Confession

Generous God

Generous God,
your bounty has created a world,
peopled its lands,
filled its lakes and clad its mountains,
placed before us bread to share
and water to refresh.
Yet it has not been enough for us.
We have made sure that we will not go without,
cramming our barns and our larders,
enslaving those who provide for us,
taking the food from others' mouths.
Yet you love us,
because we are your children,
wayward though we can be.
Pick us up, set us right,
restore us to relationship with each other

Merciful God

Merciful God,
before we can know your renewing grace,
we seek your forgiveness.
We are sorry for the times someone stretched out a hand
and we pretended not to notice;
for the times someone wasn't beautiful to us
and we looked away;
for the times truth was on our tongues
and we swallowed it instead of speaking it;
for the times love was in our hearts
and we were too embarrassed to express it;
for the times we were prey to fears
and we didn’t' trust you with them;
for the times a stranger asked us for something