Sunday, January 19, 2014
Offered by Edwin Estevez, Pastoral Resident

God of justice and of mercy, we are sometimes overwhelmed by the world around us. There is hatred, racial injustice, enormous economic inequalities, and discrimination of all kinds. Fear seems to triumph over hope; faith despairs. Racism confronts the human race, distorts its true humanity, pervades its interactions, and poisons its systems. To whom shall we turn? Your prophets have been ignored—prophets like Sojourner Truth and Rosa Parks—or killed, like Martin Luther King Jr. and even your own Son, who called us to a different way of life, to a new humanity, to deeper community. To whom shall we turn?

We turn to you, God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, and pray that the Beloved Community, thy kingdom, come. We pray that in the face of great injustice, like our prison industrial complex, thy kingdom come. We pray that wherever fear or hatred lay siege, like in our politics and protest, thy kingdom come. We pray that in the face of war and rumors of war, like in Syria, Sudan, Mexico, Colombia, Russia, and Ukraine, thy kingdom come. We pray that in the face of families in poverty, children who go hungry, neighbors without adequate access to healthcare, education, and employment, like in our own United States, thy kingdom come. We pray that in the face of cowardice behind the weapons of words and steel, like the gun-filled streets of Chicago, thy kingdom come.

We pray that we might live into the day when we are all dreamers who walk in the dream and thus make it a reality, the dream of one of your prophets, sourced in you—when we could be a people that studies war no more, that justice and harmony would form the basis of our relationships, and that your love would be at the center of it all. All these things we pray as your Son Jesus taught us: Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church