"Prayer Becomes Action" by Colleen O’Sullivan
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| Greek Orthodox Icon of Nehemiah, mounted on solid wood, more than 100 years old, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons |
The king asked me, “What is it, then, that you
wish?” I prayed to the God of heaven and then answered the king: “If it please
the king, and if your servant is deserving of your favor, send me to Judah, to
the city of my ancestors’ graves, to rebuild it.” (Nehemiah 2:4-5)
How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign
land? If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten! (Psalm 137:4-5)
Piety
By
the streams of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. On the aspens
of that land, we hung up our harps. (Psalm 137:1-2)
Study
How could we sing a song of the Lord in a
foreign land? The psalmist asks a good
question. I generally only feel like singing when I’m joyful, and I know I wouldn’t
be happy if some foreign power seized me, my family and friends, and dragged us
somewhere far from home. It would be difficult to get a melody out of me or any
of us.
Home is generally our place of refuge. It’s
where we can let our hair down and be ourselves, knowing we’re accepted. We belong
there. Home is where we know where everything is. It’s familiar. Home is a comfortable
place to be.
Away from home, nothing feels right. We’re out
of sorts. We’re filled with longing for the known. God’s people experienced all
of these things. Strangers in Babylon, they found they couldn’t sing or play
their instruments. Their hearts just weren’t in it. They were homesick for yesterday’s
reality.
Perhaps we sometimes feel we’ve lost our
familiar place in other ways as well. What happened to the church we grew up
in? Where are all the people who used to sit in the pews? In other dioceses
outside our own, people may wonder what happened to their parishes. They’ve
been closed or merged with other parishes. It sure doesn’t feel like home
anymore.
When I get up in the morning and turn on the news,
I wonder how we got here – all the bickering, name-calling, accusations of fake
news, etc. What happened to the good old days when we handled our differences
with greater civility, when politicians didn’t necessarily vote the same way
but were more than willing to cross the center aisle to exchange a handshake
and agree to disagree?
Action
What did Nehemiah do? He was in exile along with everyone else. He knew
what it felt like to be away from home. First of all, he prayed. He had an idea,
but before he opened his mouth to the king, he ran it by God. Only then did he show
his cards. He asked for permission to go back to Jerusalem to begin to rebuild
the city. He intended to construct a house for himself and work on the city
walls and gates of the Temple. He asked for the necessary lumber for these construction/renovation
projects. When God’s people returned, a home would not lie in complete ruins. Nehemiah
moved beyond prayer to action.
I think that’s what God asks of all of us – that we pray and then take
some kind of action. If we’re praying for someone who is ill, why not take it
beyond prayer and show up for a visit or with a meal in hand? If we are praying
for someone who is grieving, why not call that person from time to time just to
let them know we’re thinking about them? Grieving goes on for a long time after
the funeral, and sometimes we forget that. If we think we feel like strangers
in a strange land from time to time, imagine how immigrants, legal and illegal
alike, must feel so far from home. Could we offer to tutor an immigrant’s child
in reading?
When you’re praying today, give some consideration to how much of your
praying is merely words and how much spills over into action.
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