21st Century Africana Worship Resources for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A

Invocation
(Psalm 86:1-10)
Our Lord and Our God, we call on you this day asking you to be present with us
and to visit us in this our time of trouble.

Lord, we are poor and needy materially.
For many of us, there is more month at the end of the money,
than money at the end of the month.
Many of us are living from paycheck to paycheck.
Lord, we call upon you right now to help us and guide us.

Lord, we are poor and needy spiritually.
We have cheated you of the time you desire from us.
We have turned away from having a healthy, intimate relationship with you.
Our prayer lives, meditation lives, study lives, giving lives, have given way to
the demands that the world, the job, and the creature comforts of life have made of us.
Lord, we ask you to be with us this day.

Lord, we call upon the power of your Holy Ghost,
To comfort us in our time of trial
To guard us in our great hour of weakness
To have mercy on us in our many moments of anguish.

Lord, would you bring us joy today?
Would you lift our souls from sorrow?
There is none like you, O Lord.
And so we beseech you to hear our prayer.

We invite you to come and be present with us.
We look to you for answers.
We trust you in the time of trouble.
We acknowledge your greatness.
We await your mercies and give you thanks even before they come. Amen.

Corporate Confessional Prayer
Genesis 21:8-21 God, we gather ourselves before you this morning as the family of faith,
in need of your grace in rebuilding and repairing our broken families.

Lord, we confess:
That we have contributed to family dissension and division,
family despair and disappointment…
(Silence)

That, we have fathered and mothered children
by women and men other than our own spouses…
(Silence)

That, we have allowed jealousy to destroy and disintegrate relationships…
(Silence)

That, we have dismissed family members,
intending to never see them or speak to them again…
(Silence)

Lord, we have banished family members to unknown places…
where their cries could only be heard by you… (Silence)

Forgive us, God, we pray.
Use us today to be agents of reconciliation.
Use us today to provide for loved ones when and where we can.
Grant us the faith to know that where we have failed,
you are more than able to make things right.

Please, O God, bless the family members we have banished,
and move in our hearts so that me may love them unconditionally,
as you so generously and unconditionally love us.

In the name of Jesus, the Christ, who makes this all quite possible, Amen.

Opening Sentences
(Romans 6:1b-11)
Just as you are no longer a slave in society, you are no longer a slave to sin.
Just as your ancestors were emancipated years ago, you've been freed to live with Christ.
You are dead to sin and alive in Christ. So be free indeed.

Prayer for Illumination at the time of the Sermon
(Matthew 10:24-25)
Lord, as we prepare to receive your Word, help us, like students, to humble ourselves before you, our Teacher.
Help us to surrender our hearts to you, so that we might take this Word and live by it as you, our Teacher and Master, have so graciously showed us.
In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

About the Author: The Rev. Joseph W. Daniels, Jr. is the Senior Pastor of Emory United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C.