“Almighty God, we give you thanks for the gift of water.” These are the words that open our prayer over water when we baptize your children into a life of freedom and life in your risen Son Jesus. It was over water that you initiated the Creation. Water is the source of life and is needed for the health of all we know of health. And yet, O God, in our sin and brokenness, we have polluted this gift for so many, turning the blessing of water into a curse, and into an occasion for painful division, oppression, and the demeaning of the indigenous peoples of this land. Send your Spirit, O God, to your people, turn the hearts of those would threaten the health and safety of his sacred gift at Standing Rock. Re-knit us together in bonds of love, a vision of justice, and deep peace that we have yet to know but we yearn for with a longing you have placed into our hearts, in the name of Jesus.
Amen.