This is a Call to Worship I wrote for our Sunday service yesterday, a corporate prayer inspired by the recent events in Nepal and Baltimore.
Compassionate Father, our hearts stretch toward yours today to lament the devastation in Nepal, to join with grieving families whose loved ones lay silent amidst ash and rubble and broken buildings, crumpled atop an earth that quakes and groans in its distance from you our Creator.
(All) Holy Comforter, break our hearts for the things that break yours.
Gracious Provider, pour out relief and supplies to those in need from your providential hand, guide the efforts of response teams to bring stabilization to crisis, order to chaos, rest to the anxious. May the hurting know your Spirit’s lament that rises deep with theirs amidst our fractured, fragmented world.
(All) Generous One, make us vessels of your generosity to the hurting in our path.
Head of the Church, mobilize your people there to care for their neighbors, to grieve with the hurting, comfort the afflicted, be present with the anxious and care for the hopeless—may the peace of Christ flow through your Nepali people into the wastelands, and replenish the devastated ground with seeds of rejuvenation and hope.
(All) River of Life, flow through us like springs of fresh water to the parched and thirsty patches of our world.
Sovereign Jesus, exalted most high, bring creation back to you—the one by whom our world was made and for whom our world was made—reconcile creation and Creator in intimacy and power, that we may no longer suffer in the distance of exile but flourish again before the face of our Father.
(All) Reconciling King, we repent of the ways we’ve contributed to distancing our world from you.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy
God of Justice, our hearts break over the convulsions in Baltimore with roots that go so deep, we cry out for not only your short-term peace but your long-term justice, to be established in not only Baltimore, but the cities of our country and world.
(All) Righteous One, establish your justice as the foundation for peace in our world.
Good Shepherd, bring your divided flock together, gather the poor in spirit and the pure of heart, the confused and the sure-of-themselves, the aching grandmothers who need more and the protestors who’ve had enough, the nervous police officers and the children whose eyes soak this all in, gather the gangsters and the politicians—even when they’re one and the same.
(All) Lamb once slain, make us a reconciled people today.
Sovereign Lord, we cry out at threads of injustice woven through our history that have established patterns of oppression in the fabric of our national tapestry. May our actions speak louder than our Twitter proclamations, our presence more boldly than our Facebook comments, transform us from spectators who talk about justice to a people who embody justice today.
(All) Almighty Savior, bring your salvation.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
God, make us an aware people. Aware of the cracks and fissures in our sin-struck, fractured, fragmented society. Aware of the voices you hear crying out.
Aware of the propensity to wickedness that lies deep in each of us. Aware that we are the problem before we are the solution. Aware that the root to the destruction in your good world lies in our own alienated hearts.
Aware of your grace and mercy that can make the world whole. Aware of your power to transform, of your resurrection life that can raise up these bones from the dust of the grave to sing your praise in the glory of your kingdom come.
(All) Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
Come Lord Jesus, come.