Exploring the ways that preachers’ prayers impact their preaching was the task recently for the Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship and practical theology at Union Theological Seminary. Carvalhaes spoke for about 90 minutes as part of the Synod of the Covenant’s monthly preaching workshop. Watch his presentation here.
“What a world we’re living in! In a time of fascism, prayer is more important than ever,” Carvalhaes said. We either “want to go to the streets and fight or coil back in our beds and never leave.”
Taking in news reports from places like Gaza, which Carvalhaes called “a laboratory for cruelty,” can leave us feeling paralyzed and hopeless, he said. “We need to create opportunities for our people to do something,” he said, showing a recorded clip of a line of Buddhist monks on a 123-day prayer walk for peace. “We could do something like that. We could have a peace walk around the block every Sunday before worship,” he said.
From people in cities such as Minneapolis, we are learning the importance of group singing as resistance, he said. “St. Augustine said that singing is praying twice,” Carvalhaes said. “There is a whole theology being developed on the streets.” Our lives, he said, “are one whole prayer, and our prayer ends only with our last breath. Our spirituality comes from the breath of God, so while we’re breathing, we’re praying.”
Five years ago, Carvalhaes published “Praying with Every Heart: Orienting Our Lives to the Wholeness of the World.”
“Today, I want to develop this notion of ‘praying with,’” he said. It’s a title given to him by a Buddhist friend at Union Theological Seminary.
Most Presbyterian worship services begin by calling people to worship. “We start with the belief that God is already there,” he said. “But so many other traditions believe you have to call upon God to come [to the service]. They have prayers or singing to ask God to come.”
Capitalism has taught us that “we are on our own” and “have the freedom to be ourselves,” he said. If all the people on the call were applying for the same job, the one who got hired “would be praised for the strength and power” that got that person hired, Carvalhaes said. “The rest of us, our families would tell us ‘you’re not good enough.’ The system blames us individually for what the social system can’t give to us, and we just buy into it.”
In our churches, if something happens that “takes us off the grid of living well,” such as a job loss, we may survive for a few months off our savings and our unemployment checks. After that, in an example Carvalhaes presented, we may get anxious about paying our bills, and so we go to our church for financial help. The pastor may ask the session to authorize some money to help us, but it’s not enough, and we begin to ask for prayers each week during worship, which annoys our fellow worshipers. “You can do better,” they tell us. “Why do you have to ask each week?” Eventually the pastor tells us, “Sorry. We have already helped you. The session says that we don’t have enough money for everybody.”
“In this example, I am trying to show how committed we are to each other, but capitalism keeps us from going all the way to help people,” he said. “There are limits and boundaries we have clearly posted but we don’t talk about.”
He concluded his talk with thoughts on mercy and gratitude.
“We say, ‘God have mercy,’ because we have gone too far, or don’t know how to return, or we have lost all hope. The prayer is the hope we will find the God who lives in those far places as well,” Carvalhaes said. “At the end, God will be with us — either for new beginnings or a full end. It’s a scream to a God who lives outside the gates and can provide us a welcome no one else will.”
The Synod of the Covenant’s monthly preaching workshops are available to frequent preachers living and working both inside and outside the bounds of the synod.
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
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Serrita Bell, Director of Communications and Marketing, Presbyterian Foundation
Let us pray:
Our loving God, thank you for the gift of those who reach out to others in a spirit of love. May their example be a light to the world, that all may live in peace. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
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