My church hosted a community-wide prayer meeting. I was asked to deliver the prayer for the least of these. Here’s what I prayed:
God, our Father, we thank you that you are also Adonai Jireh, our provider. We thank you that you have been so good to us, that portion of your people who live in America. We thank you for our seemingly limitless resources, for safety as we go about our daily lives, and for a government that lets us follow you as you command. We thank you for all of these blessings and many more, and we pause to acknowledge that you and you alone are worthy of our love and allegiance.
But we cannot think on our blessings without recalling also those times when we’ve not been so blessed. We remember Egypt. We remember when we came there as immigrants. We also remember when Egypt made us to work as slaves. We remember how your mighty hand led us out from that place of slavery, and how you took us into the wilderness, where we learned that every good and perfect gift comes from you, that you are our source of all things – of security, of shelter, of food and drink. We remember how you led us into our Promised Land, and how you continued to provide for us even there.
We remember these things now, Adonai Jireh, God our Provider, because we must confess that we have often forgotten them. And so as we recount the ways in which you have blessed us, let us remember those in our community and in our world who do not experience the blessings you’ve given us. Let us remember that many around the world still groan under slavery to the power of Sin and Death; we remember that we must teach them how they may be free. Let us remember the poor among us: the homeless, the drug addict, the drug dealer, those trapped in generational cycles of poverty. Remind us that they do not have to earn our compassion or our mercy, just as we did not – indeed could not – earn yours. Let us not give with a spirit of patronage and paternalism, but with a spirit of love, of identification and gratitude. For we believe you when you tell us that by sharing with them, we are sharing with you. Thank you for allowing us to bless you, even as you have blessed us.
Let us remember the strangers among us, too. We remember when we were strangers in Egypt, and we recognize that, as your children, we are all strangers in this world. We confess that we have not shown the hospitality you’ve commanded to those among us whom we perceive to be different. We’ve sought to legislate against the immigrant because he doesn’t look like us. We have mocked the immigrant because she doesn’t sound like us. We have ignored that today, more of your most precious creations, those created in your image are in slavery than at any time in history, and many of them are children. Teach us to love the stranger among us even as you loved us when we were strangers to you.
We thank you for those among us who are involved in caring for the needy in our midst. We ask that you bless Morningstar Counseling, who provides affordable mental health for our community. We remember the Shepherd’s Basket and Central Missouri Food Bank, who share such basic necessities with the families of our community. Bless Open Arms, who ministers to women who are struggling to birth and raise the next generation. Bless Loaves & Fishes and the St. Francis House, who work to redeem the homeless our city ignores. Bless the Intersection and Urban Empowerment, who are committed to reach that part of town many of us fear and most of us pretend doesn’t exist. Teach all of us how to work alongside our brothers and sisters in these ministries. Give us eyes to see how we can get involved with them, and to see how we can love those our society has deemed unlovable.
Finally, teach us to be generous. We live in a world where over 2 billion persons live on less than $1 per day. Teach us to see that solutions the problems of this world are not beyond your people’s reach. Teach us to recycle. Teach us to live simply. Teach us to open our eyes to the poor around us. Teach us to use less and to give more. Teach us to be free from our lifestyle of consumption. We know that you are the God who suffers with the poor. We ask that you would teach your body to suffer with them as well. You have blessed us richly, so that we may be a blessing to the world. We ask that you would consume us, that your heart for our world and for your beloved creations would become our heart as well. Give us eyes to see your work, that we might join you.
Amen.
