For Sunday, November 8, 2026; Readings: Amos 5:21-24, Psalm 85:7-14, Marion Wright-Edelman,** Luke 4:16-22a
Turn, revive us, nourish our joy…I listen to
God speaking, “I…speak peace, peace to my faithful people who turn their hearts
to me…Love and faithfulness will meet, peace and justice kiss each other… [Psalm 85]
O God of the children
of Syria, Nigeria and Liberia, of Sudan, South Africa and South Carolina, Of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Myanmar, of Israel, Iran and Iraq Of the
Congo, Central America, Charleston, and Cleveland, of Darfur and Detroit, of
Libya, Yemen and Ukraine, Nepal and New Orleans…Help us to love and respect and protect
and welcome them all. [Marion Wright-Edelman, Prayer to the God of
All Children**]
[Jesus said…] “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [Luke
4:18-19]
*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. For more information see:
https://prayersofthepeople.blogspot.com/2026/10/prayers-of-people-in-beginning-1st.html
We use Biblical and other readings that pertain to the specific theme of each of the 7 weeks of the Season. Alternate readings used are posted with an asterisk* and follow the prayers below.
World Peace. Of course! Who doesn't want that? Yet the concept is exponentially large and is well beyond the scope of my abilities to achieve alone. It then remains a mere wish, too big to be a goal, and reduced to a conversational platitude. Or, is it? When you think of world peace how do you define it? Is it merely the end of all war on the planet or are there other considerations? A few formal definitions describe it as the absence of war, a cessation of hostilities, and/or tranquility. In an ironic construct, whole armies are deployed ostensibly to achieve peace by ending war ~ where am I in that? No army is ever truly deployed to make peace but rather for power and control, domination, and/or subjugation. It’s so much easier, isn’t it, when war or violence or riots are far away and, after all, what could I possibly do to help? In watching or just reading the news, a day doesn't go by when my anxiety and frustration levels aren't challenged even by headlines or political comments on social media, and I find myself, ironically and sadly, highly intolerant of the intolerance of others as my blood pressure rises, frustrated by the incursion of their rights on my own. On this day as I write, on the eve of Mid-Term Election Day in this country, peace on every conceivable level ~ personal, local, regional, country-wide, world-wide ~ seems to be teetering on a very fine edge. What will bring peace to some will upend it for others. Yet what we must require from those who are elected is well stated by Amos: let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Others wiser than me have said that peace
begins within oneself. And so I must earnestly search to find some peace within
myself, somewhere. Perhaps by breathing very deeply in and out regularly,
stepping away from the noise of all that disturbs a tranquil moment. Listening
to the birds ~ even when they’re fighting ~ calms me. The laughter of children
makes me laugh; as puppies and kittens and butterflies, and turtles sunning on
a rock, warm my heart. Even in the depth of winter's cold, there is the
peaceful quiet of a snowy day. As the Psalmist tells us this week we are to
turn our hearts to God who will speak to peace to each of us. As I breathe in deeply
again and again, the feisty, feckless, fuming, and fraying world is still
there, but within it I can find a small moment of inner peace that remains.
Yet I must not simply live into a false
peace-filled denial in which I only love
those who love me. It is in the steadiness of holding fast within myself,
that calls me to regularly return to a place of quiet. In prayer, meditation,
and/or in simple moments of beauty, I can seek and find that special gift
of inner peace. And then I must re-gift that inner peace outwardly to offer a smile, a kind word, and some
serious personal restraint in response to a severe difference of opinion, then
pray for release of my anger.
World Peace, it seems, does,
frighteningly, begin within me, at least
in some ways. We must have
peace ~ and hope and joy ~ at our core that centers and steadies us. It doesn’t
mean we are continuously silly happy-clappy fools but rather, in the midst of
sad and difficult and yes even angry moments, we can dig down to find that
glimmer of Christ’s light to carry us forward. We can support, defend, write,
march, care about, and join organizations that give us useful tools to, at the very least in principle, support those
who are in the midst of a war whether in their homes, on our streets, or far
across the globe. And, we are especially called by the heart-rending prose of
Marion Wright-Edelman’s Prayer to the God of All Children, to love and respect and protect the children…welcome them all and to affirm the sacredness of every
child in our own country and all around the world. If we cannot care for the
children, we cannot care for or about anyone anywhere, including our selves.
To begin in earnest, I and you must each open
the doors to that house that the Lord has already built within us. There we can
seek and sustain the joy that helps us to radiate God’s Eternal Light from the
windows of our souls. Let us pray for the courage and intent to follow Luke’s
Gospel ~ the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to
bring good news to the poor and I
take that into a broader expression including and also beyond those in
financial poverty, to the poor in spirit, the angry and the depressed, the
fearful and the feared, the people I pass on the street and those I pass on the
highway. If we are met with
anger, disdain, or silence, we simply breathe out a blessing and move on. If we
are angry and disdainful, we simply breath in a blessing, seek the Spirit, and stay
tuned. We can always find small ways to mingle a moment of peace-filled
breath with all the air that flows around this fragile Earth, our island home***. Will we end war ~ sadly, no. But peace is in
my hands for one person, one moment, one less argument, one less angry retort,
one full moment of intention and attention. To breathe the breath of God toward
and for another, may be all the peace and perfection I/we have to give; and to
give that is what we are called to do. It
may be very difficult at first and a first step may be to do a little
introspection. If you are finding it very difficult to love those deemed
unlovable or truly hateful, take time to wonder why you feel that way. You very
well may have quite legitimate reasons. Yet also take time to think about
whether your struggle is in some way, a measure of your hesitance to accept
God’s love for yourself.
We are Christ’s ambassadors of continuing hope and inner joy to everyone, evil and good, righteous and unrighteous ~ as it is still, and always, not ours to judge who is worthy. Within myself and out into the ether I say:
LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY
Leader: ~ O God of Love and Faithfulness, when we are at home and while driving, or on social media and in grocery stores, in anger, complacency, or fear, among those we love and those we do not, energize us to discover and embody your Peace, for and within us so fully, that it radiates through us, to reveal and believe in Your love-without-end, for ourselves and all we meet.
~ O God of Love and Faithfulness, for every governing authority on this Planet, in this Nation, and in every Community, strengthen us as vigorous witnesses in peace and for peace. May our own words and actions, break down walls of separation that hide only what we fear to see, to flood your love to the whole of Your Creation. We pray especially for: add your own petitions
~ O God of Love and Faithfulness, turn our grief to joy for those we have sent Home to never die again, who are now raised in eternal splendor to new life in Christ. We pray especially for… add your own petitions
~ O God of Love and Faithfulness, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials, aloud or silently…
~ O God of Love and Faithfulness, ease the path of all who bless us with Your Word and Sacraments, inspiring us to serve in this world together, in Christ’s holy name. We pray especially for: add your own petitions
The Celebrant adds: Creator Lord, Spirit of Hope, 108 years ago this week, your people breathed in hope for the future, at the official end of World War I. Yet we restive humans continue wars on distant battlefields, in our local communities, and in the halls of political policy. We are surrounded by large and small wars of ethnic, racial, gender, religious oppression, and more. Hold us closely as we strive to fill the needs of our neighbors, cry out for justice for the downtrodden, especially the children, and work to flourish the peace, the truth, and the universal love in Christ’s Gospel for all of us, every day, everywhere, in every way. We ask through Jesus, our Divine Example; and the Holy Spirit, our Wisdom Guide; who together with You are One God, now and forever. Amen.
** The Prayer to
the God of All Children is a powerful, moving invocation written by Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president emerita of the
Children's Defense Fund:
-O God of the children of Syria, Nigeria and Liberia, of Sudan, South Africa and South Carolina, -Of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Myanmar, of Israel, Iran and Iraq
-Of the Congo, Central America, Charleston,
and Cleveland, of Darfur and Detroit, of Libya, Yemen and Ukraine, Nepal and
New Orleans,
Help us to love and respect and protect and welcome them all.
-O God of Black and Brown and White and Albino children and
those all mixed together
-Of children who are rich and poor and in between
-Of children who speak English and Russian and Hmong and
Chinese and Spanish and Arabic and languages and dialects our ears cannot
discern, of refugee children without a country
Help us to love and respect and protect and welcome them all.
-O God of the child prodigy and child prostitute, of the
child of rapture and the child of rape,
-Of run or thrown away and sexually trafficked children who struggle every day
without parent or place or friend or future,
-Of LGBT children struggling to be who they are and Dalit children roaming
across nations in search of a place called home,
Help us to love and respect and protect and welcome them all.
-O God of children who can walk and talk and hear and see
and sing and dance and jump and play and of children who wish they could but
can’t
-Of children who are loved and unloved, wanted and unwanted,
Help us to love and respect and protect and welcome them all.
-O God of incarcerated, beggar, beaten, abused, neglected,
homeless, AIDS, drug, violence, and hunger-ravaged children, Of children who
are emotionally and physically and mentally fragile, and of children who rebel
and ridicule, torment and taunt,
Help us to love and respect and protect and welcome them all.
-O God of children of destiny and of despair without hope
for the future, ravaged by wars of adults
-Of refugee children without a country to welcome them, at sea in flimsy boats,
or caged in juvenile and adult prisons and holding pens as they seek asylum Of
disfigured, diseased, and dying children,
-Of children without hope and of children with hope to spare and to share,
Help us to love and respect and protect and welcome them all on this day of Thanksgiving as we affirm the sacredness of every child in our own country and all around the world.
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