Litany from Today's Prayer Service:
On the National Day of Action to
Raise Wages
July 24, 2013
Gathering Music
Welcome and
Reflection – Rev. Michael Livingston
Opening prayer
God of Grace, you have gifted us with a world of abundance; a land of
plenty; a country where all can have enough. We come before you this day to
thank you for this prosperity and to repent from our apparent inability to
share this wealth. God, we stand across from temples of power to declare our
own complicity in systems that sustain some of us, while forsaking many others.
And we come before you to seek your forgiveness, even as we pray for your
justice.
Righteous God, you hear the cry of the poor. You listen to those who do
without, while so many spend recklessly and our leaders invest the wealth of
the nation in instruments of destruction.
Be with us this day Lord. Hear our prayers. Touch our hearts that we
may be faithful witnesses and effective voices for justice. God of mercy, hear
our prayer. Amen.
Readings
from the Sacred Texts
Hebrew Scriptures: Deuteronomy 24:14-15
Holy Qur’an: Surah Al-Mutaffifin,
83:1-4
New Testament: Acts 4:32, 34-35
A Responsive Prayer for Justice[1]
Pray for those who are hungry.
Pray harder for those who will not feed
them.
Pray for those who struggle each week
to pay their bills.
Pray harder for the wealthy who do not care.
Pray for those who are homeless.
Pray harder for those who deny them shelter.
Pray for the sick and lonely.
Pray harder for those who will not give them
comfort.
Pray for those who cry out for
dignity.
Pray harder for those who will not listen.
Pray for those oppressed by unjust
wages.
Pray harder for those who exploit them.
Pray for those who bear the yoke of
prejudice.
Pray harder for those who discriminate
against them.
Pray for those whose basic needs are
denied.
Pray harder for public officials who cater
to the greedy and ignore those bound unjustly. Amen.
Intercessory Prayers
And now let us, as a community of faith, surround in prayer all those
who are struggling on the economic margins. Who have not shared in the great
abundance God has entrusted to our care. Who have been left behind by the
so-called recovery and who are unemployed or underemployed or unjustly employed
– laboring full-time and yet living in poverty.
And let us pray for all those engaged in our unjust economic system: the
laborers, the managers, the owners, the policy-makers and yes, we the
consumers - each who has a role and
responsibility in creating a faithful economy that once again values work and honors
the dignity of all workers.
Hear now our prayers O God:
We pray today for all those who
are seeking employment. For those who are facing an uncertain future – whether
they are experiencing joblessness for the first time today or are among the millions
of the long-term unemployed who have been out of work for six months or
longer. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray today for those who are
working in low-wage jobs, who work full-time and yet remain trapped in poverty
-- workers who are fighting for fair wages, respect and dignity in their
workplace. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for children whose
parents must often work two or three jobs to afford shelter, food and clothing.
And for moms and dads and family members who struggle with the difficult choice
of working multiple jobs to provide for their family and cannot tuck their
children into bed each night or see them off to school in the morning. God
of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for those who labor in
the fields to provide us food each day.
For the farm workers who too often work beneath the hot sun without
shade and in the deadly heat without water and who do not even make sufficient
wages to buy the food they are harvesting. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray today for our brothers
and sisters who work in the shadow of a broken and unjust immigration system –
workers who face discrimination and exploitation and whose rights are too often
denied because of intimidation and fear of deportation. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for all those who labor
in restaurants and earn as little as $2.13 per hour – the ‘tipped wage’ which
has not been raised in twenty-two years. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for ethical employers who
share fairly the earnings of their businesses with all their workers. For those
who pay living wages and provide benefits sufficient for workers to support
themselves and their families. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for those employers who
have not yet learned to value their workers or recognize their inherent
dignity. For those CEOs and managers who
have hoarded riches and yet denied fair wages to all those employed by their
companies. We pray, God that you might turn their hearts of stone into hearts
of compassion. God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for our President that he
might use the power of his office to lead by example and guarantee that all
workers on federal property are paid a living wage, God of justice, hear our prayer
We pray for all our elected
leaders that they might place our brothers and sisters struggling on the
margins at the very center of their deliberations. That they would support policies that create
good jobs with living wages. That Congress would increase the minimum wage so
that no one again would be forced to work full-time and still live in poverty. God
of justice, hear our prayer
And finally, we pray that we as
your faithful community might use our voices and our resources to build a just
economy – an economy of shared prosperity where workers earn living wages and
all our brothers and sisters live lives of dignity. God of justice, hear our prayer
God of Justice – we lift up all
these prayers to you in the knowledge that you are already at work amid the
brokenness of our economic system and that you invite each of us to be a part
of your holy work of justice. God we offer to you these prayers today – both
spoken aloud and those in our hearts - that together we might be the people you
have called us to be reflecting your compassion, mercy and justice in all that
we do. In your many holy names we pray –
Amen.
Benediction and Sending Forth
[1]
by Rebecca Sutton Program Coordinator of
Global Women’s Exchange
This prayer was
developed for the NY State Labor-Religion Coalition’s seventh annual 40-hour
fast.
