A couple of weeks ago, Chuck Warnock from Chatham Baptist put up a post about a service his church was doing on MLK day, bringing together the races in a service in honor of the legacy of Dr. King. While I’ve been at Kenbridge, we’ve celebrated MLK day in some way during the worship service on that Sunday, but I must admit I’m intrigued and inspired by the idea of having a community service on that day…

But in the meantime, I was unable to find an appropriate responsive prayer for our Sunday service, so I wrote one.

“We Have a Dream”
A prayer of confession in observance of
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 20, 2008

We have a dream, O Lord.
We share a holy dream:
We dream of a world united in love,
Where boundaries are broken down.
We dream of a world where justice is done,
Where all are treated as friends.
We dream of a world where God is the King,
Where all can share in his glory.
We dream of a world where evil is banished,
Where war and death are no more.

And while we dream, we confess O Lord
That we don’t always work to see it come true;
That sometimes, in spite of ourselves, we even work against it.
By our hatred, narrow-mindedness and pride,
Our partiality toward those of our own race,
Religion, class, political party;
Yes, Lord, even prejudice against our own brothers and sisters in Christ
Whose beliefs are different from our own.
These are born of nothing more than fear, O God.
Fear of something different from ourselves;
Fear that we might end up loving
what we once thought was unlovable.
We confess our failure to dream, O Lord.
Help us to dream again.

Help us to dream your dream, O Lord.
Help us to live the dream,
So when we wake from this darkened life,
We’ll find the dream come true.

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.