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Dear Jesus: Don’t do that. Don’t go saying “I come not to bring peace, but division.” You’re scaring us. Don’t you know there are children in the room!

Peace is not the product of the politics of fear, of Wall Street fraud or war profiteer.

Listen, Lord, we need you to get back to being a sweet Jesus. Sweet little Jesus boy, born in a manger.

Herod didn’t think of Jesus as sweet.

And a manger wasn’t some first-century Palestinian crib. It’s an animal feeding trough filled with dried sheep slobber.

Peace is not the silence of the sepulcher, drowning sad-soul songs of lament; peace is not repressing, abducting, disappearing all who dissent.

Peace isn’t passive. It’s not always nice or good-natured, cheerful or charming, winsome or quiet or sweet.

Prophecy that provokes no crisis, asserting no claim or offense, is a liturgy deaf to Redemption’s resolve, inflated with pious pretense.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Luke 12:49-53, Jeremiah 6:13-15, and former Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.*

And how are we to spend ourselves for the sake of the world that God loves? For the recognition? For the virtue?

For the hope of return in the future? Maybe for the pleasure?

No, we “give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.”**

Give without allowing the left hand to know what the right hand does.

Give without hope for heaven or fear of hell.***

If you experience forgiveness, you will be forgiving. If you encounter mercy, you will be merciful.

Exhausting yourself in giving grows more from pride than from love. The world’s salvation is not up to you. So back off!

In Jesus’ parable, we are neither the sower nor the seed. We are the ground. Direct all your longing to be fertile soil. The sower will come, and the seed will be planted, in good time.

It is no sin to leave some things for our children—and to God.****

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Mark 4:26-34 & Matthew 6:3-4. *Line from the Talmud. **Line from Kahlil Gibran. ***Line from Rabia al-Adawiyya, 8th century Sufi mystic. ****Line from Walter Rauschenbusch.

Listen up, you heralds of hope: Hear the cheer of angels for your big, bold, even brassy acts of courage. Don’t back down from the chance to be audacious, bodacious, maybe even contentious.

Yet it is the tenacious on whom the Beloved most depends.

Quotidian faithfulness—in life’s persistent, unremarkable moments, when no bands play, no cameras roll, no headlines appear—this is the persevering labor which Redemption most employs. Ordinary time rocks.

Vision for mission begins with the street signs in your own neighborhood.

The bonds you restore outweigh the bounty you confer.

An inch of fertile soil takes a millennium to amass. Plant a coastal redwood, and fruit trees whose yield you will not taste.

Small stuff matters. An ounce of care is worth a ton of theory.

Foster the habits of daily attention and timely words to encourage.

God’s in the details; the devil prefers abstraction.

Come mothers and shepherds, gardeners and menders. Come fathers and healers, instructors, defenders.

The rendezvous of Heaven with earth is announced with each pardon’s release.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org.

Friends, of all the things we believe or disbelieve, only this is sure:

We are a delight to the One who crowns the earth with sky,

Who shines on the soil by day and shelters the heart by night.

Because of this jubilant news, clothe yourselves with royal attire:

With compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.

Bearing with one another in the midst of disagreement,

Forgiving one another in the aftermath of conflict.

Having known forgiveness, by the One whose breath fills our lungs,

We are granted the power to forgive others.

And by forgiving others, we linger in the Shadow of Mercy.

So let us announce the goodness of God on Mount Mitchell

And may Town Mountain* echo our joyous songs of praise!

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Colossians 3:12-17. *Town Mountain runs through Asheville.

Oh, for a Word to be heard from above
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a pardon for hardened contempt
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a vision, a decision and desire
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for an ear just to hear our name spoken
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a sight, clear and bright, pure delight
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a heart to impart love unmeasured
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a tongue hitched to lungs full of praise
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Behold, the day comes when the dumb shall rejoice!
Behold, every hearing, no fearing that Voice!

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Mark 7:31-37.

People of Mercy, put your hands together for the One we adore, lift your cheers to the Tender of orphans and widows, to the Protector of migrant farmer and those crushed with medical debt.

[All clap and cheer!]

Release your grip on the gods of armed might, on strategies of shock and awe. Confound the tortured schemes of the White House, jolt the laggard vision of the church house, and raise the burdened hopes of the poor house.

[All clap and cheer!]

Offer your applause to the cause of the One yet unknown in the Pentagon and in the board rooms of privilege. Their profit margins and preemptive plans will be confounded, for the Prince of Peace approaches with a new agenda for investment.

[All clap and cheer!]

Rain will absorb every drought and mercy be restored to the marketplace. Lush meadows will break through the developer’s asphalt. Affordable homes will open for all whose hopes have been foreclosed. Those who buy and sell the futures of crops and petroleum, who barter menial wages for market share, will confront the One who crushes the delight for war and leads the prisoner to prosperity.

Our applause belongs to this One alone!

All praise to the Blessed One whose name is pronounced in the mending of creation and in remembrance of the forgotten.

Oh Lord of life, we come to you. Create in us a clean heart. Bless us in the work of blessing. Heal us in the work of healing. Light our path in the journey of love through the wilderness of enmity.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 68.

The Spirit draws near to the people of Promise, a people grown weary by the delay of Heaven’s remission and earth’s Redemption.

{Singing} Come ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish.

Lean into Mercy, you prisoners of hope, with all your damp, dismayed strength.

{Singing} Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.

Pray not just with your words but with your fretful hands and your tissue-torn knees.

{Singing} Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish.

Has your tongue gone dumb? Then let your feet wail your anguish. Have your eyes grown dim? Then let your lungs inhale the aroma of God! Let the pores of your skin draw in the assurance of Presence amid every abandoning dungeon.

{Singing} Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Romans 8:38-39 and lyrics to Come Ye Disconsolate.

Hear this, oh people of the Covenant: The claim of Heaven’s Reign and the clamor over earth’s rule are woven together. The seed sown in one is harvested in the other. All questions of piety are questions of power. But the nature of power is contested.

No one can serve two masters.

There is this version of the Golden Rule: Those with the gold get to rule.

Say aloud: No one can serve two masters.

Then there is the original: Do unto others as you would to yourself.

Say it proud: No one can serve two masters.

Hoard your money or hallow your God: The one precludes the Other.

All gathered avow: No one can serve two masters.

You will hate the one or love the other; be devoted to one, despising the other.

Your checkbook declares your choice. Prayers and praise then align with that voice.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Luke 16:13.

As shadows advance with light’s retreat, prompt wings of the heart to fold in repose.

No fright scars the night, encircled in mercy.

As western sky fades, with compline’s approach, prompt vigilant hands to fold in repose.

No fright scars the night, encircled in mercy.

As silence descends, distraction restrained, prompt anxious eyes to fold in repose.

No fright scars the night, encircled in mercy.

For Your lap entreats, Your arms enfold, remind us again of the Promise foretold.

Behold! Behold! The mercy untold! Our refuge, our strength, secured in Your hold.    

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 131.

Nicodemus, stalwart among the Sincere-Upright Party of God, came to Jesus, confused.

“Rabbi-teacher,” says he, “your walk conforms to your word; your call, to your claim; your feats, to your faith. Why do you distance yourself from our Party?”

“Dear Brother Nicodemus,” Jesus replied, “none could be so right and so wrong. To walk in the Way requires birth from Above on the wings of a dove.”

“Can any re-enter a mother’s womb, to squeeze again through birth canal?” asked the stalwart.

“For God so loved,” said Jesus.

God so loved.

For God so loved the world—not just the soul, but the whole.

Every mountain, every mole.

The world’s ablaze with the Only Begotten, if we only had eyes to behold.

Like the wind upon the waters, the voice upon the deep,

Let the Spirit soak and save you, whole and lasting life to keep.