Taken form Called to Restore the Fabric of Human Community by Dorothy McRae-McMahon. A worship guide supporting campaigning for the Global Week of Action on trade in April 2005.
THE CREATION GROANS
The lament and confession
One side of the congregation can become Voice 1 (representing the poor people of the world) and the other half become Voice 2 (representing the rich).
Otherwise two individuals could be used.
Leader: As we come together across the world
and stand before the Holy God,
the voices of the people rise in lament and confession:
Voice 1: We weep, O God, for the lives of our people. We toil day and night and still our children go hungry. We sow the fields, planting your seeds of abundance and bringing in the gifts of your harvest. But this is torn from our hands and all that is left are the crumbs from tables of the rich. The gap grows wider and wider as we die from lack of health care and fall back in life without education and freedom.
Voice 2: We bow our heads in shame, O God, for our tables groan with plenty. Our only questions are about which good thing to eat, and how much is too much. We puzzle over what more we can choose to add to our clothes, our homes and our style of living. As we hear the cries of the suffering people in the distance, we know that we have betrayed your dream. We have failed to live in your just community.
A silence is kept
Leader: Lord have mercy.
All: Christ have mercy.
Voice 1: Why have you deserted us, O God? We cry for help and you do not listen? The whole creation groans in pain with us as we wait for the children of God to emerge. Save us and help us, O Christ. Call to your children, O God.
Voice 2: O Christ, for whom each one is precious, as we look at our daily world, we know all too well that it is built on the exploitation of others. We hardly dare to see what it costs them. We turn our faces away from their weeping, always waiting for another day, another time, another political leader to act for us in the bringing in of your justice.
A silence is kept
Leader: Lord have mercy.
All: Christ have mercy.
Leader: O God, in grief, we cover your dream for creation
with this purple cloth –
the color of preparing, of waiting and of longing
for the life of Christ to be seen among us.
The seeds and fruit on the end of the green cloth are covered with a purple cloth.
Hear our prayers, O God.
All: Hold in the hollow of your hand those who cry out to you.
Forgive those who come to you in grieving confession
and bring us all to your abundant life, we pray, O God.
Amen.