Dear Friends,

At its essence the educational process is a dialogue. Both those learning and the teacher (who is also learning) are to raise questions and struggle with them together.  That is when true learning takes place for all involved.

In this issue on the ministry of teaching, let me respond publicly to a question raised by several different parishioners this past month: “Since our bishops have encouraged us to pray for Saddam Hussein, how can I bring myself to do that?  Do I pray for his health, his happiness, his seeing the light?”

I do not know what Saddam Hussein's fate will be by the time you read this; but whether he is alive or dead or in hiding, the larger question remains an important one for us.  How do we pray for our enemies, especially those whose actions are notably heinous?

Jesus tells us “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45).  Jesus makes no distinction here about extremely unprincipled enemies or ones who persecute us worse than others.  We are to try to love them with the love of God and to pray for them.

That certainly does not mean that we approve their actions or wish them success in their endeavors.  It does mean that we recognize that they are created in the image of God, no matter how they seem to have distorted it.  With trust and confidence in the power and love of God, we pray (as we do in The Great Litany) that God “forgive our enemies, persecutors and slanderers,” and “turn their hearts.”

In our common prayer together at weekday and Sunday services, I think we should be careful how we pray for individuals, especially public leaders.  By being too specific, it is very easy to turn our intended prayers of love into judgmental statements of our own personal agenda, e.g., “For so-and-so, that he might not be so short-sighted and sign the treaty that will encourage world peace” I find it better to pray for our civil and religious leaders, our enemies, etc., in general terms and let the Holy Spirit do the work of enlightening and sustaining and convicting for repentance.

Even in our personal prayer where we can more freely ask God for what is on our hearts, we ought to heed Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  We are not to reflect the superior attitude of the Pharisee: “God, make Saddam Hussein more like me and my kind.” Rather we are to be grateful for any ways that God's grace is flourishing in us and repentant for any ways it is not and to ask for God's grace to abound in all God's children.

David Yates, rector here from 1945 to 1959, was instrumental in convincing the General Convention that we needed a prayer “For our enemies” in the Prayer Book (p. 816).  Its sentiments can instruct us and speak for us when we need them to:

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Faithfully,
- Stephen

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