Prayers of the People #

Friends, let us gather together in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, our shelter, Who sees into our hearts¹ and teaches them the straight and narrow path², we raise up our prayers now to You in common as You have instructed, in the sure knowledge that where we are gathered so too are You present among us.

Spirit of Provocation,
Receive our prayer.

We bless Your holy name, oh Lord, finding peace in the sure understanding that if You are for us then none can truly be against us³. And, indeed, who can stand against You, Lord of Hosts, who set the Earth in its track about the sun, slipping it from the billion year groove for a single day in Joshuas' time, setting it neatly back again⁴? We profess, Lord, that Your word has not come to us idly and as You are for us then we must be for You and if we are for You then we must be for others⁵. Your words, we confess, glide past, heard so often from our childhood into a repetition that, once made, circles in our minds but neglects our hearts. It is a promise of peace that You are for us, yes, but it is an unsetting peace, a participatory peace, a peace not of safety but service. Guide us, Lord, into Your manner, into Your burden, for it is lite once hefted and good to take up⁶.

Spirit of Provocation,
Receive our prayer.

Lord, for two centuries our industrial society, our great pride, has sowed into the wind. We have made for ourselves great wealth, the common of the rich nations living now greater lives of luxury than all but Solomon at his height. And have we, here, sowed? Yes, some more and some less, none a full measure, but yes. This is the time now of the reaping the whirlwind, seeing with our own eyes what two centuries of work has wrought: the poor will be cast further down, the rich further up and the prosperity of these days will prove hollow. Sap, oh Lord, the mourning from us, strengthen us to yearn for not what was but what will be, a time when all will be fed and housed from the weather and none will be rich but none will be poor and the way will be straight to Your holy mountain⁷.

Spirit of Provocation,
Receive our prayer.

Who have You cast aside? Who have You laid low, turning away Your face, setting Yourself against a one who can have no defense from you? None! You say None!⁸ and we profess it! Who are there among us, this band of bold sinners all, about which You say “these I take, but these I leave”. No one! We are Your children all, made in Your image, our lungs fill and our lungs empty with the breath You breathed in at the nostrils of Adam⁹. We differ in our ways and in our appearance but there, at the base of us, is You. Yet do we not hear tongue waggling, setting flames in the world¹⁰, saying “hate the sin but love the sinner”. We are beset by Job’s chorus¹¹! How long will our cheeks be wet with tears, weary from this rhetoric of supremacy and fear and shame, oh Lord? Teach us patience, as we thirst and hunger for righteousness. Open our hearts and our doors that we might find ourselves in common with all that draw in and draw out Your breath. Slip from our minds the ambition for a Cheap Grace, as Brother Bonhoeffer taught, and set us to live aflame by Your Costly Grace¹².

Spirit of Provocation,
Receive our prayer.

We mourn, Lord, for those that have gone on before us. We profess the Life Eternal and know that we will see all who lived again on some future day, resurrected, perhaps in a moment and perhaps when the stars themselves are cinders¹³. Those that have died, we know, will not be as they were, as we will not be. But You understand our mourning, don’t You? You have lived as we live now: our lives are brief and our view is clouded and we see this span of years we travel as the totality of things. You have lived and You have raised the dead, healed with a mere word, with the smallest touch of your cloak. Dry bones could leap refleshed with song on their lips if You wished it¹⁴! Dry our tears, oh Lord, for they have been our bread for too long¹⁵. Lord, there are those among us who are ill now even unto death, those among us who are afflicted with pain that will not pass in this life. We now ask for your intercession, for their healing if You will it or their comfort, naming the afflicted now aloud or in our hearts.

Spirit of Provocation,
Receive our prayer.

You invite us, Lord, to Your table, to break bread with one another and with You. Jacob wrestled the night through with You and You blessed him, renewing Your covenant¹⁶. Job spoke to You in anger, questioning Your justice, crying out that he could find none to preside[^preside] between You and him; his friends cast him down with their words. But it was Job that spoke well and his friends poorly and You praised Job, declaring him righteous and blameless. You, Lord, are the great demolisher of walls, the great usurper of what is for what will be. What is it that we are called to, Lord? We know You by many names and by many works. We live in common in imitation of You and we each are drawn to one kind of work or another, some safe in our current age and some not. We confess that the Church is Your body upon the Earth and that only You and Your Church will endure. Take our hands Lord and guide their work to Your glory as our hands are able. Bless us in our work as we bless those among us that work for You now, especially those that work at risk to themselves. Please, friends, raise up aloud or in your hearts the names of those that work for the Lord.

Spirit of Provocation,
Receive our prayer.

You have promised to lead the blind on paths that they do not know and we confess that we cannot see. You have said that You will take the rough ground – which we have tore up and troubled – and smooth it into a level plain. The darkness that we cultivate You have sworn to fling to lightness¹⁷. We fall back and trust in idols and cry out to these unhearing ones¹⁸ but it is You who hear and You who are and You who do. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord¹⁹, we sing, and blessed is the Lord who comes to us²⁰, tends to us, a shepherd for the flock. Our souls have found shelter under your roof beams and You have set your son out to Sodom’s lot in our stead²¹. Living God, we live in the sure knowledge that You are here among us now, that Your ears hear what we say and what we cannot say, that You hear our prayers before we can speak them²².

In the holy name of Jesus the Christ, who lived and died and lived again for our sake, we pray,

Amen

Concluding Introduction #

Written in Portland, Oregon of a Saturday morning. I had travelled there for a conference and felt very blue, as I often do in Portland. I flowered into adulthood in Portland, doing my undergrad at Portland State, and I love the city. I was in love there, had many friends there, learned my trade. Ultimately, it was my trade that took me away; I had to leave Portland behind to pursue my career. Portland has changed while I’ve been gone, as I have changed. When I am back – and I never go back long – it has the feeling of home, or of a home that could have been. I grieve there in Portland, as I’m sure I would now grieve for Berkeley were I forced to leave this place I left to. But, so far, here in Berkeley I have kept bread in my stomach and a roof over my head.

The prayer’s root I wrote Friday evening in a restaraunt where I learned both what an Old Fashioned is and that I should not drink so many in a row as I did on my introductory night. I wrote, “Oh Lord, sap the melancholy and mourning from me.”