Heavenly Father, we begin our prayers with the easy things. On this special day, we give thanks for the lives and health and decisions and testimony of Esther, Ben, Edward and Libby and their families. Thank you for their commitment to follow you and for the futures you have planned for them. Thank you for their freedom to make a very public statement of faith and to know that it will not lead to prosecution or danger.
Please bless these four young people as they step towards their futures. Help them to study and work and train and consume and behave in ways that honour and acknowledge you. Help them become mature, responsible, loving and honourable adults who are a blessing to those around them and who contribute generously and wisely to their communities. Help them to choose the college places, careers, friends, partners, tv programmes, lifestyles and homes that will always put them in the right place at the right time, to complete the tasks you have planned for them. And please keep them always secure in the knowledge that they are loved and treasured, as all people are, by the creator of the universe.
Looking at our nation, we thank you for seven decades of relative peace. Thank you for the progress our nation has made since the end of the Second World War: for our National Health Service, allowing access to doctors and hospitals and medicines even for the poorest people; for our state schools, enabling all social classes to read and to calculate and to find out information; for the massive provision of social housing in the sixties, releasing people from slums; for the end of the Troubles in Ireland; for the opportunities British people have had to travel the world in peace and to discover the beauty of other countries and cultures and to welcome some of that beauty and diversity here.
And now, in the midst of great political turmoil and disturbance, we pause. Father God, I hardly know what to ask when feelings are so strong and opinions so bitterly divided, but there are always desires we all share and we beg you for these.
Lord, whatever may happen in Westminster this week, please protect our democracy. From Magna Carta until today, our parliamentary system has been finding a way to balance the power of the crown and the people. Suddenly, we find the Prime Minister and his advisors, stepping outside that balance and trying to make the system work in a different way, and the people are divided about it.
In Parliament, at this time of utter crisis, we pray for clarity, respectful language, honesty and openness. We pray for leaders who show statesmanship, who tell the truth, who promise only what they can genuinely deliver, and who always put their nation ahead of their personal gain, as many have done this week, at great personal cost. We pray for clear and straightforward, honest and realistic answers to questions.
In our media, we pray again for honesty. We pray for transparent reporting, with properly sourced and verified facts. We pray for thorough explanations of the important topics, so that we can make informed responses. We pray for focus on the important issues and not on the childish playground insults that some politicians have indulged in.
And we pray for the electorate. Lord, we hold massively opposing views and many are angry and afraid. People who are angry and afraid do crazy things. Please calm the media and moderate the language of the speech-makers so that we can listen to one another and somehow find a way forward. Please let there not be another murder like that of Jo Cox, or another shooting in a church or synagogue or mosque or school or food bank queue because someone wants a scapegoat.
Father God, in twenty years, when the heat of debate is over and the aftermath of Brexit has played out, may we still have good relationships between different nations; may we have jobs that offer dignity and a living wage; may we have a democratic Parliament; may we have a strong National Health Service, still free for us all at the point of delivery; may we have peace on our streets; may we have schools where teachers and pupils are secure and where learning is valued and behaviour is respectful and calm. And Father, may all our nation’s children be able to go out to a party, or to college or a concert or a demonstration or a march or a football match without fear of riots, or bombs or stabbings or insults. We ask that Britain would be a place in which anyone, whatever their age, their race, their political persuasion, their sexual orientation, their clothing-style or their faith, or their physical or mental capabilities, will be treated with friendship and respect and courtesy.
Finally, Lord, we look out to the wider world. We see the news and it’s hard not to be afraid. We see the rainforests burning, the ice caps melting, the Bahamas and Korea devastated by storms. We see unrest in Hong Kong and in India and Kashmir; we know that many people are not safe in their own homelands and they are risking their lives to escape and then ending up in an inhospitable, hostile, over-crowded refugee camp or detention centre.
Forgive us as a species, Father, for the damage we are inflicting on each other and on our world. Please save our planet. Please bring peace and security across the nations, so that families everywhere can live at home in safety and teach their children to use a pen or a spade or a plough, rather than a gun.
Amen.