God of fantastic calls,
and God of endless seeking,
God of all we worship,
we pray, we wonder…
Why do you call us to things,
that make us want to run away?
You had to have known,
that Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh.
You had to have known that he was afraid,
unwanting, unwilling.
You knew that Moses wasn’t confident in his speech,
and that Sarah would laugh at your plans.
Why do you call us to things,
that make us want to run away?
Wouldn’t it be easier, O God,
for you, for us,
to keep your plans smaller,
easier, less terrifying?
Wouldn’t it be easier, O God,
to meet us in our doubts,
to pack yourself inside the boxes we design,
to prioritize safety and order over futures with hope?
Why do you call us to things,
that make us want to run away?
Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayers.
You call us to things that make us want to run away,
the work of reconciliation,
in days when we’ve already picked our sides.
You call us to pursue justice and speak truth,
in a time when holocaust survivors warn us,
they’ve heard this hatred before.
You call us to build kitchens for children
our world tells us should be detained.
You send us around your world,
to hear your love in the voice of Kenyan children.
You call us to do, what we don’t want to do.
For it is easier to stay right where we are,
to run and hide in comfortable corners of over-scheduled certainty.
So Calling God, help us,
for Jonah’s urge to run is in our bones too.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayers.
And then, Calling God, the storms begin to rage,
and we wonder.
When our hearts and minds are unsettled,
we lift our desperate prayers,
the ones that turn into lists,
pleading for direction, for things, for help.
For we try to run,
but somewhere within us is the knowledge
you stitched into us at birth,
The knowing that we are made for more,
that nagging of a call we’d rather not have,
the holy inclination that we won’t be filled
until we go to Ninevah.
So shake us and toss us, God,
swallow us whole and teach us again,
overwhelm us with love that terrifies us,
call us, again and again.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayers.
You call us to things that make us want to run away.
For your love is too great.
Your promise too real.
So meet us, O God,
as you always do.
Meet us in our storms, and in our doubts.
Meet us in our comfortable corners,
our stubborn resistance.
Meet us where we are, and don’t leave us there.
Do what you must,
for we live in a day when there is much for your love to overcome.
So call us again, holy God,
into all the things that make us want to run away.
Then scoop us up, and help us answer.
For yours is a future with hope that we are desperate to see.
So we lift our running hearts, our whole selves to you,
praying the prayer you taught us with our voices all together,
as a protest to all those who seek to divide us in this day…
Our Father…