Even for Kings--September 24, 2025

Even for Kings--September 24, 2025

"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

In the first century, within the occupied territory of the Roman Empire, it can't have been easy for Christians to pray for "kings and all who are in high positions," because that included the very Roman officials who were throwing them into prison, beating and torturing them in displays of imperial muscle, and putting them to death for treasonously questioning the lordship of Caesar.  And yet, they did it anyway.  That astounds me, and yet it also speaks a deep word of good news that I didn't even know I needed.

Maybe you know that line from the musical Fiddler on the Roof, where the rabbi of the small Russian village of Anatevka is asked, "Rabbi, is there a blessing even for the czar?" to which the rabbi replies, "There is a blessing for everything: May the Lord bless and keep the czar... far away from here!"  It's a great punch-line for a joke, but it also begs an important question: are Christians supposed to pray for leaders even when those leaders are awful, or cruel, or foolish, or all of the above?  And what would it mean for us to pray for them--are we supposed to ask God to help terrible kings, cruel emperors, or inept rulers to continue in being terrible, cruel, or inept?  That doesn't seem to be faithful.  So let's unpack all that's going on in this passage from what we call First Timothy, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship as our epistle reading. I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll learn something important, both for what the New-Testament-era church was dealing with and for how we live out the same faith in our own time. 

The first thing we have to be clear about is that followers of Jesus pray not just for the people we like, but for the people we do not like as well.  We do it, not because it is fun or easy to seek the good of those we strongly disagree with or those who just rub us the wrong way, but because Jesus has called us to practice the same kind of enemy-love that God has first shown to us.  And for whatever else prayer does to the people we are ostensibly praying for, it also has a way of changing us who are doing the praying.  Praying for someone, especially by name or with the specificity of their situation in mind, has a way of forcing me to see their face, to remember they are human beings (despite whatever other things I might not like about them at the moment), and to recognize the image of God in them.  The early church was committed to that, even though the folks they might have most struggled to pray for were not just fussy neighbors complaining about your kids leaving their footballs on their grass or the people who voted for a different party from you who lived down the street, but the occupying military forces of the hostile Roman empire.  The stakes were a lot higher for the early church than we might realize--and yet they were committed to prayer even for enemies.  After all, Jesus had taught them as much, both in his words (literally, "pray for those who persecute you, and love your enemies") and in his actions (think, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" from the cross).

So when the writer to Timothy directs Christians to pray for "kings and all those in high positions," it is in NO way with the assumption that those who are in power are sympathetic to them, share their faith, will help the Christian cause, or are currently rightly carrying out their proper vocation of promoting the common good, establishing justice, and keeping people safe.  Those in positions of power and authority weren't typically even neutral, as the book of Acts reminds us, since typically anywhere early Christians went, they were accused of disturbing the peace and even "turning the world upside-down" (see Acts 17:6).  Pretty much, the New Testament assumes that praying for "kings and those in high positions" is very near to praying for "your enemies," because so often for the early church, those in positions of power declared those first Christians their enemies and deliberately tried to harass, imprison, or get rid of them.  And yet, the community of Jesus prayed for public leaders just as surely as they held onto Jesus' teaching to pray for those who persecute you.

Maybe we should clarify, though, what we are actually praying for when we pray for those in positions of power and authority.  For one, regardless of whether you like your leaders or voted for your rulers, we do want the common good to be preserved and sought.  Public leaders, whether they are elected, appointed, crowned, or chosen by casting lots, are tasked with the responsibility of promoting the common good, and that is worthy of asking God's support for.  That is not the same thing as saying, "Well, I prayed for my leaders, so therefore whatever they do from here on out must be God's will."  Neither does that mean that God endorses their agenda, their platform, or their values.   If I pray for my favorite baseball team, that does not guarantee they will win--and if they do make it to the playoffs, that is not proof that God is a fan of my team. If I pray for my friend who is an alcoholic and they still refuse to get help or go into rehab, that doesn't mean God is endorsing their addiction, either. That's not how it works.  (It's worth remembering that even with spiritual matters like prayer, correlation is not the same as causation!)  

When we pray for our leaders, it is one more way of praying for God's Reign to happen (or as we sometimes say it in the Lord's Prayer, "Your kingdom come") in the here and now--"on earth as it is in heaven." But praying for that to happen, and praying for God to help establish the common good, does not necessarily mean that whatever happens next after you say "Amen" is God's answer to your prayer.  The ancient Israelites cried out to God for four hundred and fifty years, as the story goes, for God to move Pharaoh's heart to let them out of slavery.  The fact that it didn't happen for all those generations didn't mean AT ALL that God willed for slavery to continue.  So, bottom line, praying for our leaders is simply that--asking for God to do good through them, in whatever ways God may end up choosing to work, acknowledging also that God's response might include working through those leaders, in spite of those leaders, and even in those leaders to change their outlook or values.  Praying for leaders is not the same as saying they are already in sync with God's priorities or the way of Jesus; it is a way of saying, "Where they are on the right track, help them do their job well--and where they are on the wrong track, help them to change course and do better!" Prayer is not a stamp of approval, but a request for help--if that's true for us, then it is certainly true for those in positions of power and authority.

So when these verses from 1 Timothy direct us to pray for "kings and all in high positions," it doesn't mean that the author thinks the Roman emperor at the time is already being faithful to God's will or represents God's values--it's rather a plea for God to bring change to the heart of the emperor where he is off base and acting against the way of God and also for God to bless whatever things the emperor is doing that are actually for the common good.  It has the feel of saying, "Wherever our leaders are already working for the common good, strengthen them, and wherever they are working against the common good, redirect them."  Either way, God's help and presence are called for--but the prayer itself is not an endorsement of whatever the emperor, the king, the governor, or the local rulers happen to be doing at the moment.  It could in fact be a realization that they are currently doing the opposite of God's will and need to be redirected, because their choices and decisions affect the livelihoods of others.  When we pray for "those in high positions" in our own time it is the same--not a blank check of unqualified support for whatever our leaders might do, but a plea that where they are not promoting the common good that God would thwart their harmful policies, redirect their misguided priorities, and lead them instead to do good for those in their care.

So for us, the call to pray for "those in high positions" doesn't require us to like our leaders, nor to believe that they are in line with God's priorities simply because they are in power.  Where they are helping the common good, we pray for God to help them succeed--and where they are opposed to God's justice and mercy, we are praying for God to change their thinking, acting, and leading.  Just as when we pray for our enemies, we are not asking for God to help our enemies do evil or--where they are wrong--to keep them in the wrong.  Rather, when we pray for our enemies, we are asking for God to bring change to them where they are in the wrong, to change us where WE are the ones who are in the wrong toward them, and to turn all of our hearts where each of us is out of sync with God's way.  Because nobody who is actually wrong about something believes that they are wrong, we need God to help get through to us--praying for our enemies (even the hostile Roman empire of the New Testament era) is a way of asking God to help us see where we are the ones who need to grow and change, as well as asking God to do the same for others since we cannot force others to change their hearts or minds, either.  In a political system like ours, with two major political parties vying for power, and in a time like ours when people feel so fragmented and hostile toward people on the other side of the line, that will mean that praying for our leaders will always include some amount of praying for people whose beliefs we don't agree with, whose policies we do not like, and whose character we may find abhorrent.  Praying for them does not mean approval of what they are currently doing--it is plea for God to work through them where possible, in spite of them where necessary, and in them to reorient them where they are not seeking the common good.  And as First Timothy's situation certainly reminds us, praying for our leaders does not assume that they are seeking our well-being in return--we are freed to pray for God to do good in them, even if our leaders are currently doing things that harm us or we do not agree with (as surely was the case for the early church that was being persecuted by the Empire when these words were written).

The witness of the early church reminds us that sometimes the emperor is NOT seeking our well-being or the common good in general; it might even be the stated policy of Caesar to hate his opponents, as it was surely in the New Testament era.  But we are not bound by the hatred of others--we do not have to accept their terms. We are free to pray for our leaders both when they are good and virtuous (in the hopes that God will further the common good through them) and when they are rotten and cruel (in the hopes that God will redirect them and thwart their rottenness in the mean time).  Either way we pray.  Either way we ask God to bring about justice and mercy all around.  

Praying that way does something to us, even apart from whatever God does in the hearts and minds of the people "in high positions." It compels us to see all people--even those who wield authority--as human beings, made in God's image, struggling in many ways and in need of God's direction.  And it keeps us from becoming bitter and hateful ourselves, even in the face of bitterness and hatred around us.  As much as I don't want to admit it, I need that kind of help to keep me from meanness and vitriol.  Praying for my leaders, like praying for my enemies, is one way God keeps my heart from turning to stone.  And so we pray...

Lord God, for all those who are in positions of authority, we ask your help.  Where they are already in line with your vision of justice, mercy, and the common good, strengthen them.  Where they are turned in the wrong direction, reorient them.  And where others are suffering because of cruelty, foolishness, or corruption from leaders, deliver those who suffer, and change the hearts of leaders toward wisdom and compassion.