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
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.
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
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.
“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?
Lord, when I think that my heart is overflowing with love and realize in a moment’s honesty that it is only myself that I love in the loved one. Deliver me from myself.
Lord, when I think I have given all that I have to give and realize in a moment’s honesty that it is I who am the recipient, Deliver me from myself.
Lord, when I have convinced myself that I am poor and realize in a moment’s honesty that I am rich in pride and envy, Delivery me from myself.
And, Lord, when the Kingdom of Heaven merges deceptively with the kingdoms of this world, Let nothing satisfy me but God.
Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord; may your love and faithfulness always protect me. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me. Be pleased to save me, Lord; come quickly, Lord, to help me.
Thank you, Scandalous God, For giving yourself to the world, Not in the powerful and extraordinary, But in weakness and the familiar: In a baby; in bread and wine.
Thank you For offering, at journey’s end, a new beginning; For setting, in the poverty of a stable, The richest jewel of your love; For revealing, in a particular place, Your light for all nations.
Thank you For bringing us to Bethlehem, House of Bread, Where the empty are filled, And the filled are emptied; Where the poor find riches, And the rich recognize their poverty; Where all who kneel and hold out their hands Are unstintingly fed.
Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? _______________________________
Why do you think God chose the insignificant town of Bethlehem to be the birthplace of his only begotten son? How does the humble beginning of the Son of God relate to your own story?
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
prayer & verse 
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