48C*
A Call to Worship
Pentecost 8C [Ordinary 16C] or [Proper 11C] 2010
Psalm 52
O Lord our God, we praise you for the wayyou continue to nurture, guide and bless us.
Today, we choose to worship and serve you.
We give thanks for the way you gift us with
opportunities to grow and bear mature fruit.
For your Kingdom’s sake, we thank you.
We come together to praise the Lord our God,
and to give thanks for God’s unfailing love.
Today, O God, we commit ourselves to worship you,
and to walk in your path of love and service. Amen.
Prayers of Lament and Petition
Pentecost 8C [Ordinary 16C] or [Proper 11C] 2010
Psalm 52
In our prayers today, O Lord our God - our Guide and Stronghold—we come to you seeking your guidance and blessing. Each day,
we are reminded about how difficult making choices can be—
and how often we have prayed to the Lord our Guide for help in
sorting out our priorities, our commitments and our loyalties.
Loving God, every day we are touched - often unknowingly - by
good and evil! Wherever we go, whatever we do - we make
decisions about which paths in life that we will walk ,and who
will go with us. O God, we pray that you will be our Guide in these
often complex decisions that will have unknown repercussions.
Strengthen us we pray, when we are tempted or enticed by the
attractive packaging of people or things that look to have merit—
but are only a sham. Faithful and Trustworthy God, help us we pray,
to trust in you and to remain faithful to you, and to make decisions
guided by our life experiences of God’s way of love and of justice.
O Lord our God, we have seen many examples of the way power
and possessions has taken a stranglehold on people, and their
lives have been shattered by their lack of mature judgements.
However, we have also seen many lives made beautiful by love
and generosity - through selfless service to God and humanity.
May we be like the olive trees in the land of our Biblical ancestors,
with our roots deep in the nurturing soil of your love; and bearing fruit
to God’s greater glory. May the healing oil of God’s compassion and
blessing anoint all people who choose to follow God’s own way of life—
and to empower them to choose to reach out in loving service of others. Amen.
A Personal Meditation
Pentecost 8C [Ordinary 16C] or [Proper 11C] 2010
Psalm 52
My God, I am struggling! I am confronted by decisions, choicesand complex options! What decision should I make? I am praying
for wisdom and goo sense so that my values, my God-inspired
priorities, my life experiences will help me with these choices!
| Creative pause: | My daily struggle to make life-choices. |
One of my choices is about how I present myself to a critical crowd.
I have a choice of going along with the status quo of that crowd—
or of being true to my values and commitments – warts and all!
There is also the choice of ingratiating myself in the service of my
superiors, or there is the choice of being sincerely open with people.
| Creative pause: | Following the status quo or being true to my values. |
There have been many times when I have made mistakes in my
choices, and almost inevitably, there was a crash and I had to
accept the reality of my mistaken judgements, and learn to live
with their consequences. I only hope I learn from that experience.
| Creative pause: | Learning from past mistakes. |
I have already made the major choice to centre my life on God’s
way of love, justice and peace; but how to live out those choices
every day, is another issue! Who do I seek guidance from with
these decisions? In what ways will I choose to express my faith
and use my God-given gifts? I pray that I will allow my roots to
sink deep into God’s love for strength and nurture, so that I will
develop strong outreaching branches, and bear fruit to God’s glory.
| Creative pause: | Seeking God’s help with large and small decisions. |
Acknowledgements:
Unless stated otherwise, all Bible readings and extracts used in these weekly Prayers and
Meditations are from
‘The New Revised Standard Version’ Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of Christ in the USA.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
*The additional weekly numbering is from the Revised COCU Indexing Scheme
COCU = ('Consultation on Church Union');
as it offers an easy sequential numbering
for the Revised Common Lectionary for the Church Calendar.
If any part of these Prayers and/or Meditations is used in shared worship, please provide
the following acknowledgement:
© 2010 Joan Stott – ‘The Timeless Psalms’ RCL Psalms Year C. Used with permission.
jstott@netspace.net.au
Download/view a pdf file of this document here: pentecost8[16]c_2010.pdf