Wrestles with God

Lord, please teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

When times are dark, it’s hard to see. We can get lost: everything is so confusing, and we can’t always see what is right. We are not asking for easy answers that make us feel like we’re right and someone else is wrong. We ask for your light. Help us see what others see, and turn to mercy. Teach us how to love our enemies.

We pray for our friends and family members who are suffering illness. Some of us are begging for healing; others are asking for peace. We pray for those of us missing someone who’s died, especially as we approach Christmas. Give us faith in your love. We are looking for a glimpse of your mercy. Give us chances to show love to the people around us.

Violence seems to fill our world. In Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, we ask for peace. We pray for UN peace builders in Sudan. Please bring an end to the use of sexual violence in that conflict, and give safety to the 25 million people who are at risk. We don’t always see how, but we pray for peace, and we pray for our government to have the courage to work for justice and for peace.

In Israel and Gaza and the surrounding countries we continue to cry out to you for an end to the killing of children and adults. How can we ask you another way for the same thing we have asked so many times before? How can you let it go on? Where is your light?

In the West we see so much hatred in our politics, and whoever is prepared to lie with the barest face seems to win. We ask for light to illuminate: to show up the truth and expose the lies for what they are. Make us bearers of truth: not of discovering the conspiracy that conveniently makes us right, but of turning to our so-called enemies and listening with love, seeing the wounds that have led to mistrust. Give us wisdom. Teach us how to love our enemies.

As Christmas approaches, those of us looking forward to safe and loving family times feel the contradiction of all the darkness we have talked about, against this time of happiness and security. Help us to understand that when we feel safe and happy, that is real and good, but it is not complete while others are unsafe and isolated. We are one family, and where we have safety, we are grateful for it, and we will work to bring that safety to our siblings near and far. For those of us here who are not looking forward to safe and loving times, please provide friendship, including from within this church. Help us share our lives with each other.

We don’t get to choose what times we live in. You never told us we were going to be OK. In fact, when times were good, it never was OK for most people.

What you ask of us is the same: to love our enemies. What we ask of you is the same: please be there, and be for us, your human family.

We refuse to turn against each other. We keep our eyes open for a crack of light.

Amen

Lord, please teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

God, you are everything; your fierce and gentle love runs through our world, and through us. We need you and we love you: even on the days when we are not so sure you are there, we long for you and we are homesick for your acceptance.

As we face the joy, hardships, excitements and worries of our lives we are so aware of our dependence on each other. We pray that this church would grow real friendships: that we would be able to rely on each other: for acceptance even where we fail, for someone to tell when something exciting happened, for help when it’s our turn to need it, for listening when sorrows come. We thank you for all the varied friendships we have, and we ask you to grow the right friendships where we are lacking at the moment. Make us more open, more generous with our laughter, more tolerant, more interested in each other, than we could reasonably expect to be.

We pray for the people we know who are unwell. We don’t understand why you sometimes heal and sometimes don’t, but we ask for healing with all our hearts.
As the schools get started on a new year, we pray for our young people and their teachers: may they learn and grow in safe places full of joy and fun. We pray for those of our young people who are setting off on careers or university places: please be with them and keep them safe even while those who care for them learn to grant them independence. We pray for the students we welcome here: make us good friends to them, a welcoming and peaceful place.

We pray for our country and our government. We place our hope in a Love that fills the world: may that make us able to imagine a better world, where no-one is forced to sleep rough, no-one is pushed from sofa to sofa, no-one is trapped in a dangerous and unhealthy home. We pray that the legacy of the Grenfell disaster, despite how long it has taken, would be a better society, where our our access to safe housing and decent treatment is not dependent on our social class or that of our parents. We pray for truth, justice and healing in the awful case of people abused and hurt while working at Harrods. May the survivors have peace; we ask for justice for those responsible.

We pray for the elections in the US: may your will be done. May a new consensus form, built on love for neighbour.

We pray for Sudan: we ask that the African Union and UN’s efforts to bring about a ceasefire would succeed, and the 9 million people forced to run away could go home. Please let food get to the millions of people who are starving.

We pray for Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and the surrounding countries: please prevent more killing and kidnapping – we ask, perhaps with little faith, for safety and fair treatment for all people, and for a lasting and just peace, supported by our government and many others.

God, you are everything; your fierce and gentle love runs through our world and through us. So let us see it! Show your power by answering our prayers for peace, which surely you long for too? Show your love through us: we will walk out of here into busy lives, and quite possibly forget what we are asking, but hear us now: we want to be part of what you are doing. We want to be generous with our time, our compassion, our friendship, our money. To get anywhere near that we need to see your love flow in us and through us.

Amen

Lord, please teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

We are shocked and scared to hear about the failed assassination attempt yesterday in the US. We pray for safety during this election. We pray against chaos and division. We pray for leaders of upright character, who serve their citizens, not themselves. We pray for a new spirit of unity and understanding that overcomes the deep divisions we see in American society, and also in our own.

In this context we are amazed at the peaceful transfer of power in the UK after our general election. We thank you so much for the peace many of us enjoy. We pray for our new government: may they be peacemakers, justice-bringers and climate champions. We pray for unprecedented success for the planned Ending Homelessness Unit.

Give us leaders who are beacons of peace. Teach us how to love.

We thank you so much for the work of Child Action Lanka, helping provide food for families affected by the recent flooding in Sri Lanka. We thank you for the links our church has to support this amazing work. We pray for the health of the team as they respond to so many needs, often with limited resources. We pray for enough money to buy a decent bus to get kids in to the centre where they can receive food and education. We ask for partnerships that will bring the right people and finances. We pray for wisdom to think long-term when there is so much urgent short-term work to do: especially for wisdom to think about sustainability.

Make them beacons of peace. Teach us how to love them.

We beg for progress in Gaza. As the starvation continues, we pray for food and water – not just for supplies, but for a route to get them to people. Please Lord, provide a breakthrough. Even as our media loses interest, the bombing is increasing, and more and more children are injured and orphaned. We can’t bear to watch, but we turn to you: you are strong enough to face what is happening, and to provide relief. You are our hope, and we ask for a miracle: not just for peace today and the release of the hostages, but for lasting peace and reconciliation. It feels stupid and naive to ask for it, but what is hope if not this? We long to see you.

Give us leaders around the world who are beacons of peace. Teach us how to love.

Lord, as we hear controversy over plans for an Islamic community centre in our town we think of our Muslim friends, family and neighbours, especially anyone who is frightened of how they may be treated in our town. We pray for peace and generosity of spirit as plans are discussed, and we pray for peace in the hearts of those who are treated with fear and suspicion. We embrace the Christian teaching that all humans are siblings, descended from the same family. We pray against any spirit, within Christian or Muslim communities or anywhere else, that seeks to undermine this teaching and promote division, othering and violence.

Make us beacons of peace. Teach us how to love.

Even as we wrestle with you now, free us from despair over our sin: we know you pick us up and dust us off every time we stumble. Comfort those of us who are suffering. Rescue those who are in trouble. Make us true friends to each other.

Amen

Lord, teach us how to pray and help us to pray now.

It feels pointless standing here asking you to help to help when we stand on the precipice in Gaza, with one million people trapped and desperate in Rafah, waiting for the tanks to smash their city and their bodies. What good does it do praying to you? But what else can we do? We ask for peace, for acts of courage that break cycles of violence. We pray for freedom for the people of Israel and Palestine to live without violence. As humanity groans with agony at what is happening, make us the firstfruits of heaven, people who have caught on to the idea of living at peace with our enemies, despite the cost.

It’s hard even to think about the horrors happening as the fighting becomes ethnic cleansing in Sudan. We pray for protection for ordinary people trying to escape. We ask for effective intervention from the African Union or the UN, or whatever will work. We pray for freedom from the hatred driving these attacks, disarming it with courageous love. Teach us freedom from the same kinds of hatred in ourselves. Let heaven break through in us: let our friendships, our encounters with people around us, our social media posts, be places where we are learning to love people who are different, and people we disagree with.

We pray for everyone who is in prison in the UK, after the devastating report about conditions at Wandsworth. We pray for the right funding and leadership to protect people from sewage overflows, vermin, illegal drugs and lack of medical attention. We lift to you our friends and family members who are in prison: protect them and help them. Give us vision as a country of a justice system that we can be proud of, that reflects your character by valuing each person as a precious creation and carrier of your image. Give our prisoners freedom from torturous conditions that makes space for healing and reflection, and prepares them to make use of the new freedom they will receive when they are released.

We pray for ourselves: may we find freedom to be these precious creations, carrying your image. Even as the weight of all the suffering we have prayed about presses on us, give us freedom from expecting to fix the world: that’s on you. Even as we become more aware of the sin in ourselves and others that hurts and limits us, give us freedom from sin, and freedom to love other people and ourselves. Even as worries about exams or money or success or loneliness risk pulling us under, give us freedom to be generous and brave, taking chances, that were not necessarily offered, to give, to speak, to try an experiment in love.

Set us free Lord: as a world, as a people, as your children.

Amen

Lord, teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

We thank you for the hope of new life. We see the natural world all around us bursting into life and it teaches us that good things can grow.

We see your life, how it was cut off in an attempt to erase you, and we see that you were not erased. We refuse to accept that the 13,000 children killed in Gaza since October are erased. We know that you know every single one of them, and love them. Their lives mattered, and they still matter.

We see the devastation of how you were tortured to death. How no revolution came, and the Roman empire continued to crush the people. How the religious authorities continued to condemn the people, dividing them into sinners and saints. And we see that despite appearances, their violence did not win. Love won.

We see the weaponised sexual violence in Sudan, horror in Palestine and Israel, devastation in Ukraine. We don’t see what’s happening in Yemen or Ethiopia or so many other places because we’ve forgotten or turned our faces away. We remind ourselves today that violence does not win. The story does not end with death. The story starts and ends with you, creating and loving us.

We pray for new hope, not just in our hearts, and not just here. We pray for new hope of peace in Israel and Palestine. For the “inevitable” slaughter to be stopped. We pray for a shared understanding that enough is enough. We pray for you to burst into life. We pray for good things to grow. Wherever this situation is discussed, we pray that love for our enemies will be on our lips.

For all the other violence in the world we pray the same. Rescue the survivors of sexual violence near and far. Make the awful things they have experienced not be the end. Our story starts and ends with you, creating and loving us.

When you were thrown away like your life was nothing, you refused. We refuse to throw people away. We take your perspective. When some people talk of people “poisoning the blood of our country”, we hear our siblings’ blood crying out from the soil.

Help us to see like this in our lives. We might be lonely, we might be considered a “sinner”, or be “damaged”. We might be sick. We might be far from home. We might be erased. Give us the love to see and to be friends with each other as we are.

I’ve just read a book by Julian of Norwich. She saw a vision of a little hazel nut-sized thing in the palm of her hand and understood that it was the whole universe. She asked how it could survive and was told that it lasts and it will last because God loves it.

God, if you really do hold our universe in this love, then, with you, we can face down evil. We ask you to change us. We ask to burst into new life, for good things to grow. We ask for the faith to say with Julian “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”

Amen

Lord, teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

We pray for wisdom for our world. This year 40% of the world’s population will vote in elections. Some of them will be fairer than others, but in all cases, and in all countries, we pray for wise leaders, who are pure, peace-loving, and considerate. We pray for our own elections, and wisdom for those of us who are voting – let us choose leaders who are full of mercy and good fruit, and don’t harbour bitter envy. In the US we ask for leaders who are submissive, impartial and sincere. We pray against those who deny the truth; we pray against the disorder that comes with selfish ambition.

We pray for people who sow in peace as the world faces up to the awful suffering in Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine and so many other places, and the awful actions taken by people claiming to act on behalf of the downtrodden. Lord, we are impatient for this to change, for you to act, but where we need patience, we ask for patient and brave people. We pray for those seeds of peace to take root and grow. We ask that we can be those patient people – show us how.

For our country, we pray for deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. We ask for an end to rough sleeping, with lessons learned from the 2020 Everyone In initiative, that roughly halved the number of people sleeping rough almost overnight. The numbers are shooting up again since the scheme was stopped: as a wealthy country that prides itself on protecting its people, we ask for that pride to be justified through the government’s Rough Sleeping Initiative, which aims to end rough sleeping for good.

In our community, we pray for our church members flying to Sri Lanka to work with Child Action Lanka. Please give them good health and safe travel. Please make them useful in the work they are doing. Please be with everyone at Child Action Lanka as they work for safety, education and health for the children in their care. Give them success and please show us how we can support them.

For ourselves, we ask that you would provide what we need. Have mercy on those of us who are unwell. Provide jobs for those of us needing them. Let us be a support to each other for whatever we need. Build us into a family that trusts each other and provides. We thank you for the ways we have to support each other, from services and small groups to evening courses and children’s groups, from prayer breakfasts to football, from debt support to community fridges. Most of all through our friendships – help us become friends across any supposed barriers of generation, of class, of culture. Help each of us find a place, and have a chance to be served by each other.

Let us sow in peace, be full of mercy, be considerate and submissive. Give us that kind of wisdom.

(Inspired by James 3:13-18)

Lord, teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

At this time of year we gather together for warmth.

We pray for the warmth of your presence. Some of us may sense you very close now, and others may sense nothing, but we trust that you are within us, and your love is what sustains the universe. We long for what happens when you live within us: for the ability to forgive, for healed relationships, for courage and new openness to those out in the cold.

We are here to thank you for bringing the warmth of heaven to our world in the form of a baby, who lived as a child and a teenager, and grew into the kind of adult who sat around the fire with the social rejects, inviting them in from the cold. He sat and listened to the people most of us would fear or scorn. One day he stood next to a woman being shamed and saw off her accusers, confronting violence with peaceful resistance. Another day he took the time to ask a disabled man what miracle he wanted, not assuming he already knew the answer. May we grow into such people!

We acknowledge that the physical warmth in this building right now is provided by burning fossil fuels, and we thank you for the incredible gift that these fuels have been to us, providing such warmth and freedom to so many of us. And as we finally start to admit that we have overdosed on this gift many times over, we pray for your help to break the addiction. We pray for the courage, and the global unity we will need.

We pray for those of us who are left out in the cold: for people without a decent, safe home here in our town, for people escaping to our country from wars or oppression. We ask that we would live up to our duty to protect each other. We pray for the people in Israel and Palestine who are wondering where the next bomb will land, the people who are held hostage, the 1.8 million people who have had to grab what they can and run away from their homes as winter sets in. We ask that we the human race would step up to the challenge of working out a peace. We pray for leaders who are prepared to look their enemies in the eye and find a way to follow your command to love them.

Lord, warm our hearts. Who do we need to forgive? Who are we leaving out in the cold? Which social rejects do we have the chance to get to know and learn from? What violence are we witnessing that we must resist, with courage given to us by you?

Lord, warm our hearts.

Lord, teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

We thank you for the chance today to honour the courage and sacrifice of the people who have given up their lives, their health, their comfort for our safety. We mourn everyone we have lost through war, and we pray for the survivors of wars past and present. We pray for healing, and for recovery after traumatic experiences.

We pray for Ukraine, for some path to peace. We pray for the Democratic Republic of the Congo where violence has increased this year. We pray for the faltering peace talks in Yemen. Please bring new hope.

We are appalled at what we see in Israel and Gaza over the last few weeks. We ask desperately for peace and justice – freedom for hostages and safety for ordinary people. For the freedom that comes through forgiveness. We feel hopeless: during my lifetime I’ve seen attempts to improve the situation but nothing has worked. Please, bring new ideas and people on both sides brave enough to stand up for peace and mercy.

Lord, why do we persist in hating our enemies? Why are we surprised when we find we just end up with more enemies?

Hearing about the destruction of families in Israel and Gaza it brought to mind the vision that Ezekiel had: he saw a valley full of the bones of people who had been killed. The bones were totally dry, which to me connects with the utter hopelessness of this situation – there was no life in them at all. But God, you showed this to Ezekiel for a reason: you told him to speak to them despite the hopelessness, and when he did, impossibly, life entered those bones and they re-formed into people, and breath came into them.

Lord, we beg you to bring new life in Israel and Palestine. We pray for people of peace, and public support for them. We pray for courage. We pray for international support. We pray for everything that is needed: from us, from our government, whatever it is, so that some new breath can be breathed into these dry bones. Lord, don’t let another lifetime go past with this insult to your character pouring out shame on us, the human race.

We acknowledge that we ourselves are part of this hatred for enemies. We are subject to a kind of dehumanising outrage, whether it’s about the COVID enquiry, or the timing of protests, or the latest newspaper article. We pray against outrage designed by algorithms to farm our attention. We pray for unity of purpose over our shared values, and for acknowledgement of the humanity of people we disagree with. Where we have been tricked into forgetting that people are people, and their stories inform their opinions, we are sorry.

Today, as we honour the people we have lost, make us those people of peace. And maybe some of us want to cry out with Noy Katsman, whose brother Hayim was killed last month, “Do not use our pain to bring death”.

Amen

May we, somehow, in the midst of all this activity, rest in your presence and hear some whisper of truth: of your exuberant love for us, the people of your world, the creatures of your world, the trees, the rocks, the sea.

Lord we pray for everyone affected by the earthquake yesterday in Morocco. Please help people who are grieving for friends and family who have died, and people who have lost their homes, or are uncertain about whether they can go back. Thank you for the people the UK is sending to help with the rescue and recovery process. Please keep everyone helping with the aftermath safe, and give them success in helping people, finding shelter for everyone, and rebuilding and making buildings safe. We pray for improved relations between the Moroccan and Algerian governments, and that Algeria would be able to help with the rescue and repair work.

We pray for an end to the war in Ukraine. We ask that everyone would be able to return to their homes and their lives. We pray for an end to the killing. We pray that Russia would stop the attacks targeting civilians and critical infrastructure. We ask for wisdom for our leaders about how to help end this war with a just outcome.

We thank you for the possibility of a deal in Palestine/Israel that might bring more rights and freedom for Palestinian people. We pray that real, substantial progress would be made, leading to a safer and better life for everyone in this region.

As we continue to see the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis all over the world, we thank you for the enormous changes that are taking place, including in this country. The UK emits almost half as much CO2 as it did in 1990, and emissions due to imports from other countries have been falling since 2007. The total energy we use has been falling since 2005. Our emissions from transport are down 8% since before COVID. Emissions from buildings fell 13% in 2022. We know none of this is going to be anywhere near enough for us avoid devastating warming, or to meet the target the UK set ourselves of reaching net zero by 2050. The parliamentary climate change committee recommended some things to get progress back on track: phasing out hybrid cars, limiting aviation growth, and diet change. We don’t have all the answers, and we won’t all agree here what the right thing to do is, but we pray, together, for resolute action from our government to continue and accelerate the work.

We pray for everyone starting a new year at school or college or university. Thank you for new starts and exciting opportunities. We know how much all of us were affected by the lockdowns during the pandemic, and we pray that our young people would recover from the negative effects they experienced. Help them find friends, and discover good ways to relate to you.

We bring our work to you. May we be hope to someone this week. May each of us learn about life from someone unexpected. May we break down the borders of our worlds so we don’t think in those terms any more. May we share our resources. May we share our lives. May we learn humility.

May we, somehow, in the midst of all this activity, rest in your presence and hear some whisper of truth: of your exuberant love for us, the people of your world, the creatures of your world, the trees, the rocks, the sea.

Amen

References: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2019 and https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Progress-in-reducing-UK-emissions-2023-Report-to-Parliament-1.pdf

Lord, teach us how to pray, and help us to pray now.

When we read the news it’s hard not to be worried about our world. It’s hard to hear about the pain our fellow people are going through.

I was really struck last week when we sang the song “My Lighthouse”:

I will trust the promise
You will carry me safe to shore

I found it comforting to sing those words, and then I was brought up short by them. Will you carry us safe to shore?

It’s too late for the hundreds of people who drowned off the coast of Greece in June. You didn’t bring them safe to shore: they drowned in the terrifying ocean. We didn’t bring them safe to shore: we were too busy building our Hostile Environment back at home.

I was also struck last week by these words in the song “So will I”:

I can see Your heart eight billion different ways
Every precious one a child You died to save

Can we trust you were with those children trapped deep in the hull of that boat? God, please can we? Is there some comfort in believing they might be with you now?

Is it too late for the next crowd of people huddling onto the next boat? Maybe they set off this morning, full of hope for a new life away from violence and war.

It’s too late to stop the world’s temperature rising one degree – it’s already happened, and pretty much everyone agrees it’s too late to stop it rising past one and half. We don’t really know whether it’s already too late to stop it rising four degrees, with the devastation that will involve. Will you carry us safe to shore?

It’s too late for Ate Gloria who was so concerned about the damage to her grandchildren’s health from an open coal storage facility joint-owned by a British company that she organised a petition and campaign, and was killed in front of her grandchildren by two unknown assassins. Too late for the four people a week who, like her, are killed for defending their land and their health against destruction by companies who supply food and energy to people like us.

It’s too late to prevent the damage to people’s health by smoke from the fires in Canada and Australia. It’s too late to rescue the people killed, or to save homes and businesses destroyed, by flooding in Bangladesh or Germany. Is it too late for people living in coastal cities like Bangkok, Amsterdam, Cardiff, London?

Lord, how can we respond? We have built a dazzling statue of wealth and power and its feet are clay because it is built on the suffering and oppression of our fellow people. We long for your triumph. We hope for rescue.

Maybe we can repent. If we, the people in this room, repent, would that mean anything? What would it look like for us to repent as a country, or as a world? Will you carry us safe to shore?

Many of us here have enough problems that the last thing we need is someone like me going on about stuff like this. We pray for those of us who are unwell – please give people to provide the care they need. We pray for those of us who are out of work, or working in bad conditions – please give good work, and courage to look for it. We pray for those of us trapped in hard relationships – give freedom to escape where needed; give courage to turn away from wrong behaviour; give reconciliation and forgiveness.

We are here because we believe, sometimes with confidence and sometimes with none, that you are here, and that you are good.

We will trust the promise
You will carry us safe to shore

Help us understand. Help us be part of what you are doing.

Amen