Sermons

Oct 21 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor - A Teaching on Prayer

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

Our readings today give me an opportunity to do something that I like to do from time to time, and that is to teach about prayer.

The first lesson is about prayer, even though it doesn’t mention it by name, because it is about intimacy with God, which is what prayer is. Jeremiah speaks of God’s desire for a new relationship with Israel, one that is no longer determined by external obedience, but by an internal relationship of love: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

And in the gospel we’ve just heard, Jesus told his friends a story about their need to pray always and not lose heart, like the persistent widow at the judge’s door.

I’m going to get to these two messages from the scriptures today – one about intimacy with God, and the other about persistence – but first I need to say a word about who or what we are praying to. Who is God for us? This will have a profound effect on how we pray.

For if we see God as a distant and angry father, perhaps learned from our own family of origin, if we pray at all we will pray in fear, daring to approach the throne of God very timidly, like the munchkins creeping towards the Great and Terrible Oz.

On the other hand, if we see God as a buddy, we might have casual conversations with God throughout the day. God, like any other buddy, listens to our requests and then offers a pithy comment, which may not be anything more than an echo of our own brain-chatter.

But for many of us, God is neither to be feared or reduced to a buddy. God can never be fully comprehended; God is pure Spirit; God is the air that we breathe, in our thoughts, blowing through the world we live in, seeing and knowing and infusing everything all at once. God is like energy, the source and animating force of all truth and love, available to all, at any time.

Jeremiah promises that we shall all “know” this Spirit in our hearts. In fact, the Hebrew word in this passage for “know” is yd, which is that intimate knowing between lovers. They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. But how do we “know” a divine mystery, a universal energy? How can such a thing be personal, intimate?

I think it has to do with God’s nearness. God is intimately close, involved in everything we think and do. We don’t have to go to God, as if he or she were far off. All we need to do is what the monk Brother Lawrence used to call “a little interior glance.” But like any intimacy, prayer invites us to go deeper, past that initial glance, into a mutual knowing.

There are many ways to do this, of course. I normally just find a few minutes, sometimes longer, when I can have a little solitude and quiet. Sometimes it is in my study or in my back yard; it can be here in the church in the middle of the day, out on a walk, during an airline flight, lying in bed before I go to sleep, or in the steam room at the gym. Sometimes I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot of a building I’m about to go into. The point is, the opportunities are everywhere.

I then begin to pay attention to my breathing. You might try this now. The breath is really part of that intimately close divine energy I was talking about; the breath God’s gift of life. When we come into this world, out of our mother’s womb, we take in our first breath, and we are animated. The moment we die, our breath leaves us, and our earthly life is no more. In this lifetime, breath is God’s miraculous, moment-to-moment gift of life, always with us, always animating us.

I then move my attention in the center of my chest, where my heart is, and imagine it softening, relaxing. Our relationship to God is, after all, a thing of the heart; it is about our love for one another. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.

When we are in this place of presence, having entered into the intimacy of breath and heart, what then happens? What do we do? Well, for some, they just stay in that place of quiet for a long while, doing contemplative prayer, being with God in whatever mood they’re in - joy or pain or peace or distraction.

Others begin to express what is on their hearts. What is on your heart today? Are you worried about a loved one, a friend, who is struggling? Are you feeling grateful for this day, for the light that comes in the window, for health, for love? Are you trying to change, to become more of the person you and God want you to be? Are you carrying some wider concern, about peace in Iraq, or the poor on our streets?

Whatever it is, hold it before God. Don’t use too many words – that will take you out of your heart and into your head. Just bring your prayer concern into that presence of breath and heart, picture it, if you can, feel it, give voice to it. Know that God cares about everything. You don’t need to earn God’s attention by being more needy than you are, by having a more important concern. Jesus said When you pray, say this: Give us this day our daily bread. What could be more mundane than daily bread?

Don’t run on to the next concern, zipping through a laundry list of requests, in a perfunctory way. Stay with one concern for a few minutes. Keep voicing it, perhaps as a mantra, repeating it for awhile. It is important, I think, to pray deeply, with desire, with focus, with need.

It is also important to pray for the same thing repeatedly, even every day, until something shifts, until some kind of answer emerges. Here is where our gospel teaching on persistence comes in.

In teaching his friends about prayer, Jesus painted a vivid picture. He has us imagine a desperate widow, poor and all alone, whose only recourse is an indifferent judge. She has no other choice but to bang on the door of his home, intruding into his life, again and again, day after day, pouring out her need. The judge finally relents, and gives her the justice she demands.

This is not a story about God’s unconcern or need to be convinced by us. It is about us. In prayer, we are to be that woman. We are to bring before God the things that are on our heart – our desire to change, our worries about others, our vision of hope for our future, our gratitude, our daily need for bread and money and health – and we are to bring these things before God with passion, as if we really mean it.

Then the parable tells us to do this not just once, but day after day. We are to come before God every day with the same hope, need, or desire that is on our heart, until something shifts, until some kind of answer comes. Why? Because we may discover that in the repetition, our prayer changes and we begin asking for something quite different than what we began with. Because in the act of repeating our prayer, our prayer becomes more heart-felt, more real. And this is important.

For something happens with God when we get real. There is some kind of spiritual alchemy that only happens when our genuine desire meets God’s desire, when our will mingles with God’s will. When we do this, it is as if a portal opens up to another world, and we have access to a source of new life far beyond our own limitations. God doesn’t seem to act on us without our involvement. Things only seem to shift when the energy of our heart’s desire joins up with the energy of God.

Then we must learn to trust, to trust that God has heard us, and that the One who is always present, always near, will honor our need. We may not perceive an answer immediately, but one day we will notice that things moved around when we weren’t looking. We became more the person that we felt called to be. Something that appeared to be a big problem just doesn’t seem to be so important anymore. We discover a way to respond to the needs around us. We live with more gratitude and patience.

Prayer is not complicated. God is always near, written in our hearts, closer to us than we are to ourselves. Take a little time, whenever you can, to know this divine mystery that is so near at hand. Begin with a little glance. Then enter into the intimacy of breath and heart. Be persistent, pray always, and do not lose heart. God will always answer.