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PRAY NOW: TODAY'S PRAYER
Relationships of Power - Ahab and Jezebel
He said to her, 'Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, "Give
me your vineyard for money; or, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard
for it"; but he answered, "I will not give you my vineyard."' His wife Jezebel
said to him, 'Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful;
I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite'
Prayer
I want, Lord. Don't we all?
And what I want is what I don't have.
Having does not kill the butterfly Desire.
It flits from what I have just got, to light on what I don't have. Yet.
Desire is, I know, insatiable. It empowers me,
Just as it empowers, charges, drives, this world of conspicuous consumption.
For I am a consumer, and the consumer is king.
My desire is not outrageous or brutal, Lord. Surely my desire kills no one.
It would be satisfied with very little more than I already have.
I could say 'Enough . . .' Any
time I wanted to.
But I hear the seductive whisper
'Why settle for less?' 'You're worth it!'
I lip-know, but do not heart-know, that these things
Are no measure of who and what I am.
Not before You. But they are, with me.
And still the voices whisper.
'Are you not a consumer?' 'Is the consumer not king?'
'Is it my fault if the world
works this way?'
Sometimes I can manage to say it and believe it.
If consumer society empowers the consumer,
And I happen to be a consumer ...
Power is exercised in my name, Lord God, and I am complicit,
Because I am silent, and because I continue to consume.
My desire would consume the world.
Teach me how to decline, with proper revulsion.
Teach me what is enough
...
Readings
Exodus 16:14-36
Amos 4:1-3
Luke 4:1-13
Luke 12:14-34
Luke 16:19-31
Prayer activity
Take the phrase 'I couldn't live without it!' and dwell on it for a moment or two.
What springs to mind? What couldn't you live without? Now - imagine choosing
to live without it. Or having to. How would that be? What would that mean to
you? Go back to the phrase 'I couldn't live without it!'. What do you think that
actually means? Offer all of this to God.
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Prayer for the Church
Centres to which people may withdraw to renew body and
mind, to engage more deeply in worship and study, seeking
the relevance of the Gospel for the contemporary world
especially Scottish Churches House,
Key House (Falkland), Iona Abbey and the Macleod Centres
and other interdenominational retreat centres.
Blessing
Let us so live
That what we want
Is what we need.
Let us so pray
That what we seek
Is what you want for us.
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