Praying for Home

This is important! Stop right now and listen! Before you dive into the prayers, poems, and readings for this week coming week of Advent, we have an important message for you! Please watch the video or just read!

Everyone I’ve known has at least two things in common. First, we call earth home. Despite our common home, we are quite different! We look different, we speak different languages, we eat different foods, we sing different songs, we live very different lives, we think differently, we love differently, we believe differently.

And this brings me to the second thing we have in common: we have all, at one time or another, felt homeless. At some point we discover that we are all different and we feel isolated, alone, like no one gets us or understands us. We allowed difference to divide us, to exclude us one from another, to create “us” and “them”. And at some point, we have – all of us – longed to find a home in the midst of a divided world.

There are times we come together and set these differences aside to work in unison towards a commo;purpose. Unfortunately, such times are usually brought on by tragedies like war or natural disaster. Nonetheless, they are proof that difference does not have to divide. Proof even that difference can be a source of strength!

Maybe it’s because we most often allow our differences to be points of division that we have such a hard time praying for one another. Too often, we act like opposing basketball teams each praying for a win, like two countries at war praying that God would bring our victory and their defeat, like two arguing teenagers each praying that the other will realize and admit they are wrong.

Remember this story from Jesus in Matthew 18:10-14?

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Too often people want to be right rather than humble. Too often we cast judgement rather than practice humility.

Too often we act like the Pharisee praying in Jesus story rather than the tax collector. We pray from our position of right-ness rather than a position of confession. We pray for others to change because they are wrong rather than for me to change because I have been wrong.

Maybe you and I could learn to pray more like the tax collector. And that is what this week is about.

What does that mean?

Well, one way to practice humility in the way we think about and pray for others is to pray for a home for all. Praying for folks to find home is a pray that respects the dignity and difference of all people. Praying for home honors the reality that we may not all agree, we may not all believe the same things, we may not all live the same way, but we can live together here on earth working for a common good. Praying for home for people we both like and dislike means asking God to bring about the best for everyone of God’s beloved children. That is this coming weeks theme.

As you dive into the prayers and poems and artwork and readings for this third week of Advent (from our Advent Guide to our Social Media posts to our blog and email), you will be challenged! You will encounter prayers for folks that may cause you to feel uncomfortable. You may encounter thoughts about issues that make you cringe. But in each case, the prayer, the words, the idea is that we orient ourselves towards wanting the best for all of God’s people, both those we understand and those we don’t understand, those we love and those we really struggle to love, those with whom we have much in common and those with whom we have little in common. We all need a home.

After all, isn’t making a home what Jesus did when he came into the world so long ago? God came to earth in flesh to make a home in the midst of all our human difference and division and political wars and religious disagreements. Maybe, if we want to follow Jesus way, we too should work to make this world more of a home for everyone.

So, this week, keep an open heart and open mind as you read, pray, and consider how everyone deserves a home.