OPENING PRAYER FOR PENTECOST 2014

 


God of the heart,

God of the blood and fire and smoke,

you have invoked our presence here this morning

with your great gift of the Holy Spirit. 

May this service of worship and praise

be worthy of your challenge to us. 

May we turn the Spirit’s reign in our hearts to fire in our lives. 

May we glow red with power and love. 

May we wear our fiery hearts on our sleeves

for all who have eyes to see! 

This Grace That Scorches Us

A Blessing for Pentecost Day

Here's one thing

you must understand

about this blessing:

it is not

for you alone.

It is stubborn

about this;

do not even try

to lay hold of it

if you are by yourself,

thinking you can carry it

on your own.

To bear this blessing,

you must first take yourself

to a place where everyone

does not look like you

or think like you,

a place where they do not

believe precisely as you believe

where their thoughts

and ideas and gestures

are not exact echoes

of your own.

Bring your sorrow. Bring your grief.

Bring your fear. Bring your weariness,

your pain, your disgust at how broken

the world is, how fractured,

how fragmented

by its fighting, its wars,

its hungers, its penchant for power,

its ceaseless repetition

of the history it refuses

to rise above.

I will not tell you

this blessing will fix all that.

But in the place

where you have gathered,

wait.

Watch.

Listen.

Lay aside your inability

to be surprised,

your resistance to what you

do not understand.

see then whether this blessing

turns to flame on your tongue,

sets you to speaking

what you cannot fathom

or opens your ear

to a language beyond your imagining

that comes as a knowing

in your bones

a clarity

in your heart

that tells you

this is the reason

we were made

for this ache

that finally opens us,

for this struggle, this grace

that scorches us

toward one another

and into

the blazing day,

         

Confession

Forgive us for running our spirits to frivolous things.

Forgive us for forgetting what integrity means:

living the shapes you have given us,

right now,

until our blood and our fire

reveal your holy, red power.

 

Assurance of Pardon

Forgiveness is your balm for us when we fail you. 

Thank you, God of the wind and flame,

for sharing yourself with us in the blood of the lamb,

the fire of the ascension

and the smoke of the Holy Spirit.

 

from UCC Worship Ways 2011

prayer by Jan L. Richardson