This is a prayer I offered at Williamsburg United Methodist Church on Sunday, November 10, 2024 following the 2024 Presidential election and the day before Veterans Day 2024.
O God of faith, hope, and love, we reach out to You in faith
as we seek the hope only You can give
that we may love self-sacrificially and unconditionally
as You have called us to do.
O Loving Creator, we have been blessed to live in a country that grants many rights and freedoms
and so it is meaningful to be able within the span of one week
to exercise the right to vote and to honor the veterans
who gave up some elements of their freedom to defend these rights and freedoms.
But as we plan to honor our veterans tomorrow, O God,
many of us are reeling from an election that didn’t go the way we had hoped.
At the same time others of us are celebrating a victory that had been longed for.
So in this time, may we remember the words of the apostle Paul
who reminded us that we are to rejoice with those who rejoice
and that we are to mourn with those who mourn.
But Lord, no matter which side we were on in this country,
may we realize that no one group of people, no one party, no one country,
fully understands or gets behind or embodies all elements of Your kingdom,
no matter what political leaders and pundits try to tell us.
In a few moments, we will pray for Your kingdom,
and we pray not to escape to that kingdom
but that Your kingdom may be realized fully on earth as it is in heaven.
So God, as our real citizenship should be to Your kingdom,
not any kingdom or nation of the world,
help us to look to our veterans of faith —
to the faithful stories of
Sarah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Samuel, David, Peter, Paul, and the Marys.
May we look to examples like: Martin Luther; Samuel, Susanna, John, and Charles Wesley; Georgia Harkness; Dorothy Day; Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Martin Luther King, Jr. — just to name a few.
May their examples give us hope to love more fully
that we may transcend any political party
in doing the work of Your kingdom even if we, like them,
never see the fullness of Your promises of justice and grace.
May we, Your beloved children, do what You require of us:
to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with You – wherever You may go.
We pray now as Jesus taught us to pray saying,
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
