Our Lonely Politics
This prayer was offered by Rick Barry as part of our June 19 Faith and Politics Prayer Call. You can sign up for future calls at the bottom of this page.
God, you are a friend to the lowly and the upright. You are the King who has made himself a servant to all, our sibling and our champion and our companion who is with us always, even to the end of the age.
We weren’t made to go alone. You designed us for community. The first thing you said was not good in the universe was for a human to be alone in their responsibilities.
But our politics has engendered a culture of isolation, and we need your miraculous power to overcome it.
We pray against the individualism that runs rampant through our culture, especially our political culture.
In many ways, we are formed by our country into lonely individuals. When we do draw together, it is too often into isolated, cloistered communities that alienate anyone who isn’t already a part of it, and just leaves us feeling more cut off from the world and the people around us.
This is out of line with what you want for us, and it makes us worse at the responsibility of collaborative government—a responsibility you’ve entrusted us with by placing us in this place at this time.
This kind of loneliness malforms us, and can too easily become a gateway toward extremism.
We were made in the image of a triune God, meant to function in community. Being lonely and isolated is at odds with what you want for us, and it makes us bitter, and leaves us vulnerable to politicians and movements that want to turn us against our friends, neighbors and countrymen.
We confess that we don’t challenge that isolation and self-interest when we engage with politics.
Our campaigns demand that we consider, “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” And, too often, we let that question guide the way we think, speak and act in the public square. Not, “Am I functioning in this sphere of life the way God designed humans to function,” but, “Is this sphere of life serving me the way I want to be served?”
Thinking that way, speaking that way, acting that way cuts us off from the very people you would have us love and serve.
And we don’t just do that ourselves. We often expect other people to think that way, too, and we get angry or frustrated when we see people voting against their own interest.
For the ways we resent others for not serving us, or for not behaving the way we expect them to, we are sorry.
Forgive us. Make us more sensitive to the loneliness around us. Teach us to confess our own loneliness and confess it instead of denying it and covering it up.
We pray for all of the people in our communities who face loneliness or isolation in different ways:
For those who are homebound for medical reasons.
For the children and teenagers who have nowhere to go, no third space, no walkable or bikable way to get anywhere until they are old enough to drive, and even then only if their families can afford for them to have a car.
For those who have moved far from home for work or school, and find themselves in new places with no community.
For those who have been cut off or exiled from their families because of decisions they’ve made or values they hold.
For the unemployed, who find themselves alone for so much of the time that other people spend working.
For the widowed.
For the elderly who have seen their support networks die off.
For the recently divorced.
For those who find themselves to be ethnic or cultural minorities in their neighborhoods.
For the chronically online, and those whose social reality is shaped by echo chambers.
For all of these people and more, we ask you to see them, to hear them, and to meet them. Show them the incredible mercy you showed Hagar when she was alone with her child in the wilderness. Give them a community, and make them part of other people’s community. We don’t pray these things just because our civic process depends on us caring about others (and being cared about by others) across deep difference, but because sharing a table with people of every tribe and tongue is part of the future you have in store for us.
We pray these things in the name of Jesus, who is at the head of that table.
Amen.
Rick Barry is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Christian Civics.
Throughout the 2024 election season, the Center for Christian Civics will be leading twice-monthly prayer calls, featuring guided prayer for the complex relationship between faith and politics in a polarized era. To get reminder emails and login links about these calls, fill out the form below!