Praying with strangers

 

“Are you the only choice?” I explained that there was only one chaplain on call, making me the only choice.

She had been brought in for perilous surgery, not great chances that she would live to see another day, to travel home to the people she loved. She told the nurse she wanted a chaplain, but assumed it would be a man. Since I was a total stranger, I asked if she could say more about needing someone other than me.

“God does not listen to women, our prayers will not count if it is just you and me praying.”

This took my breath clean away. We talked about prayer and I explained that I had been taught that God hears all of us; that Jesus promises wherever two or three gather, he will be with us. It was a tender, poignant exchange and I left, inviting her to tell the nurse if she changed her mind.

It was a night filled with the “bread of tears.” A night of one sorrow after another. Too many families watching, keeping vigil, too many hearts breaking, each in a different part of the hospital, each unaware of what was unfolding in other rooms.

But in the other rooms I was welcomed. No one else seemed to care that I was not a man. But I found myself wishing one of my fellow chaplains would show up, one of the men, so this lone woman could pray with someone who mattered.

Then my pager went off again. It was the woman’s nurse saying I should come back. “Will you get in trouble for praying with me?”

Oh, no, I explained, I would only get in trouble for refusing.

After a few more questions, she said softly, “Maybe God could hear us…” And so at her invitation, we prayed together, two strangers huddled together late in the night. I thanked her for having the courage to pray with me, hoping she would not get in trouble for welcoming me into such a holy and sacred time.

I left her room, tears falling, wondering if I would ever have the courage to turn from everything I had ever been taught, reaching out to a stranger I had no reason to trust, daring to do what could not be done. It must have been so frightening to be catapulted into a strange place, to be on the brink of dying with no one but strangers.

Humans had taught her she was a faint spirit, not seen, not noticed, not heard, but God raised her up into a strong, living tree of faithfulness and strength.

It is easy to pray with people you know and trust, who think and believe as you do, and such prayers are important, but I will be forever grateful to that woman from long ago who taught me the importance of praying with strangers, of being willing to build community in places and with people that are forbidden to us.

Indeed, it is a never-ending source of joy to me that here in Cook County, the pastors get together once a month for prayer and conversation. I know we have differences; our churches are not all the same. We hear scripture differently; worship in particular ways, but despite these differences we gather. There is much that we cannot do together, many things we are unable to share, but we all share God’s love and we trust God to draw us together and use us in blessing.

What a gift it is to be heard and seen and blessed, even and especially across the barriers that still separate us. Each day, I thank God for the gift and privilege of being here with all of you in this wild and wondrous place we call the Arrowhead!

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Pastor Beth Benson of the First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ.