These
are the words of Jesus Christ from John 13:34:
“A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Please
join me in prayer:
Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit:
We
come before you broken. Broken in the knowledge that we are an unclean people
with unclean hearts. Broken in the knowledge that we have not loved others as
you have commanded us to love them. Broken in the knowledge that, as
Christians, we are often known not for reflecting your grace and love, but
rather for our failures to love and to show grace.
Lord,
we believe. We believe that each and every human being—male and female, black
and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, believer and unbeliever—is made in
your image and likeness. We believe that that image and likeness confers a
divinely decreed dignity, worth, and God-given equality to all of us as your children—children
of the Creator of all things.[1]
And
yet we don’t act how we believe. We treat others as “less than.” Our very
nation was built on a legacy of slavery and oppression.[2]
And little has changed—where we once treated people with different colored skin
as worthless tools to be exploited or discarded for our convenience, we do the
same today with the unborn. We ignore the cries of the oppressed, the pleas of
the immigrant, the needs of the poverty-stricken.
And
so, dear Lord, forgive us. Forgive our nation. Forgive us where we have treated
our fellow humans as other, as less than. Forgive us where our words have
damaged the unity we have as human beings. Forgive us where our actions or lack
of actions have caused pain and oppression. Forgive us for tolerating or even
benefiting from racism, abortion, violence, gender inequity, hatred, debasing
language, and untruth.[3]
Help
us to understand even more fully that how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the
naked, the stranger, the sick, the marginalized, the unborn, and the prisoner
is how we treat Christ himself.[4] Help
us as a nation to hear your call to protect and seek justice for those who are
poor and vulnerable, for those who are “oppressed,” “strangers,” “outsiders,”
or otherwise considered “marginal.”[5]
Through
the power of your Holy Spirit, help us reject the resurgence of white
nationalism and racism in our nation on many fronts, including the highest
levels of political leadership. Help us to oppose misogyny and the
mistreatment, violent abuse, sexual harassment, and assault of women that has
been further revealed in our culture and politics. Help us to reject the
language and policies of those, including our political leaders who would
debase and abandon the most vulnerable children of God, including asylum
seekers and the unborn. Help us to stand up against the oppression of any child
of God and to advocate for those being oppressed.[6]
Empower
us to stand up for the truth. Give us the wisdom and power to stand against the
practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life. In
the face of lies that bring darkness, enable us to reflect Jesus as our truth
and our light.[7]
Help
us to encourage civility and the ethic of public service and accountability and
reject the pursuit of personal recognition and political idolatry. And help us
as U.S. citizens and residents who share a love for our country to reject the
heresy of “America First,” and instead to serve our local communities in a way
that recognizes the global connections between all of us.[8]
Enable
us, to understand that true leadership is servanthood, not domination.[9]
Help our nation to be a servant and an example to the rest of the world.
Enable
us to speak up for the oppressed, whether it be the Rohingya people in Burma[10]
and other ethnic minorities in places around the world who are scapegoated and
treated as stateless, as worthless; help us speak up for Muslims in India[11]
and Christians in China[12]
and other religious minorities in places where they are not permitted to
worship. Help us to advocate for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories[13]
and indigenous people in Brazil[14],
or the millions of others who are being driven from their homelands and
livelihoods by unjust governments.
Lord,
take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the
walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our
struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good
time, all nations and peoples may serve you in harmony around your heavenly
throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.[15]
“Father,
we pray that this country will experience an infiltration of Kingdom culture
through brotherly love. The new commandment with which you left us is that we
would love one another and by this people would know we were your disciples.
May we love one another despite our difference and demonstrate this love as
U.S. Americans.”[16]
Bless
our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us
from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every
evil way. Give the spirit of wisdom to those to whom in your Name we entrust the
authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that,
through obedience to your law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations
of the earth.[17]
Lord,
in the next moments of silence, hear our prayers for America to love one
another and prick our consciences in ways that help us live out those prayers…
In
the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of
trouble, do not allow our trust in you to fail.[18]
All this
we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior,
Amen.
[1]
See “Affirmation
I” of “Reclaiming Jesus,” a statement by church leaders calling for
national prayer and fasting during Lent 2019, available at http://reclaimingjesus.org/.
[2]
Wallis, Jim: America’s Original Sin:
Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Grand Rapids, MI:
Brazos Press, 2016. Print. See also “America’s Original Sin: Slavery and the
Legacy of White Supremacy,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2018. Available
at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-12-12/americas-original-sin.
[3]
See “Affirmation III” and “Rejection of Errors III” of “Reclaiming Jesus”
(cited above.)
[4]
Matthew 25:40
[5]
See “Affirmation III” and “Rejection of Errors III” of “Reclaiming Jesus”
(cited above.)
[6]
See “Rejection of Errors I, II, and III” of “Reclaiming Jesus” (cited above.)
[7]
See “Affirmation IV” and “Rejection of Errors IV” of “Reclaiming Jesus” (cited
above.)
[8]
See “Affirmation V and VI” and “Rejection of Errors V and VI” of “Reclaiming
Jesus” (cited above.)
[9]
See “Affirmation V” of “Reclaiming Jesus” (cited above.)
[14]
See, for example, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-indigenous/brazils-indigenous-tribes-protest-bolsonaro-assimilation-plan-idUSKCN1S22B5,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-president-indigenous-lands.html,
and https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3540-Bolsonaro
[15]
Adapted from The Book of Common Prayer,
“Prayer for the Human Family.” Available online at https://www.bcponline.org/Misc/Prayers.html
[16]
Prayer for the Nation, available at https://www.beliefnet.com/ilovejesus/features/prayers-for-the-nation.aspx?p=10.
[17]
Adapted from The Book of Common Prayer,
“Prayer for our Country.” Available online at https://www.bcponline.org/Misc/Prayers.html
[18] Ibid.
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