Prayer for use during the March against Fossil Fuels: (September 17, 2023) or for any time such as this. Please add your voice to a growing choir of people of faith helping one another transition into a healthier future for all. Use the #nofaithinfossilfuels and record yourself, your congregation/youth group/green team/etc. sharing this prayer and connect with one another to usher your most faithful next step!
Let us now take a moment to give thanks for this beautiful life, confess our species’ greed, and pray for the well-being of the world God so loves…
O God, whose fingerprint is reflected in every leaf and person, you have entrusted us with the resources of Creation
And yet we squander your generous life-giving gift as if there is endless supply.
Transform our stewardship from immediate gratification to generational investment.
You once set a mountain ablaze with your holy presence and set communal justice in motion
Yet now the wilderness is consumed by flames, raining down the ashes of life that was.
Kindle the passionate flame of environmental justice. Raise new life from the scorched earth.
You ask for our prayers to rise as incense in your holy temple
Yet the haze of pollution billows from our overconsumption, choking the lungs of our world.
Inspire the winds of change, so that humanity may sing in harmony with creation.
You give us soil as the renewable canvas for planting a masterpiece of crop and harvest
Yet we strip the skin of earth’s surface to pillage the fuel of fossils below.
Sow the seeds of transformation in the heart of humanity that we may be good soil.
You turned the Nile to blood to curb hearts towards liberation
Yet we turn the veins of the earth red with acid mine drainage and neglect for life.
Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin.
You parted the waters to reveal the dry land, home of plant, animal and human
Yet in a single day we produce islands of plastic that will remain for a thousand years.
Breakdown our dependency on petroleum and reclaim creation for your purpose of life.
You give water as the lifeblood of the earth whose veins flow from the heart of your Kin-dom
Yet we siphon and swallow them dry without concern for those downstream.
Let your justice roll down like a river that our cups may overflow with your compassion.
You created us in your image to share in mutuality and reciprocity with all creation
Yet we distort this good relationship and shatter the reflection of your heart.
Put the shards back together through kinship, so that we may heal from the damage we have inflicted on ourselves and creation.
Inspire in us repentance and encourage our struggle for a just future
As we join you in mending this wounded world and its people
So that the fullness of your Kin-dom dream may become reality for all
Into the ages of the ages.
Amen.
Composed by Rev. Lee Gable & Rev. Inge Williams for Lutherans Restoring Creation