Faith Works 1-13-18

Faith Works 1-13-18

Jeff Gill

 

Praying for us all

___

 

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther did an interesting thing as 2017 concluded.

 

He asked some 200 faith community leaders across his city to "pray for peace" as our neighbor to the west dealt with the deadliest year in their history, 143 homicides in the calendar year (and then a new killing barely minutes into 2018).

 

With New Year's Eve a Sunday as the year ended, the mayor sent out a letter asking for prayers in worship as 2017 wound down to a close, saying "The new year should be a recommitment from all corners of this great city to the safety and well-being over every resident in every neighborhood. I believe that through prayer, dialogue and thoughtful actions we can make this year safer for all."

 

What does it mean for a community leader to ask faith communities to pray together?

 

When Twitter has a hashtag for your effort, #prayforpeace, does it make for a stronger spiritual reality?

 

Ideally, when believers in a higher power or heavenly realm or revealed religion choose to work together, there are both spiritual and practical outcomes that make the effort for unity worthwhile. As a Christian, I am told that wherever two or more are gathered, there my Lord will be, also – and these days I take the word gathered fairly broadly. Physical gatherings have a felt power of oneness, but there are times when an email burst or social media outcry bring people's hopes and intentions together in a way that seems very close to tangible.

 

Most Western faith traditions would argue that while God is not bounded by our intentions, there are many indications that our prayers, our petitions, our intercessions are welcome to the Lord, and have a focusing or multiplying or magnifying effect. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and Apostolic Writings, the Christian Testaments Old and New, there are times when angels and visions from on high are telling we mere mortals that our prayers, especially the prayers of the righteous, the faithful, have an effect. I think of it as opening up a window, or the shutters, so that the light already shining from above can enter into a room; likewise prayer makes a way into a situation where our own hesitations or anxieties close doors that God would rather not kick down.

 

Those would be some of the spiritual effects; on a more immediately visible level, calling different communities of believers to common prayer is likely to directly trigger work side by side. If you pray to the Divine with one voice, why wouldn't you labor with one heart in the vineyards of this world? When you know the church down the street is praying for the same desire, for peace and harmony, it's not a stretch to say "let's knock on their door and talk about how we can make that unity visible!"

 

I've had the opportunity to be part of ecumenical, interfaith efforts in many ways through the years. When Ohio was preparing for our state bicentennial in 2003, a group of writers and religious leaders came together, with Sikhs and Native Americans and Lutherans and Buddhists and my own Disciples of Christ tradition all co-operating to tell the story of "Religion in Ohio: Profiles of Faith Communities." (You can still read it, alas not in e-book form.)

 

When I was in college, Lafayette Urban Ministry brought prophetic voices together to challenge harsh forms of providing public assistance; in seminary I got to help put on workshops for the Near Eastside Church and Community Ministry Project about housing and violence prevention; in every community where I've served we've had councils of churches or ministeriums or ministerial associations that gave different religious leaders a place to find support from each other, and allowed an idea from one church to be fed and nurtured by many – that's part of the story of how the Licking County Coalition for Housing came to be, back 25 years ago.

 

So I salute Mayor Ginther for his request, and would add my own prayers, along with encouraging those of the congregation I serve, to the call #prayforpeace. Columbus needs it, Newark needs it in our own ways, and the whole hurting world needs more than a little peace.

 

Pray with me, and I believe we both will be blessed by having done so, together.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's praying for you. Yes, you. Pray for him as you will, and offer any more concrete thoughts to knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.