A Line from the BCP of the Church of Ireland

Let us pray for those who hate us as we pray for those who love us. (Taken from a Late Evening Office BCP Church of Ireland 2004 edition)

Wow. This line is stuck in my head today after using it in worship at EFM last night. There is something so... aware in it. First, it acknowledges that we need God's help in order to pray for those who hate us.

We cannot do that on our own power. The only way it happens is if we give up ourselves and let Jesus shine through. As St. John of the Cross indicates and I paraphrase here: it is about becoming less of us, so that He might be greater.

Second, it acknowledges that even if we do pray for those who hate us it is most certainly not as we pray for those who love us. It is easy to pray for those who think like us, and agree with us, and who love us. Often, because we love them too.

Prayer for those we hate... is hard with a capital H. We do not understand them, and do not know how to pray for them. We do not believe that they think like us, and often they do not agree with us.

I suspect that part of the reason I'm turning this over and over again in my poor brain is that... when called out by another for the undeniable consequences of his words, a man I respect has responded by justifying them due to church politics and his own feelings of rejection. Maybe because we've just finished looking at Cain and Abel, I feel a sense in which there was an opportunity to build community/communion. And instead, the response is... am I my brother's keeper? Or more accurately, I don't need to worry about/have empathy for my brother because I am also hurting.

If we focus on the hurt... we turn away from each other and the lack of empathy very quickly becomes hate for opposing viewpoints.

So I come back to that line again...

Let us pray for those who hate us as we pray for those who love us.
Lord, have mercy.