Church in a bubble?

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it… Jeremiah 29:7

I urge, then… that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 1 Timothy 2:2

Last time we looked at a dramatic story about Jeremiah the prophet. He was dumped in a muddy water tank because he insisted on preaching the truth concerning the forth-coming collapse of the city of Jerusalem to the pagan Babylonians and their king Nebuchadnezzar. The king of Judah, Zedekiah, was too broken, too spineless to stop this happening, even though he obviously respected Jeremiah and asked for his prayers and guidance. The third person in the drama is Ebed-Melech but I’m afraid I never got on to his part of the story because Jeremiah and Zedekiah seemed to provide enough food for thought.

Well, I hope to put that right soon! But before doing so a further few minutes of reflection prompted by King Zedekiah seemed justified. His sad story (its gruesome end is described in 39:5-7) made me think of the responsibility of God’s people, whether in Old Testament days or in the Christian church, to pray for those who govern them. There aren’t so many kings and queens around in our days, of course – it’s more about presidents and prime ministers, those elected democratically and those not. But, whether we like them or not, they carry heavy responsibility on their shoulders - and they need our prayers, if only for our sakes. Paul spells this out explicitly in 1 Timothy 2:2.

One of the dangers in being a church is that we can concentrate almost entirely on “in house” matters. I remember attending a service one Sunday morning in 2004 immediately after that terrible tsunami in the Indian Ocean which caused 230,000 deaths across 14 countries. For once that overworked word “stunned” fitted the mood of the whole world as it digested the details. But the service we were in proceeded pretty much as usual with no mention at all of what had happened – and certainly not a whisper of prayer. It’s as if the church we were in was saying, “Well, this is truly a tragic thing; but of course it isn’t the concern of us in the church. Our concern is with the ‘spiritual’ things – worship, evangelism, service, not to mention the needs and difficulties of our own members”.

Result? A church can retreat into its own little holy bubble  - which is not spiritually healthy! I think it was the great twentieth century Christian leader John Stott who encouraged us to pray to God “with the Bible in one hand and the daily paper in the other”.

Yes! The Bible makes it clear that the whole world belongs to God its creator: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). This means that just as in Old Testament days God wasn’t interested only in his own special people Israel, so in the age we live in he isn’t interested only in the church.

Earlier in Jeremiah even the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar is described by God as “my servant” (27:1-7). And the prophet went to the trouble of sending quite a long letter to those Israelites who had already gone into exile in Babylon, a letter in which he tells them to “seek the peace of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers you too will prosper…” (29:4-23).

One of Jesus’ best-known sayings is that his followers should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:15-22), which, while it’s said in the immediate context of taxes and other aspects  of civil obedience, must surely include prayer. Likewise in Romans 13, and elsewhere, Paul writes about the Christian’s responsibility to be a good citizen which, again, we can assume to include prayer.

It may seem a paradox, but churches can teach certain things precisely by not teaching them. A church that rarely or never includes prayer for the big wide world outside (and not only in the context of evangelism) is in effect teaching that such matters are not its concern. I personally, as a British Christian, have never felt drawn to be part of the Church of England or another church that has a strong “liturgical” tradition. But there are times I wonder if I have missed out, for their liturgies at least require regular public prayer for the royal family and leading politicians – and, boy, how they need it in the days in which we live!

I was once confronted by a member of my congregation at the end of a service which had included a prayer for the prime minister. He was angry: “I don’t know how you could bring yourself to pray for that awful man!” And I had to point out to him that it’s a very mistaken view of prayer if we only pray for those we like or approve of.

Of course we can never know if things might have turned out differently for Israel in the days of Zedekiah if he had been a God-centred king supported by the prayers of a God-centred people. All we know is that the people had turned away from God, and their king had become a pathetic, feeble puppet. And… God’s judgment fell.

So… you don’t like the royal family? So what? the fact is that they are there, they are what they are, and they need God-given grace. You don’t like the prime minister? Again, so what? All the more reason to pray for him, for he must sometimes feel near to breaking-point. And I forbear to mention others who are, rightly or wrongly, “in authority”: Presidents Putin, Zelensky, Trump, to name but three. Our world is in deep, deep need. There’s even talk of World War 3 flaring up across Europe – our continent.

So, Christian, pray for all such leaders – and do everything you can to ensure that they are prayed for regularly Sunday by Sunday in your particular fellowship! Those prayers do rise to God – and the message will get across to all of us who seek to be faithful in our responsibilities.

(I’m afraid that Ebed-Melech has got squeezed out again! But I promise I won’t let that happen again…)

Father, our great desire is to present the gospel of Jesus, crucified and risen, to the whole world. But help us also to be faithful in bearing up to you in prayer those matters which might be described as “political”, as Jeremiah did, and as Zedekiah failed to do. Amen.