For Proper 8C

OPENING PRAYER

God, we are here.

Here to pray, here to visit, here to re-connect.

God we are here.

Here to be refreshed, here to be challenged, here to be sent out.

God we are here.

In the time that we are here prepare us for the week that is to come, empower us to be people who live Your love.

This we pray in the name and spirit of the one who taught us about Your love and Your way, the one who taught his friends to pray together saying...

  

PRAYER FOR AND ASSURANCE OF GRACE

By their fruits they shall be known...

Apple or orange, healthy or poisonous, tasty or sour.

By their fruits they shall be known...

So what are we? We strive to be the good fruit that builds up the body.

You are what you eat...

Life-Giving God, help us to tend and pay attention to the good fruits around us, to take them in so that they would change and flow through us.

You are what you eat...

Feed us with the fruits of the spirit, and remind us that they are what we need – even when it would be so much more tempting to sneak something that looks so much more tasty.

God is the one who feeds us. God is the one who prepares us for life. God's grace allows us to learn what is wholesome and what is not. God is the gardener, helping us to produce sweet, healthy, fruit.

Thanks be to God who gives us growth. Amen.

COMMISSIONING:

What is the purpose of the fruit tree?

To produce fruit.

What is the purpose of the fruit of the tree?

To feed others, to carry the seed to other places.

You are the fruit of God's Tree of Life!

So we go out to feed others, to carry the seed of God's love into new places where it can grow to full flower.

As you share in this task remember that God who plants, who waters, who gives the growth is with you always.

Thanks be to God the Gardener!