blessed with injustice?

last sunday our church cancelled the service. yep. you read that right. they canceled church and instead of worshiping in the sanctuary in the traditional format, we worshiped by serving the community. they set up tons of different service projects and each individual chose how they wanted to spend their time serving the community. this clearly took weeks and weeks to organize. as soon as i heard about it i began to feel very much at home in our new church. it reminded me of my days in the city and being part of a church that desired to look more like the image of Jesus than the image of the local country club.

this sunday was a celebration sunday. the music was phenomenal, the stories and pictures shared were moving and it left you with an overall "warm fuzzy" feeling to seek out more ways in which we can serve our community on a regular basis... you know, without the big production of canceling church. i'm not sure how that translates for me, but i know it must translate.

at the end of the service, our pastor shared the following prayer with us. man, does this sum up a really beautiful (and yet very uncomfortable) way to live! after hearing it on sunday, i haven't been able to get it out of my head. and so of course, i thought i'd share:

franciscan prayer:
may God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

may God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

may God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them, and turn their pain into joy.

and may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

amen

pretty good stuff, huh? can we pray like that? do we dare ask Jesus to make our lives a little bit uncomfortable? i think some powerful stuff could happen in our world, and more importantly, in our hearts if we were to dare to ask to be blessed in this way.