Rev. Elsa A. Peters has written by beautiful liturgy for Epiphany 6B, called Choosing Healing. It is based on the scripture texts for that day (February 12, 2012). Here is just a part of it – an invitation to healing, followed by a time of prayer. To see the entire liturgy, click here.
Choosing Healing
A special opportunity to choose healing may be welcomed in this service of worship. The sermon or meditation may lead into this ritual so that the gathered community has time to ponder those relationships, wounds or needs that require healing. Alternatively, you may choose to share the Gospel Lesson and move directly into this liturgy.
Invitation Toward Healing
One: Jesus said: Ask, and it will be given;
seek and you will find;
knock and it will be opened to you.
All: For everyone who asks receives,
and those who seek find,
and to each who knocks, it will be opened.
One: Friends in Christ,
God knows our needs before we ask
and in our asking prepares us to receive the gift of grace.
God ministers to us not as one who is absent
but as one who is present
in human hands, voices and lives full of the Holy Spirit.
Let us open our lives to God’s healing presence among us,
working through us,
even though we might not understand it.
Let us resound with the leper’s faith:
All: If you choose, you can make me whole.
One: Christ responds: “I do choose!”.
Shared Silence
In this silence, you are invited to share your needs for healing with God. If you feel so moved, you’re welcome to speak those needs for healing aloud so that we may pray with you.
(In the liturgy, what follows is the prayer of Sir Thomas Merton, The Road Ahead, which you can find it here.)
— written by Rev. Elsa A Peters, an ordained minister serving in the First Congregational United Church of Christ in South Portland, ME. Posted on the Worship Ways website of the United Church of Christ.
Visit Rev. Peters blog at http://impossiblethingswithgod.blogspot.com/.
For more worship resources for February 12, 2012 (the sixth Sunday after Epiphany), click on Epiphany 6B in the list of “Labels” at the lower right side of the page.
