May 15, 2020
A daily prayer during this COVID-19 crisis
During these difficult days, Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar and the members of the Extended Cabinet are sharing a daily prayer based on the Revised Common Lectionary for the week.
You are welcome to use these in worship or in your own devotions.
Today’s prayer
Holy One in Three, We are so very eager to do good. We are even willing to suffer in that doing. But we confess to being afraid, now and then, of the harm we might feel and the harm we might do. We grow intimidated by social pressure, by the scale of a problem, and even by our own ambition. May our hearts become your sanctuary where you seek to make a home, where we sacrifice our fear as a praise offering, and where our desire to success is converted into longing to serve. When we are challenged for decisions we make and actions we take, in your name. When we are called to account, may our defense not be defensiveness but gentle and reverent sharing of the hope you implant in us as you abide with us. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God almighty We praise you for the mighty love made possible in Christ Who suffered for the good he, did and does, was and is. The Body of Christ suffers again, not only as we are cut off from familiar worship spaces, but also, as you draw us to your true calling. Let us be no longer our own but yours. Put us to doing. put us to suffering. Let us be put to work for you or set aside for you. Let us be praised for you or criticized for you. As we, like Noah, seek signs that it is safe to come out, suffering disappointment in the ark when the message is “not yet,” let us be full, let us be empty. Let us have all things, let us have no thing. Even when love takes us to the hardest places, just as Christ descended to Sheol’s prison with the piercing light of God’s good news, we do freely and fully surrender all things to your glory and service. And now, O wonderful and holy God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, You are ours, and we are yours. claimed in our baptism. So be it.
By Rev. Dr. Karen L. Munson, Mid-Maine District Superintendent
1 Peter 3: 13-22 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.