Laments for Lent – Week Two – Immigrant Justice

Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”

–Psalm 3:1-2

It’s Week 2 of Lent, so I’m going to talk about the second part of the Lament, the Complaint.

Here’s a bit from my book about the Complaint:

The Complaint is in every Lament, and its presence marks the Psalm as a Lament. And the psalmists don’t hold back. They pour out their hearts before the Lord. Usually, this section is the longest of all the parts of a Lament, going into great detail about all the trouble. In fact, a lot of Psalms sound like the psalmist is overreacting. If I were their friend, in many cases I’d probably try to tell them to calm down.

But if the psalmists do it, overreacting to God in prayer must be okay. If catastrophic thoughts are going through your head, don’t be afraid to express them to God.

I’ve decided that this year, I’m mostly going to pray about current events in my example laments. I should probably pray about war today, but I was already planning to pray about justice for immigrants – because I went to an Interfaith Prayer Vigil this week for Immigrant Justice. I wish I could even keep track of all the things that need prayer.

So let me get right to the lament. Again, I offer these as examples of how we can pray, using the patterns from Psalms.

Here again are the parts of a Lament:

1. Address to God
2. Complaint
3. Confession of Trust
4. Entreaty
5. Sureness of Help
6. Subsequent Praise

A Lament for Immigrant Justice

Father of all people,
Creator of all earth’s diversity,
we come before you with sadness
and ask you to hear our prayer.

Once America was known for gladly taking
the tired, the poor,
the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Once we asked other nations to send us
the homeless and tempest-tost.
So many of our own ancestors came
seeking a better life
or fleeing religious persecution.

Now they’ve closed immigration down to many countries,
and are hassling even vacationers if they find any manufactured problem.
They’re arresting people without due process,
if they don’t like the color of their skin or their accent,
without checking their status or believing their protestations.
Citizens have been held in horrible conditions
and so have law-abiding immigrants who were contributing to our country’s well-being.
A blind man was left to freeze to death
after being wrongfully detained.
A child in a bunny hat
was locked in prison.
People legally observing ICE activities
were shot and killed.
And those are only things I know about.
They’re also not allowing legal inspections
and keeping clergy from ministering to people who have been detained.

It’s all lawless and evil
and the opposite of how you told us
to treat the alien and the stranger among us.

O Creator who sees a sparrow fall,
how much more do you see your children?
You don’t lose people in those concentration camps;
you see the injustice done to each one.
You are with each person
now struck with fear from the rampaging secret police
who think they act with impunity.

Call them to account, O God!
Watch over your children.
Motivate your people,
show us how to stop the injustice.
Turn our system around
to bring the vulnerable freedom rather than incarceration
and hope in place of fear.
Reach out your hand to help each one
wrongfully targeted.
Bring mothers and fathers back to their children,
and bring our neighbors back to their homes.

Tear down the concentration camps,
and let all the plans against your children be destroyed.

God who brought your people out of slavery in Egypt,
open the prison doors through your might.

We believe that your hand is in history
– may we see the evidence soon.
“Break the arm [of power] of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness,
that would not be found out.”

And when ICE is abolished
and the concentration camps destroyed,
let’s throw a party with our immigrant neighbors,
eat unfamiliar foods,
and praise your name.

***
Okay, that’s my offering this week. Again let me say that I offer these examples partly to show that you don’t have to be eloquent! But praying through the form does help me think of something to pray when I feel at a loss about a problem much bigger than what I can deal with.