| A prayer for freedom from want - for MLK Day 2011 |

(Prayer given at the MLK Jazz Service for Peace | January 16, 2011)

Holy One, Ever-Present-Dreamer-Whom-We-Call-Many-Names, we join your presence this evening. Some of us are restful. Others are agitated. All of us, O God, seek peace. We bring our calm-measured-breaths – we bring our agitated-balled-up-fists – we come seeking peace.

O, Dreamer, we admit that peace can often seem elusive in our society.

We feel a rush of anxiety as we swipe our Visas at the gas pump – will our card be denied? Our hands begin to tremble, ever so slightly, as we review our bank accounts.

We worry, God.

We worry day-and-night-and-afternoon-and-morning.
Will there be enough money for our children to go to college?
Will there be enough money in our account so that our check won’t bounce?
Will there be enough money left at the end of the month to pay the rent?

Will there be enough….? Will there be enough….?

And we hear the voice of your servant, Martin. “God has left enough and to spare in this world for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life.”[1]

But how can this be? It feels like there is never enough.

There are always more things that we want.
A new smart phone.
Bottled water.
Heated leather seats in our car.
A private education for our children.
A bigger flowerbed in the backyard.
A new set of bath towels, because the old ones are looking dingy.

And on and on.

God, we stand before you this evening a people who don’t understand the differences between needs and wants.

Our hearts are filled to overflowing with wants that disguise themselves as needs. They sneak into our souls and make it impossible to focus on the one thing we truly need.

What we need, O Lover of our Souls, is freedom from want.

Freedom from want.

What would that look like?

Holy Dreamer, birth in us a new vision of the peace that could come from truly understanding what it means to want nothing.

Some of us seek freedom from want because there are things we truly need that we don’t have.
We go to bed hungry.
We are at risk of losing our homes.
We seek meaningful work, but find none.

God, on behalf of these, your children, we ask that those who have plenty be awakened to the needs of those around them.

Open their hearts, Holy One, and guide them in a spirit of compassion and sharing. And while those who have true needs wait for them to be met, shower them with your loving presence. Whisper your dreams for a better life in their ears. Allow them to climb into your lap and rest like small children – feeling your love encircle them. Grant them peace.

Others of us, O God, seek freedom from want because we want too much.
We have been trapped by the images we see on TV and at the mall.
We have been duped into believing we need a fancy car, fancy salad greens, a hundred-dollar haircut, a closet that’s bigger than the bedroom we grew up in.

On behalf of these, your children, we ask for liberation.


Break the chains that keep them enslaved to jobs that fill up bank accounts but empty the soul.
Free them from the glossy lies that beckon from magazine pages.
Cultivate in them a spirit of discernment.
Teach them what it means to say, “enough. I have enough.”

For all of us, God, help us to listen to the words of Rev. Dr. King.

Spoken almost fifty years ago, they still ring true tonight. He said, “Man is more than a dog to be satisfied with a few economic bones. Man is a child of God born to have communion with that which transcends the material.” [2]

Give us the peace that comes with the understanding that we were made to be loved.

And if we can but receive and give your love, we will be filled and we will fill others.

“Caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny,” together – we can find freedom from want.[3]

Amen.

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Can a Christian Be a Communist?” in The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Clayborne Carson, vol.6 Advocate of the Social Gospel, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992-), 451.
[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., “The False God of Money” in The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Clayborne Carson, vol.6 Advocate of the Social Gospel, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992-), 135.
[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. Edited by James M. Washington, (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990), 254.