Conflicted about Prayer: July 27

Year C, Pentecost 7                                             Luke 11:1-13                                                    

For most of my life, I have been someone who has depended heavily on prayer, as a source of comfort.  In the darkest times of my life, I found comfort knowing that God was there with me.  This probably doesn’t surprise you given my profession.  However, when I mysteriously contracted MRSA and found myself in the ICU in septic shock, I could not pray.  I tried the first day or two and then I stopped.  I felt something in my spirit break and what really scared me was that I didn’t care. I wasn’t angry at God. I just stopped caring about God.

         I called my friend who was also an Episcopal priest and had part of a lung removed because of lung cancer.  I asked her, “How did you pray in a place like this?” After a bit of waffling, she admitted she had not been able to pray either.  We both had the Book of Common Prayer with us, which is full of beautiful and eloquent prayers…but none of those prayers seemed right to us. The prayers that we had prayed for others felt hollow as we lay in the hospital bed.  So we wrote a book full of prayers that we felt we could have used while we were hospitalized.  When we started the book, my friend was in remission.  When the book was published, she was dying. She took the book with her when she was hospitalized for the final time. She told me it brought her comfort.  It helped her with her relationship with God.  But in the end, she still died.

Despite the fact that I should be an expert in prayer, when I read the Gospel for today, I thought, oh no.  Not prayer. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about prayer. The beginning of the text has Jesus praying. Of all the gospels, Luke puts the most emphasis on Jesus’ prayer life.  There are several examples of Jesus not only praying with his disciples, but also retreating to a private place to pray. If you were to read the first and last chapters of the Gospel of Luke, you will see that the Gospel begins and ends with people praying.  Sometimes we know what Jesus was praying for, but often we don’t.  For Luke, the act of praying and communicating was what was really important.

The prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples is beautiful in its simplicity.  He teaches his disciples to ask for three things.  The first two are nourishment and forgiveness.  The last request is a wee bit confusing.  “And do not bring us to the time of trial.” Most Bible translations say, “Lead us not into temptation.” When we say the Lord’s prayer during our service, we use that phrase rather than “do not bring us to the time of trial”.  I believe we are being encouraged to pray that God will help us handle the challenges of life.  We know we can’t avoid them entirely (that would be my preference), but we can lean on God during those times. 

This Gospel text would have been a lot more palatable if it could have just ended there.  Jesus then moves into a parable about a man knocking on his neighbor’s door at midnight looking for some bread because he has some last minute houseguests.  This all sounds wild to us because I would never knock on a neighbor’s door at midnight demanding bread.

But we have to remember this was a different time and place. They didn’t have hotels and airbnbs.  When people were traveling, they would often stop by unannounced expecting food and shelter.  Hospitality was important.  If one didn’t provide hospitality, that would shame them and possibly the whole village.  So it was also normal to expect your neighbor to help provide for the house guest, even at midnight.  The person who was being unreasonable in this story was not the guy knocking on the door, but the man who was refusing to answer.  Yet eventually, he relented, either because of the neighbor’s persistence or because he didn’t want to be shamed. 

The reason I find this parable problematic is that it seems to indicate that if we just ask for things over and over again, then God will eventually relent and grant our petition.  I’ve actually tried that. It didn’t work. In the end, it just left me extremely frustrated and disappointed.  I would never tell you not to pray for a specific thing, but I believe the time when prayer can feel the most frustrating is when we focus on the outcome.  I prayed a lot for my friend who died of cancer.  I prayed that she would live, but I also prayed for strength and peace. I knew that God was with her in the end.

Eugene Peterson wrote that “Prayers are tools, but with this clarification: Prayers are not tools for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.”  Prayer cannot be an order we give to God. God is not a short order cook. Prayer is the way that we deepen our relationship with God so that when we face the time of trial or the time of temptation, we will have a relationship with God that will help carry us through.

There are times in my life, even as a minister when I have been angry with God. There have been times when I even stopped caring.  I am not proud of that time, but I share it with you because I want you to know that even when we give up on God, give up on prayer, God never gives up on us.  If you feel like you are talking to God and God is not responding…consider this. The fact that you are talking to God, means that God has already spoken to you in some way.  Because otherwise you would not be moved to talk to God at all.  God spoke at your birth. God speaks with every breath you take. God speaks with the sunrises and the sunsets.  God has never stopped speaking.

The last line of our reading is: “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirt to those who ask him!” Jesus never guaranteed outcomes.  Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit…which is sometimes described as an advocate or comforter.  Perhaps our expectations of God are too narrow. God has provided more than we could ever desire and the more we open our hearts to God, the more we will feel God’s presence. Prayer is a tool for being and becoming.   We don’t come to church because we have reached perfection or because we have figured it all out.  We don’t worship God because we never question or doubt. We do these things because we have not yet become who God has called us to be and we want  to be that person.

            Jesus told his disciples, “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”  Jesus never told them that they will receive what they were asking for or find exactly what they were looking for.  He just promises that we will receive. We will find. The door will be openned. We will become who God has called us to be.

When Prayer is Hard: July 24, 2022

 Year C, Pentecost 7                                 Luke 11: 1-13 and Genesis 18:20-32                               

            Every Sunday, we have two collects at the beginning of our service. The word collect is the Episcopal (fancy) was to say, “Opening prayer.”  We begin with the Collect of Purity which is the same every Sunday.  A few minutes after, we have the collect for the day which is unique every week and reflects some of the themes of the readings. There is a pattern to every collect, an anatomy of a collect. Every collect begins by addressing the name of God. It then acknowledges the character of God. 

            For example, today’s collect begins with the very simple “O God.” That’s the address.  The collect then goes on to acknowledge the character of God by saying, “The protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy.”  Obviously there are many ways that we can describe the character of God.  This week, the author of the collect chose to focus on protection and trust. 

Now I don’t know about you, but when I make up my own prayers, I almost never start by acknowledging the character of God.  I figure, God knows what God is like.  Why do I need to describe God to God?  Yet there is a long tradition of this in our prayers and in the Psalms.  We even see it to a small extent in the way Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “Father, hallowed be your name.”

            By teaching his disciples to start with “Father” he is suggesting a very familiar form of address, a more familiar form than Jewish prayers would have used at this time. In many ways the address itself is also an acknowledgment of the character of God.  Because what is a father?  A father is a parent, hopefully a loving parent who will listen to his children.  Jesus goes on to make the character description even clearer.  This is not just any ordinary father.  This is a father who is holy—whose very name is holy. That is what hallowed means.  This father’s name is holy and worthy of our respect and adoration.

            Why did Jesus teach this prayer?  Was he hoping it would be the one prayer that would unite all Christians across denominations? That is what happened, but I am not sure it was his intention. The disciples did ask him to teach them how to pray.  Consequently a lot of people read this Gospel story and conclude Jesus is prescribing a method of prayer.  However, I am not sure that Jesus was teaching how to pray as much as he was emphasizing the importance of knowing and understanding who we are praying to.  If you look at the parables that follow the teaching of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus isn’t telling stories of ways to pray.   The parables speak to the character of God. 

            It’s the same with the reading from the Old Testament. This reading from Genesis almost seems like we are hearing two people barter. God had decided that Sodom and Gomorrah was an evil city (this was before the angels were sent down to investigate by the way.)  However since God was a just God, he sent a few angels down to do some reconnaissance for him.  Right after he sent them, we have our reading from today where Abraham barters with him.  He knows that God will probably destroy the whole city, but he also knows that God is just and merciful.  In talking to God, Abraham appeals to this characteristic of God.  He says things like, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” Here we have Abraham talking directly to the Lord Almighty, but interestingly he uses the same method of prayer as Jesus taught his disciples and the same ones we use in our collects.  He appealed to God’s character. 

            Was it because God needed a reminder of his own character?  I don’t think so.  I believe it was more of a reminder to Abraham.  Abraham had to remember that despite the power that God wielded (the power to create and destroy), he was still a just and merciful God.

            I have to admit that I struggle with the end of this Gospel reading.  “Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find…”  I struggle because this is not always my experience of prayer and I don’t think its many people’s experience of prayer. Of course we do have prayers that are answered in beautiful and miraculous ways. But sometimes, our most ardent prayers are not answered, not in the way we hope.

Now, there are people who say that God always answers, but sometimes the answer is no.  And that makes sense a lot of the time.  But what about for the spouse or parent who is dying a horrible death and your prayer is that death can come quickly so as not to prolong the agony.? Why in the world would the answer be no?  Or what about for the 4 year old going through chemo?  The family prays the chemo will work and the child still dies.  How could the answer to that prayer be no?  I don’t know.  And I have to tell you, as a clergy person, those questions haunt me.  Because I want to be able to read this text: “Ask and it will be given to you…” with conviction, but I waffle a little. 

            Which is why I think that when we talk about prayer, the focus cannot be on how we pray or even the outcome of the prayer, but the God we are praying to …the character of God.   As I mentioned earlier, in my personal prayers…I don’t usually start by describing God.  However, while I was working on this sermon, I thought I would give it a shot.  I started with a low stakes thing. Joshua was having his first sleepover.  It was 11:30 and Joshua’s friend was passed out on the floor.  Joshua was wide awake.  I started, “Dear God, who loves me and wants me to sleep…who believes that in returning and rest we are saved, please make my kid go to sleep…”  While it was not immediately effective, I found it comforting. It made me feel less alone in that moment.

            Prayer is a really difficult thing.  When I was in the hospital, I found it extraordinarily hard to pray. When I got home there were dozens of cards from people telling me that they were praying for me, and that meant so much. It reminded me of how important the church community is.  Because when we don’t have the strength to pray, we have others praying for us. 

            That is one of the reasons why we have baptisms on Sunday mornings, so the whole community can pray for the child.  Thad and his family don’t live locally (yet), but for now, Thad will be a baptized member of St. John’s.  And when you find a new community, we will rejoice with you. There will be difficult times as parents, as a family, but please know that you are not meant to do this alone.  God wants you to have a community of the faithful, to be there when you aren’t strong enough to pray on your own—to remind you that our God is a loving God who believes in the importance of rest and restoration.  Our God is a holy God who loves us even more than we love our children or our most cherished friend.  Imagine that—a God who loves us more than we love anyone on this earth. That is a God worth praying to.