At any rate, one thing I never have to worry about for very long is the lineup of speakers we get for our banquets. We have been very fortunate in the last five years to have some of the best speakers in the area assist us in honoring our recipients, and this year we were particularly lucky. Xenia dialogue fellow and local pastor Rev. Chris Moore offered our opening blessing, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s exactly the kind of charge I needed at that moment (I don’t mean a “charge” like the one you get drinking an energy drink, but charge as in “charged with a responsibility” or an assignment or challenge).

I offer you the opportunity to share in this charge, and I submit Rev. Moore’s prayer for your review:

Gracious God,

Open us up this evening. Awaken us to a new dawn.

Remind us again that you are the god who seeks not our offerings or sacrifices but seeks that we care for the orphan and widow, for the powerless and marginalized.

You are the god whose law is written on our hearts.

Create in us a new awareness. Birth in us a sense of our own power that we might act where we live and be your hands and feet in the world. Reign in our pride, temper our egos, and tame our wild individualism so that we might live out of your spirit of justice, peace, and creation in a world which does not hunger for more absolute certainty or judgement, but is starving for a little compassion.

Too often we think your work comes only in the big things, that we must change the world in a day if we are leading meaningful lives. Too often we only think of the glorious moments, we remember a speech on the steps of the capital in Washington D.C. that evoked a new dream of equality and still sends chills down our spines without also remembering of the marches yet to be walked, the sting of fire hoses yet to be felt, or the beatings and hatred yet to be endured.

We remember the names celebrated by the fleeting winds of fame, but have never know the names of people who just stood their ground, or signed their name, or simply did the right thing when the time was upon them. Remind us that your way doesn’t come in glorious light or shining spectacle. What you ask of us isn’t the spotlight or the 15 minutes. You seek our hearts and minds, you seek our dedication, you seek our souls.

As we prepare to share a meal together let us do so remembering all of those people who have produced it, from the farmers to the drivers, to the handlers to the cooks and servers. May this food nourish our bodies and may our fellowship feed our spirits. And as we gather together to celebrate one among us who has made a difference, let us remember that we can all make a difference with every day, every encounter, every decision. There are no small things to you.

Free us from the temptation of apathy or fame and set us on the same path of all of those nameless ones who have changed this world. Those who held no grand vision or elaborate plan, but who saw pain and healed it, who felt misery and responded to it, who witnessed suffering and addressed it.

Let us be present now, in this moment and beyond to a world in the need of the witness of the power of faithful love and unconditional grace. Let us, as your servant Ghandi once said, “be the change we wish to see in the world”.

Amen.