Here are worship materials for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10 Year B.
Call to Worship Psalm 23 Adapted
One: The Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want.
All: He makes us lie down in green pastures;
One: he leads us beside still waters;
All: he restores our souls.
One: He leads us in right paths for his name’s sake.
All: Even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil;
One: for God is with us; his rod and staff— they are a comfort to us.
All: The Lord prepares a table before us even in the presence of enemies;
One: God anoints us with oil;
All: our cups overflow.
One: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives.
All: And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
One: So it shall be as it is now in our greeting one another,
“The peace of the Lord be with you.”
All: And also with you.
Prayer of Invocation (in unison)
Shepherd God, lead us, and bless us with wisdom to follow in what’s true. Guide us and teach us that we might be discerning amidst our vulnerability and our need.
We live in a world that prizes leadership, but there comes also this insistence that we are as sheep and that you mean for us your tender care. We live in a world noisy with leaders who deceive and mislead, who would exploit our being as sheep in need of tender care.
Forgive us our balking at our need to be led; forgive us also our willingness so often to be misled. Forgive us our arrogance that we must always be in charge, our foolishness that to follow is to be weak and worthy of mocking, though while also going along with any who flatter or make promises easily known to be false.
Grant instead that we should be wise in deciding whom to follow and what efforts to join up with that your reign in the world might grow. Grant that we should seek not to be flattered but to be faithful to your way that, though not always easy, yet abounds with life.
We pray this in hope of the one who comes to us saying, “Follow me,” Jesus Christ, who leads tenderly and fiercely, that the world won’t have its way with us but that you will have your way with the world, filling to fullness of your grace and goodness, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.
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