As the adage goes, prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us. The least mature prayers are the ones wherein we ask God for a list of things we want, like an adult version of a Christmas wish list. I wish I could say that the prayers of the faithful are reliably able to ward off illness and death, but all of my years of experience tell me otherwise.  Even the most faithful persons, even when those who have hundreds or even thousands of the most faithful people praying for their healing, will still die despite those prayers, for example. Which is why some folks quit on God. They figure if God isn’t giving them what they want, why bother? We all know the relationship between prayer and outcomes, and rightly, we still pray. But why? Probably because we also know it does work. It does do something: it changes us.

Actually, it’s not the praying that changes us, it’s God who changes us. Our prayers are the open windows through which the Holy Spirit can breeze through and cause the curtains of our lives to flutter. We may not ever see that holy wind, but we do see its effects. The truism about such open-window prayers is that the more often we engage in them, the more often the Spirit shows up. As Archbishop William Temple said long ago, “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.” Such awareness is not meant to be a stand in for cause and effect relationships, but merely to remind us that the Spirit is constantly moving around us whispering, urging, calling, leading, and working in the hopes that we will sense the divine work already in progress around us and move along with it.

I’ve shared before that our acknowledgement of and affinity for the work of the Holy Spirit makes us a tradition with a strong foundation in the Pentecostal movement. We laughingly refer to ourselves as the “Frozen Chosen” for our staid and proper demeanor in worship, but underneath we’re not too far off from our more active-in-prayer-and-worship sisters and brothers in the Pentecostal churches. Our experiences tell us that God is near to us quite often when we have the eyes and ears to register it. Unfortunately, we don’t always have the vision or the hearing to pay attention to it. It takes some effort and some intention, that isn’t always possible. Sometimes loud and distracting noises, or pesky biting things, or the fear that something will slip away from us, causes us to keep the windows of our lives shut against the Spirit’s gentle breath. 

This past week, our Bishop invited us to open a particular window.  Through a Pastoral Letter to the Diocese of Georgia, read and shared during worship this week and included in this newsletter, Bishop Frank called upon us to Pray, Vote, and Love in advance of the upcoming elections. I think his message and his invitation are a breeze in and of themselves, and I am committing myself to taking them seriously. I have accepted the invitation, part of which will involve expanding on his three initiatives with this and future Ramblings. 

So which prayer path will we take, the wish list or the windsock? If we simply run down the ballot asking God to elect each person we will mark with our pencil on paper or our finger on a touchscreen, I don’t think it will be very productive. I know it won’t be very faithful, either. If only it were that simple. Elections are important because they are so complex. Our decisions in the voting booth have real-world consequences for us, for those we love, and for the persons our faith calls us to care for through every means at our disposal – including our political choices. When we pray about and through the complexities of our communities, our states, and our nation, we realize that we need God’s help. It’s too much for us to sort out with only party lines and voter guides as our tools.

The challenge for us is to take off the lenses that might normally focus our vision so that we have the eyes to see as God sees. We might need help to hear the voices that God hears crying out for justice, peace, love, mercy, and all those things that we want for ourselves and our children. God wants them for all of God’s children as well. When we open the window of prayer in this election season, it should not be our will that we pray for God’s action to bring to fruition, but for God’s will to be unfolded in this world through our action. Not my will, but thine. That’s the way it works. Our prayers to God will not cause God to start pulling the levers for other voters, but they might be able to direct us about how to pull our own.  

We know quite a lot about what God wants for this world thanks to scripture and the prophets, the historic witness of the Church, and most importantly, through Jesus Christ. We know that God will always have a preference for whatever will lift up the lowly, aid the poor, care for the sick and the vulnerable, lead to forgiveness and reconciliation, and bring in the outcast. We know that God is always for a reality that stems from a place of abundance, not scarcity. We have learned that whichever of those we start from is likely to also be where we end. Our God is a God of abundance.  

Our prayers in this season might not be most effective as simply, “Who should I vote for,” but “What world are you trying to build, God?” Maybe the prayer isn’t “What’s the path to an electoral victory,” but “What’s the path to the Kingdom of God?” Maybe the prayer isn’t, “What is best for me,” but “What’s best for my neighbors?” Only when we have heard and seen the answers to those questions can we then apply them to the choices that lay before us in this or any election. We may not hear a voice from heaven or see a blinding vision to provide such answers, but if we pay attention, we might catch the gentle movement of the drapes or hear a whisper on the wind. It starts with opening the window. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes it’s more than enough. Sometimes it can change us.

Tom+

For one specific prayer practice in this season, look to the Bishop’s Pastoral Letter, which includes a link to the Forward Movement novena of prayer before the election. We will share it separately, as well, in the weeks before the election. 

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights ofall may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.                     

-  Prayer for an Election from the BCP