As we are in appointment-making season, Bishop Shelton has encouraged all of us to pray for the Cabinet, clergy and their families, and congregations. We will be sharing prayers over the next few weeks and encourage you to share them with your church.
Read the next prayer in the series written by Rev. Seyun Hwang.
God of Hagar and Ruth,
And God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
You, O God, are the Liberator of all,
in whom “us” and “them” are loved alike,
the named and the unnamed are heard alike.
May the church bear the image of the God of all,
with all that we have,
with all that we are.
In this season of new appointments,
we pray for the church—
may it be a living and holy embodiment of Your boundless grace.
Through the authority given to the Bishop and Cabinet,
shed light upon our true nature as Your inclusive body,
expose the biases that lurk unseen,
and address the exclusions we may have silently upheld.
God on the margins,
who took the form of a Nazarene,
who walked with strangers,
who dined with the outcast,
peel our eyes to see how You center the de-centered
through the body of Christ, as You did outside the city gate.
Remind us of who You are and, therefore, who we are.
Lead us not to choose ease over uncomfortable truth.
Awaken us from our complacency and ignorance,
where the margins become a distant memory,
where we hear, “You are no longer an ‘outsider,’”
where we become privileged behind the curtain
that divides “us” from “them.”
O God, we lay our hearts bare before You—
our pride and our prejudices,
our achievements and our failures,
our peace and our conflict.
In Your presence, reveal our pretense.
In our pursuit of diversity and inclusivity,
let it not be a mere worldly trend,
but a faithful commitment,
embraced by all and forgotten by none.
Forgive us when we see oblivion as mere a blessing,
while the act of remembering injustice is undermined
by the sweeping chant of “don’t look back” in haste.
Lead us to courageously look back and honestly lament,
so that we may move forward with all that we are.
Forgive us for the times
when we confused peace-keeping with peace-making,
when we favored uniformity over unity,
when we claimed to be inclusive
but failed to embody it when it mattered most.
In failing others, we have also failed You.
As revealed on the day of Pentecost,
let our differences no longer be accidental but essential to us,
let our diversity no longer be a barrier but a bridge,
for making disciples for the transformation of the world.
As we step into this season of change,
give us truth to confront delusion.
give us courage to face unfounded fears.
give us hope to welcome the future.
And send us out into the world,
where Jesus is, where the divine action unfolds,
that we may serve the lives entrusted to us,
with Your love as our guide,
Your justice, our road to travel.
With our trust in the name of El Roi,
the God who sees, and in the name of Jesus Christ,
the Lord our God, we boldly pray. Amen.
Image: Unsplash / Claudio Schwarz