Prayer Litany: God's Glory

If your worship this week includes a reading of Exodus 33:12-23 (where Moses asks God to show him His glory), here’s a prayer suggestion you might want to consider.  It comes from Carolyn Brown on her excellent Worshipping with Children website.

She writes: “To further explore the idea of God’s glory and do some worship education about a line in the Lord’s Prayer, create a litany naming attributes of the glorious God.  To each one the congregation responds, ‘Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.’”

Prayer

God, you are the Alpha and Omega. 

You were here before anything else existed

and you will be here when everything and everyone has come to an end.

Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Creating God, you spoke and the entire universe came into existence. 

You know the secrets of stars and dark holes and far flung galaxies. 

Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Lord of the Whole Creation,

you are aware of each tiny creature on each planet. 

You pay attention to insects and birds and even us.

Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

God of History, you call us to be your people.  

You appointed us to take care of this planet Earth. 

You gave us rules for living well together. 

You call us to great things.

Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Loving God you created each one of us. 

You know us by name and watch over us. 

You are with us when everything is wonderful. 

And, you walk with us through our worst days.

Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

God of Mercy, 

You know everything we do, the good and the bad. 

And, still you do not give up on us. 

When we mess up, you call us back to yourself

and you forgive us when we don’t deserve it.

Thine is the Kingdom and power and the glory forever.

You are greater than we can understand,

vaster than we can imagine,

more amazing than we can put into words. 

So with awe and deep gratitude we pray…

Our Father…

— Carolyn Brown, on her Worshipping with Children website. 

For more worship resources related to the scripture texts for October 16, 2011 (the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost), click on Proper 24A in the list of “Labels” at the lower right side of the page.

For other prayers and prayer resources on this blog, see this Prayer index.  See also Offering in the list of “Labels” at the lower right.

 

 

The Lord's Prayer during a Pandemic

Jim Wallace at Sojourner’s magazine has written some helpful reflections on the Lord’s Prayer, seen through the lens of the current Covid-19 pandemic. You can find it here.

Interspersed throughout the article are these additional prayers, inspired by the various sections of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples (Matthew 6:5-15, Luke 11:1-13).

Praying during a Pandemic

(inspired by the prayer Jesus taught his disciples

as recorded in Matthew 6:5-15, Luke 11:1-13)

O Lord, we confess our sadness and our fears. We feel stuck, trapped inside, overwhelmed, helpless, and even hopeless. Help us to believe that our present does not control our future, that we can look forward and not just backward. Enable us to change our situation now by bringing the future into it. Only the radical values of your new order — of love and justice — will bring your kingdom into our community right now, lived in this and all moments. Inspire and sustain us to bring your kingdom to earth even right now — in this moment of crisis.

Lord, in this moment we pray especially for those fighting on the front lines of the pandemic — our first responders, nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals — to save as many lives as they can. Shelter them from this virus and grant your healing mercies to those who will inevitably get sick despite their best efforts to protect themselves. Help our government and society mobilize to provide the protective and medical equipment they need to keep up as best they can with the onslaught of patients that is already here or on its way. And help those of us not in the health care sector to do the most important thing we can to protect them and lessen the severity of the strain they face — help us to stay home.

O Lord, we are all ultimately afraid of hunger, and that fear grows during a time of modern plague when we see even more people going without their daily bread and suffering from food insecurity. Give us the strength not to hoard, but the courage to share what we have in order to provide daily bread for all. There is always enough for all if we find the creative personal, communal, and political ways to share it together. Lord, we know that we find you and each other at the table, so please make us hungry for larger tables. Even in times of social distance, show us how our daily bread can bring us together.

O Lord, we owe you everything. You have forgiven our sins and trespasses, and for that, we are indebted to you. You have asked us to forgive others for their sins and trespasses, and perhaps their debts, too. Help us all to ask what a prayer for debtors would mean in this health and economic crisis. Where can we forgive the debts of others when we have the opportunity to do so? Oh God, how do we treat others they way you have treated us? Lord, you have never exercised foreclosure on our sins, trespasses, and debts. How can we follow your lead in our relationships with others, with our neighbors during a pandemic? Lord have mercy, Lord teach us to have mercy — right now.

Dear Lord, forgive us for the temptation to retreat from our neighbors in this health crisis, taking social distance into social withdrawal from the most vulnerable. Forgive those who feel exempt from this disease and therefore exempt from any responsibility for those who get sick. Forgive our president, and other people of wealth and power, who value economic activity over public health, and who are willing to sacrifice the worth of other human lives for their own political and economic gain.

Lord, give us the faith and the courage to make this proclamation even in a time of a deadly virus. Give us the “patience in tribulation” that the Apostle Paul calls us to.

Because we know what your kingdom on earth brings, give us the hope of that kingdom in our hearts, lives, communities, and the nations. Let that future we believe in help sustain us in the present, even when things we can’t control seem to dominate our lives. Lord, help us to believe that the virus, the threats, the injustices, and the fears they create are NOT in control and never will be, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.

~ written by Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners. Posted on the Sojourners website. https://sojo.net/articles/lords-prayer-pandemic

Prayer: In Your Name

Here’s a prayer of commitment from Roddy Hamilton’s Listening to the Stones blog.

In Your Name

May we honour your name
not by paying it lip service, Lord Jesus
but by trusting the vision it speaks of

and the way it calls for

May we honour it by following you

speaking into the word with our actions
and showing who we’re chosen to follow

May we love in your name
speak in your name
care in your name
that willingness to touch the outcast
feed the hungry
remember the sick
visit the imprisoned
clothe the naked
give water to the thirsty
in your name

~ excerpted from a longer piece by Roddy Hamilton, and posted on Listening to the Stones. http://newkilpatrickblog.typepad.com/nk-blogging/mucky-paws/  Used by permission.

Lord's Prayer: O Breathing Life

Here’s a refreshing paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer from Mark Berry.  It was posted on the jonnybaker blog.

O Breathing Life

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!

Release a space to plant your Presence here.

Imagine your possibilities now.

Embody your desire in every light and form.

Grow through us this moment's bread and wisdom.

Untie the knots of failure binding us,

as we release the strands we hold of others' faults.

Help us not forget our Source,

yet free us from not being in the Present.

From you arises every Vision,

Power and Song from gathering to gathering.

Amen!  May our future actions grow from here!

~ written by Mark Berry, and posted on Jonny Baker’s blog.

http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/2005/12/the_lords_praye.html

The Lord's Prayer: New Zealand Prayer Book

Here is an expanded paraphrase version of the Lord’s Prayer from a New Zealand Prayer Book.

The Lord’s Prayer:

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

Our creator God, Ancient of Days,

Holy Mother of all worlds and living souls:

Your arms, that once flung galaxies of stars

like grains of sand, are open wide,

and close enough to carry each of us

like a father cradles his child next to his heart.

May your sacred name be praised!

May your realm extend,

a commonwealth of mercy, peace and justice.

Your love knits all created nature into one whole.

Your will for us always is love; and so we pray:

May your love be done on earth,

in time, as it is in eternity.

Give all of us each day the bread we need,

and hope to all who hunger for your life.

And as we share our bread along the way,

pardon us the times we've broken faith.

Forgive our lack of loyalty and love;

and move us quickly to forgiveness

when wrongs are done to us.

Do not abandon us in the time of hard testing.

Save us from evil’s every incarnation,

From the powers that possess our spirits and our structures.

Forever bind us to your liberating joy!

For you alone are God of grace and glory,

and Rock of our Redemption.

Let it be so, God, let it be so.

Amen.

~ from the New Zealand Prayer Book. http://anglicanprayerbook.org.nz/

Lord's Prayer in a Time of War

Here is a version of the Lord’s Prayer written by Wendy Lyons. It is posted on Progressive Church Planting.

Lord’s Prayer in Time of War

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

Our Father, who art in heaven,

slow to anger, and of great mercy, lover of all peoples of the earth,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Remind us that "all the nations are as nothing before thee,"

their governments but a shadow of passing age;

Thy kingdom come on earth.

Grant to thy children throughout the world,

and especially to the leaders of the nations,

the gift of prayerful thought and thoughtful prayer;

that following the example of our Lord,

we may discern what is right, and do it;

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Help us to protect and to provide for all who are hungry and homeless,

especially those who are deprived of food and shelter,

family and friends, by the tragedy of war;

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us for neglecting to "seek peace and pursue it,"

and finding ourselves in each new crisis,

more ready to make war than to make peace.

"We have not loved thee with our whole heart;

we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves";

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Let us not seek revenge, but reconciliation;

Let us not delight in victory, but in justice;

Let us not give ourselves up to pride, but to prayer;

Lead us not into temptation.

Be present to all thy children ravaged by war:

Be present to those who are killing and to those who are being killed;

Be present to the loved ones of those who are killing

and to the loved ones of those who are being killed;

Deliver us from evil.

Subdue our selfish desires to possess and to dominate,

and forbid us arrogance in victory;

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

~ written by Wendy Lyons, and posted on Progressive Church Planting. 

http://progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.ca/2012/07/lords-prayer-workshop-texts.html

Lord's Prayer: Beloved

Here’s a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer from Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild’s Human Rites: Worship Resources for an Age of Change (published by Mowbray).

Lord’s Prayer Paraphrase: Beloved

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

Beloved, our Father and Mother, in whom is heaven,

hallowed be your name,

followed be your royal way,

done be your will and rule,

throughout the whole creation.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.

From trials too great to endure, spare us.

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,

Now and forever.

Amen.

~ from Human Rites: Worship Resources for an Age of Change, by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Mowbray,1998). http://www.amazon.ca/Human-Rites-Worship-Resources-Change/dp/0264673344

The Lord's Prayer: Prayers of the Cosmos

Here is a translation of the Lord’s Prayer by Neil Douglas-Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos. Posted on The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies.

Prayers of the Cosmos: The Lord’s Prayer

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos

Focus your light within us—make it useful.

Create your reign of unity now—

through our fiery hearts and willing hands.

Help us love beyond our ideals

and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

Animate the earth within us:

we then feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.

Untangle the knots within

so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.

Don't let surface things delude us,

but free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.

Out of you, the astonishing fire,

returning light and sound to the cosmos.

Amen.

~ written by Neil Douglas-Klotz, in Prayers of the Cosmos. http://www.amazon.com/Prayers-Cosmos-Meditations-Aramaic-Words/dp/0060619953  Posted on The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies website. http://www.thenazareneway.com/lords_prayer.htm

The Lord's Prayer: Abba, Our God

Here is a version of the Lord’s Prayer from the 1980 Alternative Service Book.

The Lord’s Prayer: Abba, Our God

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

Abba, our God, whom the heavens disclose,

may your name be held holy,

your authority come.

May your longing be fulfilled as in heaven,

so on earth

Give us today the bread of tomorrow,

and cancel our debts

as we have already forgiven our debtors.

Do not draw us in to sinful enticement,

but set us free from the grip of evil;

for authority and power and glory

are yours alone, forever.

Amen.

~ from the 1980 Alternative Service Book (1980), Church of England.

The Lord's Prayer

Here is a responsive version of the Lord’s Prayer from a Dominican Sisters Retreat in Great Bend Kansas. It was posted on the Liddington View.

The Lord’s Prayer

(inspired by Matthew 6: 9-13, Luke 11: 2-4)

Our Father                                           

Our Mother

Who art in heaven                                

Who are in all the earth

Hallowed be they name                        

Holy is your truth

Thy kingdom come                              

May your wisdom come

Thy will be done, on earth                    

Your circle be one uniting

as it is in heaven                                  

heaven and earth

Give us this day our daily bread           

Give us today a nurturing spirit

And forgive us our trespasses  

Heal through us as we

as we forgive those who trespass against us    

ourselves are healed

Lead us not into temptation                   

Lead us into Fullness of life

But deliver us from evil            

And liberate all that is good

For thine is the Kingdom,                     

For the Wisdom,

the power and the glory                        

Presence and the Goodness are Yours

Now and forever

Amen.

~ from a Dominican Sisters Retreat, March 1993 in Great Bend Kansas. Posted on The Liddington View. http://theliddingtonview.blogspot.ca/2010/06/great-version-of-lords-prayer.html