Prayers of the People - May 30
Prayers of the People - Resurrection Season
Saturday Evening, May 30. Pause at the end of each day. Enjoy communion with the living God: Creator, Redeemer, Holy Spirit. Listen for the voice of God in the scriptures.
Read
Psalm 49 - The Lord will ransom my soul
Proverbs 2 - Wisdom will save you
Acts 1.15-26 - Matthias added to the Apostles
Meditate
The words of the Lord are spirit and life, a light to the wise path. Sit with your questions, write down your observations and tensions. Feel your breath. Speak the names of the Black people whose lives have been stolen by police violence, racism and bigotry.
Pray
Bring your meditations to this time of prayer and let them guide you, or use the prayer we’ve offered inspired by today’s Psalm. Lord, hear the prayers of your people.
Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me, those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches? Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life, there is no price one can give to God for it. For the ransom of life is costly, and can never suffice.
God of our weary years. God of our silent tears. God of the eternal soul. God of the sick and sorrowful, be near to us today. We rise up for ransom, for reparations from the evils of white supremacy and racist violence. We rise up for ransom, and find that no solutions born from the wealthy of our land will ever suffice. From the highest office to the lowest patrolman, we are stalked for our skins and afraid for our kin. Our loved ones are being taken, who can repay? Our political power is stripped away, who will hear us and heed our demands for life?
Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who have left the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
Ancient of Days, we need your wisdom of old. We need the eagle eye vantage point of your Holy Spirit to soothe our suffering with the energy and will to act. We need your wisdom to remind us to make space for healing - to remind us to breathe in honor of George Floyd’s last breaths. O God, bring us into the beautiful state of being - unbothered - that grants the boldness of overturning tables and overthrowing tyranny. Will you clear the way in our cities and on our highways, O God, so that your wisdom will finally rule? Will you send the Spirit of wisdom like a violent wind that blows away the systems that sicken us. Bring justice like cleansing fires, mighty floods, so that your peace can truly reign.
But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for the Lord will receive me.
Jesus, King of Life. You have prophesied repair. You have paid the ransom. You have paved the righteous path for protest. Send us out to stand down the castles of capitalism. Crush the corrupt, cultivate the communal. In your power and by your mercy, heal every wound and wipe away every tormented tear. Receive us, Lord. Ransom us from the threatening strife of loss of life. Deliver us through and into your power. For we are worn down to the ground. Creator of the North Star, lead us out of the burning heat of bondage into the creative and birthing night of our thriving.
Contemplate
In silence
Through song - You are the Living Word, Fred Hammond // Hosanna, Kirk Franklin
Seek God’s face
Thus you will walk in the ways of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it. (from Proverbs 2)
Lord, hear the prayers of your people. Amen
Artwork:
Sam Gilliam, Snow Lane // Njideka Akunyili, Bright Spot
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