Prayer for the Opening of Court on October 19, 2009

I have been asked to offer the prayer for a new session of court, which opens Monday, October 19.  The courtroom and anterooms of our 156-year old courthouse have also been renovated, and this is the first day court sessions will be held in the refreshed space.  Here’s the prayer I will offer:

Almighty God and Heavenly Father,

We invite your presence here in this room today, but not because this is a place of worship.  These antique pews could hold an assembled congregation, but those who gather in this room regularly do not gather here for devotions.  We invite your presence today, even though this is not a place of religious practice, because the proceedings of this court require Divine wisdom and guidance.

For this is the place where the accused and their accusers meet, not for revenge or retribution, but for an impartial hearing and rightly-delivered verdict.
This is the place where the law of this land, and of this community, stands as the arbiter of disputes both great and small.
This is the place where the common good is preserved, and the conscience of a community challenged.

And so our prayer today is first a prayer of gratitude.
We are thankful we live in a nation where laws govern our actions and interactions.
We are thankful for a heritage of freedom, tempered with responsibility and mutuality.
We are thankful for those engaged in the calling of the law, and those who serve this court in particular —
— for judges past and present, officers of this court, and the attorneys who stand at this bar to plead their causes before this bench.
May they sense Your hand in their endeavors, and seek Your guidance in their lives.

Our prayer today is also a prayer of dedication.
This historic building, a constant presence on Main Street generation-after-generation, bears powerful witness to our hope for order and decency.
This sanctuary of struggle-and-tears has seen families united and torn asunder; lives redeemed and destroyed; and dreams realized or denied.

For this is the place where truth and mercy meet.
This is the place where justice is done.

And even though the appearance of this court room has changed, let there be more than an appearance that justice is being done here.

Lord, we hear again the words of the prophet Micah —

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

May this court and this courtroom be filled with the confidence of Your wisdom, the generosity of Your mercy, and the power of Your love.

Bless this nation we love so dearly, and those whom we have chosen to guide her path.  May peace come in our lifetime, and may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is our prayer today, and we make it in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

What others are saying about doing church

Here’s some of the conversation around the blogosphere this week about doing church — 

Thanks to Emergent Village for putting me onto Nate Bettger’s post about “‘Doing Church’ like everyone else…”  Here’s a sample:

As I wrestle with accepting having 6 to 10 people at our weekly gathering, people “shopping” gets to be pretty brutal. We had a few when we first got things going that came for a few weeks and then decided we weren’t for them. To have one new face is a rush of encouragement… but to find out later that they want a sweet and hip worship service is rough. It’s like losing 15% of your church. Hah! the joys of being small.

Over at God’s Politics, Diana Butler Bass has some thoughts about Willow Creek’s discovery that church programs don’t work.  Bass wrote Practicing Congregations (a very good book) and has this to say about the Willow Creek dilemma:

As I have traveled across the U.S. and Canada, I have found that many congregations—including mainline churches, progressive evangelical communities, and synagogues—are rebasing their life on spiritual practices including prayer, theological reflection, doing justice, generosity, storytelling, discernment, shaping community, hospitality, and leadership. These faith communities have developed a healing sort of grassroots wisdom and have grappled successfully with the very issues that Willow Creek is now seeking to address.

At the Abbey Journal, Zach Roberts has a helpful post about the distinction of truth as relational vs. relativistic.  Zach has started an emerging church with the help of an established First Baptist Church.  This post is part of a Q&A that he did about the new venture they call Dogwood Abbey.  Here’s an excerpt about truth as relational, but the whole post deserves reading:

Human knowing is a relational thing. We know as we are known. It is not a subject/object based hierarchical encounter, but rather a subject/subject based mutual exchange.

And the beat goes on.  Peace.