Lord,
We acknowledge that our lives in this country have differed from those of our black brothers and sisters. While we’ve experienced the common pain and grief of life, our skin color has usually exempted us from the cold looks, stinging slurs, and hasty gavels of discrimination.
We have, sometimes without even knowing it, repeated racial stereotypes in our hearts. We have at time, in our churches, failed to acknowledge injustice when it didn’t touch us personally. We have been inconsistent. We’ve prayed against the industry that rips fetuses from pregnant wombs. We’ve prayed against the beheading of Christians in other countries. We’ve prayed for villages ruptured by earthquakes and cities devastated by bombs. But we’ve ignored the injustice grinding down on the people who live in our own neighborhoods and cities.
Photo courtesy of Nancy Andrea D. via creationswap.com
We have failed to see. And failing to see, we’ve failed to care. And failing to care, we have failed to act. But as the list grows, of black civilians killed by individuals who’ve abused their power, we acknowledge that something is wrong.
Help us face a problem that we would prefer to ignore. Help us to remember that, as your children, you hold us responsible to care for our neighbors. Help us feel in the bowels of our faith your heart for the powerless, your anger at their oppression, and how you sacrificed your own comfort to bring them peace. Help us to face the heat of your justice and our own failure in neglecting it.
Enable our imaginations so that we can step outside our own slices of reality. Help us step into the shoes of our 42 million African American brothers and sisters and feel history weighing down on us as we follow the news reports. Grant us the capacity to see how, despite the end of slavery and the Civil Rights movement, racial inequality reaches into our educational, economic, and judicial systems. Give us the emotional stamina to imagine deeply and truly, because without imagination we will fail to love.
Grant us courage to listen to our black brothers and sisters and to keep listening when we start to feel uncomfortable. Grant us bravery to search for the truth, even if it threatens us. Where we have been blind and inactive, grant us the strength to confess it. If our dearly held perceptions of America need correcting, grant us the honesty to see them as you do. Empower us to stand with our brothers and sisters, to speak up and to act, even if it comes at the cost of strained relationships, forfeited privilege, or physical pain.
We are your people, imperfect and often failing, but indwelt by your Spirit. Forgive us for the blindness and inaction that make us complicit in the injustice in our country. Keep us from excelling in personal holiness but failing in love. We have chosen to follow you, Jesus. So we follow you now, not just into the doctrines we prefer—doctrines of forgiveness, morality, and heaven—but also into your life—a life of love, sacrifice, and justice.
Holy Spirit, please show us how to walk in love and sacrifice and justice. Show us today and in the coming future what we, as your church, need to do.
We pray to you, the Father of Justice, in the name of your son Jesus and by the power of his Spirit, our triune God.
Amen.
* Some may feel that I should have titled this piece “A Prayer for the Church in America,” since there is only one, universal Church. While I agree theologically, this is not a prayer most black believers need to pray. I also considered titling it “A Prayer for White Christians in America,” but God calls his people to justice as a group and not just as individuals.
But if we want unity, shouldn’t we start with our language? Don’t terms like black church and white church deepen the divide? In this case, the term “white church” helps us feel the problem–a problem that needs to be addressed with confession, repentance, and action before it can be fixed with words. Based on the demographics of our Sunday morning congregations, we do have black churches and white churches in America. This prayer is for the mostly white ones.
I remember in the movie “The Hiding Place” Corrie Ten Boon responded to the German soldier by saying…men can only be brothers through Christ. I don’t mean this to sound callus. I just realize more and more that only a heart change can bring forth change. So if change is not being brought forth, especially by the body of Christ, do we not need to really examine the genuiness of our own heart change? Perhaps we still do not trust Christ enough to draw us out of our comfort zone. Perhaps we simply don’t want to be brought out of our comfort zones. We tend to congregate in churches that match our culture, race, preferences and backgrounds and thus we are still not challenged to have that heart change bring forth something incredible through Christ. The body of Christ is just that, a whole body….not our little group that gives us comfort and does nothing to challenge the very walk that we walk.
Yes. Change is not an option anymore. It is a must. We have begun to truly hear, and we must act on what we have heard. The voices of real pain and the stories of hurt I didn’t know I’d caused have reached my own shelter and bubble of comfort. It’s time to step out and really see each other. To let others speak for once. To listen to the hearts of a huge group of people who has been swept under the rug and dismissed for so long. I am done carrying the presuppositions fed to my mind in ways I didn’t realize until this past week. Father, make us humble and give us wisdom. I have no idea how, but day by day, let me take responsibility, instead of naively passing it off on my ancestors. Thank you for this, Shannon.