A Prayer in response to the Shooting near Schurz High School

Yesterday afternoon four students were shot near Schurz High School. One student––only fifteen years old––remains in critical condition. Schurz is less than two miles northwest of where we gather on Sundays and is the neighborhood high school for many of our friends and neighbors.

We are grieved by all violence. But our senses are uniquely heightened when violence strikes so close to home. Regardless of reasons or backstory, we acknowledge this is not as it should be. Teenagers should never have to run for their lives as class is dismissed.

Jesus looked over the city and he saw people "harassed and helpless." And he had compassion on them. May a brand of compassion well up in us today that stirs us to just action. The kind of compassion that compelled Jesus to the cross.

To that end, we pray …

Heavenly Father,

We pray for peace in our city.

In our desires to see evil and gun violence cease, we reflect on the psalmist's words, "The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:15-18).

We pray for protection for our neighbors and ourselves.

In our fear we remember the words of Jesus, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" (John 14:26-27).

We pray for the perpetrators of violence.

In a desire to see their hearts transformed as ours have been, may they, "flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22).

We pray for the victims and families of those affected.

In our solidarity we pray for comfort, recalling the words of the Apostle Paul, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too" (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

In Jesus' Name,

Amen.