Prayers for Sunday July 15, 2001
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
6th after Pentecost, Proper 10

Call to Worship (Based on Psalm 82)
Leader: O Lord, You give justice to the weak.
People: O Heavenly Father, You rescue the needy.
Leader: Many of us have no understanding and constantly stumble around in the dark.
People: O Lord shake the easy foundations of our world, and give us sight to see You are work in our world.

Prayer of Confession
O Lord, we confess we go around with our heads not in the clouds but in the fog. We just don’t want to see beyond the moment. We don’t want to see beyond our own immediate concerns. We confess that we too easily turned away by too many second thoughts. Stop us from being so busy trying to think of the right thing to do. Stop us from being so busy trying to understand. Stop from our failure to act. Help us, Dear Lord, to act for the best in all we do. Amen.

Prayer of Dedication
O Lord, the boy or girl on the side of the road with the sign makes us wonder. Does he or she really need our help, are they running away or are they going to take our money and use it to harm themselves with drugs. O Lord, we want to help, we want to give but we are not sure how to give or when to give. We ask that you take these gifts and use them to help, not harm those in real need. We pray in the name of Jesus who immediately understood and saw true need. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer
In a world where having second thoughts can be a way of life. In a world were thinking things through is a virtue. Maybe we need to think again and go with our first thought, our first impulse to help.
O Lord, we know that there is a whole industry that makes it possible to ignore others. We put on our headphones and keep walking listening only to our own music. We keep walking looking at our Personal Digital Assistants and don’t see the persons standing on the road. We just keep going; we think should we or should we not? We just can’t make up our minds. We just are not sure. It is better to just keep walking and listening to our music. But then what do we miss? Is it possible we miss You, Dear God, is it possible that we fail to hear because all we hear is our MPG player? Is it possible that we miss You in our midst because we are too busy reading the newspaper. Is it possible we were too busy thinking and did not think of You, Dear God.
Help us not ignore You in our lives, raise our eyes from our newspapers and take away the numbing sounds coming from our headphones so we can see and hear You, Dear God in our lives. Amen.