O God, make my heart your dwelling-place,for You are my companionand my guide along the way.We rise with your praise upon our lips,for the Lord has been good to us indeed.
Your Spirit has called to usin trouble and in plenty;let us always sing out your untold blessings.You are our All-in-All,O Merciful One,and we give You thanksfor all YOU have given us.God hovers over usand covers us with the hand of favor:all that I am I offer to God.God's comfort rests like a cooling breezeupon those who call upon their Redeemer,and we offer hymnsof praise and thanksgiving.
Watch over those for whom we pray,Lord Christ,and grant them rest.
Amen.
Come, Light of God,
and let your wisdom pour forth
like a balm over us
as we lift our hearts to You
in praise and gratitude! Spring up, O Dayspring of Life,
and fill us with your grace and mercy,
that we may walk in the pathways of peace.Establish within us a thirst for justice and discipleship,
that we may serve You and each other with joy.
Blessed Redeemer,
may our prayers rise to you like incense,
as we remember all those in trouble or anxiety. Give your holy angels charge over those
who watch, weep, or worry,
and shelter those who are in danger.
Bring us to a deeper love of You, O God,
and a deeper compassion and care of each other
and your creation. Merciful One,
rest your hand upon these beloveds for whom we pray.
Amen.
O Love that Passes All Understanding,
we thank You for this life,
the greatest gift of all.
We glorify You:
if even the stones and trees sing praises,
who are we to keep silent?
We abide in You
as a baby rests in her Mother's embrace.
Let your will be to us
as the wind beneath the wings
of the migrating flocks.
We ask your protection
for those for whom we pray today.
Amen.
Glorious is the day that we can rise
and give thanks to the Lord,
who is making heaven and Earth!
Set our steps
upon the joyful path
of wisdom and concord, Lord Christ,
and unite us to You in hope.
Send forth your Spirit in power
to bring knowledge of redemption
to those who wander, O God.
Create in us loving, gentle hearts,
and forgive us all our offenses, we pray.
Help us to cast aside
all that separates us from each other,
and help us to forgive all those who have hurt us.
Bring our wandering souls to rest in You, All-Merciful One,
that we may center our lives
upon your Great Commandment.
Resting in your promise of love, O Holy One,
we cast our concerns before the seat of your mercy,
and ask your blessing this day.
Amen.
O God, awaken your people
to the hope of our approaching Savior,
and accept their offered praises and petitions.
May justice and peace kiss each other,
and may we embody their wisdom in our hearts.
May we act with mercy and gentleness,
remembering how often You, O Lord,
have reached out to us when we've strayed.
May we dedicate ourselves
to building a table of brotherhood
where we find division.
Let us commit ourselves
to acting in love and caritas
where we find enmity and bitterness.
O Holy One,
make us worthy servants in your household,
and give us healing hands to do your work.
Bless us and keep us as the apple of your eye,
and send your blessing over those
whose cares we bring before You.
Amen.
Glorious is the day that we can rise
and give thanks to the Lord,
who is making heaven and Earth!
Set our steps upon the joyful path
of wisdom and concord, Lord Christ,
and unite us to You in hope.
Send forth your Spirit in power
to bring knowledge of redemption
to those who wander, O God.
Create in us loving, gentle hearts,
and forgive us all our offenses, we pray.
Help us to cast aside
all that separates us from each other,
and help us to forgive all those who have hurt us.
Bring our wandering souls to rest in You,
All-Merciful One,
that we may center our lives
upon your Great Commandment.
Resting in your promise of love, O Holy One,
we cast our concerns before the seat of your mercy,
and ask your blessing this day.
Amen.
1061
Our gospel reading today starts off, like so much of our lives do these days it seems, with name-calling and threats. You can't even escape it at church this week, friends, and THIS is the Sunday we call "Joy Sunday" during Advent! Of course, our gospel ends with John “proclaiming the good news" to the people. Words matter. We live in a time when name calling and fear-mongering take up all the air in the room. So it may escape our attention how harsh John's opening words are.
They say thay a soft answer turns away wrath. John does not use soft words. He preaches a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins, and he makes it clear to all who approach him that they ARE sinners. In particular, three groups are mentioned specifically: the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers. Those in the crowd John addresses specifically are those that have the MEANS to do something about the poor, those who have more than what they need for basic security. The tax collectors could be those who collected the Temple tax for the Jewish authorities, or those who collected taxes for Rome. Since John also mentions being “children of Abraham,” it could be either one. Nonetheless, tax collectors were objects of scorn, then and now. Soldiers, likewise, could be Temple soldiers like those who arrested Jesus and then handed him over to Roman soldiers, or they could be Roman soldiers, although that makes the references to Abrahamic descent problematic. The first gentile convert in the book of Acts was the soldier Cornelius, a Roman centurion.
Three times John is asked by specific groups of his listeners: “What should we do?”
His answers are actually not that difficult: He tells them to turn. To embrace true repentance. To embrace true community. To change their hearts and minds completely to live abundantly.
To the crowds, he answers, If you have extra, share what you have with those who have none. To the tax collectors as a foreshadowing of the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10, he states, Perform your work ethically and don't take more than is owed. To the soldiers, he urges, treat people with respect (especially if that type of work you do lends itself to suspicion of dishonesty and tyranny). So John’s suggestions are all meant to point out that it is not WHO you are, especially by birth, that matters—being “children of Abraham” means nothing. Instead, he emphasizes again what one DOES matters more. This is not intended, however, to support what our Lutheran friends call “works righteousness.” We ARE saved by grace alone. But that doesn’t mean that once we are saved, that’s the end of our obligation to god or to each other.
The life of discipleship is based on proclaiming our faith, but also in DOING right as part of our testimony to the power of God’s transformative grace in our lives.
John’s answers are also, at their base, economic in nature. They are directed specifically at economic injustice and imbalance. And in this time, when a few dozen people possess the majority of the world's wealth, that admonition is needed today more than ever.
At an even deeper level, John's answers are directed at transforming our focus from being upon ourselves to being-for-others.
“What are we to do?” is a question that still grips us today. How do we live not just a “successful” life by the standards of the world, but a good life? This is a question that goes deeper than “What must we do to be saved?” which we have heard previously, because THAT question is still centered on the self. In our common Christian context, that question often is more accurately translated as “How can I make sure I go to heaven?” And how many of us have noticed how that concern ends up leading AWAY from living a life shaped by God’s love and grace?
There is so much injustice, inequality and grief in the world. On Friday, I attended a prayer vigil at Christ Church Cathedral for the sixth anniversary of the terrible massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT. After the scripture readings and the prayers and litanies, Kathie shared a Facebook post by the father of Ben Wheeler, one of the first-grade children slaughtered in that terrible act of evil, who was one of her parishioners from when she was rector there. It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear this father acknowledge and mourn the realization that, from now on, Ben will have been dead longer than he was alive.
The grief that radiated from this father, grief still as fresh and incomprehensible as it was on the day his little boy was confirmed murdered, was as sharp as a sword’s edge.
And it is in the face of that grief that we also can ask, “What should we do?”
And we know that the answer lies in acting in concrete ways to try to prevent more griefs from being inflicted upon an aching world filled with losses. In the face of injustice, hunger, homelessness, and violence, it is clear that the path of salvation starts with the acknowledgement that we cannot give in to the enormity of the world’s anger, greed, or grief.
Repentance is not just an attitude or decision. Repentance involves ACTION. The fruit of repentance is not assurance of our own personal salvation, but our determination to work for the good of others, to work for the repair of the world from all its human systems that produce inequity, injustice, and oppression. And not tomorrow, either: “even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree.” The time to act is now.
One of my favorite sayings that gets shared on social media is this one that combines a rereading of Micah 6:8, with commentary attributed the Talmud:
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly NOW. Love mercy NOW. Walk humbly NOW. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
We are given life by God to embody God’s love right here, right now. John’s answers to those who come to him for his baptism all make abundantly clear two things: salvation is found now, not after we die. And salvation has more to do with how we treat others than about whether we save our own skins. Eternal life, if it truly is eternal, doesn’t begin after we die. It is truly eternal, just as God’s love and knowledge of each and every one of us exists beyond the limitations time and space, as Psalm 139 reminds us:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord,
you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
… For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
What can we do with the knowledge that we are loved and treasured as much as this?
We turn. We repent. We ACT, especially where previously we have not. And in the turning, we turn away from the death-dealing ways of the world, and instead embrace life. Life for ourselves, and life for others as we ourselves long for. Dedicating ourselves to the turning, to the loving, to the embracing of the life that God has dreamed for each of us as God’s beloveds.
The repentance God continually calls us to is embedded in the famous peace prayer attributed to St. Francis:
where there is hatred, let us turn instead to sow love;
where there is injury, let us turn to forgiveness not just for the sake of those who have wronged us, but for the sake of ourselves, that we can lay down the lead weight of anger and resentment;
where there is doubt, let us welcome that doubt to strengthen our faith;
where there is despair, let us turn instead to seek what strengthens our hope;
where there is darkness, let us determine to be light for those around us;
where there is sadness, let us comfort each other, and offer the gentle gift of companionship and understanding until joy can be rediscovered.
What should we do?
Surely the answer is to live our lives not for ourselves but for others and for God, as Jesus himself modeled in his time on earth. That’s the life we are called to as disciples. And it requires a turning, a repentance of heart and soul that would be impossible—if it were not for our assurance that God empowers us by that same love.
It is love, Love Incarnate, love come down at Christmas and every day and animates our souls if we let it.
Love that brings us to repentance and to embracing the turning.
Love that brings us to everlasting and immediate life.
Love that strengthens.
Love that heals.
Amen.
Preached at the 505 on December 15 and at 8:00 am on December 17 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.
Readings:
The heavens cry out,
"Arise, shine, for the light of God aproaches!"
and we bow before our Creator in joy and wonder--
in gratitude for all the Almighty has done for us.
Most Merciful God,
grant us the grace to see your handiwork
in the smallest grain of sand,
in the mighty vista of Yosemite's Cathedral Rocks,
in the stars swirling to a celestial hymn,
in the star-shaped hand of a newborn babe.
Bring us to cast away the works of darkness,
and seek to turn again in search of wisdom and faith,
that we may prepare ourselves
to welcome
the Prince of Peace within our hearts.
Grant us true repentance
to care for those around us,
to welcome in fellowship all who approach,
to comfort all who mourn or flee,
and embody your love into the world--
the same love that made us
and holds us tenderly forever.
Come, Lord Jesus,
grant us your benediction and blessing,
and place your healing hand
upon those for whom we pray.
Amen.
(Inspired by Psalm 30)
In the midst of struggle and heartbreak, O God,
you abide with us,
and set your kiss upon our hearts.
The Holy One lifts us up
and calls us to strength and courage,
for your faithful love is neverending,
O Savior and Redeemer,
who shares our joy as well as our pain.
You, O Merciful, Life-giving One,
are our sanctuary and our home;
make us true disciples,
aflame with your love
and filled with your Holy Spirit.
May we set out from your altars
rededicated to embodying your peace and justice,
and bearing your light to all corners of the world.
Sealed by your promise of mercy, Lord Christ,
we ask your blessing
as we dedicate ourselves to your Way.
Gather within your embrace
all who call out to you,
and grant your peace to those whom we lift before you.
Amen.
Most Merciful God,
we thank You for your care of us as we have rested:
gather us within your hand and guide us, we pray.
For our hardness of heart
against You
and each other,
we humbly ask your forgiveness and mercy.
Let us sing a new song,
a song of peace,
whose melody is rooted
in the music
our Savior taught us
in all his ways.
Let us shine forth
with the glory of our God,
proclaiming grace through our lives,
O Incarnation of Love Divine.
Let us put healing hands and hearts
toward the divisions that hurt us,
and vow to live and work for the cause of love.
Fill us with the power and beauty of the Holy Spirit,
O Creator God,
and shelter and bless those for whom we pray.
Amen.
All creation worships You, O God,
in the splendor of your majesty.
Holy One,
You sent your Son into the world for our salvation;
make us true disciples of His Way, Truth, and Light.
Christ came to remind us
that the least shall be the greatest;
make us humble servants of those we meet.
Give us courage,
knowing that our confidence is in You:
let our first response always be hope,
not fear.
Lord God, we thank You
for bringing us
through the trials and tests
of these last days,
and rejoice at your providence and love for us.
Guide, guard, and strengthen all those
who turn to You for help or comfort,
covering them with your wing.
Amen.
Fairest Lord Jesus,
we open our hearts before you,
extolling the transformative power
of your love and mercy in our lives.
May we empty ourselves
of all bitterness and rancor,
repent of all exploitation and envy,
and re-member we are your Body in the world.
Work in us your new creation
of justice, healing, and reconciliation,
O Christ,
and make us willing instruments of your peace,
reflecting and embodying
your grace, forgiveness, and mercy.
May we receive with joy
the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit,
and be shaped by our seeking of your truth, O God.
Holy One, You are our shield and our stay:
nourish our spirits
and refine and renew our souls,
refreshed by the Living Water
of the gospel of hope you bring us.
Grounded in compassion,
guided by hope,
inspired by faith,
we ask your blessing, O God:
Earth-maker,
Love Incarnate,
Life-giver.
Grant your comfort and protection
to those whose needs we bring before You.
Amen.
1785
Image: Icon of the Virgen de Guadalupe by Mary Whiting.
Blessed are You,
O Holy One, Blessed Trinity,
our Protector and our Hope.
We give thanks for the day before us,
for your guiding hand upon our heads.
May we prepare the ground of our hearts,
that your Word may flourish within them,
O God of Mercy and Truth,
that we may bear good fruit
that nourishes others in joy and abundant praise.
May we walk in the tender compassion of our God,
and bear the gospel of reconciliation
into all the wounded places we find.
Lord, we put our trust in you:
bless and keep us as your children,
and grant your peace and healing
upon those for whom we pray.
Amen.
Our faith rests in God our Creator
who calls us to walk the pilgrim path
of righteousness and truth.
Teach us to love each other, Lord Christ,
as you have loved us,
without reservation or limit.
Strengthen us to act in faithfulness
and testify to your gospel of peace
through our actions as well as our words.
Place your hand of healing
on those who are weary or worried,
Almighty Savior,
and grant the kiss of your blessing
upon those for whom we pray.
Amen.
One of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump. Besides being one of Tom Hanks’ greatest acting roles, it’s a beautiful story of how a common man—no, a man who might have been considered a throw-away man, due to his intellectual and physical challenges—ends up being involved in extraordinary events in the last half of the 20th century. But more than that, to me, it’s about the power of love, integrity, and loyalty to transform people’s lives. It’s about how love doesn’t insulate us from pain or grief—sometimes love can even lead to pain and grief—but expecting love to do that is having the wrong focus. Love carries us through the times and changes of our lives—even pain and grief.
From the beginning to the end, a small white feather blows through the scenes of Forrest Gump’s life. We could spend days discussing the multiple meanings of that feather, and about all the meanings of this wonderful film, but for now the thing about that feather that resonates with me is its reminder that often little things can be overlooked, and yet they end up being present at so many important things.
Forrest's ability to be present in the moment is a great gift of his. Being present—being alert and awake to what is going on around us right now—I am convinced is one of the great lessons of Advent. In a time when our identity and sense of self-worth is wrapped far too tightly around what we do or who we know, Advent reminds us that simply BEING is perhaps even more important. And Forrest Gump is a great example of that, too. Furthermore, Forrest demonstrates the effect that fidelity—that old fashioned word that means more than simply keeping promises-- have as the bedrock foundation of a person’s life.
The movie shows Forrest, even though he was from humble circumstances and had to overcome a lot of obstacles both physically and mentally, being involved tangentially in a number of the most important events of the last part of the 20th century. He meets Elvis when Elvis was still just a truck driver. He meets presidents. He goes to war in Vietnam. He loves greatly—and loses some of the people he most loves. And yet he perseveres. Just like all of us. The events flash past, seemingly disconnected.
And that reminded me of the characters we have been hearing about in our lectionary the last few weeks—there have been a dizzying array, and many of them seem to not be obviously linked, they’ve whirled by so fast.
We missed out on the story of Ruth when we celebrated St. Martin’s Day, and that’s a shame, because her story is one of my favorites. And then we heard about Hannah, and her longing to have a child was so strong that she promised God to give the baby right back to God’s service if only she could have one and take care of it until it was weaned.
This week, we get the introduction of another character who is important to the overall narrative of scripture. This week we get the arrival of John the Baptist. Like Forrest Gump, though, John could easily have been an insignificant character from an insignificant place. He certainly doesn’t seem positioned to make a big impression on the powerful or the mighty. Far from being a common man, he seems to be downright weird.
He’s a familiar character to most of us, in our mind’s eye: a wild-haired, wild-eyed man dressed in camel’s hair, which had to be pretty itchy, one would imagine, with a belt around his waist, known for eating a diet of grasshoppers and wild honey—which always makes me wonder if he flossed or brushed his teeth because that just sounds like a dental hygiene nightmare, you know? And that’s also my way of distracting myself from the fact that he ate bugs.
From the stories we get about him, he kept to the wilderness near the Jordan river, because the Jordan was necessary for the baptisms he offered to people. His message could be harsh and abrasive—and yet it seems that people flocked to hear him anyway.
But we don’t hear that part of him this week. Instead, we are reminded that John started out as a longed- for baby born to parents who were thought to be too old. And he’s a baby boy whose life will be intertwined with another baby boy born not too long after his own birth.
Our gospel today starts with an illustrious list of names—powerful men who were wealthy, connected, whether they were Romans or of Jewish descent. And into this middle of this "Who’s Who in Ancient Palestine" comes a nobody—John, son of Zechariah—and even the fact that he was Zechariah’s son was improbable, for John had been born to Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth when both were considered to be far too old to be having babies.
And when his father, Zechariah, is told by the archangel Gabriel that there will be a baby boy coming to his wife and himself, Zechariah just can’t believe it. And even though if you know anything about scripture, you know that that is often the reception that angels get when they start announcing improbable births, for some reason Zechariah’s skepticism rubs Gabriel the wrong way, and so Zechariah becomes mute for the duration of his wife’s improbable pregnancy.
Once the baby was born, there was a lot of talk about what his name would be. It seemed like all their neighbors had an opinion. But Gabriel had already told Zechariah to name the baby John, and Zechariah was NOT about to anger Gabriel twice, so he wrote on a tablet that the baby’s name was John, which is what Elizabeth his wife had been saying all along. The second this was made clear, Zechariah’s ability to speak was restored, and he wasted no time in using his restored voice to praise God loudly and fervently.
Just like we heard from Hannah a few weeks ago, in response to her own improbable gift of a son, Zechariah songs a song of praise and justice to the Lord. His song, called the Benedictus to this day, is a song of salvation and jubilation, recounting how God is working in the world at each moment to restore it, to repair it, to sanctify it. It extols the savior God has given us even before that savior is born. And then it predicts that this little baby son he has been blessed to have is going to be the one to prepare the way for that longed-for savior. The gospel further makes this point, naming John as
A voice crying out in the wilderness….
Preparing the way of the Lord, and making his paths straight,
Leveling out any obstacle, whether mountain or valley, that might stand between the Messiah and the broadcasting his message of salvation.
Now, that’s an amazing claim. How does John plan to prepare the way for Jesus to save us?
By calling God’s people to repentance to turning around their focus and priorities, not half-heartedly, but decisively. What the ancient Greeks called metanoia-- a decisive changing not just of the mind but of the heart, so that we experience reality in a different way.
For John’s ministry is meant to prepare us for Jesus’s ministry. They complement each other.
John’s radical pronouncements of condemnation and demand for repentance reminds us that Jesus’s message of reconciliation, healing, and forgiveness doesn’t come cheaply.
Jesus comes to restore creation to its proper beauty and balance, but that same beautiful vision meets resistance from the powers of the world that thrive on oppression, division, fear, and chaos. Reconciliation cannot happen unless we own up to and repent—renounce, even-- all that we have done to harm our relationships with the earth, with each other, and with God. Mercy forgives, but in forgiving, there is inevitably judgment. As the Rev. Becca Stevens says, love heals, but in order to heal love also has to reveal the places where there is woundedness and brokenness.
It is this kind of preparation that Advent calls us to make. Starting inside of ourselves. Making what is crooked straight, setting what is turbulent at peace, and turn our focus so that it rests outside ourselves. Changing our emphasis from doing Christianity to being Christians within the same flesh and bones that God sanctified by sending his Son to be one of us.
Yet that’s what we’re preparing for. Salvation WILL be visible to us, because it is coming in the form of a little, helpless baby, born in the middle of nowhere to parents who are nobodies, too. A little baby who shows us the spark of God inside us all, grounded in love, in promises made and kept, in fidelity, peace, integrity and wholeness—what our Jewish friends call shalom.
The feather blowing through the Bible is this truth: it is from the unexpected places that great prophets, leaders, and teacher arise. It is from the most humble of parents and circumstances that a Savior will be born. We profess him to be God incarnate, in human form and experience, just like you and me, sent to show us how to recover our full humanity, how to BE fully human in celebrating our being made in the image of God.
It’s easy for us to get distracted from that. It’s easy for us to get dragged down by the weight of alienation and fear that fills up so much of our existence today-- fear and isolation that pulls us away from realizing that love is why we are made. Forrest Gump, in all his simplicity, embodies this truth that Jesus teaches us.
Like Forrest Gump’s feather, love is the thread that runs through our lives, and calls us back to valuing being over doing. Of being present in this moment, this time of waiting and preparation, centering ourselves to joyfully proclaim the promises of God being fulfilled in our lives every day, starting in the most unlikely of places.
John helps point the way to the promises of God being fulfilled in our midst, and urges us to prepare ourselves that we can receive our savior with open hearts, cleansed of all that we have acquired that weigh us down.
May we take this time to straighten our path to wholeness, and embrace who we are called to be as fully beloved human beings. May we repent of all that weighs us down and pulls us into fear and sinfulness. May we level the barriers within us that cause us to turn away from the coming light and hope approaching through the Advent Season, so that we may, with full hearts, say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Amen.
The light from on high rises in the East,
and we raise our prayers on high
as we await the coming
of the Prince of Peace.
May we open our ears
to hear the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
and make straight the way of the Lord
in the tracks and paths of our hearts.
May we prepare a place for the newborn Savior
within our understanding,
that we may shine forth with God's grace,
our lives telling forth the gospel
without words.
United in your holy fellowship,
may we serve You
and each other
with steadfast truth, O God.
Holy One,
rest your blessing upon us,
and pour out your Spirit
to kindle your love within us,
as we worship You in gratefulness and joy.
Grant your abundant peace and confort, O Lord,
upon all those for whom we pray.
Amen.
As the Earth is called from her slumber, O God,we hear your call to us: let us sing out our praise to the Most High!
Holy One, we have wandered from your pathsand abused each otherand your love:forgive, Lord, forgive.
Your glory, O God,fills the world in golden dawn,in crimson close,in velvet dark.Astounded by your grace,led by the star of your wisdom,You lead us into a broad green land of plenty.
Give us strength to act for love's sakein all things.May we raise our spirits abovethe clanging noise of fear-filled strivingand embrace your mercy and peace.
May we tend to those in any need,remembering your abundant love that sustains us.Comfort the weary and hurting,the sick and the suffering,Lord Christ,and grant your peace to those we now name.
Amen.
1424
In the name of the Merciful One,
Love drapes over us like a silken garment
trusting in us to wear her proudly
even when raindrops threaten;
so too boldly may we enflesh our faith
to bear healing into the hurting places of the world.
Arise, O Wisdom, and lead us,
that we may embrace new hope
and claim our place as your disciples,
devoted to the light you kindle within us
that we may shine with joy
and banish the shadows that linger.
Let us take the hand of the fearful
and comfort the aching hearts among us,
as our Savior Christ teaches us,
that we may wear his name with justice.
Almighty Creator, bend near;
hear the whispered prayers of your people,
and enfold those for whom we pray
within your steadfast embrace.
Amen.
