A reading from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians.

Are you not aware that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If you destroy God’s temple, God will destroy you.  For the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple.  Do not delude yourself if any one of you thinks you are wise in a worldly way, you had better become a fool.  In that way you will really be wise, for the wisdom of this world is absurdity with God.  Scripture says, “God knows how empty are the thoughts of the wise,” and again, “God is not convinced by the arguments of the wise.”  So there is nothing to boast about in anything human, whether it be Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future: all these are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

The Word of God recorded in the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians.

ALL: May we be Merciful, patient, gracious and trusting with all others whom You love.

Great God, who has told us
Vengeance is mine,
save us from ourselves,
save us from the vengeance in our hearts
and the acid in our souls.

All: May we be merciful, patient, gracious, and trusting with all others whom You love.

Save us from our desire to hurt as we have been hurt,
to punish as we have been punished,
to terrorize as we have been terrorized.

All: May we be merciful, patient, gracious, and trusting with all others whom You love.

Give us the strength it takes
to listen rather than to judge,
to trust rather than to fear,
to try again and again
to make peace even when peace eludes us.

All: May we be merciful, patient, gracious, and trusting with all others whom You love.

We ask, O God, for the grace
to be our best selves.
We ask for the vision
to be builders of the human community
rather than its destroyers.

All: May we be merciful, patient, gracious, and trusting with all others whom You love.

We ask for the humility as a people
to understand the fears and hopes of other peoples.
We ask for the love it takes
to bequeath to the children of the world to become
more than the failures of our own making.
We ask for the heart it takes
to care for all the peoples
of the world
as well as for ourselves.

All: May we be merciful, patient, gracious, and trusting with all others whom You love.

Give us the depth of soul, O God,
to constrain our might,
to resist the
temptations of power,
to refuse to attack the attackable,
to understand
that vengeance begets violence,
and to bring peace — not war — wherever we go.

All: May we be merciful, patient, gracious and trusting with all others whom You love. This we ask through, Jesus, the one without vengeance in His heart.

This we ask forever and ever, AMEN.