Daily Prayer for Thursday, April 30, 2020

Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning born of the one light Eden saw play!                                                                        —-Eleanor Farjeon, 1931

Preparation for worship
Sit in a relaxed position. Take a slow, deep breath (or 2 or 3 or as many as needed) until you feel your body, mind, and soul begin to relax and rest in the Spirit.  Take time to reflect as you move through this time of worship…


Opening Sentences                                                                   Psalm 98: 1
O sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things.


Prayer                                         based on the Liturgy of St. Mark (2nd century)
O Almighty God, bless your people.
Give us your peace, your help, and your love,
for we are the sheep of your pasture.
Let us be united in your peace--
one in the Body, one in the Spirit,
and one in the hope of your calling,
all through the gift of your endless grace.  Amen.


Hymn of the Day
God Is In the Roses, sung by Roseanne Cash. Okay, it’s not actually a hymn, but it’s a beautifully spiritual song.
Listen and pray. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVsIH2cbM04


Reading of the Day:                                                            Matthew 4: 1-11
4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.


Prayers for self and others
Please pray today for those who are being affected by COVID 19, including Mark Sabala and Marcy Szeliga in their work as nurses, Debbi’s daughter Linda’s neighbors, Star Sims, whose brother-in-law died from the virus after being on a ventilator for over two weeks, and for her sister, their children and their grandchildren, and the family of Lynn Thygessen, Donna Ardell’s cousin, who has died of the virus. Pray especially for people in New York City, which has been hit so hard. As we hear of more friends who are directly affected, or who are working in high risk places, we will list them here.  Use this time to lift your joys, concerns, and hopes to God.


Benediction:
Now go forth in Jesus name,
remembering his new commandment
to love one another,
just as he has loved us. Amen.


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Bonus reading— I read this in a resource that I receive each week-- the Salt Project (www.saltproject.org) and it nourished my soul.  Maybe it will lift you up too.


[I THANK YOU GOD FOR MOST THIS AMAZING]
by e.e. cummings


i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings;and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
+ e e cummings

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e e cummings was the son of a Harvard professor who left the academy to become the ordained minister of South Congregational Church in Boston.  In this poem, cumming’s own theology comes through - influenced by both traditional Christianity and the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson - in a playful, modernist take on an Elizabethan sonnet (fourteen lines, closing couplet, and a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).