Prayer that makes hard hearts softer
When we pray for "the poor," do we think of actual people?
Composing “prayers of the people” for Sunday worship is a tough assignment. Deciding what to include is the first big challenge. Then there is the tendency to gear such prayers more to worshipers’ ears than to the heart of God. We all know prayers that use fancy language to soft-pedal life’s cruelest realities or that dance around the plight of people in dire straits.
I have to admit that I’ve contributed a number of anemic prayer petitions of my own over the years. Knowing how daunting it can be to address God on behalf of an entire community, I now ask questions of myself like these: Are enemies receiving more than vague mention in these communal prayers? Is physical sickness really the most exciting thing that happens to us, or are we simply allotting generous prayer space to our bodily concerns because we consider illness to be some kind of injustice? Do our references to “the poor” substitute an abstract economic category for actual people whose individual lives hang by a thread?
It’s this last concern that has my attention today. When Speaker of the House Paul Ryan briefly dismissed Patrick Conroy this spring from his position as chaplain of the House of Representatives, it was Conroy’s praying that did him in. He prayed that there wouldn’t be winners and losers under the new tax laws but rather “benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.” That was too much for Ryan, who admonished Conroy to “stay out of politics.” In the end, liberals and conservatives together rescued Conroy’s chaplaincy.
