Advent: Praying for Justice Again, God, Cause we Can’t Do it Alone

Not on Our Watch Lord,

We tried to say last summer,

as we rallied together and chanted Black Lives Matter

And bought books by Blacks, and resourced Mutual Aid, and made hearty promises.

Not on our watch, as whispers came to defund the police,

and we spoke about what injustice really meant and statues of Southern Rebels Toppled-

But then God,

The couple who threatened marchers got a fine,

and marchers got run over again and again by a car

and the President called both sides very fine people.

And today a colleague is engaging in the Holy Practice of Despair Dishwashing,

Rage Cleaning

and Sweary Laundry…

and Perhaps some Sadness Sweeping…

because even as the good news of Union wins, Bills for the poor and Julius Jones

being saved from unjust execution at the last second–the victories are too few and far between.

Christ I this is why I need Christmas.

Every

Single

God

Blessed

Year.

Because

I need to remember that you

And not White Supremacy reigns

And that you come to conquer the Imperial tendencies of humanity

And that it’s not, “Not on our watch”

but not on YOUR watch

You defeat ALL evil

With Justice and Mercy and Peace

Every Time

and you how do you do it?

With tiny Baby.

Sweet Baby Jesus.

I am ready,

Let’s do this Justice thing.

And practice it again,

Til we imperfect humans get it right, I pray.

Until we see that injustice anywhere hurts everyone everywhere.

I’ll be waiting,

with tears in my eyes,

cleaning coping mechanisms in my hands

and peace words on my breath.

Let’s Go God!

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

As always, if my prayers touch you, feel free to support my work by throwing $5, $10, $20 towards my 2nd year of Doctorate in Creative Writing, because January is Coming up Fast. Thank you.

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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