Let us pick up where we ended our last Collective Prayer, “Let it be enough that you are for us, with us, and within us, through Jesus Christ,” praying together that our celebrations this season will be with more than words.
O Father who sent your Son among us that the Word might be made flesh, bless with your favor and encouragement those in our time who would ‘flesh out’ the Scriptures and make credible the gospel to an unbelieving age:
all who earnestly work for peace;
all who deliberately live on less than they might in order to
share with those who have less than they need;
all who make it their business to plead the cause of the orphan,
the prisoner, and the oppressed;
all who stand up in any company to challenge racial slurs and
expose prejudice;
all who have trained themselves to listen with genuine concern
to those who need an outlet for their grievances and cares;
all who have gone to the trouble of learning the gospel well
enough to be able to share it with others.
O Father who has told us clearly in the drama of Bethlehem that words alone won’t do, help us productively to couple what we say with what we are to do, lest our rhetoric outrun our deeds,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.