Evening Prayer Sunday, 14 June 2020

Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to our prayer time this evening.

Let us pray:

Thank you, loving God,
for the world we live in,
for its beauty and variety.
We thank you that, as our Father,
you provide for us, protect us, and encourage us to take risks,
knowing that you will be there if we stumble or fall.

Help us to appreciate those who support us
and to be courageous and imaginative
in the way that we live and in the things which we do to help others,
especially at this time when direct social contact with others is so restricted

We thank you, too:
For your goodness and the mercy you show to us
when we become conscious of our mistakes
and decide that we want to change.
The knowledge that you forgive us
keeps us going when we feel ashamed
and when we feel discouraged.

We know that we fall short of your expectations,
but sometimes, by confessing those smaller misdeeds
which are obvious to everyone,
we neglect to look more deeply at attitudes and ways
which have become second nature to us since childhood.

Help us to be more alert to your prompting,
to listen to those whose voices have often been drowned out
and teach us to change those habits
which do not reflect the life and attitudes of Jesus.

In the following reading, from St John’s Gospel,
we have a clear example from Jesus
about how he would expect us to relate to all those we meet.
We read:

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”…

²⁷ … his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

John 4: 4–15, 27–29

Depending on our experiences,
some of us will have identified with the Samaritan woman,
others of us know that we are more like his disciples,
in their reaction to the way in which he accepted her.
I have always hoped that I had learnt from this story,
and that my interaction with people from a range of backgrounds
had enabled me to move on from discriminatory attitudes
which had been prevalent in my childhood.
However, listening in recent days to people who experience racism and prejudice
has given me much to ponder on and pray about.

So, let us pray:

Gracious God, we thank you for our childhood experiences.
Whether we felt secure or ill at ease,
whether we were brought up in a Christian home
or came to know you later through other people,
you have brought us to a place
where we can trust in you
and turn to you for support in times of difficulty or distress.
So we bring our gratitude to you
and ask that you will help us to reflect your love and care
to the young people we meet in our daily lives.

Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

We thank you that learning does not stop
when we leave school or full-time education.
Each day, sometimes in unexpected places,
we learn new things,
or achieve a different understanding
of what you have been trying to show us throughout our lives.

Help us to have open ears and eyes to the messages you send to us,
whether it be through the news, through friends,
or by listening to your voice revealed through the Bible
and through our prayer time.
Teach us humility.
We thank you that our church provides us with the chance
to get to know people from such a wide range of backgrounds.
Help us to learn from one another
and allow space for those who have quiet voices
to express the important truths which we need to learn.

Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

We long for the day when we shall be able
to worship you together again in the church which we love.
Until that time, we pray that we may be able to support one another
through our website and on-line group,
by telephone and email
and find ways to reach those who may not have access to these media.

Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

Psalm 130 NIV®

We ask all our prayers in and through the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

Amen