America Bless God
Below is the prayer I prayed during worship on July 6, 2025.
Gracious God, we still heard fireworks go off last night, and we still have the taste of hamburgers and hot dogs lingering in our mouths. This weekend we celebrated the 249th birthday of our country. We enjoyed gathering with family and friends here in North Carolina on a pristine July night. We thank you for the ability to live in a wonderful country that is full of so much awe and wonder. Our own state is filled with a deep history, beautiful mountains, and pristine beaches. Lord, as we look at the place we call home, we can see that God has blessed America so much.
Yet, how has America blessed you, God Almighty, maker of amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesties? We are a country filled with Christians, but have we lived up to the way you have called us to live? True patriotism is holding your country up to our highest standards. For those of us who follow your Son, Jesus Christ, he is the example we are to follow, and the plumbline we hold our country up to as well. We have the scriptures found in the Old and New Testaments, which help us learn about how we are to live as your people.
In those scriptures, over 2,000 times you ask your followers to take care of the poor, watch over the widows, and seek justice for the least of these in our midst. We are called to your hands and feet for the world and to offer compassion, grace, forgiveness, and love. Yet, I wonder if we have lost our way because we have forgotten what it means to sacrifice for the sake of others. Instead, we have lifted up those who seek to empower themselves as examples to follow. We have drifted away from what it means to be a community, to be civil, and to be Christ-like.
We admit there are some people who love to see the immigrant carted off by masked men, but then we forget what you have said in Leviticus 19, “When immigrants live in your land with you, you must not cheat them. Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens.” As we hear of legislation that will take away food, medical care, and other social safety nets, we mourn because you have asked us in Zechariah to “not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”
We are the Divided States of America this morning, Lord. We are full of broken and sinful people. We need your redemption. We need your forgiveness. We need to repent and turn our lives back to you, not the politically washed version of Christianity, the one that seeks only to convert voters, but the true version of being followers of The Way.
Lord, some people are hurting in our world, as well. They are battling with taking care of loved ones, with grief, with illness, with loneliness. We pray for the people in Texas who are waking up to the nightmare of people still missing and 43 people who have died, 15 of them being children. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers in this moment of silence…
As we come to the table today to receive this means of grace, the body and blood of your son, may it remind us of your grace in our lives and the calling you have for us to be an example for the world to follow. Then let’s grab hold of where we can be the church in the world and be your hands and feet. May this be a time when we don’t look on the government to do our job as the church and instead stand up and do the work where we need to. May America bless God, by we, Americans, living the way we are called to live by you, our Lord and Savior. We ask this all in the one who came, who died, and who rose again, Jesus Christ. Amen.