Opening Litany, Psalm 49

Pastor: Listen everyone, listen all who live in this world, those powerful and powerless, those with abundance of things and those with abundance of need for I will speak to you words of wisdom and understanding.

Congregation: We will listen to the message you bring to us from oh high.

Pastor: Why should you care when evil seems to invade the world and wickedness surrounds you?

Congregation: We feel lost, empty, abandoned.

Pastor: When you trust in wealth and support only the ways of those with great riches, you support emptiness.

Congregation: We know that no one can redeem the life of another or pay off God for ours or any one else’s salvation.

Pastor: Everyone, those with nothing, those with great wisdom, as well as those with great fortunes live for a while and then they die.

Congregation: all they accumulate means nothing and what they gain is tombs that will remain their houses forever,

Pastor: when we put out trust in God and care for God’s calling, God’s creation, God’s creatures we are remembered as the children of God.

Congregation: But we, despite all we have do not endure it is better therefore that we be remembered for what God did through us than for any striving of our own.