Bridges

Pastoral Prayer, 5/15/2015

Broadway Baptist Church

Chris Caldwell, Pastor

  • O God whose arms are strong and loving

    • Help us to see that we cannot embrace a person we cannot reach.

    • We praise you for living out this truth by sending your son across the great divide between things above and things below.

  • We give thanks for a savior who scoffed at the divide between

    • The Rich and the poor

    • The upright and the downcast

  • We give thanks for a savior who humbled himself

    • Who recognized the chasm between the might of God and the misery of people

    • And therefore built a bridge between them

  • We give thanks for a savior who was never content for there to be distance between him and a hurting person

    • Who reached and took the always withdrawn hand of the leper

    • Who demanded that Zacchaeus come down out of his tree

    • Who insisted the children be allowed to come to him

      • So that he could take them in his arms and bless them

      • So that we could see in him your strong and loving arms.

  • O God who builds bridges wherever there are divides

    • Forgive us when we remain at ease on our side of the ravine

    • Open our ears to the quiet roar rising up from turbulent streams of distrust between

      • People who have different bank balances

      • People who have different skin

      • People who speak different languages

      • Yet all who are people created by the same God.

  • Lord, help us to see that we cannot embrace a person we cannot reach

    • And so challenge us to bridge the divide between us

    • Help us to build bridges of care between those without food and people with money to buy it

    • Help us to build bridges of trust between those who have been built up and those who have been beaten up

    • Help us to build bridges of patience between the swift and the slow

    • Help us to build bridges of prayer between those who are well and those who are sick.

 

  • But Lord, we recognize we cannot bridge every chasm or bind every wound

    • And so help us to be faithful in providing the money for others to go in our place

    • Help us to give generously so that members of our church can be the strong and loving arms of Christ in forgotten parts of Louisville, in dirt-poor parts of Kentucky, and wherever else you call us.

  • But grant us also the wisdom of recognizing the limits of what we can do

    • And help us never to underestimate the importance of sending missionaries who give their lives and not merely their vacations to serve others and to share the message of Christ

    • We give thanks that, even as we worship in this place, around this nation and around your world there are missionaries sent in part by the support of our gifts

    • Guide them as they speak a word of grace in a language we will never know

    • Bless them as they carry the love of Christ into communities we will never visit.

    • Encourage them as they bring food into a home we will never enter

    • Strengthen them as they place a blanket across the shoulders of a person we will never meet.

  • Amen