Learning to pray
13/07/16 04:41
Throughout my career I have struggled with different parts of my job at different phases of my life. Recently I’ve been experiencing my pastoral prayers as somewhat less than I wish. the process of crafting a prayer for the congregation is a challenge. There have been times in my career when the prayers came easily and I was able to have a sense of being guided by the Holy Spirit in that aspect of my worship leadership. Recently, however, it seems that my prayers are somehow inadequate for the difficult times in which we live.
Of course praying is not a matter of getting the right words. God understands our silence as well as our speech. And there are no words that are adequate to express our gratitude to God. Praying with and for a congregation is an enormous challenge. The people I serve come to worship with such a wide variety of needs, wants and considerations. I try to remember each week, as we prepare for our prayers, to remind people that the concerns they brought into the room with them are as important as those that have been printed in the bulletin. This reminder is also a reminder to me that I don’t know all of the problems, trials, concerns, griefs, losses and other things that people have brought with them into the room. Our prayer is much more than a product of the thoughts that are present in my mind.
For some reason, I’ve been wishing I had put a little more effort into my pastoral prayer last Sunday. I had written the prayer on Friday. It had been a difficult week. On Monday, one of the Elders of our Dakota Association has passed away, making three significant elders in the last year. These people were my friends. I had known them for more than twenty years. We had worked together, prayed together, sung together and served together. Then, Thursday night, my phone began to light up with messages as the ambush-style shootings of police officers in Dallas was taking place. By Friday morning when I sat down to write the prayer for Sunday, my mind and heart was filled with that particular tragedy. It wasn’t that it was more important than other losses, or that the families of those slain officers grieved more deeply than the loved ones of other victims in recent weeks. I wasn’t unaware of the numerous deaths of unarmed civilians by police and the disproportionate number of those victims who are African-American. I wasn’t trying to make any kind of statement about institutional racism or the privilege I have enjoyed as a pastor in South Dakota. It was just that the tragedy was recent and raw and as a Chaplain to law enforcement, I was sensitive to the fear and pain that is experienced in our department whenever an officer is killed in the line of duty, no matter where it occurs.
The prayer I wrote was a good one for that particular day.
However, it fell short of what was needed for the congregation on Sunday. It wasn’t that I shouldn’t have used the words I had written, it was just that the prayer ended short of addressing all of the pain and sorrow and loss of our nation in the preceding week.
I named the slain officers in the prayer and I make no apology for doing so. One of the ways that we honor those who have fallen and their families is to remember that they were not statistics, but rather individuals with names and faces and unique memories. Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa and Brent Thompson deserve to be remembered as dedicated servants of public safety. It is just that they aren’t the only ones who should be remembered by name.
In the same week that the officers were killed, Philander Castile was shot in his car in St. Paul Minnesota on Wednesday as he reached for his driver’s license. Alton Sterling was shot dead by police during an incident in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Tuesday. I said neither name in my pastoral prayer on Sunday.
Those names are just the tip of the iceberg. At least 102 unarmed black people were killed by police in 2015. Unarmed black people were killed at five times the rate of unarmed whites that year.
There is enough pain and loss and sorrow and grief in this country of ours to fill up hours of prayers.
A prayer is not about politics or taking sides or solving the problems of entrenched racism, however. A prayer is not the appropriate time to give an index to the week’s news and offers commentary. A prayer is about opening ourselves to listen to God’s call for our lives. A prayer is about presenting all of ourselves - our joys as well as our sorrows - to God. A pastoral prayer is offered by a pastor to give words to the prayers of the congregation. It is a moment when the congregation asks me to speak on their behalf. The immensity of that responsibility overwhelms me.
I worry that my prayers aren’t as expansively inclusive as God’s love. We say we welcome everyone into our worship, but I fear that at times I may be leaving out the concerns of some as I pray. I know that I need to trust God to guide my prayers as well as my actions.
The term “Spiritual Practice” is meaningful to me in part because it reminds me that there are many aspects to the discipline of being Christian that require practice. Some things need to be done over and over again as I think of what was good and what was not so good and learn from the experience to make a fresh attempt. It is clear that when it comes to pastoral prayers, decades of leading worship is insufficient and I still need more practice. Perhaps one pastoral prayer a week is simply too small of an effort. Perhaps I need to write one such prayer each day and then lay each week’s worth aside and create a fresh new prayer for each Sunday’s service.
Of course praying is not a matter of getting the right words. God understands our silence as well as our speech. And there are no words that are adequate to express our gratitude to God. Praying with and for a congregation is an enormous challenge. The people I serve come to worship with such a wide variety of needs, wants and considerations. I try to remember each week, as we prepare for our prayers, to remind people that the concerns they brought into the room with them are as important as those that have been printed in the bulletin. This reminder is also a reminder to me that I don’t know all of the problems, trials, concerns, griefs, losses and other things that people have brought with them into the room. Our prayer is much more than a product of the thoughts that are present in my mind.
For some reason, I’ve been wishing I had put a little more effort into my pastoral prayer last Sunday. I had written the prayer on Friday. It had been a difficult week. On Monday, one of the Elders of our Dakota Association has passed away, making three significant elders in the last year. These people were my friends. I had known them for more than twenty years. We had worked together, prayed together, sung together and served together. Then, Thursday night, my phone began to light up with messages as the ambush-style shootings of police officers in Dallas was taking place. By Friday morning when I sat down to write the prayer for Sunday, my mind and heart was filled with that particular tragedy. It wasn’t that it was more important than other losses, or that the families of those slain officers grieved more deeply than the loved ones of other victims in recent weeks. I wasn’t unaware of the numerous deaths of unarmed civilians by police and the disproportionate number of those victims who are African-American. I wasn’t trying to make any kind of statement about institutional racism or the privilege I have enjoyed as a pastor in South Dakota. It was just that the tragedy was recent and raw and as a Chaplain to law enforcement, I was sensitive to the fear and pain that is experienced in our department whenever an officer is killed in the line of duty, no matter where it occurs.
The prayer I wrote was a good one for that particular day.
However, it fell short of what was needed for the congregation on Sunday. It wasn’t that I shouldn’t have used the words I had written, it was just that the prayer ended short of addressing all of the pain and sorrow and loss of our nation in the preceding week.
I named the slain officers in the prayer and I make no apology for doing so. One of the ways that we honor those who have fallen and their families is to remember that they were not statistics, but rather individuals with names and faces and unique memories. Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa and Brent Thompson deserve to be remembered as dedicated servants of public safety. It is just that they aren’t the only ones who should be remembered by name.
In the same week that the officers were killed, Philander Castile was shot in his car in St. Paul Minnesota on Wednesday as he reached for his driver’s license. Alton Sterling was shot dead by police during an incident in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Tuesday. I said neither name in my pastoral prayer on Sunday.
Those names are just the tip of the iceberg. At least 102 unarmed black people were killed by police in 2015. Unarmed black people were killed at five times the rate of unarmed whites that year.
There is enough pain and loss and sorrow and grief in this country of ours to fill up hours of prayers.
A prayer is not about politics or taking sides or solving the problems of entrenched racism, however. A prayer is not the appropriate time to give an index to the week’s news and offers commentary. A prayer is about opening ourselves to listen to God’s call for our lives. A prayer is about presenting all of ourselves - our joys as well as our sorrows - to God. A pastoral prayer is offered by a pastor to give words to the prayers of the congregation. It is a moment when the congregation asks me to speak on their behalf. The immensity of that responsibility overwhelms me.
I worry that my prayers aren’t as expansively inclusive as God’s love. We say we welcome everyone into our worship, but I fear that at times I may be leaving out the concerns of some as I pray. I know that I need to trust God to guide my prayers as well as my actions.
The term “Spiritual Practice” is meaningful to me in part because it reminds me that there are many aspects to the discipline of being Christian that require practice. Some things need to be done over and over again as I think of what was good and what was not so good and learn from the experience to make a fresh attempt. It is clear that when it comes to pastoral prayers, decades of leading worship is insufficient and I still need more practice. Perhaps one pastoral prayer a week is simply too small of an effort. Perhaps I need to write one such prayer each day and then lay each week’s worth aside and create a fresh new prayer for each Sunday’s service.