Perfectly Love


We pray, as often as we meet,
that we might "perfectly love you."
Indeed, we have been commanded from the beginning,
to love you with all our hearts and
all our souls and
all our minds and
all our strength.

We have pledged to love,
pledged in our prayers and in our baptism,
in our confirmation and with our best resolve.

But we confess . . .
we love you imperfectly;
we love you with a divided heart,
with a thousand other loves,
that are more compelling,
with reservation and qualification,
and passion withheld and devotion impaired.

We do not now come to pretend before you,
but to confess that we do not, as we are,
love you perfectly;
we do not keep your commands;
we do not order our lives by your purpose;
we do not tilt toward you as our deepest affection.

But we would . . .
we would love you more perfectly,
by the taste of bread become your flesh,
by the swallow of wine become your blood,
by the praise of our lips and beyond our usual reasoning,
by the commandments that are not burden but joy to us,
by embracing your passion for neighbours,
by your ways of justice and peace and mercy,
by honouring the world you have made
and all creatures great and small,
by self-care that knows you as our creator.

Lead us past our shabby compromises
and our cheap devotion;
lead us into singleness of vision
and purity of heart,
that we may will one thing,
and answer back in love to your great love to us.

Free us from idolatries,
and our habits of recalcitrance,
tender our hearts,
gentle our lips,
open our hands,
that we may turn toward you fully
toward your world unguardedly.

Let us bask in your freedom
to be fully yours, and
so trusting fully our own.
We pray through the Lord Jesus who loved you
singularly, perfectly, fully - to the end.


Prayers for a Privileged People
Walter Brueggemann
(Page 11)

When Life Crashes

We have known forever that you call to obedience, that our obedience to your purposes brings well-being, that our departure from you may bring trouble, that life proceeds on a tight calculus of expectation and requirement, that in your awesome rule there is rigor along with generosity.

We have set out to be your faithful people and then we fall into an unintended brokenness.  We know about alienation from you and loss; we know about shame before our neighbours and embarrassment in the family; we know about the will to hide and become invisible, and we are consumed by depths of remorse.

When we are able, we come out of hiding long enough to face you. We know all the cadences of confession and repentance, and that we have no secrets not already known to you.  We sense before you our deep dread of failure and our last shred of innocence gone.

We ask forgiveness and wait, at times before your presence we wait a very long time as we know of your silence and absence in our bottomness.

But we know more! We know of your unfailing love, your willing generosity, your readiness to remember our sin no more.

And so, after shame before neighbour, after embarrassment within family, after dread before you, we wait and then eventually you appear, you reach, you speak, you touch. You give yourself to us without judgment - after we have judged ourselves.

You invite us to your presence, to the table of your feast, to your walk of companionship, to your mission of well-being.  We take timid steps toward home and are welcomed.

Now, in this hour of free-fall, be your good self again, meet us not according to our flaw but according to your generous self-giving: Be our Christmas, and start the world again; Be our Easter, and draw us from death to new life; Be our Pentecost, and breathe on us to begin again; Be your full, generous self toward us; we will begin again in obedience, and as we can obey, we will begin again in wonder, love and joy.

Prayers for a Privileged People
Walter Brueggemann
(Page 115)

Christmas . . . the Very Next Day

Had we the chance, we would have rushed to Bethlehem
to see this thing that had come to pass.

Had we been a day later,
we would have found the manger empty and the family departed.

We would have learned that they fled to Egypt,
warned that the baby was endangered,
sought by the establishment of the day
that understood how his very life threatened the way things are.

We would have paused at the empty stall and pondered how this baby from the very beginning was under threat.

The powers understood that his grace threatened all our coercions; they understood that his truth challenged all our lies; they understood that his power to heal nullified our many pathologies;  they understood that his power to forgive vetoed the power of guilt and the drama of debt among us.

From day one they pursued him, and schemed and conspired until finally . . . on a gray Friday . . . they got him!

No wonder the family fled, in order to give him time for his life.

We could still pause at the empty barn - and ponder that all our babies are under threat, all the vulnerable who stand at risk before predators, our babies who face the slow erosion of consumerism, our babies who face the reach of sexual exploitation, our babies who face the call to war, placed as we say "in harm's way", our babies, elsewhere in the world, who know of cold steel against soft arms and distended bellies from lack of food; our babies everywhere who are caught in the fearful display of ruthless adult power.

We ponder how peculiar this baby at Bethlehem is, summoned to save the world, and yet we know, how like every child, this one also was at risk.
The manger is empty a day later . . . the father warned in a dream.
Our world is so at risk, and yet we seek after and wait for this child named "Emmanuel."  Come be with us, you who are called "God with us." 

Prayers for a Privileged People
Walter Brueggemann
(Page 73)