Prayer 4.2.23 (Palm Sunday)
Parading God,
On this Palm Sunday we thank you for coming to us,
despite us.
We thank you for entering the city that day,
and entering our lives again and again.
We thank you, God, for reminders -
for donkeys and palm branches and strange words -
reminders that the world you desire
looks different than this.
So God we pray that you continue to come close here,
for we need to see you,
we need to be reminded of your promise again.
Hosanna we pray - Save us we pray.
So holy God,
we pray to you tonight - Save us.
Save us from our nation’s love of violence,
violence woven into our story from the beginning,
violence we refuse to confess,
violence we perpetuate, at our own expense.
Save us from numbness -
from the screens meant to distract,
and the drugs meant to quiet,
and the hopelessness perpetuated
by those who need us to stop feeling.
Save us from the feeling of overwhelm,
from believing we are too small,
from thinking what we have -
our own palm branches - aren’t enough.
Hosanna we pray - Save us we pray.
Holy God,
we pray to you tonight - Save us.
Save us from the fury we feel
at the ordering of the world around us.
Save us from exhausting ourselves
with worry that is warranted.
Save us from discouragement,
from the futility of despair.
Save us from the cycles of anxious thinking.
Save us, God,
from the natural responses that grip us
every time violence reveals our fragility.
Hosanna we pray - Save us we pray.
Holy God,
we pray to you tonight - Save us.
Save us, very really, from the violence that abounds.
Save our students and our teachers
from the trauma of active shooter drills.
Save our children from the fear of real things.
Save us from the guns.
Save us from the guns.
Save us, God, from all the guns.
Hosanna we pray - Save us we pray.
Holy God,
we pray to you tonight - save us,
because we know you can,
because we know you do.
Let us hold tight to that promise as we journey this holy week.
For this is the week you reveal the weakness of violence.
This is the week you tell us how the story ends.
This is the week you show us just how far your love will go.
This is the part
where your love comes so close,
nothing can ever pull us away.
Don’t let us forget, God,
and squeeze us close, as we journey all that is hard and holy here.
Hosanna we pray - Save us we pray.
So God we pray,
with the words of the one who would stop at nothing to save us -
Our Father…
