at our peril.
May we learn instead to see ourselves and our
world with your eyes; may we come to appreciate where true value lies; both
within ourselves, and in the lives of others.
May our eyes be opened to the gentle gifts of
grace that you have placed in our midst, and may we come to value the abundance
of your hidden yet dawning kingdom, as it is made real in our midst.
And so we offer ourselves to your service:
Take the gifts of our lives, and bless them, that we might become a blessing to
others. Whether we bring wealth or weakness, power or poverty, health or
helplessness; we place our lives into your hands, and we ask for your blessing.
We offer before you today the resources of
this church; we offer our resources of people – from pastors to volunteers to
occasional attendees; we offer our resources of money – from that which sits in
our personal bank accounts to that which we hold collectively as a community;
we offer our building, our contacts, our friendships, our whole bodies, and the
body of Christ that is this church in this place. May we learn together the
lesson that hoarding the resources of the kingdom is not what we are called to
do. Grant us the courage to release to your service the gifts you have given
us.
And so, mindful of the needs of others, we
pray for those who live in need, poverty, uncertainty, and fear; aware that you
call us to play our own part in the coming of your kingdom of peace and
justice.
We pray for all those who are hungry today,
and especially for those who have this week used a food bank for the first time
in order to feed themselves or their families. We pray for all those who will
share lunch in this building today, as we sit down together to share with one
another the blessing of food. May this tangible sign of your kingdom be
transformative and life-giving in our midst.
We pray also for those who have an unhealthy
or abusive relationship with food and drink. From the overweight to the
anorexic, from the middle class drinker to the hardened alcoholic. We recognise
how easily the kingdom blessings of food and wine can become distorted in our
own bodies. And so we pray for the various anonymous groups that meet here, and
for the support they give in helping people re-balance their lives. May we
learn to see ourselves as you see us.
We pray for those who have the power to make
changes at a national level, for policy-makers, politicians, and business and
industry leaders. Keep them from the dehumanising commodification of humanity,
and may they instead find ways of bringing the body politic to health for the
common good. We ask for, and commit ourselves to, your transformative vision of
a just and equal society, where none go hungry and all are fed.
And so, finally, we pray for ourselves. May
we learn to share both the hidden and visible blessings of our lives, offering
ourselves and all that we are and have, to the service of your in-breaking
kingdom of equality and justice.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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