I prayed the following prayer for the National Day of Prayer in Manassas, VA, on Thursday, May 5, 2016. The topic for the prayer is government.
Good evening, Church.
I come here tonight as one who wears the label “Lutheran.” All of us wear the label “Christian.” It may sound odd at first, but we are called to a higher calling than these labels we wear. We are called to action. We are called to be disciples who faithfully follow Jesus. We are called to be apostles who are sent into the world.
And so we join together in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we gather here today, in the heart of Old Town Manassas, in a place that came into its own in the years following the Civil War, to pray for all who govern this community, this commonwealth, and this country. Especially this day, we pray for a spirit of unity and a higher calling … a calling together for the common good.
As you know, Father, politics is becoming more divisive. It seems to have become all about one candidate or party tearing down the other in order to win an election. It seems more about winning a job than about the people determining who is best suited to lead. What must you see as You look out over all of this?
This political season has been marked by excessively divisive rhetoric, and language and behavior not befitting the holder of the highest office in the land. As we narrow in on the nominees, the events that have played out before the world by candidates and their supporters has done little to build this nation up. Instead, we have tended to show the worst of ourselves.
The theatrics, rhetoric, commentary by the pundits, and details about who won which delegates becomes the focus and we lose sight of the fact that people are hurting. There are those among us who cannot make ends meet. The income is simply not enough to cover the out-go. There are also those among us who have enough … maybe barely, but we have enough and we want to hold on to that for which we have worked so hard.
So, Heavenly Father, as we pray for our government today, we cannot just pray “for them” … we also have to pray “for ourselves.” We pray for Your Holy Spirit to guide our hearts and our lives. We cannot be an uninformed people who base our perspectives on sound bites. We cannot be people who grump and complain about why this or that politician isn’t doing something right. We hold them to standards we don’t hold ourselves to. As citizens of this great country, we have a role and responsibility to be informed and to elect worthy people of good character. We cannot abdicate our role to care for the least of these in Your Name (Matthew 25:40). As people of faith, we are called to be people who honor Your holy Name, who help to bring about “Thy Kingdom come” … people who seek “Thy will be done on earth.”
O God, all of us gathered here today represent different religious views, different political and social views, and yet we all call upon Your Name and we are all part of the same community. We are not called to a separation of church and state, but called to living faithfully as the church in the state.
We are called to be “one as Your are one” (John 17:11). We are called to follow You in “[doing] justice … [loving] kindness, and … [walking] humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8). We are called to bring light into darkness and speak truth in the face of lies. For “by [doing] this everyone will know that [we] are [His] disciples” (John 13:35).
We pray this in the Name of Jesus, our savior. Amen
Epicurious Lutheran 