But our dilemma is that as a community at worship we have so many different views.  You know that.  So how do we pray as a community? 

 Even as individuals it feels wrong to pray that our candidate will win as if our prayer could cause you to determine who will be the next president or representative or judge.  If anything seems clear in our world, O God, it is that you have left those decisions in our hands.  And maybe that’s why it’s a frightening prospect, for so often we don’t get it right—even when life and death are at stake.

 What do you require of us, O God?  Surely, that we act justly, that we love kindness, that we walk humbly with you.  We know the words, but do we know the way?  That’s our problem—figuring out the way.  So what can we pray for?   Enlightened minds in the face of so many complications? O God, we do pray for that!   For tender hearts in the midst of suffering that has national scope?  O God, we do pray for such hearts!  For faith that, despite the way things often appear, goodness is at the heart of reality, that you are at the heart of reality.  O God, we do pray for that! 

 For by faith we believe that the future is open, that the future is your gift to us.  Help us to seize it and to live it “finely aware and richly responsible.”  May the enlightenment, the tenderness and the faith we pray for guide us as individuals and as a nation in a time of great decision.

 In the spirit of Christ whom we adore, Christ who is our model, in the spirit of Christ who redeems all the messes we make and gives us our future, we make our prayer.

Amen