A prayer to be courageous in our different callings

  We are counted your people.

    We are grateful to be called by you, and

      glad for our special way of faith in the world.

  You have marked us and named us and signed us,

    and we are different,

           different memories,

           different hopes,

           different fears,

           different commands,

           different ways of being.

  That difference we find glorious, but at times a burden too severe.

    We yearn to be like the others,

           like the others in power,

                    in money,

                    in freedom,

                    in certitude,

                    in security,

           like the others,

             uncalled, unburdened, unembarrassed.

  We come to you in that deep trial of difference and likeness.

    Engage us in our difference,

    Give us courage for our different vocations,

      and energy for our different hope.

  In the name of your crucified, Easter One, so unlike all the others.

  Amen.

Source: Brueggemann, Walter. 2003. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. E

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1 Corinthians 1:26–29 (ESV)

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

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