A Prayer for Justice

The Church is often criticised today for interfering in matters which, allegedly, should not concern it. Politicians say we should not concern ourselves with politics even though such issues affect the poor and the powerless in our inner cities and the developing world. And more and more in the safe and leafy shires whose well-planned pensions or whose high-flying jobs no longer seem so secure. Our critics say we should concentrate on saving people's souls and safeguarding their morality. We are accused in the newspapers and on television of putting forward the view that it does not matter what you do in bed as long as you have the correct political attitude. This is set in opposition to those in our Church who do want to legislate what consenting adults do with each other. We are then accused of being obsessed with sexuality to the exclusion of other aspects of the human condition.

Jesus never took a party-political position but this did not prevent him from being at the heart of the political and social issues of his day - asking the questions that people would rather he did not ask. Why else did he stir up the power factions of his day so much that they wanted him dead? He was not gentle Jesus meek and mild. This is the Jesus who knows how to kick some ass. See St John’s Gospel 2.13-16.

‘The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’

Jesus was a powerfully compelling man who was more than capable of taking direct action when it was appropriate to do so. A man who could not help drawing all kinds and conditions of people to his warmth and his loving wholeness. For ourselves, we need to remember that the gospel was written down by people increasingly anxious to survive the hostility of the authorities. Even in that context, the robust, liberation-focused Jesus shines through. As Christians, we must be concerned about all issues of social justice in the community in which we live. This is God’s world and as human beings, we are set in it as stewards, with a mandate to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Our concern should be for the wholeness and fulfillment of all people since all are of equal worth in the love of God. As Christians, we are charged with the responsibility of loving each other and challenging injustice.

Let us pray -

Lord, Make Me a Channel of Disturbance

Lord, make me a channel of disturbance.

Where there is apathy, let me provoke.

Where there is compliance, let me bring questioning.

Where there is silence, may I be a voice?

Where there is too much comfort and too little action, grant disruption.

Where doors are closed and hearts locked, grant the willingness to listen.

When laws dictate and pain is overlooked.

When tradition speaks louder than need.

Grant that I may seek rather to do justice than to talk about it.

Disturb us, O Lord to be with, as well as for, the alienated.

To love the unlovable as well as the lovely.

Lord, make me a channel of disturbance. Amen.