WORSHIP / PRAYER LOWRY Prayers for the Lord’s Day Prayers for the Hope for the Exiles JAMES S. LOWRY Lord’s Day Prayers “In these prayers is an important model—one that shows how the church might pray afresh in a season of demanding dislocation. Lowry’s gifts for the task of prayer are readily evident, as he at once displays the heart of a pastor, the tongue of a poet, and the awareness of a critic.” for the —Walter Brueggemann “A vivid, earthy, real, honest, and compelling collection. This volume will prod the imaginations of those of us who prepare and speak public prayers each week.” Lord’s Day —Robert E. Dunham, senior pastor of University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and author of Expecting God’s Surprises “Jim Lowry is a gifted pastor who loves the church, cultivates lively worship, and nourishes colorful and poetic language. In this book, his passions powerfully merge.” —Thomas G. Long, Bandy Professor of Preaching, Candler School of Theology, and author of The Witness of Preaching “In sharing his prayers with us, Jim Lowry teaches us to pray, to put our faith in the One who first taught us to pray, the One who hears our prayers of longing and hope, the One who prays for us even now in this time of exile.” —Laura S. Mendenhall, president, Columbia Theological Seminary In this collection of liturgical prayers, James S. Lowry provides an excellent resource for preaching pastors. Correlating with the BOOK OF COMMON WORSHIP of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the book includes prayers of confession, pastoral prayers, prayers of thanksgiving, prayers before meetings, prayers for weddings, and prayers for funerals. James S. Lowry is an interim pastor in Mobile, Alabama, and a board member of Columbia Theological Seminary. He is a contributor to Hope for the World: Mission in a Hope for Global Context (Westminster John Knox Press). the Exiles ISBN 0-664-50229-6 JAMES S.LOWRY www.genevapress.com GENEVA PRESS ™x 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page i PRAYERS FOR THE LORD’S DAY 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page ii 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page iii PRAYERS FOR THE LORD’S DAY Hope for the Exiles James S. Lowry Geneva Press Louisville, Kentucky 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page iv © 2002 James S. Lowry All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the pub- lisher. For information, address Geneva Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202-1396. Permission is hereby granted to churches to reprint these prayers in church bulletins, provided that the following notice is included: Reprinted by permission of the publisher from Prayers for the Lord’s Day by James S. Lowry. © 2002 James S. Lowry. Published by Geneva Press. Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission. Excerpt from Cadences of Home: Preaching among Exiles by Walter Brueggemann. © 1997 Walter Brueggemann. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press. Book design by Sharon Adams Cover design by Pam Poll Graphic Design Cover photography by Greg Schneider First edition Published by Geneva Press Louisville, Kentucky This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39.48 standard. printed in the united states of america 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 — 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lowry, James S. Prayers for the Lord’s day : hope for the exiles / James S. Lowry p. cm. ISBN 0-664-50229-6 (alk. paper) 1. Pastoral prayers. I. Title. BV250 .L69 2002 264'.13—dc21 2002022782 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page v for Jayne Stallworth Lowry and Anne Nichols Lowry with boundless love, shameless pride, and countless prayers of thanks 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page vi 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page vii Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 Prayers of Confession for Exiles at Worship 9 Advent and Christmas (1–3)9 Lent or Ordinary Time (4–21) 10 Holy Week and Easter (22–27) 18 2 Pastoral Prayers for Exiles at Worship on the Lord’s Day 23 Advent (28–29) 23 Lent or Ordinary Time (30–34) 28 Easter (35) 37 Other Seasons in and out of the Camp (36–43) 40 3 Great Prayers of Thanksgiving for Exiles at Worship (44–46) 59 4 Prayers for Other Times the Exiles Are Gathered for Worship 63 Advent and Christmas (47–49) 63 Lent and Easter (50–53) 66 Weddings (54–55) 72 Funerals (56–61) 75 For the Night of September 11, 2001 (62) 87 Other Occasions (63–67) 94 5 Prayers of Exiles Praying outside the Camp (68–76) 101 Notes 113 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page viii 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page ix Acknowledgments I once overheard a brilliant scholar struggling to recall the source of an insight he was sharing with an informal gathering of admirers. Try as he might, he could recall neither title nor author. Finally, in desperation, the scholar shrugged and said, “Oh, well, everything I know I learned from someone else.” He was wrong, of course; or at least he was not altogether right. I know him well and know him to have had far more than his share of original thoughts. Still, there are long and graceful shadows of truth in his casual remark. In all events, my scholarly friend set me to being grateful for everything I know that owes its genesis to someone else. There is one sense in which the prayers in this little volume are all mine. I wrote every one of them. There is a far more important sense, however, in which none of these prayers is mine. They are the prayers of a swarm of faith- ful teachers, most of whom had no clue they were teaching me to pray. More than that, they were teaching me to engage bravely the dangerous business of forming prayers for others. My parents, Bright and Rebecca Lowry, long since gone to pray with the hosts of heaven, are at the head of the list. The reverent candor with which they spoke to God following breakfast every (every!) morning of my child- hood and youth set me early on the path to recognize that the earnest prayer of one, carefully and thoughtfully formed, could be the prayer of all at the table. I am grateful. The brave and faithful congregations of God’s people who called me to be preacher and pastor for them have kept me carefully in the path of forming prayers for others. I readily confess, however, that unlike the prayers that flowed so freely from my father and mother at the breakfast table, fashioning prayer for groups of God’s people has never come naturally for me. In fact, the burden or responsibility for such praying weighs heavily. It always has. Even now, after nearly four decades of leading public worship regularly, I do not like to be called on to pray extemporaneously on behalf of others. I ix 00 Lowry FMT 10/20/04 11:03 AM Page x x Acknowledgments am, therefore, deeply obliged to the faithful who assembled often to worship and insisted that I give words to their prayers. Unwittingly, they kept me dis- ciplined in the art of writing prayers. The congregations I have served as installed pastor are The Church of the Good Shepherd (Presbyterian) in Annis- ton, Alabama; First Presbyterian Church of Marianna, Florida; Orange Park Presbyterian Church near Jacksonville, Florida; Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church near Charleston, South Carolina; and Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Many fine teachers taught me the theology of prayer, but none taught me more about praying than those faithful communities of worship and mission. I am grateful. Two additional congregations have honored me by calling me to be their interim pastor. They are the First Presbyterian Church of New Bern, North Carolina, and Government Street Presbyterian Church in Mobile, Alabama. They have not only let me form prayers for them in worship but have afforded me time to write books, including this one. I am grateful. In ways quite practical, I am grateful to Pat Taylor for her faithful and capa- ble copyediting. She can spot a comma splice from across the room. That’s the least of it. She has made countless corrections to the manuscript of this book, without once doing damage to this writer’s ego. I am grateful. Martha Nichols Lowry has been my marriage partner for nearly forty years. She is yet remarkably full of love and grace and surprises and encouragement all tempered with patience and impatience in exactly the right balance. I am particularly grateful for her good-natured willingness to pull up stakes and move often during this time in my career when I am combining interim pas- torates and writing. Finally, I am grateful to daughters Jayne Stallworth Lowry and Anne Nichols Lowry, who were subjects of my prayers for long months before they were born and especially on the two October nights, separated by three years and a handful of days, when they each, in turn, brought their own brands of unspeakable joy into our lives.