Throughout his ministry, Jesus said things that can change the world around us. They may not change the whole world, but they can change how we understand and react to the people who live in our personal world. If the whole world is to be transformed, it must begin in a series of small but significant steps. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us. Let us gather to worship the God of peace, who bids each of us to be peacemakers with our neighbors.
Pastoral Prayer
We bow before Thee, O Creator God, in anticipation of a major astronomical event we know is soon coming to our part of the world. In doing so, we are reminded of the immensity and the complexity and perplexity of space. In a much small sense, we consider the size of the family of nations in the world, and of our own nation and all its people. We contemplate our state, and our small section of our state, and our island, and the neighborhoods and people on our island. We see ourselves to be a very small part of much larger parts of Thy universe, and we pray for Thy guidance as we seek to be faithful to Thy commandments to us for living our lives in the magnitude of all the people and creatures and things around us. Give us, who are so small, a vision of the larger world and universe, so that we may become effective change-agents in our small part of the world.
Help us to react better than we often do to those around us, to be more loving than we normally are, to seek the good of others before we naturally seek our own good. Open our eyes to our connectedness to everyone else rather than to focus on our unhappiness with our own displeasure with or our conflicts with others. When we are wronged, help us to do the right in response. When we are hurt, help us to seek health and wholeness for those who hurt us. When we experience evil against us, enable us to display good in return, rather than to strike back with our own acts of evil.
Lord God, make us followers of Jesus Christ in deed as well as in word, to become reflections of his life in our lives. Inculcate in us words he said so long ago, so that we may daily attempt to transform the world around us into the kingdom of God which he so frequently proclaimed. We admit the enormity of this prayer request, but we also trust that with Thy presence within us, it can come to pass. We remember how Jesus managed forever to change the lives of the people he lived among, and we pray that may happen to us as well. Now we join together in the prayer Jesus first taught to those initial disciples and friends, praying together, Our Father….