Litany of Resistance

A friend sent me this "Litany of Resistance" today from Shane Claiborne's book, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (great title). It's a little long and there are probably a couple of lines that are radical enough to get me voted out at PazNaz, but generally I think we'd be a better people if we could learn to pray it, or something like it, together on a regular basis.

Litany of Resistance - by Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw, Jim Loney and Brian Walsh


One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.

All: Have mercy on us.

One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.

All: Free us from the bondage of sin and death.

One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.

All: Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.

One: For the victims of war.

All: Have mercy.

One: Women, men and children.

All: Have mercy.

One: The maimed and the crippled.

All: Have mercy.

One: The abandoned and the homeless.

All: Have mercy.

One: The widowed and the orphaned.

All: Have mercy.

One: The bleeding and the dying.

All: Have mercy.

One: The weary and the desparate.

All: Have mercy.

One: The lost and the forsaken.

All: Have mercy.

One: O God, have mercy on us sinners.

All: Forgive us for we know not what we do.

One: For our scorched and blackened earth.

All: Forgive us.

One: For the scandal of billions wasted in war.

All: Forgive us.

One: For our arms makers and arms dealers.

All: Forgive us.

One: For our Caesars and our Herods.

All: Forgive us.

One: For the violence that is rooted in our hearts.

All: Forgive us.

One: For the times we turn others into enemies.

All: Forgive us.

One: Deliver us, O God.

All: Guide our feet into the way of peace.

One: Hear our prayer.

All: Grant us peace.

One: From the arrogance of power.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the myth of redemptive violence.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the tyranny of greed.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the ugliness of racism.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the cancer of hatred.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the seduction of wealth.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the addiction of control.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the idolatry of nationalism.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the paralysis of cynicism.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the violence of apathy.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the ghettos of poverty.

All: Deliver us.

One: From the ghettos of wealth.

All: Deliver us.

One: From a lack of imagination.

All: Deliver us.

One: Deliver us, O God.

All: Guide our feet into the way of peace.

One: We will not conform to the patterns of this world.

All: Let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

One: With the help of God’s grace.

All: Let us resist evil wherever we find it.

One: With the waging of war.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the legalization of murder.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the slaughter of innocents.

All: We will not comply.

One: With laws that betray human life.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the destruction of community.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the pointing finger and malicious talk.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the idea that happiness must be purchased.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the ravaging of the earth.

All: We will not comply.

One: With principalities and powers that oppress.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the destruction of peoples.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the raping of women.

All: We will not comply.

One: With governments that kill.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the theology of empire.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the business of militarism.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the hoarding of riches.

All: We will not comply.

One: With the dissemination of fear.

All: We will not comply.

One: Today we pledge our ultimate allegiance to the kingdom of God.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To a peace that is not like Rome’s.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the gospel of enemy-love.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the kingdom of the poor and broken.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To a king who loves his enemies so much he died for them.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the least of these, with whom Christ dwells.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the transnational church that transcends the artificial borders of nations.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the refugee of Nazareth.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the homeless rabbi who had no place to lay his head.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the cross rather than the sword.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the banner of love above any flag.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the one who rules with a towel rather than an iron fist.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the one who rides a donkey rather than a war horse.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the revolution that sets both oppressed and oppressors free.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the way that leads to life.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: To the slaughtered lamb.

All: We pledge allegiance.

One: And together we proclaim his praises, from the margins of the empire to the centers of wealth and power.

All: Long live the slaughtered lamb.

One: Long live the slaughtered lamb.

All: Long live the slaughtered lamb.

(That is powerful - God help us and God have mercy on us).

Comments

[Sarah Laughed]

Amen!

[Christa]

Love it, love it...I'm reading this book currently. I loved "Irresistible Revolution" also...

[Elizabeth Reuss]

I am not sure why we would actually pray this. This is so far removed from Love that to vocalize this, in prayer, in His Name, would be incredible. This doesn't seem to me to be a prayer at all but a political statement.
OH God, Have Mercy on Us- we don't know what we are doing.

[Scott]

Thanks Elizabeth for your comment.
I would just say in response that both prayer and love are a form of politics.
Each week we pray, "thy Kingdom come" which is a political prayer that God's kingdom would come and all other principalities and powers that vie for our allegiance would be removed.
I believe that worship is always a political act. It is not a Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative act, but it is always political. Israel worshiped Yahweh as a reminder that Pharaoh was not God and Egypt was not God's Kingdom.
Their worship led Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to not bow to Nebuchadnezzar as God and to realize that Babylon was also not the Kingdom.
The early church's worship was a political act that weekly declared Christ as Lord and not Caesar. It proclaimed the Kingdom of God as present instead of Rome. They accepted death from Caesar because he is not God, but they refused to kill Caesar because the Kingdom of God's (shaped by a politic of love rather than power) is already present, whether Caesar knows it or not.
Thus everytime the church gets together it makes a political statement. Again, the church is not political in terms of candidates and elections, but it is political because it refuses to confess that whatever nation it finds itself in is eternal and it is continually finding ways to not be conformed to this world.
So, I believe you can dislike all or part of the litany of resistance because you don't think it reflects what a people shaped by God's love ought to look like or confess. (I would sincerely be very interested to hear your thoughts regarding which lines in the litany shouldn't be prayed by a people trying to fit in God's Kingdom rather than the nation's). But I don't believe that you can dismiss it as political, because every prayer is a political act because it confesses that God is above every earthly power and it declares our allegiance solely to Him.
Thanks again for your honest comment.
Scott