A moment of contemplation for yourself or on behalf of others on everything from the life-altering to the mundane.


Prayer: A conversation with The Higher Other who lives within each of us. An invitation to vent, to re-think, to ask, and to rest.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Prayers of the People: Our Common Humanity ~ 3rd Sunday in the Season of Creation '23 Yr A

For Sunday, October 29, 2023, Season of Creation III*, Readings: Mother Theresa**,  Psalm 133, 
Alice Walker***Matthew 22:34-40

Norman Rockwell “The Golden Rule” 1961  

  Whether you are a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Christian, how you live your life is the proof that you are fully God’s or not…Our works of charity are nothing but the overflow of our love of God from within… [Mother Teresa]

  How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. [Psalm 133:1]

  Praying–not a curse–only the hope that my courage will not fail my love. But if by some miracle, and all the struggle, the Earth is spared, only justice to every living thing (and everything is alive) will save humankind…Only justice can stop a curse. [Alice Walker]

    You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and will all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [Matthew 22:37, 39]

     We are truly all in "this" together ~ this life, on this planet, right now. Mother Teresa was quite clear when she said, how you live your life is the proof that you are fully God’s or not. Love must undergird our lives and be as normal to us as living and breathing. Too often, especially in these fraught times, we look at "others" as different from ourselves by skin color, nationality, religion, political views, sexual orientation, life circumstance, or, merely, because someone lives in a different part of the world, the country, or the community. How easily we dismiss and worse, completely reject those whom we designate as not one of us. Suddenly "they" become one of them, not to be trusted or valued as the full human person God created in God's own image.
      How very sad and tragic it is that we set ourselves, within our self-limited chosen circles, as above another individual or group as if our judgments, or opinions, or neighborhood, or economic circumstance, or political views are the only ones that matter.
      Alice Walker minces no words describing the enormity of (their) crimes against humanity bringing such crimes from the global history of white colonization and the destructive privilege of wealth, to her people, her family, and her own experiences in our own times. Yet while outlining specifics for venting her justified rage, she suddenly turns us all to the stark necessities of saving our planet when she says So let me tell you: I intend to protect my home. Praying – not a curse – on the hope that my courage will not fail my love…only justice to every living thing (and everything is alive) will save humankind…Only justice can stop a curse.
     Matthew’s Gospel reminds of us the words we think we know so well and utter easily and without deep examination of how we are to apply them in our everyday moments, especially in the most difficult circumstances: You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Love God with ALL YOUR/MY heart, soul, mind, and YOUR/MY Neighbor as my self. Too many of us may actually love God and our neighbors as we really do love ourselves: badly. Judgment, criticism, anger, mockery, even hatred, may be more of a mirror than we would like to admit.
     The ways in which we care for each other ~ all others ~ and our selves, with the love for God and every human being that Jesus has exhorted us to give, is a measure of the depth (or shallowness) of our own love for God. To prosper only ourselves and those we count in our us, may carry us in this short temporal existence but it is not the way of Jesus.
     The humility that Jesus exemplified is difficult to achieve and uncomfortable in an environment of excessive greed, selfishness, and disdain for the life of others and this planet. We are called to seek to become united with God through prayer, which is the germinating power for our words and actions to be works of true love, in the overflow of our love for God from within ourselves. It is time to relinquish marking my personal achievements and live more simply, putting one foot in front of the other, making each and every breath a prayer and every step in love and with love and toward justice for all of Our Common Humanity.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader:  ~ Most Gracious Creator of Our Entire Common Humanity, keep us ever mindful that we are each sometimes the other, creating and receiving suspicion and fear, when we step away from our familiar cultures and communities. May our eyes continually radiate Your Light, and our everyday thoughts, actions, and prayers reflect the overflow of our love for You from within ourselves.
 
                                      O God of Our Common Humanity                                             
     RESPONSE:           We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
 
~ Most Gracious Creator, grant us each and all, in our many shapes, sizes, colors, races, ages, economic status, and genders, the ability to be Your true voice in action. Let us challenge all those in governments across this planet, to understand and work together to achieve the peace for all we kindred to live together in unity. We pray especially for: add your own petitions
 
                                        O God of Our Human Family                                             
                                      We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage 

~ Most Gracious Creator, comfort all who are burdened with serious illness, addiction, and/or emotional distress, and fill those who give them care with energy and peace. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

                                        O God of Our Common Humanity                                             
                                      We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage

~ Most Gracious Creator, in the midst of sorrow for our temporary loss, we give joyful thanksgiving for the glorious welcome of our loved ones into Your eternal kingdom.  We pray especially for… add your own petitions
 
                                        O God of Our Common Humanity                                             
                                      We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
                    
~ Most Gracious Creator, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials, aloud or silently… add your own petitions

                                        O God of Our Common Humanity                                              
                                      We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage 
          
~ Most Gracious Creator, we give You thanks for all who are chosen to show us by Word and example, in prayer and preaching, how to live in this life, and who walk with us on the path leading to You. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

                                        O God of Our Common Humanity                                             
                                      We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage

The Celebrant adds: O God of the Hungry and the Privileged, O Lord of those Raised High and those Laid Low, grant us the joyful yet solemn awareness that we each physically, and spiritually, carry within us the very substance of Your Incarnate Son. Let us be the seeds that germinate the power of Your love, bear the fruit of unity among us, and intentionally seek to be fully Yours in every day, so to love You and each other as we are to love ourselves. We ask through the Compassion of Jesus our Christ; and the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit; who live and reign with You as One God, every day, every way, always, and forever. Amen. 

 

* The Season of Creation originated in the Anglican Church of South Africa and was formalized in 2008. It is designed for us to explore our faith from a Creation perspective. Click here for more information about: Season of Creation ~ In The Beginning

**A Reading from Mother Teresa: "Whether you are a Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian, how you live your life is the proof that you are fully God's or not. Loving must be as normal to us as living and breathing, day after day until death. To understand this and practice it we need much prayer, the kind that unites us with God and overflows continually upon others. Our works of charity are nothing but the overflow of our love of God from within. Therefore, the one who is most united with God loves her neighbor most."  From Everything Starts With Prayer, White Cloud Press, Ashland, OR, 1998

***A Reading from Alice Walker: "When I have considered the enormity of (their)..crimes against humanity…Against women, Against every living person of color. Against the poor. Against my mother and my father. Against me. When I consider that they are a real and present threat to my life and the life of my daughter and the life of my people, I think...Let the earth marinate in poisons. Let the bombs cover the ground like rain. For nothing short of total destruction will ever teach them anything. And it would be good, perhaps, to put an end to the species...rather than let these wealthy white men continue to subjugate it, and continue their lust to dominate, exploit, and despoil not just our planet, but the rest of the universe, which is their clear and stated intention, leaving their arrogance and litter not just on the moon, but on everything else they can reach. If we have any true love of the stars, planets, and the rest of Creation, we must do everything we can to keep men like these away from them. They who have appointed themselves our representatives to the rest of the universe. They who have never met any new creature without exploiting, abusing or destroying it. They who say we poor and colored and female and elderly blight neighborhoods, while they blight worlds. However, just as the sun shines on the godly and the ungodly alike, so does our destruction of our environment. And with this knowledge it becomes increasingly difficult to embrace the thought of extinction purely for the assumed satisfaction of–from the grave–achieving revenge. Or even of accepting our demise as a planet as a simple and just preventive medicine administered to the Universe...Earth is my home–though for centuries white people have tried to convince me I have no right to exist, except in the dirtiest, darkest corners of the globe. So let me tell you: I intend to protect my home. Praying – not a curse – only the hope that my courage will not fail my love. But if by some miracle, and all the struggle, the Earth is spared, only justice to every living thing (and everything is alive) will save humankind. And we are not saved yet. Only justice can stop a curse." Excerpts from “Only Justice Can Stop A Curse,” in The Impossible Will Take a Little While, ed. Paul Rogat Loeb, Basic Books, New York, 2004

 





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