SUNDAY MORNING PRAYER: SOVEREIGN

We name you king, Lord, sovereign.
      We trust you, except
         sometimes we do not.
         We take matters into our own hands.

We fashion power and authority and sovereignty;
   enforced by law and bureaucracy and weapons,
          we think to make ourselves safe.
   And then learn, staggeringly,
          how insufficient is our product,
          how thin is our law,
          how ineffective is our bureaucracy,
          how impotent our weapons.

We are driven back to you---your will
                                              your purpose,
                                              your requirements:
                                                     care for land
                                                     care for neighbor
                                                     care for future.

We name you king, Lord, sovereign---
        so undemocratic!
  and in naming become aware of our status
        before you....loved, sent, summoned.
        We pray in the name of the loved, sent, summoned Jesus.

Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People