We are much drawn to circuses
We reckon bread and circuses is a good political routine.
We are much drawn to circuses,
and we imagine that we own the bakery.
On our own we do not want to choose between guns and butter,
so deliver us from all the guns,
all the butter,
all the circuses,
all the bread that we bake.
Give us the leanness to understand and receive and celebrate
the few nourishments of our common life
that come from you
that is all we need.
So override our anxieties about what we shall eat
and what we shall drink
and what we shall wear
and where we shall live
and what we will save
and how we will spend
and what we shall have
that in intentional and visible and public ways
we may live as befits your liberated partners.
We pray in the name of Jesus who,
as far as we know,
never went to the circus.
Amen.
Walter Brueggemann from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth