Responsive Reading

The wind of the Spirit challenges us to change.
Give us courage to respond, O God.
The fire of the Spirit calls us to a passion for the kingdom.
Warm us and give us your energy, O God.
The breath of the Spirit offers us new life.
May we receive and live out the gospel in the world.
In a world where there is need and oppression, violence and alienation,
May we bring life and love, O God.
In a world where there is racism, hatred, and division,
May we bring unity and community, O God.
In a world where there is meaninglessness and emptiness,
May we bring purpose and hope, O God.
Lead us forth, Spirit of God, in joy and in faith, in truth and in freedom.
In ways known and unknown, may we follow.
Amen.

(from Disciples Home Missions of the Disciples of Christ, “Criminal Justice Worship materials,
www.homelandministries.org/PublicWitness/CriminalJustice/Worship
Materials.htm)

---

Prayer of Confession

Let us confess the secret sins in the hidden spaces of our lives, which hold us in fear and anguish, keeping us from God and from each other.

Let us confess the words of judgment we have withheld in our societies, the compromises we have made which allow evil to multiply, producing harvests of destruction and death.

Let us confess the complacency with which we live in disunity, the ease with which we keep our prejudices, refusing to be the one people of God for whom Jesus prayed.

God, from whom nothing is hidden and who knows the motives of our hearts, forgives us our sins and declares to us the joyful truth that we are a liberated people.
Amen.  

(from In Spirit and in Truth: A Worshipbook [ Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1991, pp. 15-16])

---

Bread and Justice

O God, just as the disciples heard Christ’s words of promise and began to eat the bread and drink the wine in the suffering of a long remembrance and in the joy of a hope, grant that we may hear your words, spoken in each thing of everyday affairs:

Coffee, on our table in the morning;
the simplest gesture of opening a door to go out, free;
the shouts of children in the parks;
a familiar song, sung by an unfamiliar face;
a friendly tree that has not yet been cut down.

May simple things speak to us of your mercy, and tell us that life can be good. And may these sacramental gifts make us remember those who do not receive them:

who have their lives cut every day, in the bread absent from the table;
in the door of the hospital, the prison, the welfare home that does not open;
in sad children, feet without shoes, eyes without hope;
in war hymns that glorify death;
in deserts where once there was life.

Christ was also sacrificed; and may we learn that we participate in the saving sacrifice of Christ when we participate in the suffering of his little ones. Amen.

(from Rubem Alves, Brazil: found in the United Methodist Hymnal, #639)

---

For Courage to Do Justice

O Lord,
Open my eyes that I may see the needs of others;
Open my ears that I may hear their cries;
Open my heart so that they need not be without succor;
Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong,
Nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed,
And use me to bring them to those places.
And so open my eyes and my ears,
That I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for thee. Amen.

(from Alan Paton, South Africa: found in the United Methodist Hymnal, #456)

---

Advent Litany

For the one Who has come is mighty,
Holy is the name of the Lord.
The Lord has “scattered the proud,” (Lk 1:51)
And has “exalted those of low degree.” (Lk 1:52)
We rejoice in the coming of the Lord,
Who has exacted justice in the world for the downtrodden.
Amen.

(by Jason R. Jenkins)