Morning Prayer Friday, 4 September 2020

Good morning, Cornerstone People and welcome to prayers for Friday morning, this first Friday in September.
Have you noticed the turning season this week?
The sun gets up later and goes to bed earlier.
Approaching autumn, the time of change, can be unsettling, even sad.
We inwardly mourn the loss of summer brightness giving in to the threat of winter dark.

Charting a low-risk course through this life isn’t straightforward now and tempers can wear thin.
People misusing a facemask, shoppers wandering amongst the shelves in disregard of distance,
politicians advising caution but urging a return to city bustle.
This morning let’s take a calming breath,
peel off the layers of annoyance and approach the day in patient curiosity.

This is what James says:

Every good and generous action and every perfect gift come from above, from God who created the lights of heaven. With God there is no variation, no play of passing shadows. Of God’s own choice we were brought to birth in the Word of Truth to be a kind of first fruits of creation. Of that you may be certain, my dear friends. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to be angry. For human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

James 1: 17–20

Lord, as we begin a new day of work, whatever and wherever that may be,
help us experience life as it comes, judgement free,
and to live as one of the first-fruits of your creation.

Amen

By now most children will have returned to school.
They will have faced up to new and frightening regimes,
learned the distance of time as well as space on knowledge and friendships.
They’ve come home really tired, fractious, maybe disappointed, perhaps even deflated and less than joyful.

Lord we pray for schools and all they mean to our community.
Bless teachers with energy and pupils with enthusiasm.
Grant them all the patience to manage new ways of listening and learning and coming together.

Amen

This Sunday we can begin to worship as a congregation again, with new rules and in different ways.
The Cornerstone building, at the heart of our city, calls out to be filled with life and not remain an empty shell.
I recall that when the design brief was being written, what could be seen from afar was very important.
Never mind what the building was like, it had to be seen from specific vantage points around Milton Keynes.
If you visit Hazeley and look to the east, for example, you can still see the cross nestled amongst the growing towers.

Peter reminds us that :

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people but now you are the people of God. Once you were outside his mercy but now you are outside no longer.

1 Peter 2: 9–10

Opening Cornerstone on Sunday is an important symbol –
the people of God are alive in the House of God,
People of Faith are still in the heart of the City.

Thank you Lord for the work of those who have prepared the building for worship. May we use the space with care, greet each other with Christian concern and declare to our community that God is in their midst. We go on our way today in the protection of God’s loving kindness.

Amen

Cheryl Montgomery