Cross – photo John Kingery (c) 2013
Station 3: Jesus Falls for the First Time (Bethel UCC Peace Pole)
Theme: Jesus stands for Peace and nonviolence
Tema: Jesús está por la paz y no violencia
Scripture: Luke 6: 27
“But I say to you, Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you; pray for those who abuse you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who take your cloak, do not with hold even your tunic. “
Reflection by Patrick Berg of Holy Trinity Catholic Church: “Pray for those who abuse you.” There are times in our lives when we encounter particularly offensive people. These are traumatic times which we remember all our lives. When we pray for those who have abused us we change their lives and our own.
In 1970 I was first year lawyer working in a legal aid office in Harlem. The US Attorney General asked for volunteer lawyers to assist in monitoring the November election in Mississippi in keeping with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was the monitors’ duty to report on attempts by white sheriffs, poll workers, election clerks and others to impede black voters from voting in that election. (It was still the era of “Mississippi Burning”, when civil rights workers were harassed, beaten and killed in an effort to maintain white supremacy.) My assigned area was in Yazoo County, just north of Jackson, Mississippi. Five very large black men escorted me in a large old Buick to the polling places. They expected violence. At one polling place a white sheriff dressed in a Union suit and pork-pie hat stood in my path and refused to move out of the way as I entered the polling place.
He repeatedly spat in my face, spoke loudly and called me names including “Jew boy”, “carpetbagger” and worse, challenging my authority to be on the premises. Essentially he was attempting to intimidate, provoke and divert my attention from the on-going voting so that it would impossible for me to hear the clerks questioning the credentials of voters. He still is the quintessential abuser who calls for my prayers. Likely you have your own similar ghosts.
Prayers: We thank you for making us all your children; sisters and brothers in Christ:
WE THANK YOU, LORD
Petitions: We pray for forgiveness when we withdraw from the field leaving the disadvantaged to the oppressors. O GOD, HEAR OUR PRAYER
We pray for our elected leaders in their continued efforts to protect the disenfranchised.
O GOD, HEAR OUR PRAYER
We pray for the grace to remember those who have abused us and those we try to protect: the poor, the disenfranchised, and the oppressed. O LORD, WE WANT TO WALK IN YOUR WAYS
LET THE JUSTFAITH/JUSTPEACE COMMUNITY TAKE UP THE CROSS
Song: “Jesus Remember Me” Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. (Repeat as needed)