40C*
A Call to Worship
Trinity Sunday Year C 2010
Psalm 8

O Lord our God, your majesty is beyond all knowledge
and your powers cannot be described in any language!
God, we worship and bow down before you in awe—
quite speechless before the majesty of your creation.


O Lord our Lord, infants and children in their simplicity
have a clearer, less cluttered understanding of God
than we do, as educated - even sophisticated adults.
We worship God, and bow down before you in awe-
quite overwhelmed by the generosity of your love.


O Lord our Lord, the range of your creation - its magnificence,
textures, colours and sheer beauty – all defies our imagination.
We come in worship before God, and bow down in thankfulness,
as we praise God for these revelations of God’s own self. Amen.



Prayers of Praise and Exaltation
Trinity Sunday Year C 2010
Psalm 8

O Lord our God, with joy and thanksgiving we come before you,
the Belovèd Known, who is also the Awe-Inspiring Unknown.
We gather together to celebrate all that we know of God—
known through creation; known through the great patriarchs
and matriarchs of the past; known through the leaders and
prophets of your ancient people; known through God’s inter-action
with our own forebears; and today - known to each of us individually.

The Psalmists of old struggled with their understanding of who and
what God is. In our prayers today, we give thanks for the gradual
revelations of God, through the centuries of ever-increasing faith
in that Known and Unknown God. Even with the eventual gift of
God’s greatest Revelation, we need to continue on our journey of
seeking to know God in our personal day-to-day living and in our
relationships; and in our own understanding as a belovèd child of God.

As we pray, we reflect on the immense majesty of God’s creation
in comparison to our own insignificance, and we marvel that God is
even concerned with our welfare or with our daily lives! When we
see the wonders of the night sky - that gives us an overwhelming
sense our minute contribution to the life and activities of this planet;
and of the irrelevance of any of our input into that shared global life.

We give thanks that on our journey home to our Father God, that
each day we see examples of the work of God’s fingers in the wonder
of creation; in the daily renewal of life; and in the ongoing lives of people
as they live out God’s promises all of which enrich our faith in God,
and in God’s love for humanity and for the world that God created.

We give thanks that God has honoured humanity as being the greatest
of all God’s creations. We acknowledge that God has given humanity
the powers and intellect to manage the care and oversight of this created
world - in all its diversity. But we have been irresponsible in the way we
have carried out these God-given tasks; and instead, we have neglected,
abused, plundered and polluted the pristine beauty of God’s creation.

O Lord, our Lord, the God whom is Known, and the greater Unknown
whom we also call God - we worship and bow down before you in praise
of your handiworks; for the mystery and majesty of our God; and for the
possibilities of an intimate relationship with you, that you gifted to us all. Amen.


A Personal Meditation
Trinity Sunday Year C 2010
Psalm 8

O Lord, my God, in awe and amazement I look around me,
to see the many signs of your handiworks - the work of your fingers—
and there is no suitable language available to describe the sheer
extravagance of your creation that I can see, hear, touch, smell or
taste. Little children can better express my thoughts with their limited
language capacities! Babes in arms have a more expressive way of
saying: ‘Thank you, that is good’ than I have with all my dictionaries,
thesaurus, other expert sources, or from my complex word processor!

Creative pause: In speechless awe, I praise God.


When I look up, down or sideways - in whatever direction I look—
I see wonder after wonder in creation; when I am carefully listening,
or only hearing background sounds – there is beauty in every sound.
When I smell the roses in the garden; the fresh bread baking nearby;
or the smell of rain on dry ground, God’s creative diversity is being spelt out.

Creative pause: I wonder at the diversity of creation.


When I touch the fragile beauty of a small flower or pat the dog;
when I feel the crusty bark of trees or the crispness of green leaves;
each of these contrasting experiences show me the many variations
there are in creation in its many formations and styles. And finally—
the tastes and blessings of my daily food to renew and strengthen me.

Creative pause: The gift of my senses enlivens my faith.


O Lord, our Lord, I am just a speck on the horizon in comparison to my
Creating God - that belovèd Known God of unnumbered generations;
and that Awe-Inspiring Unknown God, whom I seek to know and whom
I revere and honour in my daily faith pilgrimage towards my home in God.
However, in God’s eyes, they are as nothing compared to the way God
is expressed through the creation of human beings, with their extraordinarily
complex minds and bodies with their ability to reason, and to learn and teach.

Creative pause: I am seeking to better know the Unknown God.


God the Creator’s ultimate gift to humanity is the ability to love! We are
even gifted to mirror something of God’s great capacity to love and
forgive, and then to forgive again. O Lord my God, your majesty and
mystery overwhelms and astounds me; your glory dazzles me; but these
are as nothing in comparison to God’s capacity to love, the foundation
of all that God is, all that God was, and all that God will be into infinity.

Creative pause: You have blessed me with the gift of love.



Acknowledgements:
Unless stated otherwise, all Bible readings and extracts used in these weekly Prayers and Meditations are from
‘The New Revised Standard Version’ Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

*The additional weekly numbering is from the Revised COCU Indexing Scheme
COCU = ('Consultation on Church Union'); as it offers an easy sequential numbering
for the Revised Common Lectionary for the Church Calendar.

If any part of these Prayers and/or Meditations is used in shared worship, please provide
the following acknowledgement:
© 2010 Joan Stott – ‘The Timeless Psalms’ RCL Psalms Year C. Used with permission.

jstott@netspace.net.au

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