Prayer of the Week

This week in the Gospel reading from Luke,  Jesus tells a confounding parable of a corrupt owner, a dishonest steward, and some lucky borrowers. Here is the prayer we offered in response to a complicated world and Jesus’ call to examine our loyalty to money and greed in contrast to our loyalty to a different… Read more.

This week we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.  Our scripture for the week, Luke 13:19-17 tells of the bent-over woman who was healed on the Sabbath, causing both liberation for her and fear among those in power.  We hold people of both ilks in our prayers this week, as we pray:… Read more.

This week we shared reflections from the delegation to El Salvador.  They reflected on their experiences in light of the Lord’s Prayer, which we said together in both English and Spanish.  As we pray this week, we pray for people around the world still fighting for basic justice and fair treatment.  — Rev. Rachel God,… Read more.

In the reading for this week, we enter the house of Mary and Martha. One of them is doing the exact right thing in the wrong way, and the other is doing the wrong thing in the right spirit. We find ourselves in both of these situations, seeking to balance competing goods, competing needs. Here… Read more.

In the midst of doing hard things, hard times can come and come heavy. God often works through surprising communities of care in those circumstances and speaks in, through, and around the sound and fury of other, even demonic, voices. Here is the prayer written by Rev. Kent and offered so graciously by worship leader… Read more.

In Sunday’s sermon, I read the comments of Waynel Mayes, a teacher at a Moore, OK, elementary school and niece of Union Church members Al and Alice White. Waynel was interviewed on CNN and wrote these comments at the request of the Governor of Oklahoma. Her words give us all a window on both the… Read more.

We celebrated mothers and our youth this Sunday.  Hamrick Walters, our youth preacher for the week, reminded us of Jesus’ fervent prayer that we all be one, and the many ways in which our unity can be cherished.  Here’s a prayer for this week: Our Mother and Father God, we give thanks for the ways… Read more.

Peter’s vision of all the unclean animals suddenly being placed ‘on the table’ of what God calls “clean,” opens him to visiting the gentile Cornelius. While there, the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and his family just as it had on the Jewish disciples, and Peter asks himself, “who am I to hinder God?” The… Read more.