Doing Justice as Prayer

For this final sermon in our summer preaching series The Renewing Work of God, we turn to the work of Doing Justice as Prayer. Throughout this series we have been encouraged to set the intention of prayer while doing everyday ordinary things such as planting seeds, going for walks, making music and art and eating. Today we turn our attention to the act of doing justice and wonder how the work of justice itself can be prayer. The late congressman John Lewis who marched across the bridge to Selma in March of 1965 was known for likening that walk to prayer. “When you pray move your feet” he would say. Sometimes the work of doing justice can be met with terrible violence as Lewis experienced on that bridge. Sometimes justice making can happen quietly and almost unnoticed. Either way, the work of doing justice is a participation in God’s ongoing plan to mend our broken universe to wholeness. Setting the intention of prayer while doing justice is intentionally tapping into God’s ongoing work. It brings rest to our weariness, peace to the chaos surrounding us, and the assurance that this is God’s work and not ours alone. Doing Justice is Doing Prayer.