Saturday, December 20, 2008

Who Would Jesus Invite to Pray?

I've had some e-mail and conversations with friends over the last few days about President-Elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation and the inauguration. Several e-mails and conversations offered alternative choices -- all of them, religious professionals - clergy. Most of them well known and out spoken. I liked a lot of the choices suggested.

As I was out for my morning walk I got to thinking - Who would Jesus invite to pray at the inauguration? And the answer came to me after a few minutes. It probably wouldn't be a religious professional. It probably wouldn't be one of his disciples. It probably would be someone like a 10 year old homeless girl from the streets of the Bronx. Now that child would have something to pray about (don't we all). And that child probably wouldn't talk with advisers to decide what to pray. If she was really praying (as opposed to say...performing) she would probably offend more than a few folks. But one could be sure it would be real. Real prayer. Real honesty. Something real -- that sounds like something that hasn't happened on an inaugural stage for centuries.

A couple of years ago there was a big fight here in Indiana over the prayers that are offered in the State House. And while the argument was an important one - I thought that the most important thing that was being missed is that whatever name the prayers were being offered in -- it didn't appear to be having any effect. Personally, I think taking prayer away from us professionals in public places and putting it in the hands (and mouths) of what my friend Phil Amerson calls "the genuine articles" -- sounds like a good idea to me.

That reminds me that it was back in 1990 I think when Phil was invited to pray at a luncheon at Indiana Black Expo. Phil prayed, among other things, "for the Children's Museum that cares more about children on the other side of the world than for children in the shadow of its own building." (I'm really just quoting as I recall it) That prayer sure set some things off. People were awfully upset. Out of that some real conversations happened and some things changed. The executive director of the Children's Museum at that time actually came and sat down in a home in our neighborhood and had some real conversation with parents of children who lived in the shadow of his building. And he made some changes.

Prayer does change things -- or at least it can.