On Sunday morning July 1, 1943, in the tiny congregational church in Heath, Massachusetts, the minister stood up to pray. Tucked away in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts, Heath is a rural farming community. Its meeting house is typical of ones found all over New England: a white clapboard structure, clear glass windows, unadorned and simple.

In the summer of 1943 our nation was at war. It was unknown at the time whether the allied forces would prevail … whether they would wrest the world from the forces of fascism. The summer of 1943 was also a time of worsening crisis in racial relations; a time of searing economic inequalities and a time marked by fractious relations between the US and other nations of the world.

With the nations of the world divided between allies and enemies, at a time of gross economic inequalities and racial tensions one can imagine that the minister in Heath, Massachusetts would bend his soul to pray for peace, for justice and for healing.

It is all the more remarkable then that on the morning of July 1, 1943 the Reverend Reinhold Niebuhr did not pray for peace, at least not directly. Nor did he pray for justice or healing. He did not plead with God to fix the evils humans heap upon themselves and each other. He did not entreat God to overcome poverty or repair racial relations, or end the war, or heal the ill.

He prayed these words:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

We know it today as The Serenity Prayer. It is an ironic title for a prayer that acts like nothing so much as a perilous boomerang. It is a prayer you had better pray as quickly as you can and then duck … because every word of it circles around and comes rushing back at the pray-er.

Surely, this is the very reason that the prayer has become an almost iconic prayer for those seeking sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-Step programs. The prayer comes right back at you, placing responsibility squarely in the lap of he or she who utters it.

Niebuhr’s original version of the prayer is different than the version popularized by AA groups. Those differences bear examination.

AA groups typically pray a first personal singular form of the prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Niebuhr’s version was written in the first person plural. His was a collective prayer – and us and we prayer – uttered on behalf of a collective body … a prayer by and for a nation at war, a nation beset by social ills. Niebuhr’s prayer is not directed at individual improvement. Rather, it “goes to the heart of the possibilities and impossibilities of collective action for collective betterment.” (The Serenity Prayer, by Elisabeth Sifton, p. 111)

Second, AA groups dropped the word grace … which is understandable for their purposes. Their version reads as follows: God grant me the serenity … Niebuhr, a Christian minister, asked for the qualifying grace. God give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed.

Finally, Niebuhr’s version asks for Courage to change the things that should be changed. Whereas, in the AA version, the petitioner asks for, Courage to change the things I can.

There is an enormous difference between Niebuhr’s should and AA’s can … a difference that goes to the heart of moral theology and collective responsibility. In the world of Christian moral responsibility, should trumps can.

By many estimates Reinhold Niebuhr was the most significant theologian of the 20^th century. In the 1930’s and early 40’s he was the leading Protestant voice against both Hitler and US isolationism. As early as 1932, in his book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr anticipated the moral and political rationale for the civil rights movement in the US. He anticipated the crucial role, not only of non-violence, but of non-violent direct action, without which, he argued, there will be no change.

The prayer Niebuhr prayed on July 1, 1943, therefore, was the fruit of his personal experience as a pastor interwoven with profound theological reflection. The prayer articulated a collective summons to participate with God in overcoming human sin … or to go down trying because should, trumps can.

The Serenity Prayer bespeaks the virtues, private and public, without which we cannot hope to maintain a nation that is free and democratic. The prayer emphasizes demanding spiritual effort and outlines the inescapable connection between virtuous individuals and a virtuous nation. It is a prayer about how to be a Christian … and it is a prayer about how to be a citizen. The prayer challenges easy, facile critique of leaders and politicians and forces us to reflect upon our own responsibilities as a collective force in a democratic society.

In the reading we heard this morning from Matthew’s gospel, religious leaders asked Jesus: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor? Jesus replied: Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.

Perhaps Niebuhr’s prayer is the 20^th century version of render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God those things which are God’s. His prayer invites us to reflect upon and sort out what we owe God, what we owe each other as sisters and brothers, what we owe a nation that requires the best efforts of its citizens if it dares calls itself free and democratic.

In a recent issue of The Christian Century, the editors recommend that perhaps today the US itself needs to engage in something like a 12-Step Program. (The Christian Century, June 26, 2007. p. 5) This would include:

1)      Admitting that the US is not all-powerful in the world … and that we, too, must rely with humility upon the power of God;

2)      Undertaking a searching and fearless inventory of our national character;

3)      Acknowledging what the US has done wrong in the world;

4)      Seeking, in so far as possible, to make amends for our misdeeds.

Perhaps, alongside our barbeques and parades, our fireworks and our day off, we should commit to praying Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer and following a 12-Step program of national self-evaluation. It might be the best birthday present we could give our nation as it turns 231 years old.

I want to close with a personal story about Reinhold Niebuhr. Struggling with ill-health, including depression brought on by a stroke, in 1967 Niebuhr reflected with humility and irony on his personal relationship to the sentiments of his prayer … a prayer that by that time had become so famous. Niebuhr confided in their family physicians, confessing that his state of anxiety defied the petition of the prayer.

Don't worry, said the physician, Doctors and preachers are not expected to practice what they preach. To which Niebuhr reflected, I had to be content with this minimal consolation.

On this anniversary of Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer, it is fitting that we honor the theologian and the pastor who first penned this marvelous and faithful appeal for grace, courage and wisdom.

Fully aware that we don’t always practice what we preach or pray, fully aware that our own real anxieties, personal and collective, do indeed, defy the prayers’ petition, let us nevertheless pray the prayer together … as printed in the bulletin.

God give us grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

courage to change the things that should be changed,

and the wisdom to distinguish the one from other other.

(This is the original version of Niebuhr’s prayer, first prayed on July 1, 1943 in the Union Church, Heath, Massachusetts.)