Gracious God, we have come to this service by many different roads – in more sense than one. For each of us part of the journey has been along a private road; each of us is ignorant of what the others have been through; and so we cannot help arriving here to a large extent alone.
Yet we meet in one building at one time. May this help us to remember how much we have in common. For whatever the details our our routed, we breathe the same air, drink the same water; we touch the same earth, see and hear the same shapes and sounds. We make our way through the same world of feelings – of regret and delight, heartache and buoyancy, jealousy and gratitude.
And in all this we are travelling through your world. It is this which most deeply unites us. So it is fitting that our paths should cross here in your house. For here we can offer you one worship as one people, through our one mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- Adapted from More Contemporary Prayers, ed. Caryl Micklem, 1970.