Nosy, Noisy Public Prayer

Prayer is vital to me and my church, an important part of my own life. Nonetheless, as I worship here and there, I run into public prayers that rub me the wrong way. First of all, I’m irritated by announcements disguised as prayers. I wonder if they’re not, in fact, addressed to me more than they are to God. I’ve spent quite a few years trying to figure out the best place for the announcements. I favor the men’s room, before worship begins.

But if we’re going to have announcements, then let’s just have announcements, rather than disguising them as prayers. As prayers they’re almost funny.

“O Lord, we pray that you’ll bless the congregational potluck tonight at 6pm in the Fellowship Hall, A-H bring salads, I-P bring desserts, R-Z bring bread and rolls, at which a free- will offering will be received to help support the youth group’s summer mission trip to Muscatine next July 12-18.”

I’m all for congregational potlucks and youth mission trips, but I ask you: does the Lord really need to hear all this?

Or how about this: “Lord, send your blessings on Waldo Smith in Memorial Hospital, Room 3711, Bed 2, as he faces hernia surgery on Tuesday morning.” I’m sure the Lord is plenty concerned about old Waldo, but I’m also sure that the Lord can track down Waldo by himself, and is pretty well up on the hernia surgery. Besides, would it be a crime if the Lord were to cast a little healing power by mistake on whoever happens to be occupying Room 3711, Bed 1?

Second, I’m disturbed by intercessions, and by what our intercessory prayers say about our theology and our world-view.

There are prayers for this person diagnosed with cancer and that person grieving a death in the family and a third person facing unemployment and a fourth person with a difficult pregnancy and so on. Don’t get me wrong. Such prayer is a fine and worthy undertaking of the church, one commanded by Scripture, even though it does now and then verge on my earlier diatribe about prayer as announcement.

But this strikes me. I almost never hear thanksgivings. I almost never hear prayers naming the person who just got a promotion at work, the student who was honored at school, the benefactor whose contribution keeps the local Habitat for Humanity branch on its feet. The only way to make it into intercessory prayer is to have a serious problem.

What does that say about our theology? Our world view? I do understand God’s preferential option for the poor, God’s concern for the weak and the lowly, the hurting and the hopeless. We should by all means be praying for them. But does God care nothing for those who don’t happen to be hurting at the moment? Does God turn his back on those for whom things are going well?

I tried an experiment in such a setting a while back. As that congregation was lifting up its intercessions, I named a friend out loud. Only his name.

When the service was over, people kept coming up to me. “What’s wrong with your friend?”

“Nothing, as far as I know.”

“Sick?”

“No.”

“Family problems?”

“No.”

“Depressed?”

“No.”

“Death in the family?”

“No.”

“Then why are you praying for him?”

I rest my case.

I think our prayer lives would be enriched if, along with our prayers for the hurting, we were to lift our prayers for those who aren’t hurting, if thanksgiving should be a part of our intercessions as often as petition is.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to become a prayer vigilante, wandering from worshiping assembly to worshiping assembly critiquing the prayers being lifted. But I feel better having gotten this off my chest.

Steve McKinley is senior pastor of House of Prayer Lutheran Church, Richfield, Minnesota.

Donna Schaper offers advice for handling these nosy prayers in worship in her article “When Public Prayer Becomes Too Personal”.

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