Let not the needy, O Lord be forgotten.
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away…
I have always been partial to call and response prayers like the suffrages used in morning and evening prayer.
My work and ministry in the last couple of decades has been among and with people who are marginalized especially by economic challenges. What a deceptive little nugget this prayer can be. Of course, it calls to us to remember those who are suffering and give and share all that we have according to their needs. Their hope is in us it would suggest, and we can’t let them down. And yet the more I worked with and among those on the margins, there were times I forgot who the poor one was and whose hope was hanging on by a thread.
The truth is we need each other, and always have. Jesus knew that.
Something about making the eye of the needle a little wider.
