Loving and gracious God,

We thank you that Jesus taught us to pray "Forgive us our debts as we forgive given our debtors". Lord, we often see this essentially in spiritual terms, but Jesus came to transform all of life. He lived and taught in a peasant economy where debt was a matter of life and death. We live in a capitalist economy where debt is the very structure of life. We pray that you would help us to live out this prayer and to be able to forgive our debtors even as we are aware of our own indebtedness and pray for forgiveness.

We pray, Lord, that you would be with us in the whole area of financial debt. Where we have entrusted our assets to others who have diminished or lost them, we pray that you would give us a spirit of forgiveness, acceptance and grace

We thank you Lord for all those who've worked tirelessly in recent years to remit the debts of the poor countries, that some of the crippling structures of debt in this world have been overcome. We thank you for all those who have laboured to build structures of accessible and responsible credit for people in the Third World, those who have built micro-finance systems that lift from people the burdens of usury.

We pray for those in our own community who are crippled by indebtedness, for those we know who have not had the skill to use credit, those whom misfortune and bad luck has driven into debt.

We pray for people who work with the indebted, for financial counsellors and advisors. We pay for our own indebtedness when it comes to money, a source of anxiety and concern for many one of us. We pray you would give us a spirit of liberation, that where we have difficulties we might find people with whom we can share our concerns and that as a supportive community we might be able to help one another with wise advice, reassurance and spiritual nurture.

We pray for our moral and our spiritual debts. We thank you that the gospel is a message of freedom and forgiveness. We pray that you would help us to be attentive to the ledger, to square away our debts. Where we have failed someone may we ask forgiveness and where people have failed us may we freely offer that forgiveness.

We pray that you would make us more aware of our subtle debts - the debts that the rich owe to the poor, the debts that the colonists owe to the colonized, the debts that those who protect their assets behind veils of law owe to those who are defenseless and vulnerable.

We pray that you would help us in the management of our ecological debts. We are becoming aware of how much we are indebted to nature. We are acutely aware that we may leave some of our debts to the future - the debts of pollution, the damage that is done to our world. Make as aware, Lord, of inter-generational justice that just as we will want to leave financial assets to the next generation, may we not leave them ecological debts.

Finally Lord, we acknowledge that all that we have and all that we are come from you. Not just the things that we own but the very people that we are is a debt that we owe to you. Life and health are a gift. We pray for those who are ill amongst us, especially today remembering those who have particular needs in before you in silence……