Speaking of Prayer
Text: Matthew 6:1-13
What exactly is prayer anyway? It is such a central part of our spirituality as Christians, and yet I would venture to say that most of us don’t really know what it is… At it’s heart we say that prayer is talking with God… yet how many of us get very uncomfortable when someone asks us to pray to open a meeting? Chance are we tend to ask either the minister, or those who outwardly seems to be a lot more comfortable with saying the right words of a prayer than we are. Although I will say, given the stock market rollercoaster over the past week, prayer may have been a bit more on people’s mind… and flowed a bit more easily… but let’s be honest. It’s easier to get the minister to do it.
This really came into sharp focus for me in the very first year that I was ordained… serving as an associate minister at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Cornwall. Within the first month of my arrival, I was invited over to a dinner at the home of one of the congregation’s matriarchs. I was a bachelor at the time, so free meals were free meals. Turns out when I got there that it wasn’t simply a home visit, but a number of the ladies of the congregation who wanted to check out the new minister.
We sat down for the meal, served the food, and then everybody looked at me. They didn’t say anything… they just looked at me. The way I had been raised is that the host of the meal was usually the one to say grace. If they didn’t say anything, it was pretty much time to eat… so when they looked at me, I had a fork full of stuffing already on its way to my mouth. As I quickly determined, I put down my fork and offered what we call grace… the prayer of thanks before we eat. I think I was more caught off guard that I wasn’t asked to say grace, I was simply expected to say it. Somehow I was also supposed to just know that’s how it was. From that point I began to realize how much we as Christians have deferred our praying to others… we let other people do the praying on our behalf. After all, they’re a minister, they’re the professional pray-ers… they’re trained in it, are much better at it than I am… Maybe we’re too self-conscious about being judged. So we let those who have more training or seem more comfortable do it.
But again, it is how we’ve be raised. Chances are most of us grew up thinking that there is only one way to pray. That prayer is speaking to God, either silently or out loud. We ask for what we or the world needs, maybe we thank God for all good things, and we ask that God’s will be done. We have become very comfortable with professional clergy –people like me- doing all the work for us by saying the so-called “right words” here at the front of the sanctuary… or even in the home.
When the Community of Faith is gathered for worship as we are gathered now, and one of us says, “Let us pray,” what that means is, “Let the Community pray.” It doesn’t mean let the minister pray, and the rest of you will sit here, patiently or not, while the worship leader does their thing. It means let the community pray. It means let me or whoever is up front take their responsibility seriously for finding the ways and the words to stimulate or lead or trigger the prayers for all of us. It doesn’t mean letting the worship leader pray while everybody else fantasizes about what they are going to have for lunch. It means let the community pray.
But that’s not how it is for us… is it? Not very often anyway…
In many ways we have outsourced both our public and private prayer to professionals… and we no longer have an understanding of what prayer really is much less how to go about praying. In the congregational survey that we did in April, this came back abundantly clear. It’s not intended as a judgment, but an expression of a reality that we’re not all that comfortable with prayer… we’re not clear on what prayer, what actually qualifies as prayer, and who is able to do it and when! To be honest, I think our definition is a bit too narrow!
For most of us, prayer involves us closing our eyes, bowing our heads, and letting someone else do the talking. That’s it... If we’re in a smaller group, we may be the one offering the words ourselves… but again, it that’s a pretty narrow definition.
Prayer is any practice that helps us deepen our relationship with the living God.
Note that I did not say “individual” practice… because prayer is something that we do both as individuals and as a community. When carried out in a group, it benefits the whole group, not just one person.
Most of us don’t realize that when Jesus speaks about prayer in Matthew, it’s done so as a warning of what not to do, rather than a prescription on how to go about doing it. While the passage concludes with the framework we now call the Lord’s Prayer, it’s what comes in the verses before it that I find more interesting. Jesus is more concerned with false, showy piety, which is done for the glory of the individual offering the prayer, and not for the glory of God.
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
For Jesus, prayer needs to be authentic. That’s the key. It needs to be genuine, open, and honest. God knows what our needs are before we open our mouth or offer something in our hearts. The benefit of praying for someone or a situation is not because we are trying to bend God to our will. Of course not… that’s silly… but too often I have seen prayer approached like this… and if the request of the prayer isn’t answered, we somehow feel inadequate because we didn’t pray hard enough. We forget that in prayer, the point is to deepen our relationship with God… even when we are asking for divine help. In the midst of these situations we are seeking God’s transforming presence in how we ourselves can best respond to the concerns of others… or that we may gain some wisdom and find that we, in fact, can be the answer to the prayers of others.
As individuals, God calls us to prayer. Our prayers as individuals help us to develop a personal relationship with God, and provides us with a spiritual discipline to be faithful. Our individual prayer life is an important part of our lives, because prayer nourishes the life of the spirit. We are called as a Community of Faith to pray for the very same reasons - our prayers as a people help us to develop a personal relationship with God. Our prayers as a people help to nourish the faith and the life of the spirit within the community
It’s the primary reason why my fall Bible study will be a series of independent workshops on prayer. I’ve designed it as such that you don’t need to be at every single study… because each one will be self-contained. The first one starts this Wednesday night.
I have a book sitting on my desk called “Fifty Ways to Pray” –a reminder that maybe we need to expand our understandings a bit. Fifty ways to pray… not one way to pray… but fifty… and even in that case, the author acknowledges that there are many more within the Christian faith. We need to expand our understanding of what prayer is, and maybe allow ourselves the opportunity to experience different ways of praying rather than just letting someone else do it for us. I won’t be covering it all in these workshops, but the idea is to give you a taste of the different practices… to have an opportunity to realize there is so much more out there. Some of them may not do anything for you… but there might be something that you’ve never tried before that really opens things up. It might even help us realize that we really can integrate new ways of praying into our everyday lives…
My wife Sarah often reminds me that she considers the discipline and rhythm of her cross-stitch or scrapbooking hobbies as being a means of prayer. I began to find that own hobby of miniature painting I find provides me with the quiet time, to get into that kind of groove. For someone else, it could happen when we’re listen to or playing music… when we’re dancing… running… skiing… golfing… Prayer is any practice that helps us deepen our relationship with the living God. Prayer is any practice that helps us realize and encounter Christ in our midst.
For Jesus, his biggest concern was that prayer be authentic… genuine, open, and honest. If the way we have been told or taught to pray isn’t really working for us, then maybe we need to expand our understanding of what prayer is. Maybe we need to get a bit more comfortable in speaking of prayer to one another, to maybe even learn from one another… and try something new.
Amen.
What exactly is prayer anyway? It is such a central part of our spirituality as Christians, and yet I would venture to say that most of us don’t really know what it is… At it’s heart we say that prayer is talking with God… yet how many of us get very uncomfortable when someone asks us to pray to open a meeting? Chance are we tend to ask either the minister, or those who outwardly seems to be a lot more comfortable with saying the right words of a prayer than we are. Although I will say, given the stock market rollercoaster over the past week, prayer may have been a bit more on people’s mind… and flowed a bit more easily… but let’s be honest. It’s easier to get the minister to do it.
This really came into sharp focus for me in the very first year that I was ordained… serving as an associate minister at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Cornwall. Within the first month of my arrival, I was invited over to a dinner at the home of one of the congregation’s matriarchs. I was a bachelor at the time, so free meals were free meals. Turns out when I got there that it wasn’t simply a home visit, but a number of the ladies of the congregation who wanted to check out the new minister.
We sat down for the meal, served the food, and then everybody looked at me. They didn’t say anything… they just looked at me. The way I had been raised is that the host of the meal was usually the one to say grace. If they didn’t say anything, it was pretty much time to eat… so when they looked at me, I had a fork full of stuffing already on its way to my mouth. As I quickly determined, I put down my fork and offered what we call grace… the prayer of thanks before we eat. I think I was more caught off guard that I wasn’t asked to say grace, I was simply expected to say it. Somehow I was also supposed to just know that’s how it was. From that point I began to realize how much we as Christians have deferred our praying to others… we let other people do the praying on our behalf. After all, they’re a minister, they’re the professional pray-ers… they’re trained in it, are much better at it than I am… Maybe we’re too self-conscious about being judged. So we let those who have more training or seem more comfortable do it.
But again, it is how we’ve be raised. Chances are most of us grew up thinking that there is only one way to pray. That prayer is speaking to God, either silently or out loud. We ask for what we or the world needs, maybe we thank God for all good things, and we ask that God’s will be done. We have become very comfortable with professional clergy –people like me- doing all the work for us by saying the so-called “right words” here at the front of the sanctuary… or even in the home.
When the Community of Faith is gathered for worship as we are gathered now, and one of us says, “Let us pray,” what that means is, “Let the Community pray.” It doesn’t mean let the minister pray, and the rest of you will sit here, patiently or not, while the worship leader does their thing. It means let the community pray. It means let me or whoever is up front take their responsibility seriously for finding the ways and the words to stimulate or lead or trigger the prayers for all of us. It doesn’t mean letting the worship leader pray while everybody else fantasizes about what they are going to have for lunch. It means let the community pray.
But that’s not how it is for us… is it? Not very often anyway…
In many ways we have outsourced both our public and private prayer to professionals… and we no longer have an understanding of what prayer really is much less how to go about praying. In the congregational survey that we did in April, this came back abundantly clear. It’s not intended as a judgment, but an expression of a reality that we’re not all that comfortable with prayer… we’re not clear on what prayer, what actually qualifies as prayer, and who is able to do it and when! To be honest, I think our definition is a bit too narrow!
For most of us, prayer involves us closing our eyes, bowing our heads, and letting someone else do the talking. That’s it... If we’re in a smaller group, we may be the one offering the words ourselves… but again, it that’s a pretty narrow definition.
Prayer is any practice that helps us deepen our relationship with the living God.
Note that I did not say “individual” practice… because prayer is something that we do both as individuals and as a community. When carried out in a group, it benefits the whole group, not just one person.
Most of us don’t realize that when Jesus speaks about prayer in Matthew, it’s done so as a warning of what not to do, rather than a prescription on how to go about doing it. While the passage concludes with the framework we now call the Lord’s Prayer, it’s what comes in the verses before it that I find more interesting. Jesus is more concerned with false, showy piety, which is done for the glory of the individual offering the prayer, and not for the glory of God.
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
For Jesus, prayer needs to be authentic. That’s the key. It needs to be genuine, open, and honest. God knows what our needs are before we open our mouth or offer something in our hearts. The benefit of praying for someone or a situation is not because we are trying to bend God to our will. Of course not… that’s silly… but too often I have seen prayer approached like this… and if the request of the prayer isn’t answered, we somehow feel inadequate because we didn’t pray hard enough. We forget that in prayer, the point is to deepen our relationship with God… even when we are asking for divine help. In the midst of these situations we are seeking God’s transforming presence in how we ourselves can best respond to the concerns of others… or that we may gain some wisdom and find that we, in fact, can be the answer to the prayers of others.
As individuals, God calls us to prayer. Our prayers as individuals help us to develop a personal relationship with God, and provides us with a spiritual discipline to be faithful. Our individual prayer life is an important part of our lives, because prayer nourishes the life of the spirit. We are called as a Community of Faith to pray for the very same reasons - our prayers as a people help us to develop a personal relationship with God. Our prayers as a people help to nourish the faith and the life of the spirit within the community
It’s the primary reason why my fall Bible study will be a series of independent workshops on prayer. I’ve designed it as such that you don’t need to be at every single study… because each one will be self-contained. The first one starts this Wednesday night.
I have a book sitting on my desk called “Fifty Ways to Pray” –a reminder that maybe we need to expand our understandings a bit. Fifty ways to pray… not one way to pray… but fifty… and even in that case, the author acknowledges that there are many more within the Christian faith. We need to expand our understanding of what prayer is, and maybe allow ourselves the opportunity to experience different ways of praying rather than just letting someone else do it for us. I won’t be covering it all in these workshops, but the idea is to give you a taste of the different practices… to have an opportunity to realize there is so much more out there. Some of them may not do anything for you… but there might be something that you’ve never tried before that really opens things up. It might even help us realize that we really can integrate new ways of praying into our everyday lives…
My wife Sarah often reminds me that she considers the discipline and rhythm of her cross-stitch or scrapbooking hobbies as being a means of prayer. I began to find that own hobby of miniature painting I find provides me with the quiet time, to get into that kind of groove. For someone else, it could happen when we’re listen to or playing music… when we’re dancing… running… skiing… golfing… Prayer is any practice that helps us deepen our relationship with the living God. Prayer is any practice that helps us realize and encounter Christ in our midst.
For Jesus, his biggest concern was that prayer be authentic… genuine, open, and honest. If the way we have been told or taught to pray isn’t really working for us, then maybe we need to expand our understanding of what prayer is. Maybe we need to get a bit more comfortable in speaking of prayer to one another, to maybe even learn from one another… and try something new.
Amen.
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