In the Beauty of Holiness, We Seek Your Face, Lord: Worship Resource for Epiphany 7A

Call to Worship for Epiphany 7A

by LaGretta Bjorn

One: We gather in this place to worship God.

Many: In the beauty of holiness, we seek your face, Lord.

One: Help us to remember that we cannot receive all that you offer to us if our hearts are filled with thoughts and feelings that are not from you.

Many: So, take away self-righteousness, remove criticism, scrape away every wrong thought, every resentment, and everything that separates us from one another because these things also separate us from you.

One: Give us clean hearts, so that we can be used by you.

Many: Fix us, Jesus, we have come today to be made worthy of your goals for our lives.

(Suggestion: Follow this Call to Worship with "Fix Me, Jesus," #122 in Songs of Zion)

In Pursuit of Perfection: A Prayer for the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
(Based on Leviticus 19:2 and Matthew 5:48)

by Safiyah Fosua

God,
We have always known that we are not perfect
and often use that knowledge
as a cushion to dull the impact of mistakes we willingly make.
But, here, we see Jesus calling us to perfection,
and the Old Testament Law calling us to holiness -- like you.

God,
teach us
what it means to be holy, and what it means to pursue perfection
so that day-by-day we might come to resemble the children of the Most High
you have called us to be.
Amen.