Pastoral Prayer
May 8th, 2016
Ascension Sunday, 8:40am Service
ESUMC
The Reverend Rob Lee
God of grace and God of glory,
On your
people, pour thy power, crown thine ancient Church’s story, bring her bud to
glorious flower. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this
hour…
God of the true Church, we
acknowledge that we know these songs we sing too well, some of them even by
heart. We have committed these words to memory and yet when it comes time to
put the songs and sermons and scripture into action we fall strangely short in
the light of your glorious plan for us.
Free us for
joyful obedience, so that the Church might be a place where Christ is
celebrated as Lord, where the poor in spirit and wealth are uplifted, where
conservative and liberal and independent may worship together as an envisioning
of your beloved Kingdom. Where the lines we have drawn fade into the light of
your glory and grace. Where the Church is the at the corner of social justice
and personal holiness.
On this
Ascension Sunday may we be mindful that your presence will never leave us or
forsake us, even if we do not have you in our physical sight. We give you
thanks that you have opened the Scriptures to us this Easter season that the
Messiah must suffer, die, and rise from the dead. We give you thanks for the great
fifty days of Easter, and the beauty of the queen of feasts, your glorious
resurrection
However this
day we are mindful that our world is not what it should be. Make the Church be
for the world the broken body and blood of your Son, so that our confidence
will not be in the ballot box or politics here in Raleigh or Washington DC, but
our confidence instead may be in our baptisms[1],
in the Church, and in the Spirit who gave life to the first Church years ago.
Ascending
Christ, you promised to send your Holy Spirit to your holy Church. As you have
ascended may your Spirit descend fresh upon us. May we be bold enough to go
into the world, in the strength of your Spirit, to give ourselves for others.
In the name of Jesus Christ, who with you O God and the Holy Spirit, live and
reign, one God now and forever. Amen.
[1] I
am grateful to Patrick Craig, fellow Duke Divinity School student and close
friend who helped tease this line out after a Facebook post he made.
