by Helen Cooper, Elder.
Lord, as you told us, so we pray
For others, folk in need.
You left a model for our prayers.
We have it off by heart.
But have we understood it?
We intercede, we ask your help
That all these things may happen:
The sick be healed, the hungry fed, the poor relieved.
But are these the things we truly want
Within our hearts
And nothing for ourselves?
Truly, nothing?
We aren’t poor and hungry,
We’ve got doctors when we’re ill;
We’re doing very nicely, thank you.
But these folk really need your help.
Read the prayer again.
Give us, lead us, forgive us –
The word is always us
Except ‘those trespassers’,
The ones who separate themselves
And their possessions
From the needs of others.
Those who do not share
Resources, money, food.
Lord, are we ‘us’ or ‘them’?
Can you see any difference?
Lord, by the times we have known the goodness of food
And by the times we have known hunger
Give your children bread
Or rice, or cassava.
Give your brothers food
But we don’t know how to do it;
We are afraid to do it,
For all of us are caught up
In the power of the systems of the world.
Help us, Lord. All of us.
Lord, by the abundance of our possessions,
And any poverty we may have known
We pray for all who are enslaved
By poverty of riches
In a system that reckons worth by possessions.
Help us to see ourselves
And to value ourselves
Not as the world does
But by the way you see us
And value us
Rich and poor alike.
Lord, by our health and by our sickness,
By the suffering we have kinown
And our fear of it,
We pray for all who suffer
Whatever the nature of their suffering may be
Whether it shows or not.
In suffering there is no ‘us’ and no ‘them’
But each of us is joined and at one
As Jesus suffered
In whose name
We offer these our prayers to You.
(August '08)