For April 22, 2018, Easter 4 -- Saul/Paul on the Damascus Road

OPENING PRAYER

God of Resurrection, in this Easter season,

we gather for worship, to celebrate the promise of New Life.

As we sing and pray and listen this morning,

open our eyes and ears and hearts to your Word

transform us, and then send us out to help transform the world.

We pray in the name of the Risen Christ, as we share the words he taught his friends so many years ago...

PRAYER FOR AND ASSURANCE OF GRACE

God you continue to invite us to see the new thing you are doing

but if we are honest, we don’t always do new things well.

In the Risen Christ, in the mystery of Easter, you transform the world,

but transformation may be uncomfortable, and so we sometimes work against it,

even persecuting those who proclaim the new thing

But still God you persist in the new thing, you call the loudest critics,

revealing the promise of New Life, opening their eyes to what is possible.

God who is doing a new thing, when we are unwilling to follow the new path,

open our eyes and hearts, move us beyond protection of old understandings, lead us to see where you are pointing.

God of Grace,

forgive our stubbornness and unwillingness to change,

forgive our willingness to strike back against the new simply because it is not what we have always done,

forgive our periodic blindness to what you are doing in our midst

God is doing a New Thing to share the old message of Love. Where we resist, God is patient and coaxing. God forgives us and calls us to try again. God opens our eyes to see what God is up to.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

COMMISSIONING:

God meets us on the road of life.

Sometimes in a still small voice, sometimes with a flash of light.

God calls us to go from those meetings and share the Good News of Christ.

We go to the world where we live and serve and carry the Love of Christ

Go now, secure in the knowledge that you are held in God’s Loving arms wherever the road may take you

Thanks be to God! Hallelujah!