"The Courage to Be Wrong"--A Prayer for December 9, 2020

 “The Courage to Be Wrong”—A Prayer for December 9, 2020

The thing we are really afraid of, God,
is admitting we were wrong.

Saying a simple sorry, or that we missed the mark,
is an easier labor. With those
we can tell ourselves we were on the right track.
We still get partial credit, we insist,
for being pointed in the right direction.

But you keep raising up voices
who call us out for being headed
away from justice, away from mercy,
away from basic decency,
away from… you.

We are afraid to admit
that we have been so wrong, and
our feet are sore from
digging our heels in so much.

Give us the courage to be wrong, Lord,
so we will quit resisting as you turn us toward your way.

"Startle Us Into Action"--A Prayer for December 7, 2020

“Startle Us into Action"—A Prayer for December 7, 2020
(drawn from reading and wrestling with Mark 1:1-8)

It’s not that we’re asleep, God,
but that we’re not paying attention.

Or rather, with so many other noisy, shiny things
all vying for our eyes and ears,
we pay attention to everything else
because it is comfortable to let them distract us.

Maybe that’s why
you keep leading people into the wilderness.

Maybe there’s nothing sacred about the sand
or holier about the parched ground,
but there is less background noise,
and fewer talking heads,
that’s for sure.

Maybe we can let these days
of somber separation
be the wilderness we need
so that the voices you raise up
can startle us into action, truth, and love
without our trying to change the channel.

"Asking for Ears"--December 6, 2020

“Asking for Ears”—A Prayer for December 6, 2020

We were never that good at listening to prophets.
You know it, God, but we need to hear ourselves say it.

They call us out, not only for the obvious sins
we can all respectably shake our fingers at,
but for the subtle forms of rottenness inside us, too.

They make us see where we have grown accustomed
to casual meanness and willful indifference.

They force us to face where we have been duped
by hucksters and fallen for snake-oil.

They compel us to admit how we have made
money our god and neighbors our enemies.

Even their dreams of a new creation
where justice is at home
make us squirm (more than a little),
because they call us to confess
how comfortable we have become
with the notions of hungry children
and endless wars.

We need to hear the dreamers you send.
So today we are asking for ears to listen.

"Manufacturing Hope"--A Prayer for December 5, 2020

“Manufacturing Hope”—A Prayer for December 5, 2020

The candles are a bit deceptive, Lord,
to be perfectly honest.

They aren’t meant to be, but it sure is easy to treat them as
some “delivered-in-30-minutes-or-it’s-free” guarantee,
ensuring that if we will only count four weeks’ time,
then the predictable Christmas magic will happen once more,
and we can go about our lives unchanged again.

But your kind of waiting, of hoping, is different.

The enslaved Hebrews waited four centuries
for freedom from Pharaoh;
exile lasted a lifetime at least.
Their seasons of watching were open-ended;
no candles promised them an end-date.

Our ancestors had to keep manufacturing hope,
day by day, breath by breath, for as long as it took,
and here, we get antsy over weeks or months of waiting.

So teach us, God, to live in a permanent state of active hope.

"Only Ours for a Season"--A Prayer for December 4, 2020

 “Only Ours for a Season”—A Prayer for December 4, 2020 

Help us to love this world, O God,
like we love our children:
knowing they have been entrusted into our hands
for a time,
but also that they will become
something beyond our wildest imaginings,
wholly new creations.

Let us hear your promise of a new heaven and earth,
not as permission for childishly wasting or exploiting,
but as the calling to care for this place, this time,
precisely because it is only ours for a season.

Teach us to love this world for all its hurts,
to bind its wounds—and one another’s—
with the same care given as for sons’ scraped knees
or daughters’ teary cheeks. Make us to see
that nothing is disposable, that all is precious,
and that everything is becoming a new creation.

"Inscribe Your Ways"--A Prayer for December 3, 2020

 "Inscribe Your Ways"--A Prayer for December 3, 2020

Now we see it, God—
that it was a lifetime of listening
to the stories of the ancestors
and the dreams of the prophets
that led Mary to say her “Yes”
when you called to her.

It was the ancient songs of Hannah and Miriam
which she had heard a thousand times since childhood
that inspired her own anthem of praise
for your revolutionary table-turning reign.

The dramatic decisions were long in coming,
the groundwork laid as your word shaped her,
steeping in her teenage mind like tea,
shaping her like the slow erosion of a river on the canyon.

Inscribe your ways on these stony hearts, too, O God,
so that those stories and dreams and songs will form us, too,
into people who say “Yes” to your upside-down ways.

"Shaken and Stirred"--A Prayer for December 2, 2020

"Shaken and Stirred"--A Prayer for December 2, 2020
(drawn from Psalm 80:1-3)

A poet from another time
taught us to pray to you, God, by saying,
“Stir up your strength, and come to help us.”

But to be completely honest with you,
we’re not sure we are ready to be stirred up...just yet.

We’re not sure we are comfortable
with how you will shake up our old routines
and jar us out of apathy toward our neighbors.

We have curated our numbness,
and we are not at all certain that
we are prepared to have our apple-carts upset
by a God who stirs things up
and who never leaves us the same.

Not Mary, minding her business.
Not Joseph, just trying to get some sleep.
Not the graveyard-shift shepherds putting in their hours.

We resist your change, but we need it.
Come to us again, O God. Leave us shaken and stirred.