Prayers of the People #

Friends, let us join together in prayer.

Look, friends, see Amos, sheep herder, fig-scratcher, neither son of a prophet nor himself claiming to be a prophet. Did not the Lord of Hosts claim him? Did not God declare through Amos a famine, not of water, not of grain but a famine of God’s own Word, that in those ancient days people would wander here and there for a syllable and, lo, silence. And did not Amos cry out for God, decrying those that sold chaff as wheat, who sat on the Sabbath saying, “When will it end? There is business to be done!” Were not these buying and selling the freedom of the poor, taking up a beggar into slavery for want of the price of a pair of sandals? “Woe! Woe! for the wickedness that abounds and rests atop dead ritual” cried out Amos, cattle-herder, God’s man. God vowed then to sieve the people, separated the wicked out from among the good like pebbles from new wheat. And in a house of ten were not only one left? And if a thousand mounted men rode out for battle did not one hundred walk bake, broken of their pride? And what, oh God, in those days did You yearn for? It was not power, for what power do you not have? It was not glory, for what glory do you not have? It was not fine wine splashed on the undrinking mouth of a statue, nor scent wafting past its unsmelling nose. You, oh God, yearned for communion, for justice that wells up like water from a well, for righteousness that flows like a stream down from the mountains, the communion of person with person, of humanity and God.

Spirit of provocation,
Receive our prayer.

Where then, oh God, is your bound? There is none such. Where, oh God, are the places that You cannot be? And we know that there are none. When, oh God, have You not been? And we know that even time itself You have crafted like a fine thing in Your hands, crafted yet when you flew over the face of the waters. Out of welter and waste you spoke life and there was life and You spoke joy and there was joy and the tulips You clothed and even the merest sparrow lives fully in Your tender concern. See us, oh God, those of us who need such concern now, who are pushed outside this society we have devised or, worse, are hunted by it. See us, oh God, those of us who are ill, even unto death. See us, oh God, those of us who despair, who weep, who lament the new day and lament the day of their birth. See us, oh God, and those who we raise up to you now either aloud or in our hearts.

Spirit of provocation,
Receive our prayer.

Clothed in flesh, born as we are born yet not conceived as we are conceived, You came and lived as we live, trod the earth one step at a time as we trod it. You came eating and You can drinking, speaking goodwill and a of new kind of life intruding in on the old ways of domination, strife, fear, impassivity and cruelty. This new life, this new Way, did You not live it? Did you not teach us to live it with You? Make us peacemakers, oh God, healers, comforters, tenders of Your good earth and tenders of each other. Your work, oh God, we know is not always easy — see, friends, how the prophets shrink from it when called — and we know that it is not always safe. We remember especially this week your saint Medgar Evers who was murdered by a sniper in his home June 12, 1963. Brother Evers did not shrink from the grinding fight against Fascism in Europe nor from the grinding fight against white nationalist fascism here at home. They cut him down for it. Do You not delight in all people who draw in and draw out Your breath? And we profess that it is so. Racial supremacy is an abomination. Friends, as we remember the work Brother Evers did for God raise up for blessing, aloud or in your hearts, those that do now God’s holy work.

Spirit of provocation,
Receive our prayer.

Can a horse race across rocky ground? Can an ox plow the sea? Look, beloveds, can a day dawn without God, friend to us all, smiling on it? This very day is truly the day that the Lord has wrought. Let us be glad and rejoice on it, in communion with one another and with God.

Spirit of provocation,
Receive our prayer.

In the name of the Creator, the Begotten and the Breath of Life we pray,

Amen