Dear Caldwell,
Someone asked that I share the prayer I offered in church yesterday, a remembrance of God’s abundant gifts to our nation and the responsibilities that come with that abundance. Happy Fourth. May God guide and direct ours and every nation.
God of all peoples and all nations,
As our nation prepares for another birthday, we give thanks for its freedoms and liberties. We are mindful that other peoples and other nations live under forms of government that oppress and abuse, that control and limit what their citizens can and cannot do. For the promise of democracy, we give you thanks.
Yet we are also mindful that these freedoms bring great and grave responsibilities. As with your covenant with the Hebrews, we are to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We are to share the immense abundance of our resources fairly and justly. We are to be a beacon to the world of a self-governing people that honors and respects all people, regardless of who they are, for they are all your children.
On this weekend, we recognize that we as a nation fall so frequently short of that promise. In our policies and practices, we risk creating such profound gaps between those who have enough and those who do not that these gaps may never be closed. By our behaviors and their outcomes, we embarrass you and each other and dishonor your blessings and advantages.
So we pray that we might hear and see you in a new way this weekend. Not in a way that conflates our nation with some kind of misguided sense of inherent exceptionalism, but with a new recognition that we can do better with all that we have.
That we can take better care of your creation.
That we can stand for what is right in the world without ulterior motives.
That we can be an agent of peace rather than war.
That we can distribute our abundance more fairly and more justly at home and abroad.
So, God whom we call all-mighty, in these perilous times, we pray more fervently for your intercession in our affairs of state. Move in the hearts of our legislators to awaken in them compassion and mercy. Open their minds and their ears that they would not listen only to the few that are like them but to all citizens of every circumstance. Humble them that they might truly understand the consequences of their decisions in the lives of millions – millions at home who need fair and affordable healthcare, who need jobs with fair wages, who need support when they are down and the millions abroad who look to America for leadership in the world.
These are big prayers for a big and complex world … but they are prayers that suit what you are capable of and what we are capable of doing and being with your guidance and your many, many gifts.
Draw near to us this week, we pray – that your solace and wisdom, your righteous expectations and your justice and judgment, your love and your promise may be known from coast to coast. Claim and inspire us again, that we may always know the cross – and all it stands for – ranks higher than our flag or any flag … and that the head of the church is our highest power, as you showed us in the person of Christ Jesus, who taught us to pray … (followed by the Lord’s Prayer).