Prayer for Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2021

 How amazing O God, your Spirit filled the first disciples until they were transformed. These frightened and unsure followers of Jesus suddenly had the courage to share the good news of your ever expansive love.

They were filled with uncontainable exuberance, drawing others into new ways of community and life- all shaped by your love and justice, overflowing with joy and compassion even in times of trouble and challenges

 Oh how we need that Spirit to fill us now O God! We need your Spirit that moves us to act secure in your love and with joy. With confidence that even as we await the fulfillment of your promises, we can still experience them now.

 We long for your Spirit to push us out into the wider world as it did the first disciples, so we too may follow the ways of Jesus: proclaiming Good News to the poor, healing to broken and hurting, and justice to the oppressed.

Push us out to live as the disciples lived, not only speaking these words with our mouths, but also embodying them no matter the push back or cost.

 

Enable us to be become your peace bearers, whether it be in the long running Israel Palestine violence and wars, on the streets where guns and weapons are too often used to settle disputes or gain notoriety, or wherever you would need us.

Open our eyes to ways that even the smallest action by us may become a conduit of peace for others.

As we start to come out the other side of this pandemic, fill us not only with compassion but a desire to be of service to our siblings in other places where CoVID is still raging.

Pervade our interactions and reactions with compassion and patience as so many take timid steps back into the so-called normal life.

Our politicians could use your Spirit filling them with love and wisdom. Lead them to  emulate the disciples in their willingness to work through disagreements in ways that built up community as they address challenges, instead of seeking personal gain or political points.

For that divisiveness and anger spills over into the lives of the people of this nation and even in our personal relationships. As your Spirit did bringing together over 3,000 thousand diverse people to form a new Community of faith who join in a way of life, let it weave us together so we too may rejoice with each other rather than fight even when we disagree- no matter who we are, no matter our differences or our commonalities.

Wherever there is pain, wherever there is despair, wherever there is hate and oppression, blow the new life of your Spirit through so that the unexpected and wonders of your love and justice become as evident as twelve disciples speaking in different languages at once of your ways.

Come Holy Spirit, Come, Fill our lives, our communities, and our world with your power, your joy , and your love.  

We lift all these prayers, as well as the unspoken ones of our hearts and spirits, in the name of Jesus. Amen.