Housing Justice - prayers and reflections

Below is a scripturally-based prayer for seeking the fulfilment of God’s promise and the Church’s calling to be renewers (and rebuilders) of the world around us (refer especially to Isaiah 58 and Matthew 5:13-16). The prayer may be used with or without the congregational responses shown in red.

Lord, we pray that you would renew our selfhood as the People of God – we are not to be the remains of a goal-less club, but rather, the Bride of Christ, the King who is over all things.

Father God, through your power and through your People,
Let your kingdom come.
Help us to show the world the true personality of your Church: by faithfulness to the Master; by love for him and his creations; by participating in his work of giving flavour to the world, in his humility.

Father God, through your power and through your People,
Let your kingdom come.
We ask you to give us the privilege, through your grace, of regaining our role as renewers of our world, as the people who heal our society, who improve our surroundings, who improve circumstances.

Father God, through your power and through your People,
Let your kingdom come.
Give us the power to obey your will for our lives, for each other, and for others, in acceptance that understanding comes by a spirit of obedience to you, and that the source of life is your light.

Father God, through your power and through your People,
Let your kingdom come.
Let us learn to make neighbours and how to love them. Let us expect great things from you. Let us always learn; let us persevere through the process of extending and inheriting God’s kingdom; let us be called ‘repairers of the breach’ and ‘restorers of streets to be lived in.’

Father God, through your power and through your People,
Let your kingdom come.

Act of commitment
All: Together, Lord, we will build a home in a new world.
Reader: With the bricks of tolerance
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: With the bricks of belonging
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: With the bricks of understanding
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: With the bricks of sharing
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: With the bricks of hope
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: With the bricks of community
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: With the bricks of love
All: we build together a better world.

Reader: Together, Lord, With your help, Lord,
All: we build together a better world, where everyone will have a home, where we will be part of one another, part of you.

Lost opportunity
He sat on the side of the pavement
In rags and wind and rain;
And I threw a penny as I passed by
Into a ragged cap nearby.

Cold, mean, meaningless charity,
Without the colours of grace upon it,
And I threw it – without a kind word
Nor a smile – like a bone to a dog.

Then came the gnawing of an awakened conscience
To keep completely awake,
And a voice from heaven to rebuke me –
Gentleness and severity in one:

‘I do not fling my mercies
But I bend down
To give them with my gentle hand
And place them in your hands.’

During the night, the unfortunate was called
To a land where he received the means to live;
And I had lost my opportunity
To show mercy like my God.
Lord of power and might
Lord of power and might we welcome you.
Yet confess that too often we welcome the powerful and the
wealthy and neglect those who are weak and powerless.

We confess that too often we welcome the neat, clean and tidy and neglect those who are dirty and dishevelled.

We confess that we welcome those within our small world and neglect those who live outside on the streets or in bad housing.

Help us, Lord, to welcome you and be strengthened by you in our active concern for all our neighbours.
Lord, help us to welcome.

A Franciscan blessing
May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships so that we may live deep within your heart.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that we may work for justice freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.
Amen

In your house
Father, in your house there is room enough for everyone. We pray for those who live crowded into shanties with paper-thin walls, corrugated iron roofs, no clean water, no electricity, no hope.

We pray for families who are squeezed into one inadequate room; refugees in tents, cold in winter, hot in summer; young people in night shelters, lonely and apprehensive.

We pray for people who sleep rough in all weather.

Father, this was not your intention. It is we who allow this to happen to your people. It is we who must arm ourselves with your courage, love and compassion, so that we can build the Kingdom of hope where people can live in dignity, comfort and security.

In your holy name.
Amen

The prayers on this page are taken from The Trampled Vineyard: Worship resources on housing and homelessness edited by Christine Allen and Barbara d'Arcy and published by CHAS and UNLEASH in 1992. This title is now out of print.