Second Sunday after the Epiphany
I Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
I Cor. 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

O holy One, we thank you for your still small voice which has been heard by your people through the ages. We thank you that you continue to call your people and do not leave any generation without its prophets to proclaim you. When you speak to us and call us help us to respond as did Samuel. Lead us through any confusion until we are able to say: “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”

Help us to listen for your guidance and direction in our lives.
Help us to listen for the cries of your children who need some response from us.
Help us to listen to the world around us and to insert our witness and efforts to make our world a better place for all your children.
Help us to listen to those places where there is inequity and injustice and corruption.
Help us to listen for your still, small voice prodding us to grow in ways which we most tend to resist.
Help us to be a listening people so that our faith is not simply a baptizing of our own worldly values and prejudices.
Help us to listen, O God. Give us courage to say: “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”

We pray for your church. Save it from narrowness and judgmentalism and a divisiveness in which any part of it thinks it possesses and owns the truth. Save it from a destructive partisanship which is unbecoming a people of faith. Save any part of it from rejecting others. May our divisions not prevent us from knowing a oneness in Christ. Save us from rancour and bring us a greater sense of unity. May we see the day when there is oneness, love, and community. Amen