God, Could You Leave Us Alone?

Gracious God, we confess, like your people Israel, that we tire of being "the chosen." Could you not just leave us alone every once in a while? Sometimes this "Christian stuff" gets a bit much. Life goes on and we have lives to live. Yet, unrelenting, you refuse to leave us alone. You are, after all, a zealous God. You startle us from our reveries by gathering us into your dream time, into your church. May we, thus gathered, be so inspired by your Spirit that our lives never tire, that we have the energy now to wait, to rest, in the goodness and beauty of your truth.

This Ridiculous World

Holy One of Israel who called Abraham and Sarah out of Ur, who called us, your church, out of the nations, save us from self-righteousness. You have made us different so that our difference might save the world. But too often our difference tempts us to ridicule because the world, after all, is ridiculous. Never let us forget that we too are the world, and so also ridiculous. Shape the judgments of our neighbors and our own foolish judgments by your love, so that we might be together saved-that is, be a people that continue the journey out of Ur.

—Stanley Hauerwas, Prayers Plainly Spoken (Downer's Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999)