Peddlers Who Prey on Our Prayers
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For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to the one group a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is qualified for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many, but as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God, we are speaking in Christ before God.
II Corinthains 2:15-17
As is often the case with the Apostle Paul, he finds it necessary to make a defense of his apostolic ministry in II Corinthians 2. He insists that he is a person of sincerity sent by God who is, along with some others, “the aroma” of Christ. He contrasts himself to his opponents whom he dismisses as “peddlers of God’s word,” who mix the gospel with their own self-interest for personal profit. The word “peddler” drew my attention. This is the sole usage of the term in the New Testament. It is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament only in Isaiah 1:22 wherein, says the prophet, the wine of Israel is “mixed” with water and thereby diluted. We are not told much about Paul’s opponents, but they clearly, in his judgment, had compromised the unalloyed good news of Jesus Christ.
The usage of the term “peddler” came to mind as I observed Donald Trump selling his “God Bless the USA” bible for $59.99. I have not seen his Bible, but it clearly intends to voice the gospel alongside Trump’s particular version of nationalism. As is always the case in my opinion, the Bible in Trump’s hands becomes simply another commodity whereby he can extend the reach of his self-promotion. Thus I had the notion that Trump, with his “God Bless the USA” Bible, is exactly the kind of peddler to which Paul alludes, who mixes, dilutes, and distorts the claims of the gospel for their own ends. Trump’s sales pitch, in his never-ending quest for money, can appeal only to those who find the claims of the gospel too radical, or too free of ideology, who must therefore add to it an ideological slant that may reassure, but is no longer the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Alongside his Bible, Trump vowed to “make America pray again.” He offered no suggestion about how he will “make” that happen. Nor does he seem to be aware that there is a vast company of believers (“vast” even in a time of retrenchment) who pray regularly, and who do not require his impetus for their practice of prayer. That good company of those who trust the gospel and who look to the Triune God as their source of life and wellbeing prays without ceasing.
We pray for forgiveness of our sins
which we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.(The Book of Common Prayer 79)
The peddlers of course do not pray such prayers of confession, for they have no moral compass, and no sense that our lives are penultimate to and answerable to the holiness of God.
We pray prayers of petition for ourselves.
We ask for attentive, transformative engagement with God in our weakness and in our strength, that we may be sustained in fullness of life, in obedience to God that is our true freedom. The peddlers of the word do not pray prayers of petition. Such peddlers of the word are capable of illusion, imagining that they have no needs, wants, or hopes to voice to God. Or, conversely, they do not imagine that there is a God of agency who can and will respond to our needs when they are acknowledged.
We pray prayers of petition for others,
most especially for our loved ones and for neighbors in need who are disadvantaged and lacking adequate resources for life. The peddlers do not pray such prayers, because they do not have on their horizon any neighbors in need. They cannot entertain the thought that the needs of others might be a genuine concern for us.
We pray prayers of thanks
for the gifts of life and all the wonder of sustenance, maintenance, and support that come our way from the generous hand of God. The peddlers do not pray such prayers of gratitude because they do not know that there is an ultimate Giver of good gifts. Indeed, they think that there are no gifts given. There are only achievements and accomplishments, and advantages gained by careful, shrewd, or ruthless dealing.
Thus when Mr. Trump proposes to “make America pray again,” his intent will not be prayers of confession, of petition, of intercession, or of thanks; that does not leave much. Of course he does not specify the content of his prayers, but they may be prayers for the advancement of his nationalist agenda. He and other peddlers would find it incomprehensible to affirm with answer 101 in The Evangelical Catechism:
Prayer is the conversation of the heart with God for the purpose of praising him, asking him to supply the needs of ourselves and others, and thanking him for whatever he gives us.
Or the answer in The Heidelberg Catechism to question 116:
Why is prayer necessary for Christians?
Because it is the chief part of the gratitude which God requires of us, and because God will give his grace and Holy Spirit only to those who sincerely beseech him in prayer without ceasing, and who thank him for these gifts.
The peddlers are the practitioners of this particular kind of cynicism that aims to exploit the cadences of faith in their drive for money and power. This practice of cynicism, moreover, can readily evoke a response of repulsion from those who reject the grifting. Thus it is important for the community of the faithful, those who regularly pray prayers of confession, petition, intercession, and thanks, to refuse the cynicism to which we are menacingly invited. It is important to maintain a “second naiveté” of innocent trust in the Giver of all good gifts. We may pay particular attention to the answer of The Heidelberg Catechism to question 120 concerning why the Lord’s Prayer addresses God as “father”:
That at the very beginning of our prayer he may awaken in us the childlike reverence and trust toward God which should be the motivation of our prayer, which is that God has become our Father through Christ and will much less deny us what we ask him in faith than our human fathers will refuse us earthly things.
This answer of course is cast in patriarchal terms. But it need not be. It can as well be expressed in maternal images as the good Mother God who does not deny what we ask any more than our human mothers refuse us earthly things.
Trump’s distortion of the faith of the church—with reference to both the Bible and to the practice of prayer—can amount to a compelling summons to the ministry of the church. It can remind us why we must insist, in every season, that the community of the faithful is quite distinct from and counter to the ideological passion of hucksters who tend to prey rather than pray. It may remind us that our practice of prayer is not incidental to our faith, but it is at the heart of our daily acknowledgement that we live from, rely on, and gladly respond to the Giver of all gifts. I suspect that in many congregations we have work to do to teach the faithful how to pray more faithfully. There is, on the one hand, the seduction of rote reiteration of prayers that can be done without much thinking or intentionality. On the other hand, there is a temptation to keep our prayers politely on the surface of our lives without the expression of our deepest failures or our deepest needs, our deepest hopes, and our deepest fears.
The final question on prayer in The Evangelical Catechism is “Are all our prayers answered?” The answer:
All prayers are answered either in the way we expect God to answer them, or in the way God knows will be best for us.
This answer bespeaks a profound trust in the goodness of God, a deep expectation that God’s intention will prevail in the world, with a readiness to trust, in hope, in the goodness of God. No deep imagination is required to see how completely this stance contradicts the world of the peddlers.
The conclusion is that the good news is not for sale. It is not a commodity. It will not, in faithfulness, be distorted for the sake of our favorite ideologies. It is, itself, the real thing, the real truth of our lives. This is a time for the church to voice its deepest truth bravely and clearly. I write this on Maundy Thursday when we ponder the suffering and death of the Messiah who will be raised in power. Such a claim boldly refuses every distortion and every convenient ideology. This is a time for brave testimony that is unembarrassed and uncompromising.
So much for “Two Corinthians”!
Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time. He is the author of over one hundred books and numerous scholarly articles.
