December 1

Prayer:
Lord, when we strive after healing in the world and nourishment for those who hunger, we find you at our side. Whenever we long to see your face, help us not avoid the corners of our communities where you most often dwell. Stir our hearts that we might seek and find you today in those places where you have promised to be. Amen.[1]

Reading: Isaiah 54:1-10

Reflection: Pause to consider the Exodus narrative. The cries from Israel, “we want a king on a throne with power in his fist."[2] We are culture that pursues power, we desire to feast on all that it claims we can have when we attain power: individual, corporate and national, and yet we eat the bitter ashes, we feast on the brokenness of our desires, the same desires that Israel desired and one of the reasons they could not embrace the prophecy that Jesus would not be that kind of ruler. He is unlike any ruler we have known. As we consider Jesus, are our heart prepared to fast from the powers of this world so that we may know the true fulfillment of being fed by Christ?

Application: Consider journeying in prayer today, this week, this month or even for a year with a person oppressed under the power systems we strive for in our neighborhood. It may seem difficult and this may take time, but as you learn the stories of your neighbors and coworkers you will undoubtedly hear of places where there is conflict and oppression. You will see places were you have been privileged socially, culturally and even by your gender and race. Consider fasting of a meal or a day routinely in an act of solidarity with those who are oppressed in these huge complex systems of oppression. One such huge system is that of our food production; consider when you sit down to your next meal all the hands that truly have contributed to your feasting, even while they may fast involuntarily because they go without the food they have picked or the means to pay for it.

Information on Migrant Worker Rights in the US.

[1]Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals pg.55. 
[2]Andrew Peterson, “So Long, Moses,” Behold the Lamb of God: 10th Anniversary Edition. (Nashville: Rabbit Room Press), 2009. iTunes.