justice

Jesus, remember me

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
​The Thieves Legs Are Broken, James Tissot, Wikimedia Commons
 
Jesus, each of us is both the thief who blasphemes
    and the one who believes.
I have faith, Lord, help my lack of faith.
I am nailed to death, there is nothing I can do
    but cry out: ‘Jesus, remember me
        when you come with your kingdom.’

Jesus, I know nothing, I understand nothing,
    in this horrific world.
But you, you come to me, with open arms,
    with open heart,
    and your presence alone is my paradise.
Ah, remember me
    when you come with your kingdom.

Glory and praise to you, you who welcome
    not the healthy but the sick,
you whose unexpected friend is a criminal
    cut off by the justice of men.
Already you are going down to hell and setting free
    those who cry out to you:
“Remember us, Lord,
    when you come with your kingdom.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, b. 1940, Archbishop of Constantinople
Prayers Encircling the World: An International Anthology
 
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Luke 23:39-43 

One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed,
    “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—
      and us, too, while you’re at it!”
But the other criminal protested, 
    “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? 
     We deserve to die for our crimes, 
    but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” 
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
And Jesus replied, 
    “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

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Question

In what ways are you like both thieves who were crucified alongside Jesus?

blessings of a home

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Motif from a small northern French town, Jules Achille Noël via wikimedia commons
 
O God, bless those who have no homes.
Bless those who have to live away from home
  in lodgings and boarding-houses and hotels.
Bless those who have been left alone,
  and who are solitary now.
Bless those who are searching or waiting for a house.
Specially bless young couples who have to live in furnished rooms,
  or with relatives, and who have never had the chance
  to be alone together and to have a home of their own.
Bless those who keep house for other people,
  and who have no house of their own.
Bless old people who are coming to the end in some institution
  which is very comfortable but which is still not home.
Help us who have the blessing of a good home
  to keep an open heart and an open door
  to those less fortunate than ourselves.
This we ask for your love’s sake. Amen.

from the Audenshaw prayers, UK
A Procession of Prayers

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1 Peter 4:8-10
 
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others,
as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

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Question

What are some ways you can show hospitality 
    to someone less fortunate than you are?

Make us channels of healing and comfort

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
The Potato Eaters, Van Gogh, 1885
 
God of life
God of justice
God of love and mercy
 
God the provider
God our refuge and sustainer
God our comforter
 
Hear the plight of those living in squalid conditions
We present the vulnerabilities of the widows,
orphans, sick, the aged, and unemployed
We present their needs before you
We appeal to you to meet them at their point of need
 
Give them hope and faith in you
Give them courage to soldier on
Give them resilience and tenacity
 
We pray that while the powers that
have tended to ignore their plight
you will be the eyes and ears that see and listen
to their heartfelt needs
 
We pray that you make us the instrument
and the channel of healing and source of comfort;
We appear to you to make us relevant and effective
to those in need.
Amen.
 
complied by Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship in New York City
Liturgies from Below: Praying with People at the End of the World
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Psalm 82:1-4 
 
God has taken his place in the divine council;
    in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly
    and show partiality to the wicked?
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
    maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
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Question

What is one action you can take
   that could become a channel of blessing for a person in need?

remembering the poor

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Feeding the poor, Rudolf Hirth du Frênes via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
​O God, when I have food,

   help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
   help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
   help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
   help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
   help me to destroy my complacency;
   bestir my compassion,
   and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
   those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.

Samuel F. Pugh, 1904 – 2007, Disciples of Christ minister, United States

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2 Corinthians 9:8

And God is able to make all grace abound to you,
   so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times,
   you may abound in every good work.

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Questions


What organization can you support that will allow you 
    to remember the needs of others in a tangible way?
How and when can you offer your support?
 

Give them today their daily bread

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Miracle of the Bread and Fish, Giovanni Lanfranco via Wikimedia Commons
 
Lord, when we say ‘Give us today our daily bread,’
  may we remember our brothers and sisters
  who live below the poverty line
  and pray, ‘Give them today their daily bread.’
Give us the wisdom and courage to challenge the policies and structures
  which make the poor even poorer,
  while we have more than enough.
Grant us such deep compassion that we will not rest
  while surplus food rots in one part of the world,
  and families starve in another;
for your love’s sake.

Sister Margaret Magdalen CSMV,  Anglican nun in England and southern Africa
The Book of a Thousand Prayers

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James 2:15-17  

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,
and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,”
without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
 
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Question

How can you remember to pray more regularly for the poor 
    in your town, your region and the world?

True Enlightenment

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The Apparition of the Messiah, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, via Wikimedia Commons

 
Why can’t I retreat into a mountain
and enjoy the rest of my life, sipping wine,
looking at the moon and making haiku
like the one “enlightened”?

However hard and long I may raise
my insignificant voice of anger,
I know I cannot stop this stream;
but I cannot give up.

Those who attained perfect enlightenment
yell at me from this world and the other,
“Hey! You have been a Christian for a
long time.  How come you are not awakened yet!”

I do not want to attain enlightenment in the Buddhist sense.
My enlightenment is to follow Christ and go into the world.
I do not want to separate myself from the world.
And in the face of mounting injustice and misery,
I would like to live with those suffering people,
because Christ lives with them.

I often get lost, get angry, worry and make cries of protest,
but Christ is with me and soothes me.

Yorifumi Yaguchi, 1932- , Japanese Mennonite poet and pastor
Readings from Mennonite Writings New & Old

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Luke 6:20-22 

Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said,

“God blesses you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
God blesses you who are hungry now,
for you will be satisfied.
God blesses you who weep now,
for in due time you will laugh.

What blessings await you when people hate you 
    and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil
    because you follow the Son of Man.”

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Questions

Who is someone in your neighborhood that could use your help? 
What is the need you can meet?

How excellent is your mercy!

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image via Vecteezy

 
O Lord our God, how excellent is your name in all the World!
Your glorious majesty is excellent, but that brings me nothing;
    your justice is excellent, but that brings me nothing.
It is your mercy that must do me good,
    and therefore your other excellencies I adore,
    but this I invocate.
To invoke your justice, I dare not;
    your glory, I cannot,
    but your mercy, I both dare and can.
 
For why should I not dare, when fear gives me boldness?
How should I not be able when weakness gives me strength?
Why should I not dare, when you invite me to it?
How should I not be able when you draw me to it?
 
Do you invite me, and I shall not come?
Do you draw me, and I shall draw back?
Can there be a patron so powerful as you?
Can there be a beggar so dejected as myself?
 
Whom, then, is it more fit to ask for mercy than you, O God,
    who are the God of mercy?
And for whom is it more fit to ask for mercy than for me
    who am a creature of misery?
 
Richard Baxter, 1615 – 1691, English Puritan
Reformation Commentary on Scripture Psalms 1-72

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Psalm 51:1-2
 
Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
  according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

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Questions

Do you believe that God’s mercies are always available for you?
Do you believe that God’s mercy invites and encourages you 
    to confess your failures to him?
 

fasting to feast

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Hagia Sophia Feeding of the 5000, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
During Lent, let us…

Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ within them.
Fast from an emphasis on difference; feast on the unity of life.
Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of light.
Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.

Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.

Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.
Fast from worry; feast on trust in God’s Care.
Fast from unrelenting pressure; feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from facts that depress; feast on truths that uplift.

Fast from lethargy; feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow; feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that undergirds.

Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal truth.
Fast from discouragements; feast on hope.

William Arthur Ward 1921-1994 Texan Methodist minister
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Isaiah 58:6-10

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.

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Question

What is one worldly area that you can begin fasting from 
    in order to begin feasting in God’s way?

We come to pray for ourselves…

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Photo by Chris Zhang on Unsplash

God of our times, our years, our days.
  You are the God of our work,
        of our rest,
        of our weariness.
Our times are in your hands. We come to you now
    in our strength and in our weakness,
    in our hope and in our despair,
    in our buoyancy and in our disease.
We come to pray for ourselves and for all like us
    who seek and yearn for life anew with you and from you
        and for you.

We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us in our greed
  We are among those who want more,
        more money, more power, more piety, more sex,
        more influence, more doctrine, more notice,
        more members,
        more students, more morality, more learning, more shoes.
  Be for us enough and more than enough,
    for we know about your self-giving generosity.

We pray to you this day; for ourselves and others like us
        in our disconsolation.
  We are not far removed from those without.
        without love. without home, without hope,
        without job, without health care.
  We are close enough to vision those who must
        check discarded butts to see if there is one more puff,
        who must rummage and scavenge for food.
        for their hungers are close to ours.
  Be among us the God who fills the hungry with good things,
        and sends the rich away empty.

We pray to you this day, for ourselves and others like us
    who are genuinely good people,
    who meditate on your Torah day and night.
    who are propelled by and for your best causes.
    who are on the right side of every issue,
    who wear ourselves out in obedience to you,
        and sometimes wear others out with our good intentions.
Be among us ultimate enough
        to make our passions penultimate,
        valid but less than crucial.
 
We are your people. We wait for you to be more visibly
    and palpably our God.
So we pray with our mothers and fathers, ” Come, Lord Jesus.”
We wait for your coming with all the graciousness we can muster.
Amen.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 – 2025,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian 
 
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Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, 
    that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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God’s rescue operation and new creation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by geralt via pixabay

 
Lord, we dream about justice.
We glimpse for a moment, 
    a world at one, a world put to rights, a world where things work out, 
    where societies function fairly and efficiently,
    where we not only know what we ought to do but actually do it.
And then we wake up and come back to reality.
 
…from the very beginning, two thousand years ago,
we the followers of Jesus have always maintained that
 
You took the tears of the world and made them Your own,
    carrying them all the way to Your cruel and unjust death
    to carry out God’s rescue operation,
and that You took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth
    as You rose from the dead and thereby launched God’s new creation.
 
N.T. Wright, 1948-, British New Testament Scholar, retired bishop
 
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: 
The old has gone, the new is here!  
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ 
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 
    that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, 
    not counting people’s sins against them. 
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.