Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

As Episcopalians, we pray for the poor.

The Prayers of the People in our Eucharistic liturgy include prayers for the poor, often along with the sick, the oppressed, prisoners, the unemployed and the destitute. And in the Daily Office we pray:

“Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten.
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.”

We pray for the poor. Yet there is something decidedly passive and distant in these prayers. We ask God to be sure that the poor are not forgotten, but we don’t explicate what it means for them to be remembered, and by whom. We ask that the hope of the poor not be taken away, but what is the hope we pray for the poor to keep? Is it the Christian hope we share, “to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God's purpose for the world” (BCP p. 861)? Or is it a hope that they will have food and shelter? What does it mean for us to ask God to not let that hope be taken away? Whether the poor are poor in spirit or economically poor is left open as well, though it may not matter. Both are in need of prayer.

As liturgical Christians, we understand that our actions as well as our words express what we believe and form what we believe. This is especially true in our worship. We cross ourselves when we receive blessings, we stand or move forward when we make offerings, we turn to one another to exchange the Peace of Christ, we open our hands to receive the Eucharist. It’s called embodied prayer. And it is not limited to worship. In fact, embodied prayer in worship shapes us for embodied prayer in the world.

How do we embody our prayer for the poor? We write checks in support of nonprofits and agencies that provide food and shelter. We provide packaged foods for food banks or coats and gloves for clothing drives. We join Habitat builds or volunteer at overnight shelters. Most significantly, we share our lives with them.

Liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez is said to have said, “You say you love the poor. Name them.” To know someone by name may not be essential to caring for them, but it enhances and personalizes a human connection. Especially when it goes both ways. When we can put a human face and name on “the poor”, “they” become “we”. And “we” come better to know and embrace our common humanity, our oneness as creatures of God loved by God.

And there’s more.

As Anglican Christians, we value “holiness of life,” and we strive for it. In the General Thanksgiving of Morning Prayer, we pray that we would walk “in holiness and righteousness all our days” (taken from Luke 1:75 ), and in the ordination rite, we pray that the one who is ordained “may be to us an effective example in …. holiness of life.”

It’s a high calling, to be holy as God is holy. And it is often interpreted as something we aspire to as individuals, so that it may, in turn, inspire others. But as the Rt. Rev. Sam Rodman told the gathered convention of the Diocese of North Carolina in November: “Holiness is not locked inside us, it arises in the spaces between us.”

When those who are not economically poor are in conversation with those who are, a reciprocal holiness emerges. The lines between us that define us fall away. We give and receive mutually. We each become more fully the human creatures that God has created us to be.

The needy are not forgotten, and hope is restored for us all.