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Christ Church Uniting
Disciples and Presbyterians
1300 Kailua Rd.
Kailua, HI 96734
262-6911
Good
Questions Series: on Prayer
Prayer is commanded.
“Watch
and pray,” says Jesus. Mark
“Pray without ceasing,” says the Apostle. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
And we do pray.
We do pray. We just do. And yet, questions arise---
--questions submitted by
We probably won’t discover ultimately satisfying answers. (Do you have any idea how many books on prayer there are in print, or how many Google hits you get when you look for web sites on prayer?) Even so, we can probe our questions, tease them out, and try on a perspective or two. That OK?
For example, in the question “do prayer requests work”, I’m wondering: what is meant by “work”? It could mean “does prayer function as advertised or expected?” This presumes we know what prayer is supposed to accomplish. We do, and we don’t.
For most people, whether they are comfortable asking it or not, the question often comes down to ---is prayer a way to get what we want? Some say, “Yes, of course.” Others say, “Come on.” Still, others say, “It depends.”
Mathew
James
These two passages (and others like them) suggest that to the question “is prayer a way of getting what I want” the answer might be a conditional “yes.”
There are complications however. Imagine, for example, two righteous men praying for the hand of the same woman in marriage, or opposing armies of believers praying for peace though victory, or a nation in which prosperity really is distributed by God on the basis of prayer.
The question “are there appropriate prayer requests” implies that if there are problems with prayer, perhaps they arise from “inappropriate prayer requests.” In my lifetime, I’ve certainly made a few---inappropriate requests. Am I alone in this?
Again, there are biblical images that seem to support a distinction between appropriate and inappropriate prayer requests….
I John
OK. According to God’s will. But here too, there are complications. How can I be sure that I know God’s will in a particular instance? The same Apostle who urges “Have the mind of Christ” asks rhetorically “Who really knows the mind of God?”
And Jesus in the
And who knows---an earnestly desired good if granted might in fact furnish the occasion of new evil. It happens. You probably have an example. Who could have known? Seemed like a good idea at the time.
And isn’t the value of just about any gift enhanced or diminished according to the spirit in which it is received and the purpose to which it is dedicated? And beyond this---isn’t the deeper meaning of things (answered prayer included) determined by a wider context essentially beyond our control?
So, how can
anyone really know what’s best to pray for?
Someone spoke obliquely to this problem when he said, “God punishes us
mildly by ignoring our prayers and severely by answering them.”
What about the question suggesting
that prayer really does work but in the sense that it changes the one who prays
rather than causes God to act? That’s
what Soren Kierkegaard thought too. He said,
“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” And anybody know who
Sam Shoemaker was? Episcopal
Priest and co-founder of AA. He
said, “Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for
things.”
Doesn’t it make you think of the Genesis image of prayer as struggle? Remember Jacob: He wrestled through the night with the divine stranger until, wounded, he arose in the morning with a new name in relationship to God and the world. So, in the sense of prayer as combat, the one who prays may be profoundly changed in the praying.
But what if that wasn’t at all what the questioner had in mind? The suggestion was that prayer is self-affecting. This form of the question leaps over “is God listening” or “does God care.”
Perhaps the questioner wonders more darkly---“is anybody there?” Is prayer really monologue? Is prayer self-stimulation rather than conversation? You see what I mean? The idea of prayer as a focusing of energy or the directing of good vibes is similarly an image for prayer in which God is irrelevant.
These are questions most of us have either asked or sought (somewhat desperately perhaps) to keep at bay. On the subject of prayer, the more we question the more deeply we seem to be wading into a quagmire.
While I mean no disrespect to the questioners, I believe the most helpful approach would be for me to back up, to back way up, and to ask simply, “what is prayer?”
I don’t claim that what I’m about to say is the ultimate truth about prayer. My perspective is limited by my gender and socio-economic class among many other things. Your experiences and perspectives inform you just as mine do me. Together, we know more than I can ever say. Do you understand what I’m saying here? So, here is my take. Put another way, here is my give---to you---on prayer today.
I’m thinking of prayer as a form of communication with God, invited and welcomed by God, and, importantly, one in which God responds. “Talk to me,” says God. “Let’s talk.”
From our side, most of the talk is some form of “I wanna.” I don’t put this down at all. It’s absolutely natural. A fundamental aspect of prayer from our point of view is “making our requests known to God.”
For today, I leave aside the question, “But isn’t ‘making our requests known’ superfluous? Doesn’t God already know what we want?” Short answer. Perhaps, but the command (or, the invitation if one is, as I am, authority-averse) ---the command/invitation is “talk to me.” So there we are.
“I wanna” prayers encompass a wide range of subjects and emotions. Such prayer can be for ourselves or for others. Such prayer can express gratitude, adoration, hurt, fear, and rage. They are verbal and they say fundamentally what we want---even if what we want is only to be heard.
I believe that God welcomes all “I wanna” prayers. I believe God answers all these prayers in the same way. To all these prayers, God says, “Good. Good. Now come. Come closer.”
See, I’m thinking it doesn’t matter whether we talk to God in selfish or altruistic terms, in thoughtful or reactionary terms---it just doesn’t matter.
What matters is that we have turned toward God and what matters is God’s reply----“Good. Good. Now come closer, that’s right closer.”
What matters is that we seek God in our hungers, our yearnings and that God doesn’t hide from us or belittle our heartfelt pleas.
For some, the more they engage in prayer, the fewer things they feel compelled to say or ask. The mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice.” John Bunyan wrote "The best prayers often have more groans than words."
Just as our prayer in worship takes a turn to silence, or stillness before God, so too, I think that there comes a point in the life of prayer when, moving in closer to God, words fall away. Perhaps our understanding of our wants and desires changes. Perhaps that’s it. In any case. Groans give way to stillness. And in the stillness there is waiting.
(Waiting, by the way, is an Advent theme---you remember---it comes at the beginning of the church year.)
It is then that God’s word to us may change. At first, we heard “Come.” In stillness and waiting, we may hear a new word, “Go.”
The word “Go” is addressed to us. We are invited to arise, to go out, and to be God’s Word in the world where we find ourselves.
This is a lot to get our heads
around. I can put it very
succinctly. I’m saying that God has two
answers to prayer. To our “I wanna”
prayers God says “Come.” To our prayers
of waiting in silence, God says “Go.”
After working this out, I realized that a Matthew 11 Jesus saying outlines the pattern I have used to describe prayer this morning.
“Come to
me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens…” In other words, to all you who are crying
out, groaning under the load, I say “Come.”
“I will give you rest.” Groaning will
cease. You will be at rest in stillness,
in waiting.
And then
Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and
humble in heart.
My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” In other words, when you have come, and when
you waiting and at rest, I will give you a commission, a work. It will be your work, doable and decisive.
The “I
wanna” prayer is answered with an invitation “Come.” Words give way to groans giving way to silent
waiting. And the deep restful silence of
wordless waiting may be broken with a grace filled “Go.”
So it is
and so may it be.
Fabian M. “Buddy” Summers,
Pastor
Christ Church Uniting Disciples and Presbyterians
Kailua, HI
(07/08/04
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