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As we approach the fourth anniversary of the events popularly known by the date: 9-11, we do well to reflect on where the world has travelled since then. It is not a pretty picture, these early years of the twenty-first century. I have written the following prayer for use in our worship on this coming Sunday. I hope you find it helpful.
Creator and Redeemer God,
This new millennium is already flooded with visions of a broken world,
Torn apart by winds and rain,
By war and famine,
By towers brought down with technology of global freedom,
By greed and our disregard for creation.
We feel as secure as a caravan in the path of a hurricane,
Unable to hold on, caught up in its power, dragged along in its currents, our strength ebbing away.
The path of salvation and hope seems beyond our grasp and strength.
Who can stand against such forces?
Whose wisdom is sufficient for such crises?
We have seen the Twin Towers fall, witnessed the ravaging of Afghanistan and Iraq, wept with families tortured with grief in the wake of bombings in Indonesia, Iraq, London and Spain. We have barely noticed the devastation in Darfur. We wonder what hope means in a world where violence escalates and the word and work of peace is shouted down.
And we witness the power of nature’s might turned against its inhabitants. Tsunami and hurricane, drought and famine all wreak devastating power.
We cry, we weep, we despair.
O Lord hear us.
We move from one tragedy to the next, unable to sustain our grief, or cope with the longer-term implications of such anguish.
O Lord who wept over Jerusalem, we gain insight into your pain, and we cannot bear it.
What sustains your love and grace in the midst of such agony?
Pour out your Spirit upon us in this moment, not to assuage our guilt, or numb our pain, but to stir us to acts of justice and mercy, to renew our fading strength and commitment to long-term care.
Through this pain, birth in your people a sustainable future, an everlasting image of justice, mercy and peace.
Revitalise our efforts at partnership with your creation. May our recycling and reduced demand for fossil fuels be seeds of hope and renewal. Give us strength to stand the tide which threatens to overwhelm us.
And deliver us from greed and selfishness which both stifles our generosity and fuels this crisis.
Let not the symbols of our freedom continue to be the force turned against us for destruction. Let these planes fly to new ground: a ground of hope and of a new beginning for all peoples.
Catalyse our pain and anguish into a new movement of your spirit for a new hope, that we might live and believe the words which Jesus taught us to pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
By the miracle of grace, let this prayer be incarnate in us today.
Through the One whose incarnation brings life and hope through cross and resurrection we pray.
Amen.
Posted by gary at September 9, 2005 04:24 PM
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