Praying for the President

Psalm 72, I Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13

September 23, 2007

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

Imagine, if you will, that Timothy and Paul had access to the technology of instant messaging. Instead of writing letters that could take weeks or months to deliver by messengers on foot or by horse or camel, imagine that Paul had a laptop in prison and Timothy his own laptop in the office of the church at Ephesus, so that we might have a fuller sense of the conversation between them. I can imagine this discussion going something like this.

Timothy writes to Paul that he is frustrated by a tendency among members of the church to become legalistic and exclusive, to spend too much time on meaningless and trivial things like tracing genealogies of Jesus as they did with the great Greek heroes and gods. What should he do? Paul writes back that in order to counter those tendencies, Timothy should get them engaged actively in prayer of all kinds, prayer for everyone. Timothy responds that this seems an excellent suggestion and he’s ready to carry it out immediately.

But then Paul IM’s back that the people should begin by praying for rulers and all who are in positions of power. Before Paul can hit another key, Timothy quickly writes back that he thinks this might not be the best place to start. Hasn’t Paul heard about the new decrees from the Emperor that are causing the arrest, torture and death of so many Christians? Isn’t Paul himself in jail because of the actions of powerful people? Sure, Timothy muses, we’ll pray for the emperor and the governors, pray that an earthquake topples a large stone onto their heads and that their children die before they can become tyrants too (and maybe he’d add one of those smiley face emoticons).

But Paul is not amused. “Don’t you understand,” he writes, “the Romans pray to the Emperor, as though the Emperor has the power of God? We will turn that idolatry on its head and acknowledge that there is only one God, known to us in Jesus, and we will put the Emperor on the same footing as everyone else. We will pray for the Emperor to experience the love of God and the power of truth. Don’t you see that we pray for the powerful so that their eyes and hearts will be opened? So that justice will truly be done and peace will come to the land? We pray that all of us, high and low, may live in a peaceful world where the dignity of each person is respected. Our role, Timothy, is not to condemn this world and sit waiting for Jesus to come again and take us out of it. Our role is to engage and transform this world. We begin in prayer.”

Timothy gets the point and signs off, ready to begin a program of prayer in the parish at Ephesus.

Jesus made it clear; Paul made it clearer. The Christian faith is not meant to be just an individual affair, “Jesus and me.” Christians are not to withdraw themselves from the world. The Christian church from its very beginning has engaged the world in all its dimensions: from those first disciples helping poor widows and healing the sick to Paul taking on the powerful citizens of Athens and Rome and being imprisoned for not backing down. The ultimate goal of Jesus and the little band he organized in Jerusalem was no less than the transformation of the world into the place God imagined when Eden was planted. Peace, dignity, love.

Jesus and the leaders of the early churches were daily and sometimes painfully aware of the fact that their ability to work on this transformation could not stop with the few who came to be baptized, whose power to effect that change was important, but limited. For true transformation to come on a grand scale, those with political, military, religious and economic power needed to see the world differently. Rulers, and all in high positions, everyone, everywhere.

When the emperor Constantine became a Christian in 312, it seemed that those prayers might be answered. The persecution of Christians did cease a year later, at least in Roman controlled lands, but 1700 years of history since then is enough to show anyone that the world in general is not quiet, peaceable or dignified. It might be tempting to say that this prayer project has failed and that we might just as well cocoon ourselves and take care of our own and leave the politicians and soldiers, fundamentalists and CEO’s to their fates, and the rest of the fallen world with them.

But then, if I am any example of Christians throughout the centuries, one might say that this prayer project has failed because, as someone once said of communism, it has never really been tried. When I think about my usual prayer list, it includes my family, people I know who are in some special need, this church, maybe some special situation in the world like hostages being held or victims of an earthquake or flood. Occasionally, I will pray for the President and other leaders, but not always with great passion, I fear. I can’t remember the last time I prayed with energy for my senators or representatives, and I know I don’t pray often enough that leaders of countries who are at odds with our own might come, not to our side, but to an experience of the love and power of God in their lives and their nations. I can’t remember saying the name of the President of Iran or North Korea or the Sudan, or Osama bin Laden for that matter, often enough in my prayers.

Then I think that the politically powerful only have a part of the power in our world today. Have I prayed lately, or ever, for people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or Rupert Murdoch, people who wield enormous power over millions of lives? Have you? Have you prayed lately for the people in power more directly over your life, for our local political leaders, for your boss or supervisor or department head; or for you Yale folk, for Richard Levin? Have you prayed not that they might quit, if they annoy you, or that they would promote you or give you a raise, but prayed for them as human beings and for the action of God to lead them to abundant life, knowing that love in them will impact not only you, but potentially hundreds, thousands or millions of people?

I read this passage this week and was struck, as if by a blow to the heart, by the weakness of my prayer life, and by how easy it is to spend lots of time in conversation criticizing those in power and how hard it is to take the time and mental energy to pray for them. I am also struck by the fact that if I prayed for them more energetically, it might change them, but I know for sure it would change me and my attitude toward the world in which I live and my belief that God is active in it.

So I did a little spiritual exercise this week that I commend to you, urged on by Paul and Timothy. I made a list of all kinds of people who wield power in this world for whom I might pray. You can see it is a lengthy list! Just making this list was a great exercise in paying attention to my world and where I see a deep need for God’s influence to bring peace and dignity to so many. There’s no way I am going to go through this with any kind of attentiveness each day. But I am going to try to choose a couple of names each day for concentrated prayer. I invite you into the same discipline, and I think you will find making this list an act of devotion in itself. Let us begin a project here and in our homes where we pray deeply and with love for all those who have power, remembering that each of us also has some form of power over others, even if it is only the cashier at the grocery store! Let us join in the psalmist’s prayer that we heard a few minutes ago: “Give rulers your justice, O God, and your righteousness to all the powerful. May they judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for all the people, and the hills in righteousness. May the powerful defend the cause of the poor of the people and give deliverance to the needy.” Amen.