Break open our Hearts: Prayer on Behalf of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee at a Prayer Service in Kenosha, Wisconsin
I am a Christian leader in the Episcopal Tradition, but I come before you today as the Chair of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, an organization that represents over twenty different faith traditions in the Greater Milwaukee area. Our membership includes communities from multiple strains of the Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Bahai, Sikh, Hindu and other traditions. While we have many differences, we find a commonality in the belief in the inherent dignity of every human being. It is from that touchpoint that I pray today.
First, let us pray for the people of this city.
Comfort the people of Kenosha, O God, and hold them in your ever-loving arms. We pray for those who have died and their loved ones, for those who have been injured, for those who march, for those who are charged to keep order, and for those who give aid and medical attention.
We pray for peace, but we understand that we cannot have true peace without justice…and we cannot have justice for all until we have justice for black and brown lives. Fill us with divine love, so that we may see that the change being asked of us is the change that you demand for the sake of all of your beloved children.
God of the Nations, our founding documents speak in flowing language of the natural rights of humanity, and the establishment of a democracy to protect the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But yet, at the base of the Tree of Liberty, enshrined in the very language of the Constitution, a poisonous root was allowed to flourish — the idea that some men, by virtue of the color of their skin, were created less than equal.
Native populations of this land were exploited and displaced. The people of Africa were imported and enslaved to bring forth economic prosperity for their new masters. This poisonous root has brought forth tainted produce season after season, year after year, generation after generation. From Jim Crow and the Strange Fruit hanging from the poplar trees of the South to the redlining and the naked and unfettered racism of the North. The events that bring us to this place today are not one year’s crop or a single bad apple, but the bitter harvest of centuries of unaddressed racism in our culture.
We come today to pray for Jacob Blake — and for healing…for him, his family, for the soul of our nation, for the pain of far too many families impacted by the murder and abuse of black and brown persons. We ask you to break us open, God, so that we can be remade, reformed, reforged into the beloved community that you desire for us.
Break open the hearts of our elected leaders. Break open the hearts of our law enforcement community. Break open the hearts of those citizens who are bearing arms. Break open the hearts of our business community, and our non-profit community and our faith communities, break open ALL OF OUR HEARTS to your love so that Justice may roll down like an irresistible torrent, and righteousness like a mighty stream overflowing its banks.
God, We ask you to give us today a double portion of the spirit that has inspired faithful people to move from talk to action. As Frederick Douglass said, “I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” Help us to pray this day with all that we have — OUR legs, our arms, our voices, our minds, our spirit. Help us to pray through peaceful protest, help us to pray through legislative action, help us to continually lift our hearts unto you and never stop until as Dr. King prayed, freedom truly rings throughout our land for ALL of God’s Children.
We know you by many names, Holy God, but you know each of us individually by ours. You never forget us — may we never forget and fail to draw our strength from you. Amen.
