How Does One "Pray for the King"? -- 1 Timothy 2:1-7 (World Communion Sunday; 17th Sunday After Pentecost)

Scott Clark
Oct 5
10 min read

Photo credit: Nick Fewings, used with permission via Unsplash

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

This morning’s scripture exhorts us to “pray for kings and all those in authority so that we might live a quiet and peaceable life.”

I don’t know about you, but I have issues with that. I struggle.

How does one “pray for a king” – or for leaders – or for those in power – when we live in a world like ours? – when we see daily what power does – when we live in a world and participate in movements that proclaim – “No Kings!”

For that matter, how did the folks who first wrote and read this letter to Timothy pray for kings and authorities in their world?^[1] The folks to whom this letter was written ... they lived somewhere in the colonized Roman Empire. The “king”... was Caesar... and “the authorities”were either Imperial officials, or soldiers, or local authorities collaborating with Empire.^[2] Back then, how did folks pray for kings and authorities in a world like that?

How does one pray for kings and leaders in a world like ours, in a nation like ours,

· where we see the government deploying the National Guard to American cities, and suggesting that the U.S. military use those American cities as “training grounds,”

· where we see the government activating the prosecutorial power of the Department of Justice in an open attack on political enemies,

· where we hear the president using a memorial service of a friend of his to declare his hatred of his enemies – of all those who disagree with him – “I hate my opponents. And I don’t want the best for them.”^[3]

· and where day after day, we see the Regime issuing executive orders, one after another, that shred our constitutional values and harm the most vulnerable in our midst.

Particularly if you disagree with all that, if you join in the chorus, No Kings,

how does one pray for kings and for leaders in a world like this?

Though I find this exhortation problematic, I take it seriously. It is Scripture. And so I want us to try to answer this question. Or at least to do our faithful best.

How does one pray for kings and leaders in a world like ours?

Let’s start with what we already know.

Let’s start with a quiz... a quiz that we have taken before.

TRUE/FALSE: God thinks that kings are a great idea.

FALSE. We’ve visited that text from the Hebrew Scriptures – 1 Samuel 8 – a number of times. The people come to the prophet, come to God, and they beg God for a king so they can be like all the nations. And God says no, “No, my people, remember what kings do – they will take all you have – they’ll send your sons to war – take your daughters – take your land – this is what kings do.” But the people insist, and we know the disaster that follows. In Scripture, there is a presumptive skepticism against kings and their tendency to seize power-over and to oppress.

And, we know the prophets, more than one-third of the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets come, and they critique the kings and leaders. On God’s behalf, they stand against the ways that the powers oppress the poor and vulnerable – the widows, and the orphans, and the immigrant in your midst. The prophets announce (1) that God is bringing that oppression – and the systems that oppress – to an end, and then (2) announce the new thing that God is doing in our midst – God’s new world of justice – see it springing up even now.^[4] In Scripture, there is a prophetic imperative to critique the powers and to hold them accountable.

And we know the teachings and life of Jesus. His mother says it first, “God is bringing down the powers, and lifting up the vulnerable. God is feeding the poor, and sending the rich away empty.” Jesus comes to turn the world and the powers rightside up, right from the start: “The Spirit is upon me to bring good news to the poor, release for the imprisoned, freedom for the oppressed, and the forgiveness of every debt.” And the New Testament writers start to call Jesus king – but a king unlike any king the world has known – one who empties himself, on a cross, choosing to enter into human life even our suffering, even unto death – and with this kind of power destroying power-over – and in Resurrection, in the Body of Christ, re-creating a new world embodied in relationships of mutuality and sharing – a world where God’s Spirit, and power, and love are shared with all people – where we all reign with Christ in self-giving mutuality and love.

The great weight of scripture calls power-over to account and asserts God’s ultimate sovereignty in Jesus Christ to save the world from everything that does us harm, right now, and on into forever.

That’s what we know.

And, in Scripture, there also is this strand of writing that exhorts us to pray for and to respect government authority – usually for the sake of stable community – so that folks can live their ordinary lives and thrive – like this Scripture: “pray for kings and all those in authority so that we might live a quiet and peaceable life.”

As we come to this morning’s particular Scripture, we hold this particular Scripture with the whole of Scripture – and seek meaning even in what feels like tension or maybe even contradiction.

This morning, we are in First Timothy. It’s one of three letters known as the Pastoral Letters. Though the letters are attributed to the Apostle Paul, most scholars think that Paul didn’t write this – that it was someone who followed the teachings of Paul writing some years later.^[5] That wasn’t unusual in their day – to write in the name of a beloved teacher.^[6]

So in this letter, we aren’t in those very first days of emerging Christianity – the wild and wooly days after Pentecost – when everything is new. This is what some writers call Second Gen or Third Generation Christianity.^[7] It’s a time where the movement called “The Way,” is becoming the church – and leaders are trying to establish a structure – and rules. As an outsider community, they are still viewed as a suspect, dissident sect – so we hear some caution in these words not to upset the authorities, to live under the radar, so to speak.

The writer of First Timothy says, “First of all, pray for all people, pray for kings and for leaders so that we might live quiet and peaceable lives.” Notice a couple of things. Notice the “all” – again and again in these few verses – the writer says “all.”^[8] Prayers for all people, for all leaders, to the God who wants all people to be saved and free, the God who gives themself to all people. Notice the “so that” – this command to pray is “so that” all people can live and thrive. And then, notice, just after that the assertion – over and above all the mess of the world – of God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign – there is no other. Pray for these smaller sovereigns so that all people might thrive.

Holding this Scripture – with what we already know – let’s turn to our question: Pray for kings and leaders? How does one do that in a world like ours?

First, we can pray that kings and leaders might be just. That is the prophetic prayer that pulses throughout the whole of Scripture – no less true here. God desires – from the beginning of scripture until now and forever – that all oppression end – that the poor be lifted up – that the prisoner be set free – that the stranger be welcomed – that we share what we have so that everyone has enough, so that every child can thrive. That’s what this morning’s Psalm does. It prays for the king – “may he deliver the poor, the needy and those who have no helper... may he deliver justice, end oppression, and defend the vulnerable. We can pray for kings and leaders to be like that... we can pray for them to be just.

Second, we can pray for the common good. Our ordinary lives are lived, day by day, moment by moment, in systems that are bigger than us – political systems, economic, cultural, family. Living in connection with each other and all living beings is part of what it is to be human. Because of the way those systems work, kings and leaders can have an outsized impact on the well-being of the people as a whole. A prayer for a king (or leader) can carry with it a prayer for all the lives those leaders impact.

Remember, this exhortation comes with an “all” and a “so that.” In fact, the exhortation to pray for kings and leaders isn’t even the first and primary exhortation here. The first thing is to pray for all people, then as a part of that -- as a part of praying for all people, we pray for all leaders. It is a prayer first and foremost for the common good – that all people might live free and thrive.

Third, we can pray for the humanity and the person of the king or leader. We talked about this some when we looked at the “pray for your enemies” text earlier this year. When we pray for someone – anyone – we don’t have to endorse all of who they are and what they do. But, as a part of our humanity in Christ there is a baseline requirement that we recognize and pray for the humanity of every other person – for their humanity, their human dignity, their life.

We’ve found words for that in those lovely, simple words of Buddhist lovingkindness practices: “May they be safe. May they be healthy. May they be free.” Think of the leader you least want to pray for. We can pray for their health and healing – especially where they are deeply disturbed. We can pray that they be free, particularly where their freedom – from all the evils that plague them – might help bring about the freedom of so many.

Fourth, in a constitutional democracy, when we pray for leaders, we pray for “We the People.” Here’s the trick in translating this text across cultures and down through the millennia. The person who wrote this letter in the name of the Apostle Paul likely had no concept whatsoever about what a 21^st century representative democracy would look like. But when we translate this into our context – in a government of the people, and by the people – it’s a context where we claim (for now at least) that leaders include us. May we – as the ultimate leaders in a democracy – do better at voting.

When we pray for leaders, (1) we can pray that they be just; (2) we can pray that they serve, protect, and promote the common good – the good of all people – particularly the most vulnerable; (3) we can pray for their human dignity, that they be healthy and free; and (4) we can pray that we the voters lead by electing representative leaders worthy and wise.

And fifth, notice that “kings and leaders” in this text is plural – pray for kings and leaders. This is actually not an exhortation to pray for any one leader. It’s an exhortation to pray for all leaders everywhere – of all nations, the leaders of all people. On World Communion Sunday, we remember and name that we are not just inhabitants of one nation, but inhabitants of one world. I think back to the re-convening of the United Nations a couple weeks ago. Yes, there was one leader who spewed the foul and dangerous nonsense that climate unravelling is somehow but a hoax. But there were many more leaders who gathered the next day to re-commit to renewed paths to more sustainable global living.^[9]

So there are some answers, some ideas that respond to our question. I’ve listed 5 practical ways that we can pray for kings and leaders. Use what works for you – maybe try some of the things that may feel a bit uncomfortable at first.

But before I wind up, I also need to say this:

Even as we pray for kings and leaders, we also can pray to change kings and leaders – particularly leaders and entrenched systems of power that hurt and harm the most vulnerable in our midst, that wage war on the weak...

I’m so grateful for Barbara’s presentation last Sunday on resistance. Our ordinary days come with complexity. We can pray for leaders – including ourselves – even as we resist the harm that they do. Let’s ground ourselves in what we know to be true. God is always a God of liberation. And the work of liberation is always the work that is ours to do. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

Nothing in today’s Scripture negates or in any way diminishes our obligation in Jesus Christ to resist injustice, violence, and oppression, everywhere, all the time. We hold this Scripture in healthy tension with the prayers that rise up out of the whole of Scripture. The people enslaved in Egypt prayed that they would be freed from Pharaoh – “Let my people go.” The people held captive in exile prayed for freedom from Babylon. The people living in the colonized Roman Empire prayed for an end to Imperial oppression, that the troops in their cities might go home.

On this World Communion Sunday, we pray for all people and all the nations of the world. We pray for justice; we pray for the common good; we pray for peace. We pray for all people including all the leaders of the world – may they be just; may they serve the common good; may they – may we – be healthy and free. May we all live together, work together, serve together, so that everyone everywhere may be able to live a quiet, peaceable life, so that all people, all people may thrive and live free.

^[1] For general background on this text, 1 Timothy, and the Pastoral Epistles, see James D.G. Dunn, “The First and Second Letter to Timothy and the Letter to Titus,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. xi (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000), pp. 773-803; Debora Krause, “1 Timothy” in The Letters and Legacy of Paul (M. Aymer, C. Briggs Kittredge, D.A. Sanchéz, ed.) (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016), pp.306-13; Clarice J. Martin, “1-2 Timothy and Titus (The Pastoral Epistles)” in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008),pp. 409-21; Mitzi Smith and Yung Suk Kim, “First and Second Timothy,” Toward Decentering the New Testament: A Reintroduction (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018); Eric Barreto, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-24-3/commentary-on-1-timothy-112-17-2 ; David Carr, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-24-3/commentary-on-1-timothy-112-17-6 ; Sunggu Yang, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-24-3/commentary-on-1-timothy-112-17-2 .