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Weekly Prayer Cycle Pentecost 22

November 2, 2014

By Suzanne Rumsey

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Week of November 9 (Pentecost 22)

Scripture: Amos 5:18-24
Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

PWRDF Story: “We Have Made a Beginning” ““ reflections from “We Are the Branches ““ The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, The First 25 Years” by Ian Stuchbery 

“We Are the Branches” offers a brief history of the first quarter century of PWRDF, a history that officially began with a vote at the 1959 General Synod in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec to create the Primate’s World Relief Fund (“development” was added to the name in 1969).  In the epilogue of this history the writer notes:

The Primate’s Fund is above all about people, the people in the parishes who give the money and the partners abroad who are trying to develop their lives and those of their communities.  And in the middle there are the people who are directly involved in the work of the Fund, the staff at Church House and the members of the Committee.  Some of these have shared their feelings about the Fund and the effects it has had on their lives”¦ 

What comes across in all of these testimonies is an experience which in nearly every case has changed and deepened their lives. There is a sense of struggle and frustration in having to come together with the realities of poverty and oppression while we live in comparative affluence and security.  And there is also a sense of hope, hope that through the Primate’s Fund we can do something to help and heal a broken world. 

We have made a beginning in the first 25 years: much more remains to be done. 

This year as PWRDF turns 55, much the same could be said ““ “We have made a beginning in the first 55 years: much more remains to be done.”  We continue the journey to live out God’s call, spoken through the prophet  Amos to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” 

For Reflection: 

In January 2011 Michael Enright, the host of the CBC radio program, The Sunday Edition, spoke with Prof. Natalie Zemon Davis, an historian and winner of the 2010 Holberg International Memorial Prize for her work in the Humanities.  At the conclusion of the interview with this remarkable woman who has made her life’s work the telling of everyday people’s histories, Enright asked, “History is for you about hope and possibility.  Where do you place your own hopes now looking at the world, a newly-minted 82-year-old?  Where are your hopes now?”

Prof Zemon Davis replied:  “Well, I’m seasoned!  And I think some of the utopian ideas I had when I first began, I have long-since had to put aside.  But I will never relinquish the notion of the importance of hope.  That remains a foreground for me, and I see it now in the persistence, no matter what, of some people who will continue to try to live peacefully, try to understand each other, try to make things better, whether it’s repairing villages in Haiti or trying to rebuild olive groves in Israel-Palestine or trying to build schools for girls in Afghanistan”¦ There’s always going to be a few people who will continue to try to repair the wounds, and that will never die out”¦ I know that will never die out.  So the kinds of reforms I had hoped for when I was a girl, those won’t happen.  But the torch will never go out.  It will never stop.  And that’s my hope.”

Amos, PWRDF’s history and Prof. Zemon Davis all highlight the need for justice, persistence, transformation and hope as we respond to God’s call to make a new beginning, over and over again in our personal lives, in our work and in the world.  As you consider these readings and stories, how might you respond to Michael Enright’s questions: “Where do you place your own hopes now looking at the world [whatever your age]?  Where are your hopes now?”

Concluding Prayer:   

Merger Poem by Judy Chicago
And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another’s will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life’s creatures
And then all will live in harmony with one another and the Earth
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.

One of artist, author and educator, Judy Chicago’s most popular texts, the “Merger Poem” was originally written in conjunction with her 1979 installation, The Dinner Party. This beautiful and hopeful text has been integrated into many contemporary liturgies and published in numerous books.

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