A Congregational Prayer, March 2, 2008
Offered by Pastor Doug Scalise
Dear God, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with you sounds so simple yet we struggle so to do these three things. We don’t always want justice, in fact, we don’t want to think what a just world might look like if the needs of all the people in the world were considered and taken into account compared to our abundance and our use of the world’s resources. We don’t want to think about justice because it might mean we have to wrestle with who we are as a society that 1 out of every 100 Americans is behind bars in jail or prison. We don’t want to do justice because we might have to deal with the fact that the law works in very different ways for the rich and famous and for the poor and unknown.
God of justice, even if it makes us uncomfortable, we pray that you would give us your concern for justice for all your people, whoever they are and regardless of the circumstances in which they live. Give us a heart for the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the forgotten.
God of steadfast and unfailing love, fill us with your kindness. The world is so harsh and unforgiving and if we are not careful its sharp edges, shrill opinions, and screaming talking heads will erode our kindness, compassion, decency, good manners and virtue and pull us down into the whirlpool of anger, bitterness, and resentment in which so many people are drowning.
Merciful God we pray you would pour out your kindness upon us and those on our hearts and minds:
We pray for Pastor Mary as she serves at the base this weekend,
we pray for Pastor Kevin, our students and leaders who are at Snow Camp in NH,
we pray for all the Boy Scouts and their leaders who are at Winter trek in VT.
We pray for the men and women of the United States who are serving our country in distant lands and difficult circumstances. We pray for those who have been wounded in body, mind, and spirit by what they have experienced. We pray for those who lost their lives and for their grieving families.
We pray for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan who have also lost loved ones and for all people in every land who live in fear and hardship each day. God we pray for all those who live in this world who need an outpouring of kindness.
Finally Mighty God, we pray for the ability to walk humbly with you.
We often find this even harder than striving for justice or being kind.
We are so set in our ways, so opinionated, so inflexible and unforgiving, so convinced we are right and so sure others are wrong, misguided, or misinformed that humility has no chance to take root or to grow in our hearts, minds or spirits to gentle our condition.
Forgive us Lord for being indifferent to justice, callous about kindness, and arrogant when it comes to walking humbly with you.
Inspire us by the example of the prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus and all the saints to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you our God.
As your children, we thank you that we can call upon your name with gratitude and humility because you alone are worthy to be praised and we ask that the mind of Christ our Savior would live in all of us and shine through all of us day by day impacting all we do and say. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
