I am finding that writing prayers of intercession on behalf of the whole community can be more challenging than preaching sermons these days. People are listening for specific headlines while others are hoping the petitions stay general and broad. Martin Luther famously said that a theology of the cross calls a thing what it is, but so often calling a thing what it is means using language already claimed by one partisan group or another.

How do we pray on behalf of the whole assembly after a mass tragedy and while collective traumas still compound? How do we pray when everyone in the space has a different expectation of what we should speak aloud, how we word it and why? How do we pray when it feels more like keeping score and ticking boxes?

I don’t have certain answers to these questions, but I am clear about a few things. Like preaching, public prayer is not meant to be performative. It is not meant to leave us right where it found us. It is not meant to center the individual or the faction. And it does not have to be perfect for God to hear and know us, and love that we are trying.

My prayer for you, worship leaders, is that we keep trying. And my prayer for you, assemblies of people, is that we hold generous space for practicing together. And when we hear something that doesn’t land the way we thought it would, we stay in a posture of prayer. We trust God to do more than we can imagine with what we have to offer.

Prayers for Sunday, May 22

Creative God, we give thanks for the signs of spring and new life all around us. Birds sing and trees bloom, gentle reminders that we do not have the market cornered on right worship and praise, that you delight in our being more than our doing, that resurrection cannot be measured or contained.

Merciful God, this Easter season we remember the authority you grant to disciples of every generation: your Holy Spirit gives us the power to forgive and retain sins. You call us to participate in the work of liberation of people, communities, and all of creation. And yet, we struggle to repent with our whole hearts and trust your grace. We still get nervous and hide behind locked doors. Keep coming to look for us and renew our call to embody life beyond death.

Saving God, we seek your presence among all who bear the weight of oppression, all who experience harm and hatred, and all who suffer the sins of systems built to serve some and not others. We lament with (places). We pray for all who listen a little longer, for all who seek to understand, for all who struggle to hold the tension when the culture prefers to paper over pain and call it peace. Make a way where we cannot.

Loving God, you know our whole hearts and inmost thoughts, the deep wells of our beings. You know what has become dry and brittle, jaded and mutinous. And you know the gifts we have in plenty, nourishment for the world you love. Mend us with mercy. Quench the thirst of your people. Make us generous with the good things you have entrusted to our care.

Living God, we grieve with the families of Ruth Whitfield, Roberta Drury, Aaron Salter, Heyward Patterson, Pearl Young, Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Katherine Massey, Margus Morrison, and Andre Mackneil, killed last week at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Fathers, grandmothers, retired police officers, activists, substitute teachers, food shelf founders, church deacons - reveal yourself in their stories and the tears of all who mourn. May their memory be a blessing and their life in your good care last forever.

Tender God, we say so many things in worship and still others by way of omission. Today we acknowledge how many mass shooters are young white men who were raised in the church. We acknowledge that, in trying to avoid politics at church, we allow false prophets and racist ideologies to convolute the gospel of Jesus. Help your church to be courageous and clear about power, authority, value, and life for the sake of young white men wrestling with their place in this world.

Holy God, we pray for this congregation and every community that prays together. It’s hard to find words on behalf of the assembly when so much of our common language has been corrupted by partisan factions. It feels both radical and impossible to pray aloud in community these days, but we keep trying. Meet us in every petition with grace that pulls us out of our own agendas and earthly allegiances. Help us practice being frustrated and freed by the call to pray together. And may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Healing God, this season we recognize the risen Jesus’ wounds - and remember how much you care for ours. Show us how to offer words that cool and protect like a buttery salve; simple deeds that tend to what hurts; patient presence that is balm for bodies, minds and spirits. We pray for those who feel loneliness or despair, that you would send another alongside them for company and strength. Keep giving us back to one another and refueling our hope in you.