A PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
Brother Jesus, Beloved Son of God and our stumbling humanity, we love you and need you, all of us: whatever our gender, whatever the gender of those we love. We have not seen you or touched you; but we have heard you. We cannot explain you or define you; but we know you. You come to us in the mystery of divine love, the Word of God made flesh, our human flesh. And in our hearts we know you are one with the Eternal One; for you lead us to the waters of eternal hope and give meaning to our lives. You affirm the unity and diversity of God’s holy creation in each of us, whatever our gender, whatever the gender of those we love.
No more shall we despair or disbelieve! No more shall we hide in closets dark with the dogma and canons of hatred and condemnation. You are with us, Good Shepherd! Your rod and staff comfort us; and we follow you in love, not fear, into the light. Your Gospel sustains us like manna in the deserts of life. It opens our hearts to the love of God and neighbour, and transforms us. We are born anew, brave and free, children of God with a place at the table and a portion of the blessing for all!
Through faith in you, Brother Jesus, we are saved. In you we are delivered from the hells of fear and self-destruction into the everlasting arms and peace of God. Through your life, your death, and your resurrection, we can love God; for you teach us that God is love and that we are loved by God, though at times life seems heartless and unjust, a nightmare of abandonment to an Arctic of indifference, our own night in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In your father’s house are many mansions. And you have prepared a place for us where we are loved and embraced in life, in death, and in life beyond death, that where you are we may be also. Help us to live your Gospel; to build bridges and not barriers. Help us to be your church again, your family of brothers and sisters, your communion of friends and saints, however we understand you or each other. For our theologies are but Towers of Babel without your Gospel, the Gospel of Love!
As it was in the early church, when Jew and Gentile accepted each other and became one in you. so may it be today for all of us, whatever our gender, whatever the gender of those we love. May we be one in you, Brother Jesus, for the sake of your Gospel, that the kingdom may come, now and forever. Amen.
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Jim Komar, Saskatoon
30 October 2011
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