If you have any or all of the following: Facebook, a TV, a phone that announces news updates, the newspaper, radio, or friends, you're aware of the racial tragedies that have befallen our country in the past week.
You've felt the tension. You've experienced the hurt and maybe even felt fear.
What was your next move?
Maybe you shut the computer or turned off the radio trying to remain unaffected.
Maybe you chose a side? #blacklivesmatter #bluelivesmatter
Maybe you sat down with a friend of the opposite race and entered into conversation about the future?
Maybe your burdened heart moved you to your knees--to pray for our aching world.
Or maybe you tried to pray, but sat unable to find words. You grew angry, distressed, heartbroken and helpless.
That was me.
At a loss for the next step, I scrolled past the Facebook posts, the rants, the prayers, the photos, and ignored my heavy heart. I told myself I couldn't do anything about it anyway.
Until I picked up my old friend, the Book of Common Prayer.
Simple and short, the prayer for social justice gives life to the aching of my soul. Suddenly I had words to describe what lay behind my groans and weary, fallen head.
It is a prayer for social justice yes, but it speaks more broadly and rightly to the efforts of every side, every opinion, and every race. In praying this prayer we invoke God's power over the divisive strongholds of the Evil One. We pray for the life-giving Spirit to move--so much so that "barriers crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease."
I can only imagine such a place, and yet we can trust that such a kingdom exists.
May we, as a community of faith, as ones who trust in the coming King, fall to our knees and pray for social justice together.
“Prayers for the Social Order
27. For Social Justice
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the
people of this land], that barriers which divide us may
crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our
divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”