God.

We know that we are not like each other.

We look different,
we do different things,
we feel different feelings.

We confess that often,
we wish you had made us like someone else.
We confess that often,
we wish you had made other people like us.
And we acknowledge that we just wish that people liked us.
And that we liked them.

It’s harder, the gap between who we are and who others are
when we are in moments of pain and uncertainty.
Fear and sickness make our thinking and feeling hard.
We are not who we want to be.
We react how we wish we didn’t.
We confess.

God, here’s what we ask.
We ask you to help us understand the differences that you created,
the differences that you built into us
to be helpful for each other,
to be challenging to each other,
to learn to be loving of each other.

Help us suffer with those who suffer.
Help us honor those who are being honored.
Help us be a body that cares for itself rather than a body that destroys itself.
Help us proclaim your truth rather than our divisions.
Help us love as you have loved.

Help us know your love.

We ask this of you, God, because Jesus invited us to.

Amen.

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Nehemiah 8:1-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31; Luke 4