Praying in Wartime
Praying in wartime[1] Tim A. Dearborn
War is all around us—in our bodies’ illnesses and addictions, the estrangement in our homes, the culture wars fracturing societies, and horrific violence between neighborhoods and nations. We name these heartaches and horrors every Sunday in our corporate prayers. Currently we face the horrors of Gaza and the West Bank, the war with Iran that is pushing us to the edge of World War III, the chronic warfare in Ukraine, the war in Sudan. The list goes on around the world.
How do we pray in wartime?
There are three common approaches, prevalent among all people. Then we will focus on three additional approaches opened up to us by the gospel.
Certainly, we pray for peace, a ceasefire, the end of conflict, and for protection. These are good but they feel at times emotionless, not matching the horror of the moment. They may feel disengaged, like praying that God will feed all the hungry people and provide homes for all the unhoused. Of course, these are right and good, but are there more ways we can pray?
Some may also pray for vengeance and victory. These, like the imprecatory psalms,[2] express our honest emotions and rage. They assume that God is “on our side”, and plead for God’s protection for us and destructive wrath for our enemies. We are the “good guys” waging war on all the “baddies.” White hats vs. black hats. Noble ones vs. evil. It all seems so clear and simple. So we pray for God’s blessing on our wars. These amygdala-fueled prayers are universal, common human responses to danger and threat. But when we step back, we may be troubled by how mean they sound.
The first song described in the Hebrew Bible is Moses’ and Miriam’s song of praise in Exodus 15 after the Hebrews safely crossed over the Red Sea and Pharoah’s army drowned. This is like the celebrations in the streets after the battle when our side has won and our enemies have been destroyed. “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” “Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’”(Ex 15.1, 20-21). Of course, we want to praise God when victory is secured. But still the question persists, what about the prayers of Pharoah’s army?
How do we reconcile prayers for vengeance and victory in war with the Gospel? Do we spiritualize, personalize, or ignore the repeated biblical injunction to love our neighbor as ourselves, and Jesus’ commands to love our enemies, turn the other cheek rather than defend or retaliate, and love others with the same sacrificial love with which he loves us?
Mark Twain wrote a short story entitled “The War Prayer” in 1905, that his family begged him not to publish until after his death. They feared it would be denounced as sacrilegious. It’s the story of a worship service in which the preacher is praying ardently and in great detail for our troops, pleading for their victory in battle and safe return home. In the story a stranger enters the church, grey haired, robed, and comes to the pulpit. After the preacher has finished praying, the stranger says,
“I come from the Throne—bearing a message from Almighty God. He has heard your prayer and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I explain to you its import. It is like many of the prayers of people, in that it asks for more than you are aware of. For your prayer is not one but two prayers—one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications. You prayed, ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God! When you have prayed for the victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results.”
Then the stranger prays in gruesome, awful detail the horrors the defeated foe, their families, and their children would endure, concluding “We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.” “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
The entire church was outraged at the words of the stranger and Twain concludes his story, “It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.” (The War Prayer, Phoenix Classics Ebooks)
Because of the lethal dangers of war, we also pray for protection from injury. Obviously we pray for protection for non-combatants on all sides. It’s also normal to pray for protection for combatants. This poses a challenge. We pray that the troops on “our side” will return home safely. We can assume that the same plea is prayed by the families of troops on “the other side.” Yet for both, their job is to obey the orders of their leaders and try to kill each other. The “successful” answer of one side’s prayers is the failure of the other’s.
There’s another form of injury about which we pray. In all situations of conflict, we pray for protection from moral injury. This takes many forms. We often hear that truth is the first casualty of war. This can also be said for character and love. Hatred, dehumanized depictions of enemies, and fear damage the souls of everyone involved in war: perpetrators, supporters, victims, and combatants. In addition, there is the psychic injury of trauma with its life-altering consequences.
Desmond Tutu prayed during South African apartheid: “There are times when we, weep tears that are not loud but deep…We come to thee, our only hope and refuge. Help us, O God, to refuse to be embittered against those who handle us with harshness.”
I’ve reviewed contemporary prayer books for military chaplains and couldn’t find any that include imprecatory prayers. They don’t even include prayers for victory for our side. They pray for safety, that soldiers will act honorably, that decisions will be moral, and that leaders will be wise.
Yet after a lifetime of praying for war to stop, we may find ourselves running out of words. We may feel like the persistent widow, constantly asking God for healing and help, for intervention and peace, yet violence continues, bombs keep dropping, illness prevails, relationships shatter. We tire of asking the same things over and over. It may feel like we’ve spent our lifetime praying for war to stop and peace prevail, yet as soon as one conflict calms down, another flairs up.
This can open us up to some other movements of prayer in wartime. We find it in Romans 8.26-27 “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. God who searches the heart, knows what the Spirit is saying because the Spirit intercedes according to the will of God.” The Message translates it, “If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves…and keeps us present before God.”
This passage sheds insight on three movements of prayer during wartime.
First, we lament: We reach a point when tears and deep grief are all we have left to offer. Even a spoken or silent scream can be prayer. God hears the groans of all people.In vs 21-23 Paul says that it’s not only people who are groaning, all of creation is groaning—animals and trees, mountains and rivers, butterflies and baboons. Creation groans because we have robbed it of the fruitfulness and freedom God intends. It is polluted and becoming extinct because of our failure to live the redeemed life to which God calls us. But what happens with these groans? What does God do with them? Here’s the stunning truth of the gospel, and the second movement of prayer in wartime.
Second, God connects: We are not alone in our groaning. We’re not the only ones praying. God comes to us, and our lament can actually lead us to a kind of holy communion. There we encounter God. We may be consumed by fear, revenge, anger, or resentment driven prayers—the prayers of our amygdala; but the Spirit knows us better than we know ourselves—and can pray what we really want and need, even if we don’t yet recognize it. Rather than the prayers of our amygdala, God prays through us the prayers of the Spirit.
Even when we run out of words, so discouraged or disheartened or grief struck that we don’t know what to say—the Spirit does our praying in, through, and for us. We are surrounded by, embedded in divine prayer. The Spirit has deeper access to human heart than we do, even our own heart. The Spirit takes our groans, takes our prayers, whether polite, partisan, or wordless and translates them, carrying them to heart of God. God hears the groaning of all creation, and the groaning of all sides in a conflict. As we enter into the Spirit’s intercession, we find a deeper connection in the midst of our agony.
When we’ve run out of faith, the Spirit and Son trust on our behalf—as and for us.
When we’re sliding into despair, they hope as and for us.
When our heart becomes hard and bitterness spreads its poisons, they loves in and for us.
In prayer we encounter Jesus bearing and connecting all things. Romans 8.34 “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.” War is the most visible expression of the collapse of community. Jesus is the ultimate creator of community. “Nothing separate us from the love of God in Christ” (v. 35). In him, nothing can separate us—neither suffering, anxiety, persecution, starvation, homelessness, constant danger, or war. In him, all things are knit back together again and reconciled (Colossians 1:17, 20). In him, love triumphs over hate.
This is the love described in 1 Cor 13.7-8, love that bears all things, is trustworthy in all things, is always hopeful, endures all things, and never ends—never dies–never gives up—never quits. We hear Jesus say, “let me lift those burdens off your shoulders and heart. You aren’t created to carry the weight of the world. That’s my job. I’ve entered in to bear and lift all that.”
Ireneaus, the 2nd century Bishop of Lyon referred to the Spirit and the Son as the two hands with which the Father reaches out to draw us home in love.[4]
A Palestinian pastor in Bethlehem, Munther Isaac has been asked often since October 7 where is God in Gaza? He responds, “God suffers with the people of this land. Let us comfort ourselves with God’s presence with us in the midst of pain and death. Jesus is no stranger to pain, death, torture…God is with us under the rubble of Gaza. My prayer is that those who are suffering will feel this healing and comforting presence. We have another comfort, which is the Resurrection. In our brokenness, pain, and death, let us repeat the Gospel of the Resurrection: ‘Christ is risen.’ [5]
Jesus bears us and we rise in him.
Third, we engage in the work of God. This leads to a third dimension of prayer in wartime: we move from lamentation to connection to engagement. We engage together with God in the work of prayer, and in work as prayer. Rom 8.28 “God works all things toward ultimate good with and through those who love God.” (NT Wright) God is at work with and through us. In Christ by the Spirit, we stand amidst pain and violence, brokenness and death. This occurs in myriad ways: through song, through speaking truth to power, through praying for organizations that are doing the hard work of reconciliation, through praying for the dreams of politicians and perpetrators of violence, through releasing the burdens of war onto the shoulders of God, through praying for an outpouring of love for enemies, and through praying for lives of resilient, courageous hope.
Kerry and I joined in a rally organized by Jewish Voices for Peace calling for a cease fire. I was deeply moved that singing was a primary expression of protest. Hundreds of people, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and probably “nones” sang,
We rise, Humbly hearted
Rise, Won’t be divided
Rise, With spirit to guide us
Rise, In hope, In prayer, We find ourselves here
In hope, In prayer, We’re right here
We rise, All of the children
Rise, Elders with wisdom
Rise, Ancestors surround us
Rise, In hope, In prayer, We find ourselves here
We rise, Up from the wreckage
Rise, With tears and with courage
Rise, Fighting for life
We rise, In hope, In prayer, We find ourselves here
We rise, Humbly hearted
Rise, Won’t be divided
Rise, With spirit to guide us
Rise. (Songwriter: Sarah Batya Levine)
Music can sing our sorrow and stir courageous hope.
Therefore, in prayer, we speak truth to those in power. Prayer is a profound form of protest. It’s a sign to principalities and powers, and human perpetrators that “We see you, God sees you, your deeds aren’t hidden.” God says to us, “You want to see my sovereign power displayed as control over rulers and nations. I want you to see my power as love, bearing all things. My love persists. It never stops. Let my Spirit pour out my love through you.”
In prayer, we affirm that God is working things together for good. Only love can heal the wounds, fears, ambitions, and injustices that provoke war. God is working all things for good with and through us.” With and through us. Another Palestinian friend and theologian, Salim Munayer, says we see God at work in the hands of rescuers pulling people from the rubble, medical staff working in horrid conditions, parents comforting terrified children, journalists braving bombs to get the news out. We can also prayerfully participate in the work of God as we intercede for organizations such as the Parents Family Circle. Each circle has a horrible entrance requirement: parents must have lost a family member through the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Each circle brings together an equal number of Israelis and Palestinians to share their grief and conviction that “violence cannot be stopped with violence”. They reject the violent path of hatred and revenge and choose the hard work of building understanding and respect and working to end the nightmare they’ve lived. Nicholas Kristof noted in his NY Times column that these groups must be working, for “The far-right Israeli government this year barred Parents Circles from public schools.” [6] And so, we pray for the flourishing of groups and movements that refuse to accept enmity and division.
Another way we can prayerfully engage in the work of God during wartime is to ask for God to trouble the sleep of perpetrators of war. We can pray for God to trouble the sleep of leaders and politicians, confronting them with truth through dreams that they won’t face when they’re awake. Think of the number of times Scripture records God speaking to people in dreams.
In prayer, we are reminded to release the weight of war from is our shoulders. Jesus’ bears that. We don’t. That’s not our role. With the weight removed, we are set free to live and pray boldly. The Spirit and Son embolden us with courage to loose the bonds of injustice. As we pray, we find ourselves connected with the irrepressible love of God from which nothing can separate us—not death, not demons of despair, not others’ abuse of power. Nothing. God works with and through us to stand armed by the Spirit to bind the forces of evil, loose the chains of injustice and set free the forces of goodness and grace.
In prayer, we affirm Jesus’ command that we love not just our neighbors, but our enemies. Jesus called us to love others as he loves us (John 14), and how does he love us? “We know God’s love for us in that while we were enemies, Christ died for us” (Rom 5.10). No wonder Jesus calls us to love our enemies (Mt 5.44). How can we love enemies when we are trying to kill them? As we draw deeper into the mystery of prayer, we discover that God is also hearing and translating the prayers of our opponents and foes. We may also encounter God bearing their burdens in God’s arms of love.
We find an illustration of this in some rabbis’ commentary on the Song of Miriam in Exodus 15. For centuries people have rejoiced over the miracle at the sea, “I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and the rider are thrown into the sea.” Yet after the second temple in Jerusalem fell in 70 C.E., some questioned this attitude. In the Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan says God does not “rejoice in the downfall of the wicked”. “The ministering angels wanted to chant their hymns, but the Holy One, blessed be He, said: ‘Silence. The work of my hands is being drowned in the sea, and shall you chant hymns?’”[7]
In prayer, we affirm resilient and courageous hope. Through our connection with God, Father, Son, and Spirit, we have poured into our hearts an irrepressible hopefulness. Of course we grieve. We wouldn’t grieve if we didn’t have the sense that life should be different. Things aren’t right. However, we know that the Spirit and Son transform the groans of creation as well as our own from fruitless agony into labor pains, heralding the birth of new life—redeemed humanity and creation set free from sin, evil, decay, and bondage. We know that one day, there will be no more war.
In our lamentation, connection, and engagement with God, we can hear hints of creation clapping for joy, breaking out in songs, for soon, labor pains will be past and we will be dancing together, set free from the chains of injustice.
We are raised in Christ with a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never fails, never ends.
We live with courage and confidence knowing that “Nothing will separate us from the love of Christ” (Rom 8.35).
We rise, humbly hearted in hope and prayer.
We rise, won’t be divided.
In hope, in prayer, we’re right here.
[1] tim.dearborn@gmail.com www.dynamisresources.com Based on a sermon preached at Bethany Presbyterian Church, Seattle Nov 12, 2023.
[2] Psalms 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69 79, 83, 109 and 137
[3] Mark Twain, The War Prayer. Phoemixx Classics Ebooks.
[4] Ireneaus, Against Heresies 4.pref 4.
[5] Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, sermon preached at the Lutheran Christmas Church, Bethlehem, October 22, 2023.
[6] Nicholas Kristof, “Meet the Champions of Nuance and Empathy We Need,” New York Times op-ed, Nov 8, 2023.
[7] Babylonian Talmud, Soncino translation, Megilah 10b
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