litany for health care reform vigil

This candlelight vigil, led by Bishop Jessica Christ, was held during the Churchwide Assembly to invite prayer and reflection on the need for health care reform. You are invited to use all or part of this resource in your own community, shaping prayer petitions around health concerns in your own context, as a vigil or part of a regular worship service.

Health is central to our well being, vital to relationships, and helps us live out our vocations in family, work, and community. Caring for one’s own health is a matter of human necessity and good stewardship. Caring for the health of others expresses both love for our neighbors and responsibility for a just society. As a personal and social responsibility, health care is a shared endeavor.

Health care in the United States, its territories, and Puerto Rico suffers from a prolonged crisis. People unnecessarily endure poor health. Rising health care costs leave a growing number of people without adequate health care. Health care resources often are rationed based on ability to pay rather than need. Finding access to quality health care services is difficult for many. The growing number of elderly people adds another stress on health care resources. Fear and self-interest defeat social justice in the political processes of health care reform.

The stress on individuals and families because of society’s inability to fashion an adequate health care system makes action increasingly urgent. The breadth and complexity of the challenges require serious conversations and bold strategies to establish the shared personal and social responsibilities that make good health possible. The health of each individual depends on the care of others and the commitment of society to provide health care for all.

People: Remembering that responding to those who were sick was integral to the life of and ministry of our Lord, Jesus;

Leader: Guide us Lord as we strive to live out our calling as followers of Jesus Christ to be active participants in fashioning a just and effective health care system that . . .

People: As we strive to live out our calling as followers of Jesus Christ to be active participants in fashioning a just and effective health care system

Bishop: The steadfast love of God, the life of Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Bishop: Almighty God, You know all our desires—we can’t hide our secrets from You. Stir the Holy Spirit in us to clean our hearts and minds so we can love You perfectly.

Leader: “If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves…On the other hand, if we admit our sins…God will forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.”[2] Gracious and giving God, You created us as whole persons—each one with a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit.

People: But because of our sinful nature, we often turn in on ourselves and away from God and neighbor. We frequently become unfaithful stewards of our health, tending at times to disregard it and at other times to idolize it.

Leader: Oh God, You give us the ability and resources to form social systems and relationships that enable us to be better stewards of our health, and to use the gifts You have given us to care for and promote the health of our neighbors.

People: But we allow sin to corrupt those systems and relationships that we use them to harm ourselves and to profit unjustly from the pain and health care needs of our neighbors. We see that sin at work in the environmental damage, poverty, social isolation, discrimination, oppression, and violence that degrade health and the relationships necessary to support it.

Gracious God, we plead for forgiveness for these sins. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, give us the power to turn away from our sinful ways and guide us to faithful stewardship of Your creation.

Bishop: God is kind and merciful. God gave God’s son to die for us. As a called and ordained minister of the church of Christ, I hereby declare to you that your sins are forgiven; in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Leader: That powerful sense of forgiveness reminds us that God calls us to reconcile our differences and to forgive one another. We believe that such reconciliation and forgiveness frees us for being in deeper fellowship with our sisters and brothers in Christ and helps us to engage in the work God has called us to do. Through that deeper fellowship we are able to reconcile with all of creation. Forgiven and reconciled children of God, greet one another as new creations in Christ Jesus.

Leader: Let’s join together in stating our faith in the words of the Apostle’s Creed

We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

Reader: ¹⁵We look for peace, but find no good, for a time of healing, but there is terror instead. ¹⁶The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who live in it. ¹⁷See, I am letting snakes loose among you, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the Lord. ¹⁸My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. ¹⁹Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”) ²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” ²¹For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. ²²Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

Bishop: The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 5^th Chapter. ¹⁸Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; ¹⁹but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. ²⁰When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

Bishop: Let us pray . . . Good and Gracious God, each of us has responsibility to be a good steward of his or her own health out of thankfulness for the gift of life and in order to serve God and the neighbor.

People: As individuals to take effective steps to promote our own health and prevent illness and disease.

Bishop: You call us to do justice and give us the opportunity in this country to speak openly and freely with elected officials for the purpose of effecting meaningful public policies that reflect the values You have instilled in us.

People: To be effective and faithful stewards of our citizenship by promoting health care systems that have the explicit purpose of promoting and improving the health of all people; reducing the impact and burden of illness, injury, and disability; and promoting healing, even when cure is not possible.

Bishop: At the center of our Lutheran ethics is the love (agape) shown us by You through Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us that we may have life and have it more abundantly. We hear what Scripture asks of us: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

Leader: Empower us, O God, to respond to Your call to do justice by calling...

People: on our governmental leaders to pass health care reform laws that provide access to quality health care services for all people;

People: These obligations of love and justice require sacrifice, goodwill, fairness, and an abiding commitment to place personal and social responsibilities of love and justice above narrower individual, institutional, and political self-interests.

Bishop: Our worship leaders and I are going to lead you in prayer, remembering people who are in desperate need of health care reform. With each petition, we will light a candle. We will then invite you to come forward to light your candles from one of the candles we have lit. You can then return to your seats. After a brief silence, we will sing our closing hymn after which you can extinguish your candles. I will then offer a closing blessing.

O gracious and glorious God, we now lift up candles and light them in remembrance of all of those known and unknown to us but all known to You who are in need of Your healing touch. As we light these candles, help us to envision the faces of those on whose behalf You call us to action, and to remember them in our prayers . . .

We remember and pray for Nan in Nebraska who faces bankruptcy because her health insurance didn’t sufficiently cover the costs of her hip replacement surgery. Lord in Your mercy,

Leader: We remember and pray for the Native American people in Montana who are dying because their health care plan doesn’t pay for treatment for sleep apnea. Lord in Your mercy,

Leader: We remember and pray for Janet whose husband goes without health care insurance because the premiums for her insurance are so high after her treatment for breast cancer. Lord in Your mercy,

Leader: We remember and pray for Sally who battled for over a year before her health care insurer agreed to pay for her liver transplant. Lord in Your mercy,

Leader: We remember and pray for Virgil and Ruth in California, who, despite good health, pay over $25,000 in health care premiums a year because they are over 60, but not yet eligible for Medicare.

Leader: We remember and pray for Marissa, a single mother of four, who is losing her Medicaid coverage because she is going back to work, but whose new employer does not provide health care insurance for her. Lord in Your mercy,

Leader: We remember and pray for all those people who are self-employed and unable to find affordable health care coverage. Lord in Your mercy,

Leader: We remember and pray for the family of Tina in Ohio who died along with her unborn baby because the clinic she went to for help refused to treat her unless she would pay $100 per visit because she couldn’t afford health care coverage. Lord in Your mercy,

Bishop: We remember and pray for the myriad of others who are struggling with health issues, the lack of access to quality affordable health care. Lord in Your mercy,

Bishop: Into Your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in Your mercy and grace through our Lord Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to pray . . .

For Yours is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Bishop: God bless you and keep you. God make God’s face to shine on you and be gracious to you. God look upon you with favor and give you peace.

[2]1 John 1:3 (The Message, Eugene Peterson)