Ash Wednesday Prayer of Repentance

Yesterday, I was given the honor of leading our church in a Prayer of Repentance during the Ash Wednesday Service. What I shared with my community is a practice I will be participating in for the next 40 days. I will be focusing on how I have allowed systems of injustice to thrive in our country by being complint for too many years. I am taking the next 40 days to confess, repent, and learn. If you find this is something you would also like to reflect on, I encourge you to do so and feel free to share with me what you are learning!

As I begin this Lenten Season, God is convicting me to repent and confess to the ways I have allowed systems of injustice to take hold of our country and to thrive in it. It is time for me to confess how I have been compliant with my silence for many years, hiding safely behind the whiteness of my skin. It is time for me to confess how my silence has lead to tragedy, loss, hurt, and sorrow. As I begin these 40 days of repentance and reflection, I will meditate on the words of Langston Hughes. Then I will pray the prayer I have written, confessing my sins and transgressions against my fellow humans.

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes.

LET America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek —

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the People, humble, hungry, mean —

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today — O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In that old world while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home —

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from black Afric’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free.

Who said the free?

Loving and merciful God, I pray for repentance for the harmful actions I have taken against my fellow sisters and brothers. I pray for repentance for denying fellow humans the same grace and compassion that is given to me daily, with generosity. I seek forgiveness for allowing systems of power take over my ability to use sound judgment and for allowing myself to be lulled to sleep. Open my eyes, Loving God, and guide me to seek justice for those who are currently being oppressed by the systems I have allowed to be created with my compliance. I deny those systems any further control over my life and I seek repentance for my actions.

I seek repentance, Loving God, for how I have misused the gift of freedom to deny others the basic rights and utilities I most often take for granted. May I never again forget how blessed I am to live in a time when we can worship you, openly and freely. This has not always been the case for those in the past. God, I ask that you instill the strength of our ancestors within me to keep going when all hope seems lost. In my darkest times, may I never forget the mercy you have continued to show me and my family, generation after generation.

As I close this time of prayer, God, I seek repentance for forgetting how wonderful it is to have been given the chance at having a new life through Jesus Christ. Jesus says in the gospel of Luke, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” I am here to answer the call, dear God. Please accept my humble words and continue the process of redemption through me each and every day, for the entirety of this season.

I pray these things in Your Name,

Amen.