It’s become fashionable, in recent years, to mock those who respond to tragedy by offering their “thoughts and prayers”—and for good reason! In American public life we hear this phrase most often as a politician’s hollow response to an act of gun violence: “My thoughts and prayers are with the families.” (But my vote is with the NRA.) And of course, it’s resurfaced over the last few weeks as people around the world wonder what to do in response to the Russian attack on Ukraine and are left with nothing but their thoughts and prayers.
To the extent that this is fair, it’s fair as a critique of hypocrisy, not of prayer. The problem is not that politicians pray for an end to gun violence; it’s that politicians who hold the power to change public policy are hiding behind prayer, abusing the idea of prayer by wielding it as a shield against taking responsibility for the situation. (And in my more cynical moments, I’m inclined to wonder: How much time did you really spend on your knees grappling with God in prayer before your intern sent that tweet, Senator?)
But prayer itself is not inaction. It is, in fact, a powerful act.
Leave aside for a moment the common idea of prayer as a Christmas letter mailed to the North Pole, in which we submit to God a list of our anxieties and dreams in the hope that we can persuade God to give us what we want. Without delving too deeply into the metaphysical depths of Christian theology, let me just say: God is well aware that the war in Ukraine (or gun violence, or your nephew’s health, or …) is a problem. God isn’t tallying up the votes to see which way to act. By praying our hardest, we cannot evoke a supernatural military intervention from the heavens.
But prayer is not primarily our cry of anguish to God. It is the Spirit of God groaning wordlessly in the depths of our souls, and our spirits crying out in resonant response. Theologically speaking, our prayers can only ever begin as our response to the Holy Spirit’s presence and work within us. In prayer, we quiet our minds and our voices to listen for God’s voice within us. We lay down our own egos and allow ourselves to be shaped by God’s love. And then we return into the world, transformed into ever-so-slightly-more-Christ-shaped versions of ourselves, and we act. Prayer is a powerful act. Not a human act of oration, attempting to persuade God; but a divine act of love and a human response of listening and yielding to God’s will.
Sometimes we need to set aside a particular place and time to pray, and to pray together; a moment in which to set down our anxieties and our business and listen for God’s voice. As the great pastor Eugene Peterson wrote, “I can’t be busy and pray at the same time. I can be active and pray; I can work and pray; but I cannot be busy and pray. I cannot be inwardly rushed, distracted, or dispersed. In order to pray, I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; more attention to God than to my clamoring ego. Usually, for that to happen there must be a deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day, a disciplined detachment from the insatiable self.”
If you find yourself needing such a “deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day” to pray these days—and especially to pray for peace, for the suffering of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers and Russian conscripts, and for the repentance of those who inflict such cruelty on their neighbors—I invite you to join us at a vigil of prayer for peace, to be held at St. John’s this Wednesday, March 30, at 7:00pm. It will be a short service, with time to quiet ourselves and listen to God; to lament the destruction and to pray for its end; and, perhaps most importantly, to allow ourselves to be transformed into people living lives of peace and love.
I hope to see you there. And if not: please join your prayers with ours, wherever and whenever you can.