Reflection and Renewal: When We're More Like Herod And Less Like The Magi (based on Matthew 2:7-8)

God,

We like to think that we would have been among those who saw the coming of the Christ Child, dropped all that they were doing and traveled to worship the coming of God's love into this world.

And yet, we must recognize all the times we are more like Herod;

• whenever we, in our actions or in our inaction, find our own need for control
  more compelling than the needs of others for health and safety
• whenever we cling to the security of our privilege, rather than standing up
  for the rights of the oppressed 
• whenever we are complicit in the harming of your creation and its inhabitants
  for the sake of profit, or power
• or because we fear to know, and to change, the injustices of this world.

God, though we carry the spark of the divine within us, our souls also contain Herod-like darkness. We pray that you will fill us with your light. We confess our wrong-doing against those created in your image, just as the Christ Child was.

Give us wisdom; with ears to hear where the songs of peace on earth and goodwill to men are being sung in your world, and eyes to see where love is being born.

Amen