Prayers for Sunday July 22, 2001
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
7th after Pentecost, Proper 11

Call to Worship (Based on Psalm 52)
Leader: Why do we boast, and all day plot the destruction of others? People: Why do we sharpen our tongues and make them like razors that is used to cut others.
Leader: Why is it so easy to love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth.
People: O God, let us instead of trusting in our own selfishness and own plotting trust in the steadfast love of You.
Leader: Let us be thankful to our God
People: and see our lives not in terms of evil but in terms of the good we can do.

Prayer of Confession
O Lord, we confess that we are very, very talented at coming up with ways of becoming distracted, putting off paying attention to the very center of our lives. We can always find things to do. We confess that we don’t understand true hospitality. The hospitality of receiving someone completely. Help us to stop making sure sure that our house is neat and the food is hot, and instead enjoy those who are with us.

Prayer of Dedication
Lord, make these gifts a way of not showing off, but showing you how much we care.

Pastoral Prayer
O Lord, it is so easy to think of you as a drinks machine, we put our prayers in the slot and we wait for the can to come rolling down so that we now have something cool and refreshing to drink. We somehow think that one prayer should do the job, after all God hears and remembers all things. But then Jesus comes along and upsets our easy view, Jesus calls on us to keep praying, to keep knocking on the door. Jesus reminds us that you are not like a vending machine.
Then we say okay, I will keep it up till I get it right. But then we are tempted to try and bribe God with just the right set of words or right set of promises. But then our prayers become a way of tricking God into letting us have what we want. We suddenly find ourselves being like small children whining until we get our own way.
O God let these few moments be instead a true connection with You. Help us take these few moments with You as a way to try and share what we are with You, our fears, our hopes and our confusion. O Lord, when we ask things for our families and ourselves make these moments of sharing a moment of power and union.