One of our Services of Divine Worship in Peoria this week at our Annual Conference (short definition: our region’s denominational yearly business meeting) was A Service of Thanksgiving and Resurrection Hope.
It’s exactly what that title leads you to think it is; we used to call a time like this a Memorial Service.
One of its most significant moments is what the Order of Worship calls the “reading of the names of the known clergy and lay members who have joined the Church Triumphant since last we assembled.” Mercy.
But before that, we pray. I want to share that prayer with you.
Because I find it applicable to other people as well, far beyond this yearly meeting.
You and I have lost people who shaped our lives in ways we might not have even noticed at the time.
I’m thinking of my second grade Sunday School teacher, who taught me about grace and forgiveness without using words.
There was an usher in a large church who welcomed a single mom and her son, learned our names, introduced us to people sitting around us, and as he handed me my own bulletin he shook my ten-year-old hand saying, “Welcome home, Joseph! Our church is glad to have you and your mother with us.”
There are many more I could tell you about. You have them in your life, too.
Join me right now in this prayer —-
God, our Creator, we give you thanks for those who have been leaders for us.
Help us inherit from them that which will make us more fully your people.
Where they had offered us blessings of love, may we incorporate those gifts into our lives.
Where they had struggled, may we learn from them.
May the honor we convey toward those we recognize today reflect the honor we feel toward you.
Amen.
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