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July 28, 2026 The focus of St. James Presbyterian Church’s weekly 30-minute Prayer Break Gathering is based on one of the scriptures of our PCUSA Daily Lectionary, Matthew 27.32. Today we will be pairing it with a poem “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks” by Countee Cullen. Today as you read these two, may your discernment in the Spirit bring ease. Matthew 27.32 32As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry his cross. Simon the Cyrenian Speaks–Countee Cullen He never spoke a word to me, And yet He called my name; He never gave a sign to me, And yet I knew and came. At first I said, "I will not bear His cross upon my back; He only seeks to place it there Because my skin is black." But He was dying for a dream, And He was very meek, And in His eyes there shone a gleam Men journey far to seek. It was Himself my pity bought; I did for Christ alone What all of Rome could not have wrought With bruise of lash or stone. Meditation: Face to Face, Eye to Eye Today we are doing something different in our Prayer Break Gathering. We are placing a biblical text beside a piece of literature and listening for the prayer that rises between them. Matthew tells us that Simon the Cyrenian was compelled to carry the cross of Jesus. Countee Cullen’s poem, “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks,” allows Simon to speak from within that moment. Simon the Cyrenian was an African man. He was a free man moving through the Roman Empire when soldiers seized him and placed the cross upon his back. He did not choose to enter this scene. He was compelled by the authority of Rome. Many of us know something about being singled out to carry what we did not choose. Because of race, people are still expected to bear burdens that others are permitted to avoid. We are expected to explain, absorb, endure, repair, forgive, remain composed, and carry the consequences of systems we did not create. Circumstances can make it feel as though our only choice is to accept whatever weight has been placed upon us. Cullen does not ask us to call that burden holy. He allows Simon to tell the truth about what he suspects: “He only seeks to place it there because my skin is black.” Simon understands that his African identity has made him visible to imperial power as someone whose body may be commanded. Cullen writes from the racial realities of his own time while reaching back toward an African man living under the authority of Rome. Across those different worlds, he names a truth many still recognize: power often notices us when it needs someone to burden. Then Simon looks at Jesus. This is the turning point of the poem. Simon looks face to face and eye to eye with a man whose body has also been seized by the empire. Jesus is bruised, mocked, and dying. He is not the one who placed the cross upon Simon. He is suffering beneath the same violent power. That face-to-face encounter is an act of prayer. Simon does not kneel. He does not close his eyes. He does not speak words we are given to hear. He looks. He attends. He allows the suffering of another person to enter his consciousness. In that moment of attention, he discerns what Rome cannot tell him. Rome can compel him to carry the cross. Rome cannot decide why he carries it. The soldiers may control the circumstance, yet they cannot possess Simon’s spirit. They cannot command his compassion or create solidarity through force. Simon sees Jesus and makes a faithful choice from within a situation he did not choose. He says: “I did for Christ alone what all of Rome could not have wrought with bruise of lash or stone.” Rome forced the cross upon his back. It could not force love into his heart. Rome could compel the action. It could not create the meaning Simon prayerfully gave to it. This is spiritual autonomy. It does not mean that we are free from every circumstance. It means that the powers around us do not possess the final authority over our relationship with God, our recognition of one another, or our participation in what God is doing. Even when circumstances compel us, God preserves within us the capacity to pray, discern, and choose solidarity. Simon steps into the redemptive movement of the cross. He does not redeem the violence of Rome. He joins Jesus within God’s work of redemption. His presence does not make the crucifixion right. His solidarity reveals that Rome cannot prevent compassion from appearing in the very place where it intended only humiliation and death. This is the hope offered to us today. We may feel compelled by the suffering around us. We may feel pressed into responsibilities we did not seek. We may become weary of being the ones who are always expected to notice, respond, and carry. Prayer does not ask us to deny that weariness. Prayer brings us face to face with God and eye to eye with one another so that we may discern how we will stand within the moment before us. Solidarity is not passive. It is the faithful choice to see another person fully and to refuse the distance that suffering can create between us. We may not be able to remove every burden. We can decide that no one within our reach will carry theirs unseen. We can step beside those who have been isolated, blamed, mocked, or condemned. We can allow prayer to lead us from awareness into participation. Simon the Cyrenian reminds us that being compelled by circumstances does not leave us spiritually powerless. God gives us the autonomy to look, discern, and step prayerfully into God’s own work of redemption. How might looking face to face and eye to eye become your prayer? And for what do you pray? 
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July 14, 2026 The focus of St. James Presbyterian Church’s weekly 30-minute Prayer Break Gathering is based on one of the scriptures of our PCUSA Daily Lectionary, Psalm 42.1-6, 11. Today we will be focusing our thoughts on verses 1-2a. Today as you read the scripture, may your discernment in the Spirit bring ease. Psalm 42 1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help 6and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. Meditation: When the Soul Is Thirsty Psalm 42 begins with a longing that is deeper than language. “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” The psalmist does not begin by pretending to be strong. The psalmist does not begin by making a spiritual announcement that everything is well. The psalmist begins with thirst. There is a need within the soul that cannot be satisfied by distraction, busyness, explanation, or even memory alone. The soul is longing for God. That is a holy place to begin prayer. So often, we come to prayer after trying many other things first. We try to keep moving. We try to stay useful. We try to stay informed. We try to answer what needs answering, carry what needs carrying, and manage what needs managing. We may even tell ourselves that if we can just get through the next task, the next meeting, the next responsibility, the next concern, then ease will come. Yet sometimes the soul is not asking for more management. Sometimes the soul is thirsty. “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” The psalm gives us permission to tell that truth. It gives us permission to admit that beneath our questions, beneath our weariness, beneath our public composure, beneath our private ache, there is a longing for the living God. Not simply for an answer from God. Not simply for a sign from God. Not simply for God to fix what hurts by the time the day is over. The soul thirsts for God’s own presence. And yet Psalm 42 does not make that longing simple. The psalmist asks, “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” That question carries tenderness and pain. It is the question of someone who remembers what it felt like to be close to the holy and now feels distance. It is the question of someone who knows where help comes from and still feels the ache of waiting. The psalmist says, “My tears have been my food day and night.” That is not dramatic language for effect. That is the truth of a soul that has been living with sorrow long enough for sorrow to feel like nourishment, though it cannot truly nourish. There are seasons when people live that way. They keep going, yet what feeds them is thin. They keep moving, yet something within them is weeping. They keep praying, yet the question remains: “Where is your God?” The psalm does not hide that question. It does not rush past it. It does not shame the one who is asked it, or the one who silently asks it within. “Where is your God?” can come from outside voices, and it can also rise from inside fatigue. It can come from grief, injustice, disappointment, loneliness, or the daily weight of a world that keeps asking people to endure more than they can name. Still, the psalmist remembers. “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul.” The memory is not escape. The memory is not denial. The psalmist remembers being part of the great procession, going with the multitude to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving. The psalmist remembers worship. The psalmist remembers community. The psalmist remembers what it was like to be carried by the prayers and songs of others. That memory matters. There are times when we cannot pray only from what we feel in the present moment. Sometimes we pray with the help of what we remember. We remember a time when the song was easier. We remember a time when the room held us. We remember a time when the prayer of the community carried what we could not carry alone. We remember, not to live in the past, yet to let the past testify that God has been present before. Memory becomes part of the stream. Then the psalmist turns inward and speaks to the soul: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?” This is not scolding. This is not shame. This is a tender conversation within the self. The psalmist is not denying the sorrow. The psalmist is asking the soul to listen for hope again. “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.” The word “again” is important. “I shall again praise.” Not necessarily all at once. Not necessarily today in the way I used to. Not necessarily without tears. Yet again. The psalmist trusts that the present thirst is not the end of the story. The soul is cast down, and the soul is still invited to hope. The soul is disquieted, and the soul is still held before God. The soul is thirsty, and the living God is still the source. This is why Psalm 42 can hold us in prayer today. It does not force us to choose between longing and faith. It allows both to be true. We can be thirsty and still belong to God. We can be cast down and still speak hope to the soul. We can remember glad songs and still admit present tears. We can ask, “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” and still trust that God is nearer than our thirst can measure. Prayer begins there. Not with pretending we are full. Not with performing strength. Not with hiding the tears, silencing the questions, or rushing the soul into praise before the soul has been heard. Prayer begins when the soul tells the truth before the living God. So today, we bring the thirst. We bring the places in us that have been dry. We bring the memories that still carry light. We bring the tears that have become too familiar. We bring the questions that have been spoken around us and within us. We bring the soul itself, cast down or quieted, restless or waiting, and we let it turn again toward God. May this Prayer Break become a small flowing stream in the day. May it remind us that longing can become prayer. May it remind us that memory can become strength. May it remind us that tears are not a failure of faith. May it remind us that the soul can hope again, because the God for whom we thirst is the living God. Knowing that God receives even the thirst of the soul, for what do you pray?  July 07, 2026 The focus of St. James Presbyterian Church’s weekly 30-minute Prayer Break Gathering is based on one of the scriptures of our PCUSA Daily Lectionary, Romans 8.31-39. Today we will be focusing our thoughts on verses 38-39. Today as you read the scripture, may your discernment in the Spirit bring ease. Romans 8:31-39 31What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Meditation:Nothing Can Separate There are scriptures that do not need much introduction because they already know how to find us. Romans 8 is one of them. Paul asks, “What then are we to say about these things?” That is a good question for prayer. Not only what do we believe. Not only what have we been taught. What do we say when life is happening around us and within us? What do we say when we are trying to keep steady? What do we say when the world feels heavy, or when the needs of those we love are more than we know how to carry? Paul does not answer by pretending trouble is not real. He names hardship. He names distress. He names persecution. He names hunger, danger, exposure, and violence. He does not rush past the hard parts of life in order to get to something uplifting. That matters. A faith that has to pretend is not strong enough to hold us. A prayer that cannot tell the truth is too small for the lives we actually live. Paul’s hope is not built on denial. It is built on the love of God in Christ Jesus. So when he says, “If God is for us, who is against us?” he is not saying that no one will ever oppose us. He is not saying that nothing will ever hurt us. He is saying that none of those things has the power to decide who we are before God. That is a different kind of strength. It is not the strength of being untouched. It is the strength of being held. And I think that is the word many of us need in prayer today. We do not need to come into prayer untouched. We come as we are. We come with what is real. We come with concern, memory, fatigue, grief, gratitude, questions, and whatever else has traveled with us into this hour. Before we even know how to pray it all, Paul reminds us that Christ intercedes for us. Christ is holding before God what we cannot fully name. That is a mercy. Sometimes prayer is clear. Sometimes we know exactly what to ask. Other times, prayer is simply the honest offering of ourselves. We pause. We breathe. We become aware of God again. We let the heart tell the truth without forcing it into a shape too quickly. Paul then asks, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” That may be the deepest question in the passage. When life presses hard enough, the fear is not only about the thing itself. It is also about whether we are still held. Whether God is still near. Whether love is still present. Whether what has happened, or what may happen, can somehow place us outside the reach of grace. Paul says no. Not because hardship is small. Not because distress is easy. Not because loss does not wound. Paul says no because the love of God is deeper than all of it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is not a shallow comfort. It is a deep one. It does not remove every question. It does not make every road easy. It does not mean that everything we face will resolve in the way we hoped. It means that whatever we face, we do not face it outside the love of God. That is enough to pray from. Sometimes enough faith for the day is simply remembering that we are not separated from God. Not by the heaviness of the world. Not by the weariness of the body. Not by the uncertainty of the future. Not by the griefs we still carry. Not by the prayers we do not know how to speak. Paul says, “I am convinced.” That conviction may come to us slowly. It may not arrive as a loud feeling. It may be more like a quiet steadiness that returns as we pray. It may be the grace of taking one more breath and remembering that God is still God. It may be the strength to keep loving, keep serving, keep hoping, keep walking with Christ. This is why we pause today. We are not leaving the world behind. We are bringing the world, and ourselves, into the presence of the One whose love does not let us go. So as we prepare to pray, we do not have to make ourselves impressive. We do not have to make our prayers sound polished. We do not have to pretend to be stronger than we are. We can simply come, held by the love of God, met by the grace of Christ, helped by the Spirit in prayer. For neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Knowing we are inseparable from the divine . . . for what do you pray?  June 30, 2026
The focus of St. James Presbyterian Church’s weekly 30-minute Prayer Break Gathering is based on one of the scriptures of our PCUSA Daily Lectionary, Numbers 22.31-38. Today we will be focusing our thoughts on verses 38b. Today as you read the scripture, may your discernment in the Spirit bring ease. Numbers 22.31-38 31Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road, with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed down, falling on his face. 32The angel of the LORD said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me. 33The donkey saw me, and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let it live." 34Then Balaam said to the angel of the LORD, "I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now therefore, if it is displeasing to you, I will return home." 35The angel of the LORD said to Balaam, "Go with the men; but speak only what I tell you to speak." So Balaam went on with the officials of Balak. 36When Balak heard that Balaam had come, he went out to meet him at Ir-moab, on the boundary formed by the Arnon, at the farthest point of the boundary. 37Balak said to Balaam, "Did I not send to summon you? Why did you not come to me? Am I not able to honor you?" 38Balaam said to Balak, "I have come to you now, but do I have power to say just anything? The word God puts in my mouth, that is what I must say." Meditation: What God Gives Us to Say In this part of the story of Balaam, many of us may remember the most famous moment. The donkey sees what Balaam cannot see and speaks what Balaam has not yet understood. It is a strange and memorable scene, and it has a way of staying with us. Yet for our prayer today, I want us to pause with what comes after that interruption. Balaam has been stopped. His eyes have been opened. He has had to recognize that the road he was traveling was not as simple as he thought. He had direction. He had purpose. He had somewhere to go. He had people waiting for him. He had words expected from him. Still, God met him on the way and made him pause. That is already a word for prayer. So often, we come to God with our direction already set. We know what we want. We know what we fear. We know what we hope will happen. We know what relief would feel like. We know the answer we would like to receive. God is gracious enough to receive all of that. God receives our honesty. God receives our urgency. God receives the words we can barely say and the feelings we cannot yet organize. Yet Numbers 22 reminds us that prayer is not only the place where we bring God what is already in us. Prayer is also the place where God clears enough room in us for what God wants to place there. When Balaam finally reaches Balak, he says, “I have come to you now, but do I have power to say just anything? The word God puts in my mouth, that is what I must say.” That is a humbling sentence. It is a discerning sentence. It is the kind of sentence that can become a prayer before every prayer. Balaam has arrived, yet he understands that arrival does not give him permission to speak from himself alone. He has come with his own thoughts, his own awareness, his own pressures, and his own expectations. Yet he also knows that the word must come from God. That is not a small thing for us to remember. At times, we pray our wants and not our needs, our desires and not God’s will, our hopes and not the Spirit’s truth, for answers and not for Jesus’ peace. That does not mean our wants are wrong. It does not mean our desires are sinful. It does not mean our hopes are foolish. It does not mean our longing for answers is immature. It means that we can get stuck inside the limits of our own wisdom. We can confuse what we want with what will heal us. We can confuse what we desire with what God is forming in us. We can confuse what we hope will happen with what the Spirit is revealing. We can confuse an answer with peace. This is why prayer often begins before we speak. Prayer begins in the clearing of the mind, in the softening of the heart, in the quieting of the spirit. Prayer begins when we are willing to let God interrupt not only the road we are walking, but the words we were prepared to say. Before we ask God to answer our prayers, we may need to ask God to align our prayers. Before we ask God to bless our words, we may need to ask God to quiet our minds. Before we ask God to move in the situation, we may need to ask God to move in us. This, too, is grace. Because sometimes the first gift of prayer is not a changed circumstance. Sometimes the first gift of prayer is a changed spirit. A steadied heart. A softened mouth. A clearer mind. A deeper willingness to listen. Balaam says, “The word God puts in my mouth, that is what I must say.” For us today, that may become: the prayer God places in my spirit, that is what I must pray. The truth God brings to my attention, that is what I must face. The peace God offers me, that is what I must receive. The love God asks of me, that is what I must practice. So as we enter this Prayer Break Gathering, let us not rush too quickly to fill the silence. Let us ask God to clear the way within us so that fear does not become our only prayer, desire does not become our only guide, and anxiety does not become our only voice. And when we speak, when we pray, when we ask, when we listen, may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts come into deeper alignment with God’s will, God’s truth, and God’s peace. When you stop and listen . . . for what do you pray? |
Rev. Derrick McQueen Ph. D.
Solo Pastor St. James Presbyterian Church in the Village of Harlem NYC Archives
August 2026
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