Prayer

Luke 11:1-13

The impulse to prayer is universal.  Not as a constant thing but in those moments when human beings feel a need to relate to some thing or some one outside themselves.  It may be a moment of sudden panic, when the professor pops a quiz covering unread assignments.  It may be a moment of awe when one is stunned by the beauty of power and nature, or at a time when relief and gratitude need to be expressed.

            But if the impulse to pray is universal, so also must be the question, “Does it really matter?”  “Does prayer really change things?”  It is a question that cries out to be answered, for there are almost as many theories about prayer as there are those who pray, as many claims as there are those urging us to pray.

            I have only to remember persons I have known who have been persuaded to pray with the promise that whatever they desired would come to them as a result.  One man in particular cannot be forgotten.  He was not a church member, nor had he shown any interest in the church or belief until his wife became ill.  Some friends of hers persuaded him that prayer would save her life; so he threw himself desperately and passionately into praying for her.  Yet even as he prayed, she died, leaving him not only grieving but also bitterly angry with a God who, he concluded, let him down.

            Even more numerous must be those who, impressed by the regularity of the universe and by the conclusions of science, relegate prayer to a by gone era when we did not understand how  things worked in the world.  These are the ones who point to the “indisputable facts of history”, conflict upon conflict, a tale of warfare and suffering little influenced by the countless prayers of the faithful for peace and understanding on earth.  “The Church,” they argue, “has been praying for a new spirit within humanity and between nations and races for generations.  See how little things have changed?”

            Does prayer really change things?  This is one of the most serious questions.  It strikes at the very heart of faith.  And there is a sense in which we need to come clean, admitting that prayer has sometimes been held out as a form of magic, a technique to manipulate a higher power, to secure favors when favors were badly needed.  So when the question is put, “Does prayer really change things?” we must be honest and compassionate enough to answer, “No, not if by that question you mean that we can order God to change circumstances and make everything, no matter how trivial, more to our liking.”

            Certainly not in the sense of the prayer found among the papers of one John Ward, Member of Parliament, some years ago.  “O Lord, thou knowest I have mine estates in the city of London, and likewise that I have recently purchased an estate in the fee simple in the county of Essex.  I beseech thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquake, and as I have a mortgage in Hertfordshire, I beg of thee likewise to have an eye of compassion on that county; for the rest of the counties, thou mayest deal with them as thou art pleased.”  (For whatever you make of it, theologically or otherwise, I am told that John Ward died in debtor’s prison.)

            These things must be said, not to be unkind but so as not to be misunderstood.  Nothing is more central in our growth as persons than the way in which we understand our relationship to God in Christ, which is to say how we understand prayer.

            For whatever reason, and there are many, it has been tempting for us to think of prayer in a mechanical sense or pattern, probably because it seems normal for us to think in terms of cause and effect.  So prayer comes to be understood on the model, perhaps, of an electronic teller machine, from which, if you have the right card and remember the correct number, you can secure money.  Then prayer becomes a matter of technique or of the right credentials.

            Or perhaps we have come to think of prayer in terms of negotiating.  If you can come up with the right offer, then a deal can be made.  Hence prayers in which we attempt to bargain with God, giving up this or that, or offering to do this or that if by that action God can be persuaded to give something we want in return.

            But neither the mechanical nor the magical nor the negotiating model is the way in which Jesus thought of prayer, and it is only as we enter into his understanding that we can appreciate what he meant when he spoke to his disciples about prayer.

            Jesus knew God in terms of personal relationship.  He spoke of his “heavenly father” with whom prayer was communication, not technique.

            Now it is true that we have become fairly successful in transforming personal relationships into mechanical ones, as when the teenager assures her friend, “Don’t worry, I’ll be able to go.  I will wait until the ball game comes on TV, and then I will ask my dad if I should practice my piano lesson, or can I come over to your house.”

            All too often relationships are reduced to the level of barter, as when a wife confesses, “I put up with what he wants, because then I know that I can get what I want.”

            Contrast these with truly personal relationships based on vulnerability, caring, and love.  Jesus always approached God in prayer as approaching a loving father to whom he could pour out his heart, knowing he would be heard and understood.

            But you can’t always predict what love may require.  It is not a simple formula to be followed or a response that can be programmed.  Sometimes love must be tough and sometimes gentle.  But it isn’t abstract, and it isn’t easy.  And in this kind of personal relationship, communication, the art of speaking together, is a very important thing.

            Do you remember Tevye, the father in “Fiddler on the Roof”?  Complaining to God, fighting with God, wanting to know why it would have been so difficult for God to have made him a wealthy man instead of a poor man?  Yet with it all, in spite of the lack of formality, there was a sense of honest communication, of affection.  There was a personal relationship.  So with Jesus who was able to pray “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me….”

            Here is a young man who is counting on his father to finance his college education.  His father had let him know that he is more than willing, even anxious to make that commitment for his son, but that he expected his son to make good use of the opportunity.  A phrase that obviously meant different things to different people, because the son partied through the first semester, making it a disaster academically, and the father was reluctant to subsidize that kind of career.  So there came a time of crisis when the subject of the second semester could no longer be avoided.  But as they talked, and as the son’s anger passed, and the father’s too, it began to dawn upon the son that his father actually meant what he had said, and that it was out of love that he was speaking.  Though it wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen just like that, a change did come over the son, and his father began to talk with him about regaining academic standing and continuing his education.  Father and son were now involved at a different level, and both were able to respond to the other in ways that had not seemed possible before.

            Perhaps to someone who believed that a deal was a deal, the father should have stood his ground, and the son should have learned his lesson the harder way.  But the father saw the beginning of change in his son, and he was able to change his own approach to meet that growth and to encourage it.

            That’s the way love is.  And prayer.  Prayer doesn’t simply change things to suit our fancy, but it does bring us into God’s presence and that may change you and it may change me and it may make it possible for God to act in ways which were not open before.  Prayer may not change a situation so that it will be more to our liking.  It may not remove barriers, but it may open us to God’s effective love in such a way that the barriers are no longer as formidable as we thought.  Prayer may not do away with problems, but it may enlarge us to the place where we can contend with problems.  Prayer may not drop a new job in our lap, but it may enable us to grow in ways that change that whole picture too.  And surely we pray for others, and others pray for us, in intercessory prayer that is not a technique for changing God’s mind or calling his attention to something that he should have done long ago, had he been paying attention.  Intercessory prayer is a way in which we place ourselves in a relationship of cooperation with God, sharing our concerns, opening ourselves, if we dare, to new insights, new impulses, new possibilities through which God can work, that were not open to God before.  Who can pray to God for others and then not do all he or she can to come to the aid of those others himself?  Very risky, this business of taking our concerns for others to God, for we ourselves may well be changed.

            That is always the risk when we take God seriously, when we persistently call upon him, with the same sense of urgency and need as the man who desperately needed bread in the middle of the night.  We can’t program God’s response.  We can’t pass off our problems on him to get us off the hook.  We can’t manipulate or bargain.  But we can come honestly to a heavenly father, who in love responds.  It may not change things, but it may sure change us.  That is the risk, and the possibility and the glory of prayer.  Amen.