God of the crowded ways of life, you walk among the press of streets and the ache of need, and you sent your Son not to be served, but to serve. To welcome all of us, but especially the small and often overlooked. Teach us, as your people, what it means to be human: to open our hands and our doors, trusting that in welcoming others, we welcome you.
For the world you so love, crowded with sorrow and conflict:
for nations at war, for leaders who hold great power, for places torn by disaster and unrest — send your welcome into the world’s most broken places, and make us bearers of Your peace wherever we are sent.
For your Church around the world, and for this congregation gathered here: make us a people of open tables, who welcome the prophet and the ordinary stranger alike, who teach our leaders and remind one another what it means to receive and to be received. Where the Church has grown busy or guarded, soften us. Where we have welcomed well, strengthen us.
For this city and the ways of life that cross here — for those who govern, those who teach, those who serve, those we pass without seeing — give us eyes to recognize your face in our neighbors, and the courage to offer even a cup of cold water in your name.
For the sick and the suffering, the poor and the oppressed, the lonely and the overlooked, the imprisoned, for all who feel unwelcome, unseen, or unhoused in body or spirit —
remind them, and remind us, that whoever receives the least of these receives you, and that none who come to you will lose their reward.
Holy God, in a world of crowded ways and busy days, make us a people who welcome as we have been welcomed by You.
We pray all these things in the name of the one who taught us to pray, saying,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
Amen.