As we gather remotely for Prayers this Monday evening we are called to a season of Remembrance. We will honour those who have died for peace on 11th November at 11am.

Let us come together in prayer:

Eternal God,
We meet in solemn remembrance
of those who lived and died in service of their country.
We give thanks for their lives,
and pray that You would enable us to be worthy of the sacrifice made on our behalf.

In this space
we remember particularly those whose names are etched upon memorials, in town churches, town squares, and in the hearts of family long gone.

May they rest in peace, and rise in glory.
May our time of remembrance inspire us to be peacemakers in our own time.
In Jesus name, Amen.

Prayer of approach and confession
For ever and ever, Lord God.
That is Your promise to us.
A promise made before time began.
A promise kept until beyond eternity.
A promise that brings us here today.
Because forever starts today, God.
It rose with the first glimpse of dawn.
It breathed in the stirring of the morning air.
It sang in the waking chorus of creation.
And it lives in all of us
because You, in Your goodness,
have made it so.

This moment in time, God,
is nothing in the grand scale
of Your awesome plan.
But it is our opportunity
to recognise that every second,
of every minute of every hour,
of every day is everything,
because of Your limitless love.

We praise all that You are, Creator God.
We stand amazed at all that You give
and we celebrate Your faithfulness
to us in our failure to appreciate
the price of Your promises
and the cost of Your creativity.

When You created the world, Lord,
You presented it to us as perfect.
A place of growth and fruitfulness.
but we misused it and left it broken and disjointed.

When You breathed life into humanity
You chose and cherished us.
But we broke away from Your gentle arms
and dismissed Your love.
When You came to us,
You wept with us, You suffered for us
and You gave up Your all for us.
But we forgot the vastness of Your sacrifice
and took it for granted.
We cannot fathom the scale and the nature
Of Your forgiveness
Yet still we seek it and need it.
And still You offer it.

For ever and ever, God.
That is Your promise
as proclaimed in Your Son, Jesus Christ.
So here today, we proclaim ourselves
a forgiven people,
refreshed by Your grace
and ready to serve You.
We proclaim ourselves forever people.
Committed to sharing in Your work.
We proclaim ourselves Your people,
now and always.
AMEN.

This passage looks forward to the time that is to come when God’s kingdom will be fully established. It is aspirational, and is communicating about a time when peace and justice will be known fully to the people of God. This reading would be particularly appropriate for Remembrance Sunday as we look forward to a time when there will be no more war, and when the instruments of war will be transformed into objects of fruitful production. The prophet speaks of a time of peace and security for everyone (v3- 4) where people will be able to enjoy the fruit of their labour.

Verses 6-8 communicate a powerful message of those who are outside the norm being welcomed into the fold. God will ensure that those who have been excluded find themselves included, known and part of the family of God.

Micah 4:1-8

The Mountain of the Lord

4 In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and peoples will stream to it.

² Many nations will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
³ He will judge between many peoples
    and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.
⁴ Everyone will sit under their own vine
    and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
    for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
⁵ All the nations may walk
    in the name of their gods,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord
    our God for ever and ever.

The Lord’s Plan

⁶ “In that day,” declares the Lord,

“I will gather the lame;
    I will assemble the exiles
    and those I have brought to grief.
⁷ I will make the lame my remnant,
    those driven away a strong nation.
The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion
    from that day and forever.
⁸ As for you, watchtower of the flock,
    stronghold of Daughter Zion,
the former dominion will be restored to you;
    kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.”

In our Gospel reading, we hear the words of the Benedictus. These are the first words of Zechariah, father to John the Baptist, who spent the vast majority of Elizabeth’s pregnancy in silence. Zechariah prophesised that a Saviour would come to redeem his people, and that his son, John, would prepare the way for that Messiah.

Luke 1:68-70

⁶⁸ “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David
⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

Please listen in contemplative meditation to this version of the Benedictus (by Karl Jenkins) and ponder this season of remembrance.

Thanksgiving and intercession
Hear us now as we offer our prayers of thanksgiving
for all the good in our lives.
On this day, we hold with gratitude the service of those who are peacemakers
in their service of our country.
We are grateful for a vision that will hold the darker forces of our humanity in check
with an ethos of cooperation, harmony and mutual flourishing.
We pray for the dedicated service of our armed forces in all the generations,
remembering especially those who still remain with us from the Second World War.
We thank You for their testimony
which reminds us of the tragedy of conflict.
Help us to hear it
even as we honour the sacrifices made in search of the good.

Ubi caritas et amor…..

Today, we are drawn together from many backgrounds,
and with faith flickering, strong, or with no faith,
we thank You that there are times and causes
around which we can all rally for the common good.
Help us to find that common ground more,
and to work through our differences.
May the example of Jesus, His boundary-crossing life,
His open-hearted embrace of all peoples,
be the inspiration for our weary and wounded world.

In the visions of Isaiah and Revelation,
Your faithful people have penned the dreams and challenges of our deepest thinkers,
our most creative and perceptive voices.
So we give thanks for the people who will look at our world
and will be the dreamers.
We pray to for the fixers:
for the people who will take the dreams and make them reality.
So we hold before You all of our leaders,
praying for tenacity, energy, and an open-eyed, open-hearted vision
for our communities and the world.
Ubi caritas et amor…..

In this season of remembrance,
we pray for those who have lost loved-ones in conflict,
and through the collateral damage of war.
We think of those close to home in our army, navy and air force.
We remember those on the other side to us in conflict,
and we think of the deep scars of conflict that mark our world
whenever there is war.

May our remembering be for new beginnings,
so that lives lost are the foundations of new worlds.
May the vision of the prophets be our vision too.
May Your forgiveness be our forgiveness.

Ubi caritas et amor……..

God of the cross and the empty tomb,
God of the road to Emmaus
and the breakfast on the shore.
You have shown us in Jesus the way that is beyond death,
so hold us in the faith of Your future.
Help us to rest in the confidence of new light and life,
to trust that those we have loved and lost have returned to You,
and that our own walk is the way home
where You wait for us in the mystery of eternal life.

May our prayers rise to You like incense,
God our Maker, our Saviour and Sustainer.
Amen

Blessing
May the God of love fill Your heart with peace
and send You into the world to live it.
And the blessing of God Almighty,
our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,
be with You and those You love,
this day and always
Amen

Call to worship

God, you search me and know me.
Before I sit, you know when I will rise.
God, you search me and know me.
Before I speak, you know what I will say.

God, you search me and know me,
in my joy and despair,
in my breathing in and breathing out.
God, you search me and know me.
Your knowledge is too deep to reach,
too vast to comprehend.

God, you search me and know me.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Prayer

(inspired by Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18)

Glorious God, you are utterly beyond us in every way, yet you involve your holy self with our very human existence and commitments, and we give thanks and praise to you for your unending love for each one of us. You have nurtured and blessed each of us as we grew in the womb of your love and compassion over many years; and we give thanks for the trust in you that has grown in us as we have developed and reached maturity.

We praise you for the way you have placed your hand on us in blessing, and that you have communicated to us in wordless ways, the depths of your love for us, so that we can understand and know that we are your beloved child.

We give thanks and praise to you that you trust us enough to share some of your thoughts with our limited minds and hearts; and that deep within us, there is that spark of your holy life to enrich and bless us; so that we always have an inner yearning to be near you and to be blessed by you.

Bearer of all creation, in your power, majesty and infinite love, you have ordained that your eternal presence is with each of us at all times, so that in the morning, you are there with us; and during the evening and night you are still with us. Trustworthy God, you honour us always with your presence. Amen.  

Psalm 139 celebrates God’s intimate and ongoing interest in the divine masterpiece that is Creation – including ourselves. We are made to be a blessing for life on Earth. To believe and trust in this God is to know both our human responsibility, human insignificance (outside of God’s care) and yet our very great value, when underwritten by God’s appreciative attentiveness.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
    My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you.

O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
    and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
those who speak of you maliciously,
    and lift themselves up against you for evil!
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with perfect hatred;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Prayers of the People

You, O God, love us from the moment of our conception,
You know us and you love us in the womb,
You love us and you call us from before the moment of our first breath,
and you love us when we first see the light of day.

As a mother/father loves her/his child before she/he ever sees it,
and then embraces it gently from the moment of its birth,
so you love us—and we thank you.
Help us dear God to love one another in this way….
Lord hear our prayer.

You love us, O God from the time of our naming
You love us in our growing and hold us as we take our first steps.
You love us and walk beside us
as we explore the world with eager hands and eyes
As a mother/father loves her/his child as she/he sees it grow and develop
so you love us—and we thank you.
Help us dear God to love one another in this way…. 
Lord hear our prayer…

You love us, O God, as we mature and seek our way,
You love as we become aware of the world around us,
You love us as we smile and play,
you even love us when we say no and when we begin to stray.
As a mother/father loves her/his child as she/he sees it become proud and tall,
so you love us even when we sin and fall..
Help us dear God to love one another in this way….  
Lord hear our prayer…

We thank you God for loving us when we are unloving
for caring for us when we are uncaring,
and for calling to us when we go far away….
Help us dear God to love one another in this way…
Lord hear our prayer…

Lord hear our prayers of love this day for those around us,
for those we have held before you in our time of sharing,
and for those we have thought of in our moments of caring:

(add your own prayers)

Lord hear our prayer….    

We ask all these things in the name of Christ Jesus,
who is our Lord and our brother.  Amen

Blessing

As we leave this space, we know
God will be with us wherever we go.
At work or play, at home or on vacation, we know
God will be with us wherever we go.
Whether we’re happy or sad,
on our own, or with our friends, we know
God will be with us wherever we go.
So let’s go with joy,
because God goes with us!
AMEN.