A Prayer of Thanksgiving for God's Abundance
A Prayer for Workers
Calls to Worship
Prayers of Confession
Hymns for Labor Sunday
Reflections and Sermon Seeds

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for God's Abundance

Loving and generous God, you are the font of every blessing, the source of all we have. Your breath gives us life, your love gives us courage and strength, healing and compassion. You care for us like a loving parent and feed our spirits, our minds, and our bodies. We thank you for your abundance given freely to all.

But God, forgive us for wanting more, even when we have more than we need.  Create in us new hearts to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. Help us to know that our abundance is for others’ needs. Great Teacher, write your law on our hearts: God’s abundance is enough for all if we share.

A Prayer for Workers

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Loving, Working God,

On this Sunday we ask your special blessing on all people who labor, either for pay or as volunteers, in jobs or at school, in the workplace or at home, in the U.S. and around the world.

We especially pray for your blessings on workers who do not have jobs and for those whose inadequate pay does not allow them to live the full life you intend for each of us.

Creator God, help us to build a new world in the midst of the old.

A world where all workers are valued.

A world where those who clean houses are also able to buy houses to live in.

A world where those who grow food can also afford to eat their fill.

We pray for the coming of a world where all workers everywhere share in the abundance that you have given us.

We ask these things knowing that you give us the courage and strength to live out our faith in the workplace and the marketplace, as well as in the sanctuary.

Amen.

Calls to Worship 

Call to Worship #1
For one voice or unison voices:
Worker God, whose hands built the earth, molded our bodies, and sowed the stars across the sky, we gather in your presence this morning with praise and thanksgiving for your mighty deeds. Meet us here, Worker God; strengthen our hearts and our hands to work with you in the building of justice and peace. 

Call to Worship #2

For reading responsively: 

One Voice:    Our God is an awesome God who breathed into emptiness and created all that is.

Many Voices: With love and care, God shaped the world in all its diversity – with mountains and valleys, rivers and deserts, and people of all colors and sizes.

One Voice:     And threading through it all are beautiful dreams of justice, compassion, liberation, and peace.

Many Voices:  O God, creator of our past, our present, and our future, we thank you for the many blessings you bestow on us each moment.

One Voice:     Be with us now. Draw near to us as we draw near to you.

Many Voices:  Lead us in paths of righteousness. Fill our hearts with compassion and a thirst for justice. Teach us to be co-creators, with You, of a world where all belong and share in the abundance you have given us.  

All:                Praise be to God.

Call to Worship #3
One:  God of Life,
All: you are as near to us as our breath.
One: Touch our eyes,
All: that we may see you in one another.
One: Open our ears,
All: that we may hear your voice in the cries of the oppressed.
One: Enter our hearts,
All: that we may be filled with your love toward all people.
One: Come, O God of life and breath and wholeness.
All: Be with us now. Show us the way to new life and grant us the courage to be people of your Way.

Prayers of Confession

Prayer of Confession #1  (note: some of this language parallels that of the Prayer for Workers, above)

Call to Confession
On this Labor Day Sunday let us, in a special way, lift up all people who labor, either for pay or as volunteers, in jobs or at school, at home or in the workplace, in the U.S. and around the world.

Unison Prayer of Confession
We are workers, God, just like you. But we confess that our work is not always done in a manner that affirms and honors each other. Our work is not always done in a spirit that is pleasing to you. We confess that, on some occasions, we have blindly bought goods made by people who are paid too little or work in unsafe conditions. We admit that we have failed to end an unjust system in which some workers have jobs that provide good wages and benefits while other may have no job, or one that pays little and provides few benefits. 

Creator God, help us to be your people, working for a world where all workers are valued. A world where those who clean houses are also able to buy houses to live in. A world where those who grow food can also afford to eat their fill. And one where those who serve us -- in stores, schools, hotels, restaurants, nursing homes, and many other places -- are also served by us. It will be a world where all workers everywhere share in the abundance that you have given us.

Words of Assurance
Our God is a God of grace and transformation. When we ask, God gives us the courage and strength to live out our faith in the workplace and the marketplace, as well as in the sanctuary.

Prayer of Confession #2

Creator God, you made us to be neighbors, members of one family blessed with great diversity. You created us to be helpers and friends to one another, entrusting to us your justice and your joy. Yet we have denied justice and joy to many, creating worlds of poverty, pain, lost opportunities, and absence of hope. In so many ways, we break each other’s hearts. Still, you do not reject us. We ask your forgiveness and pray to be transformed.

Brief period of silence

Loving God, you restore us to each other and to you, mending our hearts and repairing the world. Through the Spirit, you shape us to be for others what Christ is for us: pardon and peace, new life and blessing. We give you thanks for your love, forgiveness, and constant presence. Amen.

Hymns for Labor Sunday
Page numbers refer to the New Century Hymnal

O Grant Us, God, a Little Space #516
Come Labor On # 532
Take My Gifts #562
When Israel Was in Egypt Land #572
In Egypt Under Pharaoh #574
O for a World #575
Let Justice Flow Like Streams #588
Spirit of Jesus, If I Love My Neighbor #590
We Would be Building # 607