A few years ago while preparing for a sermon on the Sunday before Christmas, I discovered a special Christmas Prayer on Huffington Post. I have included it in a few sermons since then.  At this holy time of centering and celebrating, I share it again. 

Through out the month of December, I join many other Christians around the world in celebrating the birth of Christ. In the midst of the commercialization of this sacred holiday, I pause to remember that Christ came and showed us a better way to live. A way that should inspire all to work towards justice and build communities of peace. A way that that embodied spirit of equality and not one of privilege. Whether you celebrate a Christian interpretation of the Divine, an interpretation through the lens of another faith, or are do not believe, may you be challenged by this blessing. May it carry us through this holiday season and into the new year. Amen. 

---

O God Of All Children
by Marian Wright Edelman

O God of the children of Somalia, Sudan, and Syria, of South Africa and South Carolina,
Of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of India, Iraq, Iran, and Israel
Of the Congo and Chicago, of Darfur and Detroit
Of Myanmar and Mississippi and Louisiana and Yemen
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.

O God of Black and Brown and White and Albino children and those all mixed together,
Of children who are rich and poor and in between,
Of children who speak English and Russian and Hmong and Spanish and languages our ears cannot discern,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.

O God of the child prodigy and the child prostitute, of the child of rapture and the child of rape,
Of runaway or thrown away children who struggle every day without parent or place or friend or future,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.

O God of children who can walk and talk and hear and see and sing and dance and jump and play and of children who wish they could but can’t
Of children who are loved and unloved, wanted and unwanted,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.

O God of beggar, beaten, abused, neglected, homeless, AIDS, drug, violence, and hunger-ravaged children,
Of children who are emotionally and physically and mentally fragile, and of children who rebel and ridicule, torment and taunt,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.

O God of children of destiny and of despair, of war and of peace,
Of disfigured, diseased, and dying children,
Of children without hope and of children with hope to spare and to share,
Help us to love and respect and act to protect them all.