Liturgy 011: Quiet Time and Social Action
☕️ Take 5 Minutes to be present to God, Self, and Others
Hello and welcome new subscribers! Oikon & Wesley sends out a weekly liturgy every Monday to help ground you for the week ahead. I encourage you to set aside 5-10 minutes to prayerfully read through these words with attentiveness to the Spirit of God (best done with coffee in hand).
🙏 Collect Prayer
Take 3 deliberate breaths and pray these words slowly.
God who sends prophets to reveal your heart, and call your people to the way of justice… On this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, we ask that you would give us eyes to see the many privileges afforded to us. Give us grace to remember those who followed the prompting of your Spirit to nonviolently fight unjust laws of segregation. And we pray: May we have the compassion and the courage to follow Jesus in the way that Pastor Martin did.
Through Christ our LORD,
Amen
📖 Lectio Divina
Read these words slowly, listening for what the Spirit is saying to you personally, today
Amos 5:21-24 (NIV)
I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them…
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
💡 2 Quotes
I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need not follow the do-nothingism of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle.
—Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail
We need regular quiet time with God in order to have the strength, courage, and vitality required for social action: for moving against injustices, speaking truth to power, and assisting in humanitarian efforts.
—Richard Rohr
🧘 Reflection
Someone once told me, “When you look into the eyes of Jesus long enough, you will see the people he loves.”
After getting over how much cheese was oozing out of his words, I began to reflect on this natural flow of intimacy with God, and solidarity with the suffering.
If our times of communion with the Spirit of God does not lead us to the place of compassion and courage to serve others, we are praying to another god.
One author says Christian mysticism always leads to social action.
Jesus was not only a spiritual teacher. Everywhere his body went, there was material healing. The Son of God doesn’t just say, “your sins are forgiven.” He says, “pick up your mat and walk.”1 Same for the early church — everywhere they went as the body of Christ, there was healing and joy in those cities.2
As the prophet Amos suggests, God does not delight in our spirituality if it does not lead to justice and righteousness that flows through the land like a mighty river.
Today, I invite you to prayerfully read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter to a Birmingham Jail. May his words lead you to communion with God, and service toward your neighbor in ways big and small.
In simpler terms: spend time in prayer and help somebody. Cook a meal for someone, buy them a cup of coffee, babysit their children, make plans to volunteer at a soup kitchen or visit a local prison, give towards a humanitarian cause.
🕊️ Blessing
Take another 3 deliberate breaths, acknowledging God’s living presence. Then receive these words:
May you be the body of Christ — as one with the Father in Spirit, and offered in service to even your enemies. May you fall to your knees in reverence to God, and in service to mankind. In so doing, may you find a joy that cannot be purchased or coerced — the joy of knowing Christ.
Amen
Matthew 9:2-8
Acts 8:4-8