Saying: …”Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.” Matthew 23:1/14

The idea of a National Day of Prayer is excellent, for every day should be a day of prayer, not only for our nation but for all nations and for all Creation.

As practiced however, The National Day of Prayer appears closer akin to The National Day of Hypocrisy.

Many of our great nation’s leaders have issued proclamations endorsing the event, yet many of these actors are the very people, who by their actions and inactions are destroying our forests, our wildlife, our rivers and streams, our water quality, the very air we breathe, and along with the demise of “America the Beautiful”, the future of freedom, democracy, and The United States of America as a viable nation itself.

It appears that The National Day of Prayer is largely a right-wing, almost tribalistic event, where a superior American God of money, power, greed and hate, is asked to defend saber rattling, revenge, exploitation and destruction of Creation, over-consumption, materialism, and world dominance and superiority at the expense of God’s other children who are suffering on the dying remnants of Planet Eden.

“Even though you make many prayers,
I will not hear.
Your hands are full of blood.

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves
clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from
Before My eyes.
Cease to do evil.

Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the oppressor,
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.

Isaiah I 1:15-17

Indeed, those leaders who thump on Bibles, loudly and publicly declare their love of God, and then through their actions prove only their love of power and personal glory, are in desperate need of prayer and personal reformation of character and a spiritual infusion of love, honesty, integrity, respect and concern for all of God’s gift of life to all creatures great and small.

Yes, please pray each and every day for our President, his Cabinet, our Governors, and Representatives; that their hearts and eyes may be opened to the great harm many of them are doing to our children, our freedoms, our democracy, our Bill of Rights, our Constitution, God’s wonderful Creation, and the future of America the Beautiful.

But please, please do not allow The National Day of Prayer to turn into The National Day of Hypocrisy by turning it into a frenzy of alleged God-backed support for sucking America dry, bombing innocent peasants in far away lands, State sanctioned killings under the death penalty, and the incarceration of our children in windowless schools and prisons.

Using God and prayer to justify evil deeds is the most pernicious form of hypocrisy, and America needs to become the compassionate leader of the world, rather than the world’s bully.

“He shall judge between the nations,
And shall rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords into
Plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against
Nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.

O house of Jacob, come and let us
Walk
In the light of the Lord.

Isaiah I 2:4-5

And finally please do not defy Jesus by making a circus of hypocrisy out of The National Day of Prayer. Heed His words!!!

“And when you pray, you shall not be
like the hypocrites. For they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and on the corners
of the streets, that they may be seen by
men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their
reward.

“But you, when you pray, go into your
room, and when you have shut your door,
pray to your Father who is in the secret
place; and your Father who sees in secret will
reward you openly.

Matthew 6:5-6


ETHICIUS I