Yesterday we spent most of the day getting to the hospital and back for a Scintigram. Apart from showing up some cracked ribs from a fall, it doesn't convey much to me.
But when I at last got home it was an interesting challenge to devise a way to prepare a "2014 and 2015" comparison which I am now carrying around on my phone and showing to anyone who asks to see it. (So far, nobody, actually.)
In the intercession on Sunday morning I was a little disturbed to hear someone read from the circulated prayer book that "we give thanks for David, who is doing much better and we pray for the improvement to continue" or words to that effect. Quite apart from the fact that I didn't give permission to be mentioned in public, I really do not like this book of personal beggings to God in public worship. It too easily becomes just a gossip column and in my case the information given on Sunday was absolutely incorrect. And anyone who has asked me or looked at my blog knows that my PSA has shot up again recently. How can God help the situation when the information offered to her is absolutely incorrect?
But, wait, I have it all wrong. There are no less than three Davids in the church pastoral list. And I am correctly listed as Dave. So it can't be me, can it?
Or can it? How would I or anyone else know? Let's stop reading out gossip in worship and calling it intercession.
Toenote (that's a very small footnote) When I led intercession here I just held up the book and prayed "for the people and situations close to our hearts" or something like that... Won't that do?
In some churches these days, it seems, an exercise book is circulated during Sunday worship. People are invited to write prayer requests in it and at the time of intercession, it is given to the worship leader and many of the entries are incorporated. Some are even read out word for word whether they are expressed as prayer or not.
I am very uncomfortable with this intimate link between personal aspirations and public prayer. I am sure many will have given more thought to this than me but--
- All too often people in the congregation have no idea what or who is the intended beneficiary of prayer. That seems to cut across a fundamental principle that if nothing else, intercessory prayer is good for those who pray... How can we do that without meaning?
- At its worst, the prayer book becomes a conduit for gossip on a grand scale, by imparting information that would otherwise not be known...
- The practice seems to encourage the idea that worship is about what we can gain from God rather than an awareness that in worship we are bringers and givers...
- The implication that we may be able to change what happens because we have prayed always raises implications about what "God" does or does not do for those for whom we have not prayed. I am astonished by the thanks given that this person or that has been "saved" or "cured" or even "returned to our congregation"..
- The whole issue of intercessory prayer is sharpened fearfully by these specifics of some requests in the book. What is our image of God when we ask for special favours at the crude level that sometimes appears? Can we not leave this element of public prayer to our worship leaders (though even some of them sound like a kind of congregational wish-list)?
- Fundamentally, however, the use of a prayer book can easily contravene our country's Privacy Act which does not allow one's personal circumstances to be made public without permission... We should not do it.
I have told our minister that I am not giving permission for my name to be read out in public worship as a subject for prayer. I guess that won't change much. And, as anyone knows who reads this blog, I want to be open and honest about my circumstances. But I want to do it myself.
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