The Dregs…

Our Father who art in heaven…

God, you are everywhere and you see everything.  You know what’s happening among us right here on the corner of North Limestone and Stanton Street in Springfield.  You see all of Springfield, Cedarville, the big cities and one-horse towns of our nation, and the vast expanses and dark corners of every part of the world.  You hear every shout of joy and cry of anguish from the people on earth, experiencing them all as a perfectly loving parent.

Hallowed be your name…

We long for people to respect and love the mere mention of your name, God.  Rather than using it as a curse, may the utterance of “Father God” be a remembrance of your love, mercy, and creative power.  May the name of Jesus be a warm, pleasant and fragrant breeze that carries the message of hope, forgiveness, and the beauty of the once-dead now perfectly alive.  May the mention of the Holy Spirit be a blanket of comfort and the fresh energy that comes before we bless others as you have blessed us.

Your kingdom come…

God, we groan as a woman ready to give birth.  We cry like an injured child waiting to have a broken arm removed from a cast and restored to full use.  We want your originally-intended world to break in on us now and usher in the Days of Friendship between lion and lamb, black and white, rich and poor, strong and weak.  Bring in the Time of Freedom from the politics of fear, betrayal, cruelty, and death, and give us your absolute rule of love, grace, and peace.  Make happen the Years of Restored Nature when no living thing wilts or dies but instead thrives and calls out in praise of your creation and, indeed, your name.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

We want this earth to be a place where hurts, injustices, and evil will disappear.  Where we will be instruments of your healing, justice, and mercy.  Where we will feed the hungry, visit the sick and imprisoned, uphold the weak, and bind up the physical and emotional wounds of the injured until your kingdom comes, bringing with it Eternal Jubliee.

Give us this day our daily bread…

Grant us, Father, the food and money to provide for our children, our families, and ourselves.  We don’t need extravagance, just enough to be healthy and strong so that we can live life fully and do the work you set before us.  Provide us, Jesus, with the emotional food and the good relationships our spirits need so that we can continue our emotional giving to others.  Satisfy us, Holy Spirit, with nourishing food for our spirits so that we might grow into the people you intended us to be.

And forgive us our debts…

God, we know we are selfish and prideful.  We hurt others, sometimes not caring that we have wounded a cherished person made in your image.  We ignore the suffering of those around us and in far off places, abandoning them to the bone-chilling coldness of their pain and grief.  We damage your world, leaving scars across its face.  We slash and bruise ourselves.  We don’t understand that in each of these ways we have stolen from you the beauty of your creation.  Save us from our destructive ways!  Rescue us even though we can never completely make up for the devastation we have caused.

As we also have forgiven our debtors…

God, we’ve been beaten, kicked, and maligned by others.  It is no more or less than we have done to some with our cruelty, gossip, criticism, selfishness, short-sightedness, and dismissal of their need.  We forgive those who have done these things to us.  We don’t hold their sins over their heads because we know that you don’t hold our wrongs in front of us.  When we have difficulty not wishing evil on those who have done us wrong, help us, Merciful God.

And lead us not into temptation…

Show us how to keep from blowing it, God.  Keep us from wanting and buying things we don’t really need.  Hold us back from becoming self-serving like the world around us.  Help us to see that what pleases you are the same things that create a better life for ourselves, others, and all of your creation.  Lead us into the kind of quiet lives that glory in blessing others not for recognition’s sake but for your sake and those around us.

But deliver us from evil…

The world is broken, God.  Everywhere there is physical, emotional, and spiritual disease, hunger, injury, impoverishment, and bondage.  We ask you to remove it.  Get rid of these cancers that would threaten to eat away every healthy part of life if you did not see fit to intervene.  Deliver us from the evil we would do and the evil done to us.  Deliver the world from the decay and rot of wickedness and the suffering it creates.  Deliver us because we cannot deliver ourselves.

For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever…

This world and everything in it is yours.  Heaven is yours.  All of life that ever was and ever shall be is yours.  You set it in motion – every molecule and atom – with a creative act that took place in a simple word.  Such power is too wonderful for us to fathom!  All living things owe you everlasting praise as the Creator and Sustainer of Life, the Merciful and Just One, the Lover and Redeemer of Mankind, and the Eternal King.

Amen…

We have spoken what is right and true.  Make it so, God.  Let it be as we have said!