prayer – Page 9 – katyandtheword

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Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Signs of God: Making Sanctuary

Psalm 127:1-2

John 2:13-25

Call to Worship

God you make this a sanctuary for us

Giving bread to the hungry, Rest for the weary

Surely those who look, will find God

Come, let us build a house of justice and sanctuary for God

Confession: God we confess that we often confuse peace with being subdued or quiet. We forget that true sanctuary means a place to not just feel but be safe. Help us to be safe with one another we pray. Help us to build your sanctuary, we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon. God’s peace is from everlasting to everlasting, know the good news: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: God’s mercies are renewed every morning. God’s mercies never come to an end. Let us go into the world renewed by God. Amen.

Hymns: Be Thou My Vision, Room at the Table, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Because He Lives, Worthy is The Lamb,

With Children: Chalk and Eraser Board Jesus can cleanse you every single time you make a mistake. Jesus wants you to keep trying!

A Prayer for Healing A Brood of Vipers

God the whole world is sick

No one is safe anymore–

there is no sanctuary.

You know that we are a world in desperate need of healing.

God I don’t want to live in a world

where healthcare is on the bottom of the to do list

Where people aren on the bottom of the to do list.

And God, I want to scream like John the Baptist:

You brood of vipers, you idiots, you fools!

Turn around! Change!

Don’t you want to be on Side that has already won?!?*

Don’t you know there is another way to win?

One where we don’t fight over scraps,

but we care for everyone?

One where we don’t say, “Did they have any pre-exisitng conditions”

but instead we say “don’t worry we will protect, you, and feed you, and care for you!”

And like John the Baptist, and Desmond Tutu, and bell hooks and so many others–

I want to hold you accountable,

because in the end,

God wants us all to heal.

At the end of the long day of work,

When the sun sets and we look around to see who has healed–from hunger and racism and every single kind of bigotry, and Covid

I want to be there, and I want to see you there too.

I want to party with you in the Kin-dom.

God almighty knows it.

God you know we need this healing–

teach us how to hold each other accountable

without screaming or shaming one another,

teach us grace and forgiveness and reconciliation.

Teach us I pray,

because Lord knows, we could all use a party right now.

Amen.

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

*This is a question that the great Healer Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to reconcile and convert and people (with way less anger I’m sure than it is used here).

Betty White’s Timing

So…we are all going to mourn Betty White hard

Bc we need to mourn
And we all know why
And Betty White is something we can agree on
And so she is giving us that final gift.

The ability to laugh and cry and scream NO FAIR in one voice before this horrible year ends.

Thank you Betty White.
Binding us Together one last time in 2021.

And as someone noted—right before 2022 and her 100th birthday—her timing, as always, is flawless

We miss you already.
I hope you are making your husband laugh right this second.
Selah!

Thanks to @CrystalChetaham for her inspirational tweet about Betty White’s impeccable timing

In the Shadow: A Prayer in Memory of Desmond Tutu and bell hooks

God,

I want to write a great prayer

in memory of the Black excellence of Desmond Tutu and bell hooks.

Something that shows their fierce dedication to freedom and compassion.

But all I can picture is Desmond laughing in heaven,

overjoyed by every person he meets

And bell hooks, finding new womanist, queer, feminist aspects we didn’t know yet!

The Rosa Parks and Toni Morrisons who didn’t make the history books

making notes and translating it to us in a language we can feel in our souls!

God, I keep reflecting on how much of Tutu and hooks’ theology

is part and parcel of my everyday theology

“find why the babies are in the river”

“Love is an action never silly a feeling”

“if you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor”

“queer is the self which is constantly at odds with everything else”

I am fluent in the love of bell hooks and Desmond Tutu, without ever having met either one of them, or even having heard them speak.

It was mostly informal–through osmosis, their love broke through!

Here I am– standing in the shadow of Black beauty and knowledge

Thanks to them.

Thank you for the gift of their lives God. Thank you for their work, their bravery,

their love,

their imperfections, their power

and most of all their willingness to teach us all.

Thank you God.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Images From: https://assets.vogue.com/photos/61ba2fdf8dfa948c34e8914c/4:3/w_4159,h_3119,c_limit/GettyImages-1178375349.jpg

and

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fbb16d142-6666-11ec-98df-0bb0132add1b.jpg?crop=4324%2C2883%2C30%2C20

Countdown to the End of the Year, A Prayer

Ok God,

I don’t know when you have ever,

ever

Asked for our resume,

or our qualifications

(In fact you call us no matter what)

Nor do you ask us to make an accounting

of our year’s end accomplishments and goals

Instead I picture you.

Sitting down with us, at the end of the year–

Like a good friend does at the end of the day.

Allowing us to reflect

on the good and the bad and the ugly.

***

And you don’t mind if the language is crass , or the tears start to flow,

…Or sometimes we feel like we have nothing at all worth saying.

***

We humans like to mark time, because that’s how we are made.

And you like to sit and mark it with us, because you God, understand.

Our obsessions with days and weeks and hours and cups of coffee.

***

So God, when I start counting,

You remind me that I can’t count the stars,

and our blessings outnumber those–

and you remind us that every single person,

is beloved and no one is forgotten.

Neither is our small joys and accomplishments.

Everything Counts,

And we don’t need to.

Only you God, can make both true.

Thank you God,

for keeping track of the important stuff,

and letting the other stuff Go

And sitting with me, as I take stock.

Amen.

Please feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

If you like my prayers, consider adding your email to the list and/or contributing to my 2nd year in Doctoral work in Creative Writing for Ministry https://gofund.me/70a114f9 I am funding 1/3rd of it through fund-raising. Every contribution from $5-$200 helps. I successfully funded my first year this way, and truly appreciate your support!

Blessings for a Gentle Holiday (full text)

https://revgalblogpals.org/2021/12/22/wednesday-prayer-blessings-for-a-gentle-holiday/

Blessings for a Gentle Holiday

May you have a gentle Holiday

Full of kindness, and understanding

and moments of warmth and coziness.

May you have a holiday with enough space and time

to be alone or together

to weep or sigh

to remember…

***

May your holiday give you the kind of rest you need

with reading or physical activity or doing nothing

or to do the crafting or peopling or not peopling

or sleeping or creating or not knowing

or caring…

whatever it is that you need to do,

or not!

***

May you have a gentle holiday

with the permission you need to not have to be “Merry”

but to be your full authentic self,

and to be kind to yourself, your boundaries, and those you love.

This is both my blessing and my prayer for you this season.

Amen.

Feed my Sheep. A Prayer

Jesus I wonder,

if when you said Feed my sheep.

Not one or two,

but three times,

if it was because you were hard to hear….

Or if the disciples thought they misheard you?

Or if you heard the murmurs of arguments…

What if they are drunks (alcoholics, addicts)?

Or sinners?

Or demon plagued?

Or diseased?

Or lame?

Did you take a deep breath, Lord?

And close your eyes and gather your patience,

and lower your voice to the teaching whisper–

and say Feed My Sheep again

with a little bit of frustration creeping in.

And then did you finish

with huge compassion and love

overwhelming the words,

so that the disciples could not help but

feel overwhelmed with the call to action?

Feed my Sheep.

God, may we hear the request…

the call…

the mandate today…

this is my prayer.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Please Consider supporting my 2nd Year of Doctoral Work in Creative Writing here: https://gofund.me/70a114f9

953 Flock Of Sheep Illustrations & Clip Art - iStock — Image: https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/various-sheep-group-vector-id1144271973?k=20&m=1144271973&s=612×612&w=0&h=lfG6lGX-j0_a8SNBqw7MVkuQU8PD_QpHE0PVvyCO6vI=

Pandemicking, A Prayer

God,

I’m thinking about how we are all here

pandemicking,

all day everyday.

Even though we long for the day

that we have pandemicked,

we are just not there yet.

Just as you are the God

who is Justicing, Gooding, Blessinginging

(because the gerund* verb tense is the best)

the timeframe of this pandemicking

is equally ongoing, and nebulous,

and I am aware that the echoes of this

Pandemicking, will actually live on in me

forever.

In truth I will never stop Pandemicking.

Like those who were Immigrating,

never will, in some sense stop being immigrants,

and those who have survived something,

never will, in some sense, stop being survivors.

And today

I’m thankful that you, Jesus

–who fled to Egypt, lived under occupation,

grew up an outsider and were almost thrown off a cliff,

You Jesus of all people,

get that.

And some days I’m bitter that

in some ways

I’ll always be pandemicking

and on somedays, I wonder, but do I really want to unlearn

all the things I needed to know?

About the cracks in society?

About those who we have lost!

About who are being forgotten?

About what needs to change?

After all, what is greater discipleship than that?

So, God. I’ll be here. Surviving this pandemic.

Pandemicking.

Every single day.

And thankful that I have the gerund tense to describe it.

But I’m also grateful that I have a God

Who gets it–

and gives us a knapsack of the right kind of more gerunds,

to do this pandemic thing,

and for being a pandemicking God along the way.

Here Goes God, more Pandemicking….

Come with me…

Amen.

Pandemic Prayers & Resources

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta and please give to my 2nd year of Doctorate of Ministry in Creative Writing at https://gofund.me/aaeb4910

*Gerund: is a verb that we have turned into a noun with ing like swimming. In ancient Hebrew gerund was a tense that can also mean present participle, it means ongoing without a definite end, when it comes to God I think of it as the inging verbs.

Comfort Advent Candle Prayer

God, for those of us who haven’t felt like putting up a tree,

or hanging garlands–those of us who have only half heartedly decorated

Or not decorated at all–

It’s ok. We can blue, and sad.

You don’t need any festooning.

You don’t need any bells or whistles.

You are God.

Present in the very midst of Sorrow–

Isn’t that why we light the candles? Because sometime we need the reminders

that you are present, especially when we cannot see Hope, Peace, Joy or Love in the World?

That’s why today we are lighting an extra candle in our hearts. The candle of Comfort. For you–Wonderful Counselor, promise that with Christ too.

Comfort us this year, we pray.

Amen.

Please feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

More Advent Resources for NL Year 4

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