Here we are with eyes closed, resisting the temptation to look at others in this intimate moment, focusing our attention on you. May we sense your presence. We want to feel the light of your glory shining on our faces even in this unusual public yet private prayer when we are gathered and yet not.
We want to be filled, if only for these few passing minutes with the awe that rightfully belongs to this encounter with you our most Holy God.
We come to this holy place, our living rooms and laundry rooms and spare rooms and kitchens made holy because we gather in your name. Though we come with confidence, we are not so presumptuous as to believe that we may come by our own merit, but with confidence in the blood of Christ who has gone before us.
You alone are Holy and Just and Pure. You alone are loving and merciful and gracious. You alone are worthy of praise and glory and honor and we come to lay before you all our earthly treasures – our homes and families that give us comfort and a sense of security especially in these times. We lay before you our money to be used for the poor and for those sliding into poverty. We bring to you our words that you might use them to encourage the faint, to bring good news to the imprisoned, to instruct those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
All that we have, all that we are, all that we hope to be, all that gives us comfort we give to you in spite of our yearning for greater security in the midst of uncertainty.
Forgive us that we hug these things tightly to ourselves, seeking to find in them what can only be found in you.
Dear God we do not understand precisely what you have in mind for us as we stand in this liminal space, this threshold between the now and the next – nor do we understand what you have in mind for our city, our nation, our world, but we love you and trust you.
Don’t let us let you down in this. Help us to be what you want us to be – to learn what you want us to learn – help us not to waste this experience, but to show to our neighbors, our friends, our families, our children, our grandchildren the reality of knowing you.
Paul urged Timothy to offer supplications and prayers for those who are in high positions. But how can we pray, we wonder, or should we pray, we wonder, for leadership that doesn’t want to lead?
How should we pray for those who abdicate their responsibilities? How should we pray for those who by their inactivity or refusal to act create stress, chaos, division and harm? How should we pray for those who appear to deny their calling to ensure the health, safety, and prosperity of those in their care?
We will pray that you preserve us from harm; that you surround them with wise counselors and clear-headed prophets – even if they will not heed their advice nor admonitions. We pray that even if they will not listen to your voice, if they harden their hearts and are willfully deaf, that nevertheless, you will not withdraw from them for the sake of your people and for the sake of all those who have yet to hear of your Son their savior.
And, we pray with all of our hearts for your Holy Spirit to descend on our leaders in this congregation – that their hearts would burn with purpose; that they would be driven to lead with radical determination to help us grow; that they would guide us with confidence because they have spent time alone with you and time together with you in prayer.
We pray with all our hearts our leaders would become the radical leaders we have been learning about in the book of Mark. That the convicting power of your Holy Spirit would rest on them and on us; and as the wind and fire of Pentecost swept over the women and men closeted in the upper room in their moment of uncertainty propelling them into the streets, so may we too be driven from our hiding places.
We pray that we, so moved by your Holy Spirit, would become radical believers, proclaiming the resurrection without apology, bringing our goods to be shared by all. So radicalized as to willingly give up the comforts we hold in common. Perhaps even our beautiful place of worship. Giving up what comfort us, choosing instead to redirect our funds to the poor – first those in the body then those outside – so that none have need or want – to lay our most prized possessions before you to be blessed like loaves and fishes and shared with the hungry and faint.
We have become good at marking time, we are good at self-preservation, we are good at theology, we are good faithful attenders at worship – but we pray that we are not good scribes and pharisees or even good anti-scribes and pharisees – who are in all other respects the same but pride themselves on their difference.
Keep us from false security, pretending you make no radical demands on our time, on our possessions, on our knowledge, our skills, our experience.
With all that is within us we want to be the Church you have called us to be – not a congregation with a good Portland image – with the Portland imprimatur – the keeping Portland weird Church. We want to be your Church. Utterly committed in thought, word, and deed to you.
The radical church. From the roots up empowered, motivated and active because we have spent time with you and we cannot do otherwise.
Bring us through this social isolation with a sense of what is truly important. Sift us and show us our strengths and limitations.
Help us not waste this testing. We know this is not the end nor perhaps even the middle of this global ordeal. We know our neighbors and the world itself will need a church transformed, and we want to be that Church – a church turned outward, a church willing to give all it has, all it hopes to have, and all it will be in order that we might be your hands of healing and voice of encouragement and messenger of peace to the world.
We pray we would not attempt to extinguish your Holy Spirit, tame his flame, nor foolishly hide it under a bucket, rather you would blow on our smoldering wick and ignite your fire in us again. This is our prayer in this holy moment as we pray, gathered and yet not, descend on us – especially our leaders.
We pray this in the name of Jesus our Lord and Savior, Amen.
— A Prayer By Richard White for 5/17/20