A Prayer for Justice

By Elder Timothy Moughon

Father as you have commanded us, we pray for those in authority. We lift up the family of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that they would find comfort in you as they mourn the loss of their mother and grandmother.

A justice’s seat is traditionally draped with black following her death. Photo: Supreme Court staff.

We pray for the person who will take her place on the Supreme Court and for those who have begun the process to select this person. Father, we know that perfect and ultimate justice is something we find only before your throne; you nonetheless command us to seek justice in our communities, to correct oppression, to bring justice to the fatherless, to plead the widow’s cause, to open our mouths for the mute, to seek the rights of all who are destitute, and to defend the rights of the poor and needy.*

Father as our nation selects a new member of the Supreme Court, we pray that true justice would be extended throughout our land. We ask that the individual selected for this vacancy will be someone who seeks justice for the powerless and poor. We pray that we, as a country, would recognize this as true justice, even though it may infringe upon what we have collectively and historically understood our individual rights and property to be.

We ask that we, as a church and as Christians, would not ignore your command, that we would use our positions in our communities to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. We pray that as we do so that we would never put our trust in individual rulers or judges or in our human institutions.

Father, as we pray, we grieve for the injustice throughout our land, for the rampant disregard for those who cannot speak, for those who lack the means to lobby. And we grieve even more for the distrust and defiance and blasphemy toward you and your name.

We pray for a restoration of justice. We do so knowing that these things we ask seem impossible in our eyes and as something that will never be achieved in our lifetimes. But Father, when we turn to your Word, when we look at how you worked throughout the course of history, we know that you not only possess the power to bring peoples back to you but that you have done so, time and time again. We first saw this with Israel, in causing them to repent and to seek your salvation, and elsewhere such as in Nineveh, where the people responded to Jonah’s message, or in Babylon, where you humbled King Nebuchadezzar causing him to praise and honor and glorify you. So Father, we come before you with boldness to ask for similar restoration today, that you would cause the people of this land to beseech your throne for grace and for mercy, not just for our political institutions but for our souls.

We pray these things in the name of your Son, Jesus,

Amen

* If you would like to learn more about what the Bible teaches on this topic, consider reading Isaiah 1:17, Micah 6:8, and Zechariah 7:10. These are quoted in part in this prayer.