Station 10 Litany: Let Justice Roll Down Like Water

From Stations of the Banquet, pp. 196-197

Group 1: For your justice pouring as a mighty river from your heart,

All: We thank you.

You are the center of our lives, our light and our hope.

Group 2: Bathed in your grace, fed with the always enough-ness of your love,

All: We commit ourselves in thanksgiving

To address the hungers of your world for the fullness of the banquet.

[pause]

Group 1: For all who speak the truth in love,

all who open our eyes, ears, and minds,

to the cries of your people and your beloved creation;

Group 2: For all who work in and outside the structures of power

to create condition for peace, the just sharing of the earth’s resources, and

healthy relationships with each other and creation.

All: For all who call us to the banquet, we give you thanks.

One: With our reason intact and eyes wide open,

We face the staggering breadth and depth of suffering in our world;

All: Give us the compassion and skill, the resilience and courage,

To be part of communities who incarnate your transforming power.

One: Give us your peace.

Group 1: To drop the stones in our hands; and

to take our place in the community life,

neither too grand now too small a place;

Group 2: To welcome the companions you send to us;

to discern the degrees of freedom you give,

and choose the path of abundant life for all.

One: We pray for your mercy,

for all those times when we swim against the current of your heart:

Group 1: when we turn away from the anguish of your beloved creation,

when we let the big picture overshadow the near, small, and local;

Group 2: when we sacrifice the well-being of the parts of the well-being of the whole,

when our righteousness creates barriers rather than openings;

Group 1: when our structures, practices, and traditions blind us to you,

when our despair or fear, exhaustion, anger, or willfulness deafen us to your voice;

Group 2: when the lures of security, personal gain, and comfort distract us from your path,

when guilt, a sense of inadequacy, bitterness, or resentment separate us from you;

All: Give us your grace

to turn and return, again and again, to You,

to say yes to the new possibilities You offer each day,

to come home to You.

All: For You are the path of abundant life for all;

Group 1: You create cosmos from chaos;

The powers and principalities are nothing in your sight;

Group 2: You make the rough places a plain and turn famines into feasts;

In You, all find their true place of dignity and worth;

All: We sing of your glory,

O God of justice, O steadfast Lover;

And praise your power forever and ever.