Here’s a responsive prayer of confession from The
Reverend Erica Wimber Avena in Hartford, Connecticut. She adapted it from
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers
from Prison.
Litany of Confession
We can truly share only in a limited measure in the suffering of others.
We
are not Christ,
but
if we want to be Christians
it
means that we are to take part in Christ’s greatness of heart,
in the responsible action
that in freedom seizes the hour and faces the
danger,
and
in the true sympathy that springs forth not from fear
but
from Christ’s freeing and redeeming love for all who suffer.
Inactive waiting and dully looking on are not
Christian responses.
Christians
are called to action and sympathy
not
through their own firsthand experiences
but
by the immediate experience of [others]
for
whose sake Christ suffered.
It is infinitely easier to suffer in obedience to a
human command
than
in the freedom of one’s very own responsible action.
It is infinitely easier to suffer in community with
others,
than
in solitude.
It is infinitely easier to suffer publicly and with
honor,
than
in the shadow and in dishonor.
It is infinitely easier to suffer through putting
one’s bodily life at stake
than
to suffer through the spirit.
Christ suffered:
In
freedom,
in
solitude,
in
the shadow and in dishonor,
in
body and in spirit.
Since then, many Christians have suffered with him.
We
confess that we have chosen ease over the cost of discipleship,
indolence
over action,
we
have turned away from injustice,
all
the while knowing that Christ’s hands and feet are our own.
Lord,
have mercy on us.
Scripture reading: John 18:25-27
Sung response: Jesus,Remember Me (from the Taize Community)
~ written by The Reverend Erica Wimber Avena, serving
at Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, CT.
Source: Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from
Prison: After Ten Years: An Account at the Turn of the Year 1942-1943,
translated by Barbara and Martin Rumscheidt, pp. 28
