As more and more details come out about the recent incident
in Washington D.C. it seems ever clearer that there were neither innocents nor
heroes. A lot of the comments that seek to assign blame seem to be attempts to
avoid painful self-examination. I know I posted yesterday about not getting
sucked into these troubling issues for the good of my soul, but then this
prayer in my regular rotation through the prayers in the New Testament Epistles
seemed especially pointed to the clashing of fragments of our society. I know
this was written/prayed for a church, a community of Jesus’ disciples, and not
all of Philippi or the Roman Empire, but it prompted me to pray this morning
that those of us who follow Jesus could be and teach that overflowing with
love, knowledge and full insight will take the whole society to what is best
(or at least better) when it comes to addressing the clashes in our
increasingly fragmented and hostile society.
Philippians
1:9-11
“This is my prayer, that your love
may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to
determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and
blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through
Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”
