Sunday, July 30, 2023
/The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
The Rev. Clint Brown
For the next few minutes, I’d like to talk about prayer. What is prayer and what’s it for? And I suppose the best way to begin is to ask what comes to your mind when I say the word “prayer”? What associations does it conjure? What images? Are you alone in a room by yourself or in a communal setting? Is your prayer formal, repeated from a book, or more spontaneous, spoken from the heart? Or some combination of the two? Do you have a prayer list in front of you? Do you have a set time and place for prayer? Is there a particular person you try to emulate or a particular way of praying that you feel drawn to?
What I think of when I think of “prayer” is someone older, much more holy and spiritual than me, kneeling at the side of their bed late at night silhouetted against the low light of a bedside lamp. They are very still and their eyes are closed. They give the impression of being quiet but earnest. Their hands are clasped in the traditional pose of prayer, and they are speaking aloud, though not loudly, as if they were addressing God on a throne directly in front of them. They start their prayer with adoration and thanksgiving. They have long since learned that having no agenda other than the praise of God is an important but neglected aspect of prayer. They remember to speak by name all those they have promised to pray for. They remember also those who are in need who haven’t asked for their prayers: the poor, the refugee, the widow, the orphan. They remember to pray for government officials. They pray for the church and its ministers. They pray for people in foreign lands. They remember the dying and the dead. Finally, they pray for their own need for spiritual refreshment and renewal, and, especially, they confess their sins and failings and plea for forgiveness and amendment of life.
That is what I think of. Whatever you think of when you hear the word “prayer” – no matter how similar or different from me – I’m confident, however, that it probably isn’t this: “The Spirit helps [me] in [my] weakness, for [I] do not know how to pray as [I] ought…[but] the Spirit intercedes for [me] according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27). When I hear this, my first reaction is to be pleasantly surprised. For such an important activity as prayer, the pressure seems to be taken completely off. There is a world of difference between the wordiness and me-forwardness of my usual thinking about prayer and the almost passive, hands-off, Spirit-forward way described here by Paul. And when we survey the best writing about prayer through the centuries, we find there, almost without exception, the same “less is more” emphasis. It turns out that prayer is not supposed to be busy at all. It is not supposed to be a chore. It is supposed to be God and us alone together, opening space for conversation. And, from our side, that generally means mostly silence and expectation and stillness.
If you’re thinking to yourself that this sounds suspiciously like meditation rather than prayer you are right, but there are some key differences – and that is the most important idea I want you to take away today. To the extent that meditation is silent, expectant, and still it is a helpful comparison. But in contrast to meditation, the goal of prayer is completely different. Prayer is not usually about losing yourself but bringing your full self. Except for the very real possibility of “mystical experiences,” what prayer should be for the majority of us the majority of the time is quiet but not passive; contemplative but not empty. The key that unlocks the door of true prayer is to see it as focused upon God with every expectation that you will hear God speaking back. That can only happen if we minimize the chatter and that is the only reason why so many of the techniques of meditation can be recommended for prayer.
So here are a few suggestions for how you can make your prayer something like that of an Indian yogi but not really:
Prayer is you and God alone together. That means negotiating with your life and the people in it a quiet space and a quiet time every day where you can be alone with God. Whatever that means to you, do that.
Start small. An hour may seem too daunting, but what about a mere ten minutes? Or five? Whatever time you can carve out, do know that it often means using the time you already have better, like commuting in silence instead of talking on the phone. And, if we’re honest with ourselves, there is almost limitless time available if we cut into our distracting and less enriching drains on time, like video streaming or scrolling through social media.
Don’t try to not think, just try to focus on God. If you come to God early in the day, run a movie of what you anticipate your day to look like. Offer to God the people and the situations you will face and ask for direction. If there are difficult decisions to make, offer them to God. If you come to God at the end of the day, replay the day: its successes and failures. Allow God the chance to weigh in and yourself the opportunity to be vulnerable.
Be prepared to try something in the way of a renewed prayer life and then fail miserably at it. Don’t give up. Persevere. Continue to experiment until you find what works for your life. Eventually you will come to require your prayer time and miss it when you don’t.
Finally, whatever you do, determine in your prayer to do what the reading suggests: talk less and listen more. Try silence. Try opening a space. This is going to be the hardest for those of you goal-oriented types. You do not always have to have a list prepared or things to say. Trust that the Spirit “who intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (v. 27) is praying for precisely what needs to be prayed for in precisely the right way. Accept this promise as the gracious thing it is, meant to take the pressure off of you. What you will hear in the quietness and stillness is the Spirit recalling to your mind those people and things you need reminding of, and you will hear also instruction about how to handle them.
This is not all that should be or could be said about prayer, but it is enough to suggest a way forward.