23rd March 2024
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105
You Lord, are the source of all good things:
We praise you.
You call us to tend and care for your creation:
May we strive to do your will.
You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:
May we live together in peace.
A reading from Deuteronomy 10:12-13
So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.
People who walk as refugees
struggling under burdens too heavy to unpack,
want only a safe future.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
People who walk the lonely streets
wrapped in a dirt-worn sleeping bag,
want only a bed to call home.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
People who walk across parched fields
at a pace which hunger dictates,
want only a square meal each day.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
People who walk gingerly around unexplored ordinances
ducking out of the sniper’s range,
want only a foundation for peace.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
People who walk the chicane
of benefits offices and job centres, of interviews and rejections,
want only life-fulfilling employment.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
People who walk as massed processions
bearing placards that express their hopes and fears,
want only justice and democracy.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
People who walk the corridors of power
enveloped in self importance and blinkered by nepotism,
need – surely? – only to walk the streets of lived experience.
Merciful God, show us your pathways of love.
A further reading from Matthew 21:7-11
They brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’
Merciful God, lead us in the right paths.
Amen.
The Green Tau 