Praying for our leaders
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Reflections
Michael J. Brooks
The Roman god Janus was the god of two faces. A mature face looked back with reflection. A youthful face looked forward with anticipation. How fitting the first month of the year is named for him in the sense that we do both things.
I looked back at 2025 in my inaugural sermon this year suggesting we’ll remember January 2025 with the images of two U.S. presidents.
Former president Jimmy Carter died shortly after Christmas in 2024 after celebrating his 100th birthday the previous October 1. His funeral was conducted at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on January 9 last year. The simple gravesite for him and first lady Rosalynn Carter opened to the public last July in Plains, Georgia.
Jimmy Carter was a humble Baptist deacon and Bible teacher. He taught adults at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains about 70 percent of the time in his retirement years before COVID-19. Andrew Greer published an anthology of these lessons last fall in his book, “More Than A President – Sundays With Jimmy Carter.”
Maranatha has a simple church chores sign-up list as many rural churches do. For many years the Carters were on the volunteer list. Mrs. Carter would come on her assigned Saturday and clean the building, and President Carter would take his turn mowing the grass. I’d imagine he’s the only president in history who mowed grass with Secret Service protection!
A few days after Carter’s funeral, a new president was inaugurated on January 20. Grover Cleveland had been the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms as our 22nd and 24th chief executive, but Trump became our 45th and 47th president.
How might one describe President Trump? With respect, I don’t think we’d call him humble, but would choose adjectives like “proud,” “brash” and “unfiltered.”
These two men are from different political parties and vastly different in so many ways, but they share one thing in common: they’re elected officials Christians are exhorted to pray for.
During the early months of the Watergate crisis, televangelist Oral Roberts said, “No Christian has a right to criticize the president until he first prays for the president.”
I think Roberts was correct.
Scripture doesn’t tell us all we’d like to know about political engagement. Jesus didn’t conduct a voter registration drive or sponsor a march on Jerusalem or Rome. It fell to the Apostle Paul to speak three simple principles: we obey civil authority, we pay taxes, and we pray for all those in authority over us (Romans 13, I Timothy 2).
Modern church leaders do well to offer public prayers for our president and other leaders with frequency, reminding us all to do the same in daily devotion.
“Reflections” is a weekly faith column written by Michael J. Brooks, pastor of the Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, Ala. The church’s website is siluriabaptist.com.
