A Prayer of Thanksgiving
Almighty God of Moses and Hagar, Creator and Redeemer of us All:
We come to you in thanksgiving for your liberating promise of justice where all your children will one day be free;
We offer thanks for the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment which brought an end of chattel slavery in this land;
We offer thanks for the work of those abolitionists who fought tirelessly to end the sin of chattel slavery remembering especially the too often overlooked Black abolitionists such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Henry Highland Garnet, Sarah Parker Redmond, William Still, and Frederick Douglass;
Grant us, Loving God, forgiveness for our complicity with white supremacy and anti-blackness that gave rise to chattel slavery and continues its legacy in other forms;
Grant us, Liberating God, the moral wisdom, moral leadership, and moral courage to continue the work of freedom, until our world and society becomes a place free from the sins of white supremacy, anti- blackness or anything that would betray the justice that you promise all of your children.
Help us, O God of the disinherited, to be church and thus to lead the way to a world free from the pleas for black lives to matter, because they will matter.
Help us to never be content until that time when heaven has come to earth and all of your children are free to live into the fullness of their created potential. Amen.
~ The Very Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Advent 2020
