Reflections and Refractions

We are broken, we are joyless.  Where is your joy, O God?

 

Like Adam and Eve in the garden, we take your creation for granted,

We take the apples of creation without considering the consequences.

We dig up minerals and we cut down trees,

We watch as the world cracks and dries,

We create useful things but then we discard them,

polluting the water we drink and the air that we breathe.

While destroying our home world, we will never be free.

 

We weep for our future and shed tears for our land.

We feel powerless to change so in silence we live.

Creator God, we are a broken people. Where is your joy?

 

Like Israelites of old, we feel captive in a foreign land,

Our people, our leaders don’t reflect the values you want.

Injustice, intolerance and disrespect are in abundance.

Compassion and kindness remain to be found.

Greed and power are the keys to success,

Like captives who lay down by the rivers of Babylon and wept,

We mourn for our country and the direction it follows.

 

We weep for our future and shed tears for our children.

We feel powerless to change so in silence we live.

Just God, we are a broken people.  Where is your joy?

 

Like the disciples before us, we hide from the storm.

We struggle with life, and we hide our true form.

We selfishly guard our treasured possessions,

We live in our boxes, community locked out.

While people are homeless, and the old are alone,

we walk by attached to a phone.

 

We weep for our future and shed tears for ourselves.

We feel powerless to change so in silence we live.

Comforting God, we are a broken people. Where is your joy?

 

Like the prophets of old we can be filled with your spirit,

we can experience your joy.

Within our brokenness we become like gold,

Out of our brokenness comes everlasting joy.

As we seek to live justice, to love kindness and walk humbly with you,

you heal our brokenness, you give us hope for the future, you give us peace in our world,

 

Help us to be just in the use of the world’s resources,

and put sustainability ahead of economic gain.

Encourage us to bring release to those who feel oppressed,

and offer strength and encouragement to those who suffer and grieve.

Give us words to pray with those who are ill,

and courage to hug those who are lost,

Help us to comfort the lonely

and love the unloved,

Embolden us to stand with those who seek liberation, freedom and love,

and remind our leaders and governments of the values we keep.

Let us find justice for those who are detained without crime,

and let us welcome the stranger and share what we have.

Fill us with your spirit that we may be as Christ to our broken world.

 

In the light and the bustle of the day we look for you.

In the darkness and the stillness of the night, we long for your presence.

In our waiting and anticipation, your joy overflows.

 

Give us grace to actively live justly in your world.

Grant us courage to be the people you would have us be.

Provide us with wisdom to walk humbly with you and in everlasting joy may we work to heal our broken world.

Come Lord Jesus, come.  We share your joy.