Prayer as a means of change - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 11: 1 - 13
A boy in a small village for some reason best known to himself took to attending the weekly Prayer Meeting at the local Methodist church. Each week, the regulars would welcome him warmly when he arrived, always a few minutes late. Each week, he would listen to the prayers but never contribute himself. That is until a few weeks before Christmas when to everyone’s amazement he prayed out loud;
“Dear God, please give me a bike for Christmas so that I can get things from the shops for Mum.”
And week after week, he repeated that same prayer.
Now Christmas was drawing close and the faithful men and women at the prayer meeting began to get concerned. What would be the affect on the boy’s faith if at Christmas, there was no bike. So they got together and each of them put some money into a jar. To their joy, they found that the money they had given would go half way towards the boy getting the type of bike that he had told them he wanted. So they put the money in an envelope and delivered it to the boy’s home just a week before Christmas.
Christmas came and went. The New Year arrived and at the first gathering of the Prayer Meeting in the New Year, the people wondered what the boy’s response would be. Sure enough, the boy arrived a few minutes into the meeting and in no time they got their answer as he prayed;
“Dear God, thank you for giving the money for me to have a new bike. Only, next time, please don’t give it to the Methodists as they nicked half of it.”
What do we expect from prayer. Some people I have met seem to expect miracles on demand. I knew someone who was convinced that a prayer for a parking space would be answered with just such a parking space. Oh, I had to bite my tongue a time or two on that one. For what sort of God would be fail to prevent cruelties such as ethnic cleansings yet come running into action to meet requests that can best be seen as trivial.
And yet, prayer matters. Oh, I confess I have attended some pretty depressing prayer meetings in my time. I know what my late uncle meant when he spoke of prayer meetings that seemed to be a competition in who can use the floweriest language and quote the most remote Scriptures.
But still, this morning, I want to put the case that prayer does matter and is a means of bringing change. Listen for a moment to the words of the greatest of Hindu’s Mahatma Gandhi;
“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”
We see such an appreciation of the importance of prayer in Jesus. There is not a lot of teaching on prayer within the Gospels but the clues are everywhere that Jesus, especially in the stormy passages of life, makes time even in the hours when we would be most inclined to be asleep, to be in prayer before God. And now, in our Gospel reading, he encourages them to pray and in the Lord’s Prayer offers them a pattern to follow in praying.
Sometimes, I fear that we are too familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We can recite it without a second thought and it feels so very homely. And yet, we lose a sense that this is a prayer which boldly challenges how we are often inclined to see God, the world and life.
This morning, we can but scratch the surface. Yet it is a surface that is revealing.
Firstly, we see what the Lord’s Prayer tells us of our relationship with God. And here, there is good news. God is not a distant figure such as a remote king or a patriarchal father who holds his family at arms length. God is so much closer and accessible as is revealed in Jesus having a preference for the intimate term, “Abba” is his addressing God. For Jesus would know of the abuse of power within society and within families. And he goes to great lengths to communicate that god is so different from such destructive understandings. There is a hallowing, a respect directed to God but this should not be seen as a cringing before God. On the contrary, our relationship with God is rooted in a respect which is both given and received. We are called into a healthy relationship with God which will be reflected in our other relationships.
And yet it affects how we see the world. Take note of the petition;
“Your Kingdom come.”
Sometimes, we can be accepting of the way that our world is ordered. We fall into the trap of thinking that it can be no other way. And in so doing, we ignore the claims of the Kingdom of God which Jesus came to proclaim. For this Kingdom is so different from the expressions of empire which litter our history books. Here is a new vision of what can be, a vision in which force, oppression and the power of capital give way to the path of peace in which each is recognised as being of value and worthy of consideration. Unrealistic, some may say. And yet, here is a vision which we are called to for in it is the recognition that every man woman and child is precious to the God who has given life to all. The emphasis on Me gives way in this way of seeing the world to a recognition that in Christ, there is a We.
And it also affects us in our daily living. For we are called to be sensitive to the needs of others seeking that the needs of others be met and that we be willing to exercise forgiveness and reconciliation in our relationships. We know there are times when this is hard and yet we know from experience that bitterness tends to reap a harvest in ever increasing circles of hatred.
But how does all of this work? During the week before last, our family went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Now please don’t ask me questions about it as I kept falling asleep during it. However, I do remember the power of the spells cast by the wizards. A wave of a wand and a shout of “Expelliarnus” seemed to create quite an impact. Well prayer is not like that. It is not a form of magic to be turned to when convenient. That is why Jesus goes on to talk about persistence in prayer.
Now I don’t want to rule out any possibilities in regards to the answering of prayer but I do want to suggest that prayer is primarily about our being connected to God who is always present. And that being connected with God is more about our being changed than it is about God being changed.
Let me use an example. “Shadowlands” is a film based on C.S. Lewis, the Oxford don who was quite a literary sensation years ago with his Narnia stories. In the film , he has fallen in love with Joy Gresham, an American woman. She has sadly developed a terminal illness and during her struggle for life, the love of Lewis and Joy has deepened. Now, at the hospital where she is being cared for, they have married.
Soon after, Lewis has arrived at the college where he taught and been met by his friend, Harry Harrington who is an Episcopalian priest. Harrington asks what news there is. Lewis replies speaking of the marriage rather than the illness;
“Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news.”
Harrington who is unaware of the mariage thinks that Lewis is referring to Joy’s medical situation and so he says;
“I know how hard you’ve been praying. Now God is answering your prayer.”
To which Lewis responds;
“That’s not why I pray Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God; it changes me.”
And in those words we see the reasons why we pray. We pray because we need to be in relationship with God, something we especially appreciate in out times of weakness. Prayer is the opening up of the means of communication and just as we need to communicate with and not just grunt at our significant others, our relationship with God requires communication or it can soon be dormant.
But in that communication, the greatest need is for us to be open to what God communicates to us. That is why the Quakers are on to something with their emphasis on silence. For it is in silence that we are best able to hear what God is saying to us. It is silence that we become open to being changed.
But back for a moment to the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t suppose that God has a desperate need to hear us saying those words. God, as it were, has heard it all before. The need is with us. For our need is to be connected with the nature of God and the nature of our calling to be God’s people. And then, we find before us the invitation to reimagine the world, our relationships and the possibilities before us. Through this prayer we are invited to live in a way that brings the signs of Christ’s liberation for others.
I know I can be cynical but I don’t believe in prayer as a means to find parking spaces. It is so much more than that. What prayer does is to change people. And then people can change all that is around them.
This sermon was preached at Bideford Methodist Church on Sunday July 29th 2007
A boy in a small village for some reason best known to himself took to attending the weekly Prayer Meeting at the local Methodist church. Each week, the regulars would welcome him warmly when he arrived, always a few minutes late. Each week, he would listen to the prayers but never contribute himself. That is until a few weeks before Christmas when to everyone’s amazement he prayed out loud;
“Dear God, please give me a bike for Christmas so that I can get things from the shops for Mum.”
And week after week, he repeated that same prayer.
Now Christmas was drawing close and the faithful men and women at the prayer meeting began to get concerned. What would be the affect on the boy’s faith if at Christmas, there was no bike. So they got together and each of them put some money into a jar. To their joy, they found that the money they had given would go half way towards the boy getting the type of bike that he had told them he wanted. So they put the money in an envelope and delivered it to the boy’s home just a week before Christmas.
Christmas came and went. The New Year arrived and at the first gathering of the Prayer Meeting in the New Year, the people wondered what the boy’s response would be. Sure enough, the boy arrived a few minutes into the meeting and in no time they got their answer as he prayed;
“Dear God, thank you for giving the money for me to have a new bike. Only, next time, please don’t give it to the Methodists as they nicked half of it.”
What do we expect from prayer. Some people I have met seem to expect miracles on demand. I knew someone who was convinced that a prayer for a parking space would be answered with just such a parking space. Oh, I had to bite my tongue a time or two on that one. For what sort of God would be fail to prevent cruelties such as ethnic cleansings yet come running into action to meet requests that can best be seen as trivial.
And yet, prayer matters. Oh, I confess I have attended some pretty depressing prayer meetings in my time. I know what my late uncle meant when he spoke of prayer meetings that seemed to be a competition in who can use the floweriest language and quote the most remote Scriptures.
But still, this morning, I want to put the case that prayer does matter and is a means of bringing change. Listen for a moment to the words of the greatest of Hindu’s Mahatma Gandhi;
“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”
We see such an appreciation of the importance of prayer in Jesus. There is not a lot of teaching on prayer within the Gospels but the clues are everywhere that Jesus, especially in the stormy passages of life, makes time even in the hours when we would be most inclined to be asleep, to be in prayer before God. And now, in our Gospel reading, he encourages them to pray and in the Lord’s Prayer offers them a pattern to follow in praying.
Sometimes, I fear that we are too familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We can recite it without a second thought and it feels so very homely. And yet, we lose a sense that this is a prayer which boldly challenges how we are often inclined to see God, the world and life.
This morning, we can but scratch the surface. Yet it is a surface that is revealing.
Firstly, we see what the Lord’s Prayer tells us of our relationship with God. And here, there is good news. God is not a distant figure such as a remote king or a patriarchal father who holds his family at arms length. God is so much closer and accessible as is revealed in Jesus having a preference for the intimate term, “Abba” is his addressing God. For Jesus would know of the abuse of power within society and within families. And he goes to great lengths to communicate that god is so different from such destructive understandings. There is a hallowing, a respect directed to God but this should not be seen as a cringing before God. On the contrary, our relationship with God is rooted in a respect which is both given and received. We are called into a healthy relationship with God which will be reflected in our other relationships.
And yet it affects how we see the world. Take note of the petition;
“Your Kingdom come.”
Sometimes, we can be accepting of the way that our world is ordered. We fall into the trap of thinking that it can be no other way. And in so doing, we ignore the claims of the Kingdom of God which Jesus came to proclaim. For this Kingdom is so different from the expressions of empire which litter our history books. Here is a new vision of what can be, a vision in which force, oppression and the power of capital give way to the path of peace in which each is recognised as being of value and worthy of consideration. Unrealistic, some may say. And yet, here is a vision which we are called to for in it is the recognition that every man woman and child is precious to the God who has given life to all. The emphasis on Me gives way in this way of seeing the world to a recognition that in Christ, there is a We.
And it also affects us in our daily living. For we are called to be sensitive to the needs of others seeking that the needs of others be met and that we be willing to exercise forgiveness and reconciliation in our relationships. We know there are times when this is hard and yet we know from experience that bitterness tends to reap a harvest in ever increasing circles of hatred.
But how does all of this work? During the week before last, our family went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Now please don’t ask me questions about it as I kept falling asleep during it. However, I do remember the power of the spells cast by the wizards. A wave of a wand and a shout of “Expelliarnus” seemed to create quite an impact. Well prayer is not like that. It is not a form of magic to be turned to when convenient. That is why Jesus goes on to talk about persistence in prayer.
Now I don’t want to rule out any possibilities in regards to the answering of prayer but I do want to suggest that prayer is primarily about our being connected to God who is always present. And that being connected with God is more about our being changed than it is about God being changed.
Let me use an example. “Shadowlands” is a film based on C.S. Lewis, the Oxford don who was quite a literary sensation years ago with his Narnia stories. In the film , he has fallen in love with Joy Gresham, an American woman. She has sadly developed a terminal illness and during her struggle for life, the love of Lewis and Joy has deepened. Now, at the hospital where she is being cared for, they have married.
Soon after, Lewis has arrived at the college where he taught and been met by his friend, Harry Harrington who is an Episcopalian priest. Harrington asks what news there is. Lewis replies speaking of the marriage rather than the illness;
“Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news.”
Harrington who is unaware of the mariage thinks that Lewis is referring to Joy’s medical situation and so he says;
“I know how hard you’ve been praying. Now God is answering your prayer.”
To which Lewis responds;
“That’s not why I pray Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God; it changes me.”
And in those words we see the reasons why we pray. We pray because we need to be in relationship with God, something we especially appreciate in out times of weakness. Prayer is the opening up of the means of communication and just as we need to communicate with and not just grunt at our significant others, our relationship with God requires communication or it can soon be dormant.
But in that communication, the greatest need is for us to be open to what God communicates to us. That is why the Quakers are on to something with their emphasis on silence. For it is in silence that we are best able to hear what God is saying to us. It is silence that we become open to being changed.
But back for a moment to the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t suppose that God has a desperate need to hear us saying those words. God, as it were, has heard it all before. The need is with us. For our need is to be connected with the nature of God and the nature of our calling to be God’s people. And then, we find before us the invitation to reimagine the world, our relationships and the possibilities before us. Through this prayer we are invited to live in a way that brings the signs of Christ’s liberation for others.
I know I can be cynical but I don’t believe in prayer as a means to find parking spaces. It is so much more than that. What prayer does is to change people. And then people can change all that is around them.
This sermon was preached at Bideford Methodist Church on Sunday July 29th 2007
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