Written for Seventeenth Sunday of Pentecost, Year C
Note: There’s an invitation for all to say the line in bold.
The prompt is always “Amma”.
Abba
You are our mother and our father
And we try to believe you love us
Abba, Amma,
Remind us we are not alone
Abba
We don’t always seem to fit in
Maybe we’re told our gender is wrong
Or maybe we’re told our sexuality is wrong
Maybe we’re told we’re just weird
And we end up feeling isolated and alone
Abba
Remind us that you made our world
Full of the outlandish and the strange
And the different and the downright odd
And all that diversity is so much part of the world’s beauty,
As we are too.
Abba
Remind us we are not the only ones.
Amma
Remind us we are not alone.
Abba
So often we get separated from the ones we love
Sometimes they have to move somewhere else, a long long way away
Sometimes they are close to us in body
But because we’re cross with them
And they are cross with us
We are separated in anger.
Sometimes they die and leave us all alone
Forlorn in this world and crying
Abba
Remind us this love lives on inside us now and always will.
Amma
Remind us we are not alone.
Abba
The web of life seems to be so damaged
So broken by human folly, by hatred and by greed,
We don’t know who to turn to or what to do.
We feel so helpless.
But we keep trying, somehow,
We keep trying to build a better world.
And sometimes it feels like we’re the only one
That no-one supports us and nobody helps us
And we have to do it all ourselves.
Abba
Remind us there are millions of us everywhere trying to make peace and justice
Abba
Remind us you are always with us
Here in the throbbing heart of life.
Amma
Remind us we are not alone.
Abba
This world teaches us we really are alone
Frightened individuals in a hostile world
All engaged in a fierce ruthless struggle to better ourselves.
Abba
When you walked this earth
You told us we must try to love each other and love God.
And that was only yesterday
Or maybe today
And we didn’t really notice
And then immediately forgot.
Abba
Our memories are so short.
You are our mother and our father too
Remind us that the more we love each other
The more we love you
And the more we love you
The more we love each other.
Abba
Let’s keep trying to remember
Abba
Don’t let us ever forget
Amma
Remind us we are not alone.
Amen
