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A Prayer for Fathers’ Day

Our Father, in Heaven,

Generation after generation, there have been fathers. Men who have guided and provided for the development of other. Good father’s who have modeld compassion and protection and provision.

And, of course, there have been bad fathers as well. Human people who have fallen short of the the expectation and need of their children.

As we reflect on the role of those who father, we lift up to you all the missing and broken pieces. Those men who have been absent or abusive. Those men who are no longer with us in body but are present in spirit. Those men who will never be what we need them to be.

We are grateful for the men who have risen to the occasion, who have fathered well the children and adults entrusted to them. Who have shown love above and beyond. Fathers, yes. But also coaches, teachers, uncles, in-laws, steps, pastors, scout leaders, mentors, and friends.

Jesus, on this day especially, we marvel at the way you transformed our understanding of the divine. Generation after generation there have been fathers. Men who have guided and provided, and men who have fallen short.

Yet, when you first taught your disciples to pray, you bid them cry “Our Father.”

And just like that, we are all children, children born of the Spirit, children of the divine. And just like that, you bind up all that is broken and lift high everything that gives life and makes us family and heirs of love and life.

Never before has heaven and earth become so close. Never before have we been given words of such intimacy and love.

So, now, in honor of this great gift, the privilege to call you “father,” we cry out to you with the voice of your children, saying,

Our Father…

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A Prayer for Trinity Sunday

Father God, creator of every living thing. You know us intimately and have designed us brilliantly. Cast your protecting hand over us, that we might live in peace.

God the Son, our Savior who walked along the dusty paths we now tred. You have told us stories that we might learn how to be, and you died that we might live. Enfold us in your arms that we might live in love.

Spirit God, ever present among us, within us, breathe your life anew. Inspire us, your people, as apostles of the Kingdom. Direct us in your wisdom that we might share in your joy.

Spirit, Son Father, may we be one as you are one.

Son, Father, Spirit may we be diverse as you are diverse.

Son, Spirit, Father, may we be vibrant as you are vibrant.

Father, Spirit, Son, make us love as you are love.

Amen.

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A Prayer for Mothers’ Day

Holy God,

On this day of celebrating your love, we lift to you the women who have been a mother to us, those who nourished us, taught us, and comforted us. Bless the women who gave us birth, blessed the women who have raised us, and bless those beautiful, strong women of faith who have been mothering us along the way.

We have seen your face in any woman who has been to us a mother, in a teacher or volunteer or neighbor or colleague or coach, in her face we have seen your light and your love and we give thanks.

And we give thanks for all the mothers in Christ who have outrun us to our Father’s house. We know their prayers for us are unceasing before your throne.

We call forth your compassion upon every mother who has unknowingly caused pain and suffering, by what they have done or left undone. And, so we lift to you our mothers, so imperfect, also so wounded by this world. We, too, are imperfect humans dependent on your grace. Where we have failed because we did not know better, forgive us, and help us to forgive ourselves.

We lift up mothers who are tired and overwhelmed, burned out by our society’s expectation of what motherhood must be. We lament the strife we impose on each other when we look down upon a working mom, thinking she must love her children less or when we shame a stay-at-home-mom, ignoring that our whole community benefits from her unpaid labor. God, we feel weak when asking for help and we feel foolish for rejecting it, thinking we have to do it all.

We lift up every mother who has yet to receive her hoped-for-child and for every mother who has lost her hoped-for-child. For the death of a child on both sides of birth we ask your comfort. For the death even of an adult child is still painful, as you, dear God, know so intimately. Receive your sons and daughters even if they never took a breath in this world, for those named and those whose name is known only by you.

We lift to you the heart of every mother who has watched her child suffer hunger, every woman who had been a victim of abuse, every person who stands in protest against a world that massacres children and renames them “collateral damage.”

We are grateful, Lord, that you have showed us mothering kindness. As a mother cannot forget her child neither can you forget us. In our distress you offer us comfort, like a hen sheltering her brood chicks, like a bear defending her cubs, like the tender embrace of woman teaching her child to walk and catching her when she falls. Your love never fails, and so, mothering God, we cry out saying

Our Father…

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Prayer for 23 Psalm

Good Shepherd,

There are certaiy a lot of voices echoing around the pasture. Voices that claim to have our best interests at heart.

There are those in this pasture who claim to offer peace and prosperity, but it seems that peace would come at the end of a sowrd.

We’ve heard the sound of voices claiming to offer health and healing, sold at just the right price.

And when the lights go out, and the world seems darkest, there’s that voice of fear that drifts from the shadows.

Still, among all these voices, your voice is the one that calls us; it rises above the din to assure us in times of need, want, and fear.

The Lord God is our shepherd, and we shall not be in want.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow your voice, covering us in your grace.

May we dwell in your house, all of our days, and respond to your voice using the words Jesus taught us saying…

Our Father

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Prayer for John 3:1-17

God of our nighttime conversations. Of our whispered prayers and twilight longings—Lord of our wondering, and Lord of our wandering.

We approach you with desperate questions, seeking satisfying answers.

How can anyone be born again?

What is the kingdom of heaven like?

Who, then, can be saved?

In our restless hours, and in our quiet darkness, our words and our worries rise up to meet you.

And there, in midair, they are met with your beautiful truth: our questions overwhelmed by eternal power. For God so loved the world that he gave his son.

Oh, lord, that despite injustice, violence and war, you still love the world.

Seeking answers, we are met with love, and seeking assurance, we are met with a call to believe.

So, God, in the wake of this beautiful collision between heaven and earth, we leave before you the hurting, the sick, the lonely, and the anxious. May they experience the wholeness that only your son may provide.

We remind you of the mistreated, maligned, and marginalized. And we ask your forgiveness for that which we’ve done and left undone, which has created chaos in the darkness.

We lament with you the presence of those who are hungry or unhoused in our world. Those who have threadbare clothes that are ill-equipped to protect them, and those without a reliable source of water.

And, Lord, we lift up to you our warring and violent ways. May our conflicts be subsumed in your glorious reign, oh, Prince of Peace.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to love, to believe, and to pray

Our Father…

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Prayer for September 14, 2025

Holy and Merciful God,

We confess that we are violent people, more intent on winning than understanding. We point the finger at those who use guns while harboring hate and resentment in our own hearts, even as Jesus taught us that such hatred is the same as murder.

Forgive us, and fix us.
We pray for shared humanity, remembering that violence demeans us all.

We humbly ask for your comfort for those who have been victims of violence, unfortunately, and especially those who have made headlines this week:

The students of Evergreen High School,
Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk.

We lift up whole countries torn apart by violence, such as Ukraine, the Middle East, North Africa, and Nepal.

We needn’t continue to live this way. God, make us instruments of your peace.
— Let our grief not harden into hatred but soften our hearts toward empathy.

— Let our prayers move us toward peacemaking, serving neighbors, and advocating for protection and justice with humility and grace.

— Let our indignation not be performative politics but genuine human empathy that leads to change – in our own personal actions and our national experience.

For the sake of our families, communities, and country, help us to address the culture of contempt and tribalism inherent within us.

Give us clarity and understanding beyond our vision to see truth in the midst of addictive algorithms, selective bias, and a relentless news cycle.

Inspire our leaders to work toward policies that prioritize human flourishing over flashy rhetoric, encourage peace over polarization, and enable meaningful dialogue over endless discord.

We need your healing balm, your Holy Spirit, to empower us to acknowledge the inherent dignity of every human being as a child of God.

We place our hope in you.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have Mercy

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A Touch of Interruption: Prayer for Mark 5:21-43

Prayer of Intersession OR Pastoral Prayer

Holy God this day help us be mindful of the margin in our lives. We have a tendency to schedule our movements from the moment that we wake up to the moment we lay our head down at night.  The small spaces in between we tend to fill with distraction and entertainment, useless worry or bitter obsessions. Holy God we are more concerned with the work that we have done than the good that we have left undone. We pride ourselves on our accomplishments and not on the moments of love and care we share with those in need. For this Lord we are sorry and we humbly repent.

Father, we ask for a holy interruptions in our lives. We ask for the unexpected in breaking of your Kingdom in the loud in public spectacle of our society. And we ask for it in the quiet, humble, private moments. We look forward to the in breaking of your Kingdom with peace, healing, compassion, justice and mutual understanding.

Jesus, we ask that heaven touch earth, and that earth might reach out and touch heaven – In the same way that the an unnamed daughter reached out and touched your garment that you reached out and touched the unnamed daughter. Embrace our death bound bodies and give to us new life.  Interrupt us with your holy presence and allow us to emerge transformed.

We ask this by the power of you Holy Spirit, living within us, who empowers us to call out using the prayer your Son taught us saying:

Our Father…

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Eden People – The Magi of Epiphany

In the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth, and a garden somewhere in the East. Genesis 2 tells us the garden of Eden, the original heaven on earth, was established in the East.

Now in the book of Matthew, we have mysterious, wise men hailing from the
East. They worship a single God, believe in a coming Messiah, and look forward to a reordering of this world where good triumphs over evil. Unlike the priests and leaders hanging out in Jerusalem, these men are not beholden to the power and brutality of worldly leaders. These men move through this world confidently, seeking truth, following a star across the night sky like Israel once followed a pillar of fire through the wilderness. Their faith is strong, and their expectations are high.

They are looking for the king of the Jews. They want to worship the king of the Jews. They are gentiles, outsiders, but they see Messiah just on the horizon, and they are moving through wilderness to honor and adore him.

These wise men from a long-lost Eden, Kneel before a baby, a child, the most powerless and innocent creatures. Oh, how Herod must have sneered when these travelers walked back out of his palace onto the dusty Road taking their treasures with them.

These gifts were meant for messiah.

These gifts were meant for the one who could rule with justice and equity — for one who leads goodness in triumph over evil.

These gifts were meant for one in tune with God, a holy arbitrator who reconciles his people.

These gifts were meant for the one who brings healing and life, not brutality and slaughter.

These gifts, well, these gifts were meant to adorn a body for burial, the body of the king of the Jews willingly sacrificed, utterly humiliated, and buried in a tomb.

And where are you in this story? And where am I in this story? Do we sit in the halls of power, conspiring to ensure our own security, and our own position at the top of the political order by trampling anyone weaker? Maybe, sometimes, in ways that we’d rather not admit.

But on our best days, in those moments, we are captivated by a light shining in the darkness – We can be like the magi.

We are called to be like the magi. We are called to be Eden People. We are called to be Heralds of the Kingdom of God. The spirit moves us to speak truth, seek goodness, and champion justice without fear or regard for those in power. We are to bring our best gifts and our best selves to the feet of Jesus.

And we are not distracted by the magnetism or ruthlessness of false kings.

And there are a lot of false kings.

I encourage you to think about these wise men, about the kind of people they are. The sort of religious movement they represent. The place from where they traveled and the star which showed them the way. Think about the people they upset and the gifts that they brought, and, most importantly, the child whom they adored. The Messiah, the King of the Jews, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our savior.

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A Prayer for Memorial Day

Lord,

We come to you now, on this Memorial Day. It is a time in our country when we paused to recognize those who have laid down their lives in service to our country.

Lord, we have a great deal of thanks to those who saw fit to lay down their lives for us.

And yet, Lord, there are men and women who bled and died in service and protection of this country. Only to have us dishonor their memory by allowing the persistence of violence here at home.

Lord, we are again are shaken by the scourge of gun violence. We, who are your people, lay flags on graves in honor of those killed and lower flags to half mast in morning for those who have been murdered. The violence in our country seems so unrelenting

Jesus, we your followers admit that we have done very little to be peacemakers in our own lives. We escalate conflict in our places of work. We fail to build bridges within our of schools. We neglect to build community living right next-door. We even fan the flames of division in you very own church.

Holy Spirit, forgive us our failures. Abide within us. Empower us to lay down our idols, our idols of politics, tribalism, consumerism, elitism, racism, and sexism. May we exchange these idols for the mantle of peace. For hearts filled with love. For hands eager to do the work of your kingdom.

Give us courageous leaders. Beholden to your true wisdom, and ready to protect the most vulnerable in our society, rather than the powerful, the wealthy, and the entitled.

May it be truly said of us, that as far as it depends on us, we will live in peace. Even as we work for peace in this world. Lord, living in peace is the greatest honor we can bestow on the fallen, who traded their own lives.

We ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us, and encourages us to put away our swords, or else beat them into ploughshares.

Amen.

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Part of the Tapestry

All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. -2 Corinthians 5:18 CEB

In the Vatican Museum, there are several beautiful tapestries, some of which used to cover the Sistine Chapel. Perhaps the most famous is The Resurrection of Christ. These works of art are so detailed that it’s easy to forget that they’re woven from tiny strands of wool thread. The Resurrection of Christ is so life like that the eye appears to follow the viewer.

I think it is interesting that these tapestries are woven from wool, the material we acquire from sheep. It is as if each little sheep has contributed a little bit of themselves to God’s plan. The Good Shepherd invites us to be woven into the tapestry of reconciliation.

But, what exactly is reconciliation?

The Methodist tradition recognizes that the world is both beautifully made and badly broken. The ties that bound humanity to God are tattered. The threads that connect neighbor to neighbor are terribly frayed by the power of sin. It is as if all creation is a beautiful tapestry, shredded by pain and suffering. 

This tapestry can only be restored through the process of reconciliation. Jesus entered into the world as the means by which we are all reconciled to God. Jesus is like the master weaver. He moves needle and thread in and out of the broken seams, putting the world back together again.

We are called to be instruments of reconciliation. We are called to be sharp needles and strong thread guided by the hand of the master weaver. God asks us to move back and forth in relationship with one another, putting the tapestry back together again.

The work of reconciliation is perhaps best captured by the words attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, and I’ve taken some liberties here:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sew love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. Amen.