GREETING (adapted from Psalm 89:26)
You, Almighty One, are our Father, our God, and the Rock of our salvation.
Your steadfast love is forever, and your covenant is everlasting.
Reveal to us your will, so we may worship you with our time in this world.
Hold us to your covenant, where all our blessing and hope lies.
Use our worship to form us as the steadfast covenant-keepers that you desire,
and let our faithful witness draw others to their salvation in you.
HYMN 420 “Breathe on Me, Breath of God”
PSALM 91
PRAYER
(Think back to the beginning of this day. Start there, and mentally walk through the day again, while you thank God for the day's blessings and God's continuous work of love. Confess and repent of those times when you forgot, ignored or rebelled against God. Continue to pray with your personal prayer list.)
SCRIPTURE LESSON
(Choose a passage of scripture to read. It can be a chapter, a paragraph, or a particular story. Daily lectionaries are available online or in print that assign a lesson each day from the gospels, epistles, Old Testament and psalms on a three-year cycle. Or you can create a plan to read a book of the Bible, or the whole Bible. Then follow the steps below.)
Read a passage of scripture. Read it out loud, very slowly and carefully as if for the first time. Continue reading until a word, phrase or sentence captures your attention. Stop there to repeat the word, phrase or sentence over and over, listening to it deeply in your heart.
Reflect on why the passage got your attention. Consider the area of your life to which this may apply. Is God saying something to you in this passage? Take time to listen carefully to whatever God may be saying to you.
Respond to God in prayer (or with journaling, music, art or whatever you choose) about what you have heard. Ask questions. Open yourself to God’s will for you.
Rest in God’s company. Be still and quiet. Move beyond thinking, practicing interior silence. Let yourself be open to God’s presence. Savor this moment with God.
PRAYER
God who reclaims, redeems, rebirths, rehabilitates, restores, and renews,
we moderns stand in awe of the Israelite priests from Ezra’s day.
Just returned from forty years of exile in foreign lands,
they wanted to live again in covenant with you, God.
They read in your law foreign wives were forbidden,
and many in Israel had such wives, and children too.
God, they could have modified some of the words in your law.
They could have claimed a new revelation from you,
or found clever interpretation to allow compromise.
They could have argued about differences in context,
or explained that a loving God forbade such cruelty.
But those priests sent away their foreign wives and their children.
Their hearts surely broke seeing their loved ones’ tears.
They knew those they betrayed had done no wrongs.
Yet, they watched their families vanish down the road,
and hid from their hard deed in houses empty of love.
The priests did it all according to the law, to be in covenant with you, God.
Could we, would we, make such heart-rending sacrifices for you?
Your grace, gifted to us in Christ, has made life easy.
We are free of all the hard, ruthless dictates of the law.
Your grace and love rules and guides your people now.
Faith and thankfulness are the light burdens we carry.
Purity no longer dictates to us. Righteousness no longer demands.
Temptations and sin melt into the mists and shadows.
Your forgiveness sweeps away the judgment they bring.
Christ atoned for our sin on a cross that belonged to us.
His amazing sacrifice removed the weight judged for us.
Yet we almost long for that weight and those difficult days of law.
Then we knew we could make real sacrifices for you.
Like the Israelite priests who sent away their families,
we want to broadcast our determination to serve you.
But we cannot be hard-hearted. Jesus commands love.
We want to put everything on the line, but do it in your covenant of grace.
Love was Jesus’ tool of choice, and we will make it ours as well.
We choose to sacrifice our time, resources, and energy;
even the laying down of our lives for the sake of others.
We will make our sacrifices for family, friend or foe,
and do it in joyful thankfulness for your kind covenant.
But, God, we pray you guard us from pride, and remove all gain.
You know how puffed up we can be when doing good.
Save us from the vanity that destroys any gift to you.
Shield us from any recognition, reward or appreciation.
Let us work with pure love for others in honor of you.
As Christ sacrificed for us, let us sacrifice joyfully for our Savior.
It is not banishing our children and spouses. It is better.
Our loving sacrifices for others are a fitting response
to a God who provides us a covenant of grace and love,
and our sacrifices imitate the sacrifice of Christ for us.
Now help us to perform the deeds to ratify this our prayer to you,
God who receives, reunites, rebuilds, reconnects, reaffirms, and resurrects. Amen.
SILENCE AND COMMITMENT
(Pause to reflect and listen. Work to push out of your mind any distracting or irrelevant thoughts. Concentrate your thoughts on the words of the hymns and choruses you have sung, the prayers you have spoken and the scriptures you have read. Be aware of what you are feeling. Listen for anything that God might be saying to you in this time you have spent together. As God responds to your prayer-time, seek guidance for how you can best respond to God’s will. Then commit to serving God’s will for you.)
HYMN 419 “I Am Thine, O Lord”
CLOSING PRAYER
You have made a number of covenants with your people, God.
But what is a covenant really – a contract, an agreement, a promise?
When you make a covenant with someone it is more than these.
Your covenants have always been full and unique because they are:
a surprise, with you initiating the whole arrangement for blessing us;
an unbalanced gift, in that we receive more than we can ever return;
a steadfast bond binding you to people you have chosen for covenant;
an alliance of you and your chosen people to work for all that is good;
a relationship with people who are privileged to enjoy your company;
your pledge, your understanding, your commitment to those chosen.
When you make a covenant, you are absolutely, always faithful.
On the other hand, we absolutely, always fail to keep faith with you.
But we can sleep soundly because Christ has kept faith for us,
and tomorrow we begin again in a covenant that still stands in love.
Amen.
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
