Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom…Be dressed for action and have your lamp lit.
Luke 12:32-40
Not a warning, but a gentle reminder like waking up a child from sleep to get ready for the journey of the day, we too have clothes to put on and lamps to light.
Not a warning, but a word of comfort whispered even as bombs are being dropped, buildings fall, and hot shrapnel pierces the air and bodies. It is your wisdom and comfort we seek as we hear the sounds of war. What is the clothing for this day in these times? Footwear to firm our step. Clothing of non-violence that protects.
O, God, the “World news this week in prayer” we try to capture is too much, overwhelming, frustrating, mind-numbing, and often yet we are reminded in this scripture from Luke that we are a kin-dom.
We pray 80 years on (August 9, 1945) as the city of Nagasaki, Japan, and its survivors or hibakusha (literally “atomic bomb-affected people”), gather in memoriam of the seventy-four thousand killed in the nuclear holocaust. We join them in humble prayer that this be the last place for an atomic bomb to hit the earth.[1]
We pray for Mexico standing up to the USA, as there are designs to send military to do drug interdiction when systems are already in place and when sovereign nations maintain borders. We ask that the US stop trafficking weapons. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) recently reported on their study that identified 12,416 firearm traffickers. The study period data also noted traffickers tended to be white (53%), male (84%), and U.S. citizens (95%). Handguns and rifles predominated. Statistics can bring light, clarity that directs our policies and actions in thoughtful ways. We pray for sanity in gun laws around the world. We pray for arms control and leadership that backs away from war.
Bring your light over the war on the peoples of Palestine. End this annihilation of families and communities and a nation through famine, horrendous bombing, and occupation by Israel. Bring our world’s collective concern to light the lamp of Enough! Enough bombs, enough sales of weapons. Stop the genocide. We pray for peace. Lift up the voices of the victims and give the perpetrators ears to hear and hearts to break open. Help us to stop sowing the seeds of war that thrive in a land of death and more death, destruction, and more destruction. Your kin-dom is crying out for justice, wisdom, and mercy.
We mourn the assassination of five journalists from Al-Jazeera and one correspondent from Media Sahat. They were targeted and killed in an Israeli air strike this past Sunday night while in their media tent outside Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza City, Palestine.
We abhor the news that the Israeli military proclaims this killing as something to rejoice about. Lord, have mercy. Israel has now killed 238 journalists in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office; other tallies put the number of journalists and media workers killed at nearly 270. We lift the names of these six journalists:
Anas al-Sharif,
Mohammed Qraiqeh,
Ibrahim Zaher,
Moamen Aliwa,
Mohammed Noufal, and
Mohammed Al-Khalid.
Every life is so precious. These are among so many. May their families be comforted with a peace that passes all understanding.
We see Russia’s leader meeting with the USA leader on US soil talking about Ukrainian soil and sovereignty without Ukrainian leaders present. We hear of kidnapped children by Russia, land seizure and occupation, bombing of infrastructure and civilian targets, which brings anguish and disbelief. Where is the right action and human caring in any of this? Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Holy Spirit, sweep through these battlegrounds and places of death. Bring your voice to the halls where leaders deliberate on people’s lives. You can take in the horror and tumult and transform our sinful ways. Cloth us in your passionate wisdom. Light the path out of this horror and utter degradation.
We are humans lost, it seems, unable to experience your words of assurance. Yet that is exactly what you are calling us to be – a reassured and reassuring people. Help us to look at one another, our families and neighbors as kin-dom.
We lament the murder of three individuals by a gunman who attacked a Target store in Austin, Texas, USA. Their bereft families who never could say goodbye, the last “I love you,” never knowing they would not come home. Comfort us.
We grieve the murder of a veteran marine, who leaves behind two children and a wife pregnant with a third child. He was killed by a shooter who attacked and fired over 180 rounds at four buildings on the Center for Disease Control (CDC) campus in Atlanta, USA. We pray for comfort and safety of government personnel who are under attack for doing their evidence-based scientific and professional work. Help us to understand the cost of lies and the subterfuge taking place by various government leaders around the world.
We ask for spiritual work clothes: material woven with threads of patience, wise discernment, and nonviolence. We call for our lamps to be lit, unwavering, shoulder-to-shoulder, babies in our arms, children in tow, elders strong, youth dancing, heads high, and vision clear. In this prayer amidst all the news this week, we are stepping solidly into a world we claim for those imprisoned, deported without due process, awaiting execution on death row, the forgotten, the victims of famine and gross injustice, our homeless brothers and sisters now under siege in the District of Columbia, DC, USA, victims of kidnapping and trafficking—this our kin-dom.
(A moment of silence.)
Luke continues: Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
God of Mystery, may we take up our burdens and our treasures, walking in your light.
Amen.
[1] https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/survivors-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
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