Prayers for a Violent World
"Guernica," by Pablo Picasso, oil on canvas, 11 ft X 25.6 ft (1937)
“I am grateful, too, to [C. S.] Lewis for having the courage to yell, to doubt, to kick at God with angry violence. This is a part of healthy grief not often encouraged.” ― Madeleine L’Engle
I state the obvious when I say that we live in a violent world. Women suffer domestic abuse, a nation bombs another nation, tens of thousands of children are orphaned by drug-related violence, a pastor abuses his authority, a man is profiled because of his skin color, a Christian is persecuted because of her faith, and millions are cruelly displaced from their homes.
In more recent news, this past weekend a racially motivated 18-year old man, dressed in camouflage and body armor and wielding a rifle with a high-capacity magazine, shot and killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket, wounding three others. Eleven of the thirteen victims were black.
In Laguna Woods, California, a gunman entered Geneva Presbyterian Church, where a group of parishioners had gathered for a lunch in order to honor a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that uses the church for its worship services, shot and killed one person and wounded five others.
The fact that such acts of violence occur every day will be obvious to anyone who reads the daily news. Such violence occur to individuals, it mars systems and institutions, and it dehumanizes entire people groups and communities who did nothing to deserve it.
As I write in my book on the psalms, the psalmists pray repeatedly for justice in light of such violent acts because they understand that a world full of broken people and sin-warped conditions results in destructive powers that damage a world which God so loves, and they plea repeatedly to the God-of-the-Angel-Armies to set things right.
In the psalms there is no faithful prayer that trivializes evil, no genuine faith that ignores the destructive and self-destructive powers of sin, and no true witness that turns a blind eye to the violence of our world. And it is for this reason that we turn to the psalms for guidance in times such as this, for they show us what we can, and indeed should, be praying in a violent world.
But a question remains: How exactly do we pray in the aftermath of violence? What words should we put on our lips? What can the whole people of God say “amen” to and what might only one of us be able to say amen to in good conscience?
These questions are, of course, far from easy to answer, but over the past couple of years I have attempted to give language to such matters and I have included here a number of those prayers, in the hope that they might prove useful, and perhaps comforting, to people who face the terrors and traumas of violent activities on a regular basis. May the Lord, in his mercy, hear our prayers.
(The prayers below, written in “Collect” form, serve as a complement to a set of Prayers for a Time of Suffering and Prayers for Lent & Eastertide and Prayers for Life. Christianity Today has republished a version of this essay and translated my prayers into Spanish and French.)
“The Mothers” (Die Mütter), by Käthe Kollwitz, lithograph, 47.2 x 66.4 cm (1922–1923)
A Prayer Against Bloodthirstiness:
O Lord, you who abhor the bloodthirsty, rebuke the murderous, we pray, and break the sword of the violent, so that we might witness you as the God of Justice and the Lord of Righteousness under the light of the noonday sun. We pray this in the name of Christ our King. Amen.
A Prayer of Anger:
To the God whose holy anger heals;
To the Messiah whose righteous anger overcomes evil;
To the Spirit who keeps our angers from turning destructive:
Receive our wounded hearts;
Take our burning words;
Protect us from the desire for revenge.
May our righteous angers become fuel for justice in our fractured world
and for the mending of broken relations in our neighborhoods and homes.
For God’s sake—and ours—we pray.
Amen.
A Prayer After a Mass Shooting:
O Lord, you who abhor those who murder the innocent, be not deaf to our bitter cries, we pray, and do not abandon us to our pain this day. Hear our raging words of protest, O God of Jacob, heed our groans for justice, and meet us in this lowly and desperate place. Awake, Lord! Rouse yourself! Deliver us from evil, for your name’s sake, so that we might witness your might to save and your power to heal. We pray this in the name of our Fortress and Refuge. Amen.
A Prayer for Enemies:
O Lord, you who ask us to do the impossible—to bless our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to love those who seek us harm—we pray that you would do the impossible in us: Help us to love our enemies as you love them and to remember who our true enemy is: Satan, death, and the spiritual forces of evil. Perform also a miracle in our enemies by your Spirit, and in your sovereign might, restrain the power of evil in this world. We pray this in the name of the One who does impossible things. Amen.
A Prayer for Death:
O Wounded Christ, you who have gone to the monstrous depths and swallowed death whole, tasting its bitter finality and conquering it once for all, we pray that you would free us from the fear of death and comfort us in the losses that we experience on account of death, so that our hearts might be infused this day with your resurrection life. We pray this in the name of the One who is the Resurrection and the Life. Amen.
“War,” by Alfred Kubin, illustration (1903)
A Prayer of Bitter Lament:
Merciful God, you who weep with those who weep, who rescue the oppressed, who incline your ear to the needy, and who bind up the brokenhearted: hear our prayer. Bring an end to our distress. Preserve our lives. Rescue us. Heal us. Be near to us this day. We pray this in Jesus’ name, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, on whom we cast all our cares. Amen.
A Prayer Against Neighbor Hate:
O Lord, you who command us to bless our enemies, protect us, we pray, from turning our neighbors into enemies, worthy only of hatred and deserving of nothing but insults and curses, and grant us instead the heart of Jesus, so that we might love our neighbor as you love them. We pray this in the name of the One who causes the sun to rise both on the evil and on the good. Amen.
A Prayer for Loving a Hurting Neighbor:
O Lord, you who do not look away from the pain of this world, open our eyes, we pray, to see the pain of our neighbor and, by grace, to become the healing presence and power of Jesus to them, so that our hearts might be kindled with your neighbor love this day. We pray this in the name of the Merciful One. Amen.
A Prayer to Become a Justice-Loving People:
O Lord, you who hate those who record unjust decisions, may we be a people who stand against injustice that occurs anywhere as a threat to justice everywhere, so that we might become worthy representatives of your righteous kingdom and extremists for Christ’s love. We pray this in the name of the One who sets the oppressed free. Amen.
A Prayer for Peace in a Time of War:
O Lord, you who are the True King, have mercy, we pray, on the people of the Ukraine this day. Silence the warmongers, scatter the bloodthirsty, shatter the weapons of war and take pity on the vulnerable, so that true peace and justice might be restored to this land. We pray this in the name of the Prince of Peace. Amen.
A Prayer For Those Who Weary of Doing Justice:
O God, you who see the hearts of all with perfect clarity, I confess my irritation with those who bully their way with words, who think no one sees what they do in the shadows, and who live in a world of denial. I’m angry and scared and tired of doing the right thing. Strengthen my heart, I pray, so that I might not lose hope. I pray this in the name of the Good Shepherd and Just Judge. Amen.
A Prayer for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day:
O Lord, you who who refused to use the violence of the world to achieve peace, we pray that we, in the spirit of your servant Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., might become a people of non-violence, rejecting the hostile ways of Herod and refusing all Petrine instincts for violent retribution, so that we might be strengthened to do the work of your peaceable kingdom this day. We pray in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.
A Prayer to Guard Against Self-Deception:
O Lord, you who lift my head up high, I lift my soul to you this day: guard my heart, I pray, from self-deception, my thoughts from vain imaginations, my lips from falsehood, my hands from violence and my soul from evil, so that I might walk in the way of integrity all the days of my life. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
“The Garden of Earthly Delights,” by Hieronymus Bosch, oil on canvas, 87 × 38.4 in (1490 - 1500)
A Prayer for the Peaceable Kingdom of God:
O Lord, you who were manifested to the world at the visit of the Magi, manifest yourself to the world today as the king who refuses to use the violence of the world to the achieve peace that we so eagerly desire, so that we might be strengthened to do the work of your peaceable kingdom in our own time and place. We pray this in the name of our Redeemer and King. Amen.
A Prayer for the Remembrance of 9-11:
O Lord, you who are the God of the living and the dead, we remember this day those who died on 9-11: we thank you for all who sacrificed their lives in the service of others and we pray that you would heal all lingering traumatic memories, that you would mend all relations that remain broken still, between neighbors and nations, and that you would kindle in us the true love of justice and peace, so that we might work toward a day on which nation shall not lift up sword against nation. We pray this in the name of our Strong Deliverer. Amen.
A Prayer for Police Officers:
Oh Lord, you who love righteousness and justice, we pray for all police officers today, that you would support and bless them in their duties, and that you would strengthen them to defend the cause of the vulnerable, maintain the right of the oppressed, serve the good of the community and preserve the peace in our cities, so that they might be emissaries of your justice in the world. We pray this in the name of the Ruler of the Nations. Amen.
A Prayer Against Duplicity of Heart:
O Lord, you who were cheered and jeered by the very same crowd, have mercy, I pray, on my own duplicitous ways: confessing one sin openly yet hiding another; blessing God out of one side of my mouth, while cursing my neighbor out of the other; smiling in public but raging in private; loving God and money equally much; and all other sins besides. Grant me the grace of integrity—of being one thing through and through—no matter what the cost. I pray this in the name of the One Who Remains True. Amen.
A Prayer of Allegiance to the Prince of Peace:
O Lord, you who deserve all our loyalties, we pledge allegiance this day to the Lamb of God and to the upside-down Kingdom for which he stands, one holy nation under God, the Servant King and the Prince of Peace, with liberty and justice for all without remainder. We pray this in the name of the Holy Trinity. Amen.
“Deliver Us From Evil,” by Shin Maeng
