Dear friends, This past week, ICMEP commemorated Martin Luther King, Jr. by hosting Baptist pastor and retired Appeals Court Judge, Wendell Griffen. Wendell is one of the co-chairs of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, the pre-eminent African-American organization of Black clergy and church leaders committed to social justice. He is also a long-time friend with South African anti-apartheid activist, Allan Boesak. As I mentioned, Wendell is the pastor of New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas – “Inclusive, Progressive, Welcoming.” This is the Psalm/prayer which Wendell wrote shortly after October 7, 2023, and that the congregation prays at the end of every worship. Friends, our work continues in our country and in Palestine. I’m grateful that we’re in the struggle together. Michael
To the One who gives all life, God of Creation, Love, Justice, Hope, Peace, Truth, and Vindication, hear this prayer for your children in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Hear our prayers for the infants of Palestine.
Hear our prayers for their parents.
Hear our prayer for the playmates children in Gaza will never know.
Hear our prayers on their behalf for justice.
See the silent and sobbing tears we weep for the futures they will never experience.
Smiles. Laughter. Giggles. All lost.
Bombed.
Incinerated.
Targeted.
Massacred.
The slaughtered children, parents, and elders cannot plead for help.
The nations of the world will not protect them.
Religious leaders across the world do not cry out for them.
Politicians in Israel, the United States, and their allies calculate how to take advantage of them, discount them, and subsidize, arm, and cover for Israel.
Israeli Defense Forces collectively punish them, occupy them, displace them, massacre them, and abuse them.
O God of life, love, truth, and justice, judge the hands that are murdering your children.
Judge the politics of hate, bigotry, deceit, hypocrisy, and fear masquerading under disguises while dealing in death-dealing, settler colonizing, land stealing, and white supremacist lies.
Security for Israel. Lies.
Self-defense. Lies.
Israel is the one true democracy in the Middle East. Lies.
Judge the perpetrators and sycophants of apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, white supremacy, Zionist-minded racism, Islamophobia, Christian Zionism, imperial fascism, and xenophobia.
Judge those who deprive your Palestinian children food, clean water, safe shelter, sanitation, medical care, and protection from their enemies.
Take notice of those who bomb hospitals, churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, refugee camps, and life support systems.
Judge the snipers who murder women and children while they leave places of prayer, praise, refuge, and reflection.
O God of truth, justice, and vindication, avenge them in your name.
Avenge the massacred people in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Avenge the displaced.
Avenge the tortured.
Avenge the detained.
Avenge the persecuted, hunted, and murdered journalists .
Deliver fierce judgment against the murderers, land thieves, slanderers, and enemies of your Palestinian children.
Judge the people who perpetrate their genocide, displacement, and sufferings.
Judge the people who put more value on corporate profits than child protection.
Avenge your children, God.
Vindicate their rights to live, grow, learn, love, and heal the world.
Hear their deadened voices.
Avenge your Palestinian children, please God.
As God of justice, for their sake do not hold back your wrath against their oppressors.
Bring judgment against those who treat your children in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as worthless.
Disposable.
Expendable.
Forgettable.
Unprotected.
Defenseless.
Avenge your Palestinian children, God.
Comfort them by your acts of vengeance.
We appeal to your exclusive right to avenge the deaths, land theft, and other suffering of our Palestinian siblings.
Our hearts are pregnant with outrage.
Make us your co-workers for justice against those who oppress and slaughter your children in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Loosen our tongues to loudly declare your judgment on all involved in the oppression of Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Strengthen us to defend and support the Palestinian resistance to that oppression.
Guide us to help their fight for freedom, independence, self-determination, and equality.
Teach us how to speak your truth, hope, and work for justice.
Rise up, O God, in power. Vindicate the people of Gaza, the Israeli occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Rise, O God! Rise!