Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Carol Swanson.

In every Sunday worship service, we pray together the Prayers of the People, as do most churches around the world. The pastor introduces the prayer with something like, “Let us pray for the church and the needs of the world,” then offers petitions we respond to.  The traditional cue words at the end of each petition are “Lord, in your mercy,” and the response of the congregation is “hear our prayer.”  Prince of Peace has done it differently for at least 25 years. I noticed the difference the first time I worshipped here: the response, “you hear our prayer.” I later heard it was Paul Sponheim’s suggestion, for we do not need to beg or ask God to hear our prayers; instead, we gladly acknowledge that God always hears them.

Marjorie Suchocki’s book In the Presence of God has given me a greater insight and appreciation of the importance of prayer. Again, I share from her chapter on “Intercessory Prayer”:

“As a Christian church we have a mission to be channels of God’s love in this world, acting toward the alleviation of misery both by working to change structures that contribute to misery, and by administering the ‘cup of cold water’ in Christ’s name…. Clearly there is more to do than can be done by one person. But as Christians we are called to enter into God’s caring for the world. How can we do this, save through prayer?

“While we prayerfully do the small task given to each of us, we can also enter into prayer for the mission of the church as a whole, and of its many members who, like us, are called to their own part of its mission. Instead of being limited to tasks that are in the range of our capabilities, prayer enables us to participate in the tasks of others, tasks which our own talents could never equip us to do. Then again, of course, there is no one who can do our own task in the same way that we can do it. Others, praying for us, participate in our work. Prayer then becomes the weaving together of all the various works involved in the mission of the church, making them one and us one, even in such great diversity. Prayer is the weaving of things, making us participants in one another’s work, strengtheners to each other in our work, through the grace and power of God.” (p 48)

“In a God-world relation of interdependence, where the world’s power must be taken into account, where God’s power is exercised in the form of possibilities that the world has the power to reject, then intercessory prayer is of utmost importance. It’s not just that we need to pray—it’s that God needs us to do the praying. Our prayers actually make a difference to what God can do…. I am convinced that it is God’s own self who prompts us to pray, and that when God needs resources for any particular situation, God will give an impulse toward prayer to those open to such an impulse so that their praying may make a difference to what God can give in yet another place.” (p 49)

“PRAYING FOR ME”  

Somewhere on this crowded planet
In a place I have never been before
And will never visit in my lifetime
Someone I do not know and will never meet
Has just said a prayer
In a language I do not understand
As an expression of faith in a religion I do not accept.

And yet the prayer was for me.

Please bless all those who are in need,
The stranger prayed, and that includes me.
The wonder of faith is not that we all agree,
But that we all care, even when we are strangers.
So I return the prayer: please bless all who are in need.
All, please, not some:
For they are praying for me as I pray for them. (p 176)

Thank you, God of grace, you always hear our prayers. Amen.