Broken Tablets - Invocation For the Colorado House of Representatives at the End of the Session

 

We all know the story: Moses ascends Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.  He descends and finds, to his horror, that in his absence, the people have built a Golden Calf.  Smashing the tablets in anger and disgust, he once again ascends God’s holy mountain.

Upon returning, Moses gently puts the second set of the Ten Commandments into the Ark of the Covenant. 

Throughout their forty years of wandering, the Israelites see that Ark and those Tablets wherever they travelled.

The rabbis of old asked a question:  What happened to the original, broken set of tablets?  Were they discarded?  Recycled? Abandoned?

One answer is that they were given an honored place inside the Ark next to the second pair that was whole. 

Why? 

So that the people could see them and realize that brokenness is as much a part of life as completeness.

Let us pray:

Dear God – As we prepare to end this year’s legislative session, we delight in our successes and despair over our incompleteness. We know that, despite all of the valiant efforts to mend, heal, repair and replace some of the chaos in our world, there still is brokenness around us: 

·       On the streets of our cities;

·       In the cries of children and parents who cannot care for them;

·       In our parched landscape that thirsts for moisture;

·       In schools where students thirst for knowledge;

·       In the eyes of the innocents;

·       In the lies of guilty

But let us not stop with mere perception – lest we build another Golden Calf of apathy and callousness.  We pray that our seeing and hearing might spur us to action.

May the pristine surroundings of this beautiful chamber not blind us to the incompleteness that awaits us once we end this session and leave these hallowed halls.

On this day of deliberation and as we approach the end of this legislative session, may these legislators be healers – recommitting themselves to repair the brokenness that propelled them to serve in the first place.

May we understand that we share in the pain of others - that we are all  connected by a chain of humanity that both defines our weakness – when we refuse to see, and shows us our strength when we reach out in solidarity.

May this day be a day of hope, of wholeness and of collaboration.  May all that is broken be healed – and may we heal ourselves as we try to heal others.

As we look to the future, may we find the beauty in our attempts to fix the brokenness in our state – and even within ourselves - Then shall we all be a blessing.

Amen