Lord, our baptismal covenant calls us to strive for justice and peace, and you know how costly that work can be. Bless those called to the holy work of justice – of protest and public policy, of advocacy and organizing, of reconciliation and listening. Send them partners to help shoulder the burdens, so that justice may grow and spread from the heart of community. Sustain them when they are weary. Inspire them when their hearts can no longer imagine your Kingdom because they see a world that doesn’t seem to want your justice. Help them to know that when they are speaking for those whom the world has silenced, they are speaking for you. That when they stand up for those whom the world has cast aside, they are standing up for you. That when they advocate for health care, or to heal your creation, they are binding up your wounds. And finally, help them to know that although they may never see the fruits of their labor, their acts of love ripple through time, and will one day be heard as the sound of justice rolling down like waters. Amen.
Credit: Rev. Gini Gerbasi
God, as our world is on fire, we are desperate for a healing justice unshackled from any industrial complex. Empower us to build new relationships that are intersectional, embodied, and equitable. Strengthen us to also practice the way of healing ourselves as we strive to lead movements for justice, for it is only then that we can be the healing of our collective wounds. Amen.
Credit: Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, PhD
Almighty God
God of both Cain and Abel
God the wandering tent dweller
Of Hagar, Leah and Tamar
God of the enslaved,
God of the oppressed,
God, who sends prophets, priests, poets, philosophers and friends to console, council and commune with us
God of the refugee and sex-worker, of the rebel and the murderous adulterer, David
God who longs for justice to flow like rivers and righteousness like a never-ending stream
Take the ordinary offering of our impoverished dreams
Transform and redeem the poverty of our imagination
Give life to our limitations, caused by our own greed
Give quenching hope to the relentless lust for false comfort
Satisfy us only with your love, justice and peace -
With your very self...until
We dream your dreams and share in the work
of making your dreams come true for all creation
Amen
Credit: Rev. René August