Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is celebrated from January 18-25 each year. The theme for the week in 2018, “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,” is inspired by Exodus 15:6. The resources for the week have been prepared by members of different churches in the Caribbean.

Christians are reminded of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples that “they may one so that the world may believe (John 17:21).” At this time, we come together as an ecumenical community, brothers and sisters in Christ, for prayer and worship, reflection and action, in all manner of ways – small and large – to both reflect and deepen our unity in Christ and to extend our partnerships with one another, guided by the Holy Spirit. As people of God, we recognize that our call to fellowship and communion, healing and liberation, is not a once-a-year event but a perennial invitation and challenge.

For this upcoming Week of Prayer, the Church Council of Greater Seattle invites congregations, faith groups, families and individuals to partake of the opportunity to pray during local worship times and at home. The original materials for group liturgy and for prayers during the week can be found on the World Council of Churches (Oikoumene) website. We highlight certain aspects of the theme of this week for your own adaptation. We will also share reflections of various faith members during the Week of Prayer. At such a time as this, the call to prayer is extraordinary and urgent: putting on the mind of Christ, we believe that God hears our prayers and is inspiring us to become “new creations” and to be generative agents of transformation. We invite your participation as you deem appropriate and we look forward to hearing of your experience.

Our Christian friends in the Caribbean have chosen the inspirational Biblical message of Exodus 15:1-21 for this year’s text. God leads Moses and the Israelites through the Red Sea, delivered from slavery to freedom, saved in steadfast love. Miriam takes a tambourine, dances and sings, “Sing to the Lord, for the Lord has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider have been thrown into the sea.”

As the Caribbean faith leaders state,

The contemporary Caribbean is deeply marked by the dehumanizing project of colonial exploitation. In the aggressive pursuit of mercantile gains, the colonizers codified brutal systems which traded human beings and their forced labor. Initially, these practices enslaved and decimated and in some cases exterminated the region’s indigenous peoples. This was followed by the enslavement of Africans and the “indentureship” of people from India and China.

Whereas those who brought the Bible to this region used the scriptures to justify their subjugation of a people in bondage, in the hands of the enslaved, it became an inspiration, an assurance that God was on their side, and that God would lead them into freedom.

Today, Caribbean Christians of many different traditions see the hand of God active in the ending of enslavement. It is a uniting experience of the saving action of God which brings freedom. Exodus 15 allows us to see how the road to unity must often pass through a communal experience of suffering. The Israelites’ liberation from enslavement is the foundational event in the constitution of this people. For Christians, this process climaxes with the incarnation and Paschal Mystery. Although liberation/salvation is an initiative taken by God, God engages human agencies in the realization of his purpose and plan for the redemption of his people. Christians, through baptism, share in God’s ministry of reconciliation, but our own divisions hamper our witness and mission to a world in need of God’s healing.

The Caribbean churches work together to heal the wounds in the Body of Christ in the region, which are a legacy left by colonization. Reconciliation often demands repentance, reparation and the healing of memories. One example is the acts of apology and reparation between Baptists in Britain and the Caribbean. Like Israel, the church in its unity is called to be both a sign and active agent of reconciliation.

Option for Prayer service/reflection time for small groups or for incorporation into broader worship

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Open with the following prayer or one of your own choosing.

God of all comfort and hope, your resurrection defeated the violence of the cross.

As your people, open our hearts that we may be a visible sign that the violence of this world will be overcome.

This we pray in the name of our risen Lord.

Amen.

Read Exodus 15:1-21 and reflect on the words and message in today’s context.

Use the prayers of the people from the suggested liturgy from the churches of the Caribbean:

God of the Exodus, you led your people through the waters of the Red Sea and redeemed them. Be with us now and free us from all forms of slavery and from everything that obscures human dignity.