“The Essence of Prayer”

A Sermon Preached at First Presbyterian Church

By Dr. James R. Henery

Sunday, June 8, 2008 

Joe is in trouble, his business has gone bust.  He’s in serious financial trouble,  desperate and he prays to God for help.  “God, please help me.  I’ve lost my business and if I don’t get some money I’ll lose my house.  Please let me win the lottery.”  Lottery night comes and somebody else wins.  Joe prays again, “God, let me win the lottery.  I’ve lost my business, I’m losing my house, I’m going to lose my car.”  Lottery night comes again and Joe does not win.  He again prays, “God, why aren’t you helping me?  I’ve lost my business, my house, my car, my wife and children are hungry.  I don’t often come to you for help and I’ve always been a good servant to you.  Please just let me win the lottery one time, so I can get my life back in order.”  There’s a blinding flash of light, the heavens open and Joe is confronted by the voice of God. “Joe, meet me halfway on this one….buy a ticket.”

This is how Jesus teaches us to pray: Whenever you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and  pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others.  Truly I tell you they have received their reward but whenever you  pray, go into your room, shut the door and pray to your father who is in     secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

The essence of prayer. 

This sermon began a couple of weeks ago with a news clipping out of Wellington, New Zealand, that reported two pilots who had built an ultralight plane.  They took it on a flight and ran out of gas.  While looking for an emergency landing strip or field, they encountered a ridge they would have crashed into, but they flew over it.  Here’s the rest of the story:  “My friend and I are both Christians and so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to pray for help,” which they did.  They prayed that they would simply get over the ridge and land and they glided and below them was a grass strip with a 20 foot sign that read, “Jesus is Lord.”  They landed on it, got gas and went back home. 

I’m thinking perhaps they should have prayed for more intelligence … to put enough gas in their one gallon tank before they flew in the first place.  But prayer for many of us is sort of an out of gas when needed communication.  Although more appropriately, our prayers are probably for more serious needs, people with problems and illnesses, along with praying for direction. 

A recent survey provided these basic results:  four out of five adults pray in a typical week, women pray more than men, and southerners pray more than east or west coasters.  Prayer, I think, in a life of a believer or one in faith is perhaps the most integral and personal aspect of our spiritual, religious being.  But for many of us, me included, it’s often the most difficult, perhaps the most mysterious, perhaps the most misunderstood practice in our faith journeys.  Beyond praying for landing strips, prayer has been or publicly touted at times to be the reason why people win lotteries, an Emmy, ball games and why students pass exams. 

A few years ago perhaps some of you read, The Prayer of Jabez, which for a time on the New York Times bestseller list, was number one.  This small book was totally based on one verse in one small chapter in I Chronicles, chapter 4, about this rather obscure Jabez, who has a one verse prayer that goes this way.  He’s praying to God, “Bless me and give me more property,” or more literally it reads “bless me and enlarge my territory,” and God granted what he asked.  That’s it and the author writes a book turning this into a million dollar profit based on making this the prayer of Jabez.  It also became known among many people as a greed prayer and now linked to what is called the Prosperity Gospel.  Since then, the author sold everything, moved to Africa, tried to start a program called Dream for Africa, irritated the Africans and basically has gone into somewhat seclusion.  When the book first came out the editor of Publisher’s Weekly called the book or the concept, “very American … the whole notion that if you know the right technique, the right form, the right words, the prayer will be effective and efficient, kind of like golf.” 

I’ve never thought my prayers were like golf on Sunday morning, except for the hit and miss times, in terms of what I didn’t pray for or what I did.  Which brings me to the title, The Essence of Prayer, how Jesus simplifies, yet I think elevates prayer to a higher level of private and reflective communication.  Go to your room, shut the door, pray in secret.  And then suggests that if we don’t know what to pray for or how to pray, then we should use the words that follow:  “Our father who art in heaven….”  Just that prayer is in stark contrast to the Jabez prayer.  The Lord’s Prayer being one of quiet dignity that seeks help but not stuff, that prays for others, not ones own problems or ones own turf.  The essence of prayer becomes the vital connection with this God, without scripts, without public displays, without even knowing what words to use. 

I’ve always been somewhat suspect about civil religion and public prayer, where clergy are often selected as the proper prayers for groups or functions.  I experienced as a Navy chaplain being required to pray for ships and deployments as if my prayer would be reciprocated by God as insurance for a successful cruise or a task.  I often thought this was out of my boundary. 

But is it any different than when two sports teams play each other and pray to the same God or when we pray before major decisions or health reasons?  When we pray what do we often expect if not an answer?  But I think the essence of prayer is about a relationship wherein divine participation in our lives takes over.  It’s not predicated on answers or solutions or some kind of quick response but a transcendent presence—not for success or failure—but for understanding, not just words and eloquent litanies to sound right or pious, but honest expressions that confess, not profess. 

The essence of prayer, after all, says Jesus, has to be said apart from the public display so that it becomes a one-on-one experience.  And that’s kind of difficult for us isn’t it?  When prayer means trying to formulate the right kind of language, believing God actually hears us because of what we say.  It’s a conversation that begs for a deeper awareness of what is appropriate or necessary.  If all our prayers were always for someone else, for someone else’s needs or situations, if always our prayers were successful, then the validity of our attempts would be overwhelming and we might actually feel that we had learned how to do it. 

It doesn’t work that way.  Our prayers aren’t answered just in our own way or in our own time.  The authenticity of prayer carries a significant price tag for our petitions and requests and are not likely resolved or answered in the way or manner we choose.  The essence of prayer may be that we will never fully recognize or accept the answers that are forthcoming. 

Does that mean we aren’t heard?  It simply means that we are not in charge.  Prayer is a challenge for many of us often because the response isn’t something we can demand.  We do not control it and when the prayer isn’t answered in our way then we question whether or not this God or this Jesus exists or was receptive. 

Perhaps we have been too cavalier, too contemporary about prayer—treating it like a remote control device or a website bookmark we can immediately access.  We can surf for prayers to see if we can tap into an immediate spiritual resource where God exists just for our immediate whims. That possibly prayer has become a contest where we bargain for results with God’s help.  If I do certain things then God will favorably respond with a physical or spiritual sort of gratification.  Maybe even a lottery.

When I was growing up, we had this a wheat field next to us—not at all like the field of dreams in Iowa.  This was a wheat field in mid-Ohio.  And we only had one baseball and that baseball got hit into that wheat field more times that I can remember.  I was usually chosen to go in and get the ball and I would approach that field of wheat always with the same prayer every single time.  “Dear God and Jesus, if you’re listening, we only have one baseball.  Please help me find it and if you do I promise to go to Sunday School at least for the next few weeks.”  And more often than not, we didn’t find the baseball and my parents still made me go.

The essence of prayer is not about possession but about giving up control.  It is as someone has written, “In prayer we don’t change the world, we change ourselves.”  We learn that prayer is not going to God with a shopping list or a remote control function of push button petitionary convenience.  When prayer is beyond win or lose, right or wrong, help or not, when prayer becomes a transformative experience not just on a needed or public basis or even a Sunday morning, the essence is intentionally related to the ultimate source that transcends our requests, whose answers defy time or calendar and whose response I believe taps into the most intimate humanness that we have.  When all of that happens, we will experience God in prayer in any setting as a prayerful moment when prayer begins in silence.  Shut the door and engage the power of spiritual devotion. 

There’s a story about a young rabbi who had taken on his first congregation and in his Friday evening services, half of the congregation stood for the prayer and the other half sat.  They would go back and forth yelling at each other about who was right and wrong during the prayers.  They would shout at each other insisting on how it was supposed to be done and who was right and who was wrong, citing tradition.  Nothing the young rabbi did helped the impasse, so he went out and sought the 99-year-old rabbi who founded that synagogue.  He goes to the Rabbi and asks, “Rabbi, can you tell me please what is the tradition for the congregation, is it to stand or to sit during the prayers?  Is it to stand?”  And the rabbi said, “No.”  “Well then, is it to sit?”  And the rabbi said, “No.”  But the young rabbi said, “We have chaos.  Half stand, half sit and they’re yelling back and forth.”  And the old rabbi said, “Oh yes, that is the tradition.” 

So how do we pray?  How do we do it on our own during the week?  A particular moment?   A particular place?  Particular mood?  How do we do it?  And Jesus says, “Do it first by yourself to your father, your Abba.  Do it in secret to your father who sees in secret will reward you.” 

The essence of prayer is not to be found in the words or the place or the reply, but rather, in the honesty in which we pray. 

Or as the late 19^th century preacher at Harvard University, Philip Brooks, wrote:

“Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger people.  Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your tasks.  Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle for you shall be the miracle.”   Amen