Prayers of the People: March 29

The Lord’s Prayer in a Pandemic

(adapted from Jim Wallis, Sojourners, March 26, 2020 by Loretta Pain)

God of all mercy and grace.

Each week, we pray this prayer as your son, Jesus, taught us to pray. Today, we pray as a scattered community amid a worldwide pandemic.

Lord, we confess our sadness and our fears. We feel stuck, trapped inside, overwhelmed. Only your love and justice will bring your kingdom into our community right now. Inspire and sustain us to bring your kingdom to earth in this moment of crisis.

We pray especially for those fighting on the front lines of the pandemic — our first responders, nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals — to save as many lives as they can. Shelter them from this virus. Grant your healing mercies to those who will inevitably get sick. Speed the production and distribution of the protective and medical equipment they need. And help those of us not in the health care sector to do the most important thing we can to protect them — help us to stay home.

Lord, give us the strength not to hoard, but the courage to share what we have in order to provide daily bread for all. We know that we find you and each other at the table, so please make us hungry for larger tables. Even in times of social distancing, show us how our daily bread can bring us together.

You have forgiven our sins and trespasses and you have asked us to forgive others. Oh God, how do we treat others the way you have treated us? Lord have mercy, Lord teach us to have mercy — right now.

Forgive us for the temptation to retreat from our neighbors in this health crisis, taking social distance into social withdrawal from the most vulnerable.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

forever. Amen.

Lord, give us the faith and the courage to make this proclamation even in this time of a deadly virus.

Because we know what your kingdom on earth brings, give us the hope of that kingdom in our hearts, lives, communities, and the nations. Let that future we believe in help sustain us in the present, even when things we can’t control seem to dominate our lives. Lord, help us to believe that the virus, the threats, the injustices, and the fears they create are NOT in control and never will be,

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.”

T&J Edition 2: More Pandemic Ways to Engage

Dear T&J Community,

There were a few additions submitted by our community members, with ways that we could continue to remain active and support our community during this pandemic.

As far as a way to gather together and continue these conversations, we wanted to reach out and see if there is interest from this community to have a monthly Zoom call/meeting? Unfortunately, Sayuko, Megan, and Nichelle, who typically organize the T&J events, are feeling quite maxed out with having our kids at home, trying to homeschool, and work at the same time, but we wanted to see if there were some of you in the community that might be interested in taking this on? Perhaps a book club (some ideas: "I Bring the Voices of My People" by Chanequa Walker-Barnes, or "The Very Good Gospel" by Lisa Sharon Harper, or "The Cross and the Lynching Tree" by James H. Cone)? Or some other format? If you feel like you would be interested in taking this on, we'd be quite supportive in helping arrange the Zoom meeting and participating as well. Please just respond to this email with your idea, and we'll help make it happen. 

Please continue to be well! 

Blessings to you all during this time of isolation.

T&J Edition 1: Ways to Engage During COVID-19

Dear T&J Community,

What a crazy and unprecedented time. We are all experiencing this together, even though we are social distancing and in our own silos. While you are at home, wondering how you can help in the community, here are a list of ideas. Places to donate, ways to advocate, and opportunities to volunteer. 

If you have any other ideas, please send them our way, and we can share with this group.

Blessings of safety and health for you all.

  • Donate to local agencies that are supporting communities in need by providing food, shelter, and services

    • Food Lifeline

    • WA-BLOC "Feed the Beach" - feeding students lunch during the COVID-19 shutdown

    • Rainier Valley Foodbank

    • Support ANY Foodbank - a list is here

    • Support Shelters - Noel House 

    • The YMCA is providing childcare to first-responders, increasing their Hunger Initiatives across the region, hosting blood drives, and continuing to care for teens and young adults in their home program

  • Donate blood - if you are healthy, there is a shortage of blood supply

  • Support your local businesses & restaurants, particularly those that are POC-owned - buy gift cards, make donations

  • Call your US representatives today and demand they pass the #FamiliesFirst coronavirus bill. It contains: 

- Free testing

- 14 days paid sick leave

- 3 months paid family leave

- Expanded unemployment insurance & food security

- Medicaid funds

Lives are on the line. (202) 224-3121

  • Advocate for those being held in jail awaiting trial: 

Northwest Community Bail Fund is asking you to contact your city, state and county executives to support our call for:

  • The immediate release of all pre-trial non-violent detainees from all King County and WA state detention facilities.

  • A halt to new arrests and bookings and wealth based detention.

  • Release of other vulnerable jailed neighbors based on health risk.

Who to contact:
Governor Jay Inslee: 360-902-4111/email
County Executive Dow Constantine: (206) 263-9600/ email
Seattle City Attorney Dan Satterberg: 206-477-1200/ email 
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkin: 206-684-4000/ email
SPD Chief Carmen Best: 206-625-5011/ email

For information on contacting State legislators, click here.
For Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier click here.
For Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers email

What to say:
Hi, my name is _____, and I am a Washington resident who is concerned about the impact of Coronavirus on people who are detained.  We are calling for the immediate release of all non-violent pretrial detainees as well as detainees with at-risk health conditions.  We further call for a moratorium on new arrests, bookings and cash bail for all crimes that do not have immediate impact on public safety. Public safety includes those we choose to lock up in close quarters.
Can we count on you to prevent detained people from dying during this pandemic by taking these actions?


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Truth & Justice StudioMISSION STATEMENT :: Truth & Justice creates space to educate and mobilize people by lifting up marginalized voices as catalyst for social change. We are a community within Union Church in Seattle, WA. 

Prayer of Confession

Union Church Worship. March 15.2020

Based on Romans 12:9-16. Written and prayed by Peter Lyons

Father in Heaven,
We come before You to confess our sins in what we have done and left undone.
Our love and mutual affection is not like yours: it is not always genuine;
it is not pure. We don’t try to outdo one another in showing honor,
but instead get a little twisted out of shape if others don’t honor us.
We’re not zealous and fervent in spirit the way Jesus is,
even though You have given us abundant reason to respond to You that way.
We’re impatient in tribulation, not rejoicing in the hope of your deliverance,
but instead find ourselves cyring out in despair, “How long, O Lord?”
We forget to pray for those who persecute us.

We do not always avoid evil because of the harm
it does ourselves and others, but find ourselves involved in it.
In these timese of growing contagion and fear of getting sick,
we don’t contribute to the needs of thes saints
as much as we should, or show hospitality.
We get so involved in our own fears
that we don’t find space in our hearts to weep with those who weep.

Forgive us, Father. Forgive us and make us the people You want us to be,
with a pure love for others, more like your deep love for us.
Help us take your healing message to the needy, the fearful and the lonely,
in such times as this.

In Jesus’ name we pray.

On God's Road: Learning from Jesus

If Jesus were just a good teacher you might expect his very first words of public teaching to be about morality, sin or judgment. That is not where Jesus goes. Being God in the flesh, Jesus’ words are focused on what God is always focused on: reconciliation—between humans, ourselves, the environment and at the center of it all, with God. 

The Beatitudes reveal that? When taken as a whole and seeing how one leads into the other and back again they do.  Jesus is not teaching action but character infused with God’s Spirit to be like Jesus’ character that leads to receiving grace and then the action of living life single-heartedly trusting Jesus and partnering with Christ’s Spirit so that every relationship, familial, social, economic can thrive. 

Jesus’ first words are words not of condemnation but blessing. They are words that bring ongoing blessing to us like the sense one gets when you know you are on the right road. No matter what turns, obstacles or weather, there is the peace and joy of anticipation that good things, very good things, are ahead. And there are. 

James B Notkin

Visiting an ICE Detention Center

Visiting an ICE Detention Center

A stunning rainbow lights up the brooding sky above the Northwest Detention Center. It’s been more than a year since my friend was free. I want to see him before Christmas.

I walk past a barbed wire fence to the steel front door of the building. It turns out the guards had to recently replace it because an angry visitor pulled the old one off its hinges. 

A mildly bored guard looks up as I walk to the counter.

“Did you know there’s a rainbow outside? It’s glorious!”

“Oh really? Man, I wish I could go see it. Who are you visiting today?”

“Joe Bayana.”

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