Call to Worship (Based on Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19)

Leader: Gracious is the Lord, and righteous is our merciful God.

People: What shall we render to the Lord for all God’s bounty to us?

Leader: We will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

People: We will pay our vows to the Lord in the presence of all God’s people.

Prayer of Confession

Once more, O merciful God, we approach Your throne of grace to seek your pardon for our sins of the past week. We have neglected to do Your works of love and have nurtured our feelings of resentment toward those whom we think have wronged us. We are too fascinated by what is trivial, while neglecting that which is important. We have laughed at the wrong things and failed to see the humor in the many ways in which we have messed up our lives and those of others. Forgive, heal, and renew us that we might follow in the way of Your Son, who is indeed the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen.

Prayer of Dedication

Oh God, we bring these our gifts, large and small, and dedicate them to the work of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Free us from either boasting about the large size of our gifts, or feeling guilty because they are small, for we know that you are both giver and receiver of all gifts. May our giving transform us from dutiful to joyful givers. This we ask in the name of the One who gave His all for us on the cross. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

O God of Abraham and Sarah, you seem to delight in surprises and in taking the unexpected, even laughable path in winning us back from our wayward ways. You chose an old man and woman, more suitable for a nursing home than for a long journey, to become the ancestors of your holy people. Even when that people committed acts of folly and disobedience, you stayed with them, alternately condemning and punishing and then freeing and sustaining them through thick and thin. That you should ultimately come to us in the form of a tiny baby born in a borrowed manger, and in need of protection from the evil designs of a power-hungry tyrant, still amazes us—at least it does when we move beyond Christmas card fantasy and know and feel what Christ’s peasant parents faced.

By Your Spirit open our eyes to the people and places where you are at work among us today. We can see now how you fashioned a famous professor and organist into a doctor and buried him in an obscure jungle hospital, where the world beat a path to his door; or how you sent a penniless nun to minister to the neglected poor and dying outcasts of Calcutta, thereby becoming one of the most powerful women of her age; and surely you were empowering that unknown man who bravely and defiantly stood before the tank in China’s capital city; but where are you working now? Through us? Through the person sitting next to or in front of or behind me? Gracious God, each week you call us to do something to witness to the good news and values of your kingdom. Help us to listen that we might hear, and in hearing; grant us the wisdom and the courage to obey. Around us are many people troubled, ill, and oppressed. Help us to see what it means to love them as ourselves, even as now we hold up in the silence of this moment those who are sick in hospitals or at home; those who feel alone and cut off in nursing homes; those who face long and difficult processes of healing and rehabilitation, or even their impending death; those who mourn and who are oppressed by poverty and the many forms of discrimination; those who are angry or despairing…(A moment of silence).

God, also we give you thanks for times of joy and celebration; for friends and family with whom we share good and difficult times; for those working to better our world; for our church and those who volunteer their time and talent to its ministry. Thank you for this nation and for all who defend it and administer its laws. Bring peace to our land and to all the troubled lands of this world, for we pray these things in the name of the Prince of Peace, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.