Lord, Teach Us to Pray
Genesis 18:20-33 Luke 11:1-13
God is great, God is good, Let us thank Him for our food. Amen.
Lord, teach us to pray.
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Lord, teach us to pray.
Prayer. So much a part of our lives, enough so as to create public controversy, yet so mystical and shrouded in the deepest folds of our cosmic being that the disciples – and us – can question our own ability to pray.
I have tried to remember when I first began to learn about prayer. One instance that made an early and indelible impression with regard to prayer occurred when I was about six years old. I was looking for my mother and did not find her in any of the usual places – the kitchen, her sewing room, the laundry. I noticed the door to the living room was closed and as I went in, I found her, kneeling in prayer. Now, I say this with more understanding than the short version may seem, but rather than invite me to join her, she sent me away.
I think that incident implanted a sense that prayer – more than the mealtime recitation of a child – was something done in private, alone – perhaps with an attached sense of shame or fear of exposure. In any event, it was many years later before I discovered regular prayer as a satisfying aspect of my spiritual life.
I must also say that I have been blessed to have been exposed to two of the great praying church traditions in all Christendom – the Episcopal Church and the African-American church.
One of the things I learned in the African-American church is the absolute importance of prayer to integrating the different aspects of one’s life. A typical morning prayer of thanksgiving is, “Thank you Lord for waking me from death’s grip this morning and giving me a sound mind.” To declare each morning the victory of life over death in a world where death is always at hand and to acknowledge that one’s sanity has been preserved in the midst of the insanity of a world where one human can enslave another, simply because of the color of their skin, affirms God’s love even in our suffering.
In the Episcopal Church, as in most churches, there are areas of study and competencies to be learned and demonstrated as part of the process that takes one toward ordination. These areas include knowledge of and skill in interpreting the Bible, theology, liturgy, and ethics. Church history, issues in contemporary society, and the theory and practice of ministry round out the areas of examination. I cannot help but note the conspicuous absence of prayer as an area of competency.
Of course it is perhaps reasonable to assume that without a certain capacity for prayer, the candidate will likely never survive examination in the other areas anyway…
Just as there are three things – food, water, and rest – necessary to our physical development, so, it has been said, there are three things necessary to our growth as spiritual beings – the sacraments, preaching, and prayer. However, I doubt the first two can be of much effect without the third.
The volumes of words written about prayer over the centuries could fill libraries. The discourses, debates, and divisions centered around prayer – what and how – have claimed huge amounts of energy from many lives over the centuries. I find one useful approach to wrapping my mind around that which constitutes prayer is to identify the ways in which we pray – styles of prayer. Margaret Poloma, a Roman Catholic Pentecostal and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at University of Akron together with George Gallup (Margaret M. Poloma and George H. Gallup, Jr., Varieties of Prayer, 1991) identify these as:
Contemplative-Meditative: intimate and personal relation with the divine and "being in the presence of God." This is especially what we see as Jesus frequently pulled back from his engagement with the disciples and the public, withdrawing to a place of quiet retreat where he could enjoy being in the presence of God. Interestingly, Poloma, in her work found that as we get older, it is contemplative prayer that engages us more and more. How often do we spend time just feeling or being in the presence of God? How often do we spend time worshipping or adoring God? I surely find it necessary to gather, as at the start of our worship, the sounds and sights and smells from around me and center my thoughts and focus on being present to God.
Ritual Prayer: repetition of prayers from memory or written material. This is, of course, recognized by us who describe ourselves as being formed by the Book of Common Prayer. To utilize prayers, which have been tested over centuries of usage, is to engage our minds and souls in the company of the faithful through the ages.
Who cannot respond to the Collect from Compline:
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, orThere is a unique and uplifting sense that derives from knowing that around the world, these prayers are being joined by millions of others. To use written and memorized prayers stimulates us to a higher level in extemporaneous prayer as well. In a denomination, not to be named here, there is great pride in their use of extemporaneous prayer – yet, to listen to most of the prayers prayed in worship is to hear repetition without the encompassing cares expressed as we recite the prayers of the people or engage in intercessions in the daily office.
weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who
sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless
the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the
joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.
Petitionary Prayer: asking God to meet specific needs. For many, this is the most used form of prayer – Lord, help me pass this test. Lord, don’t let that highway patrolman give me a ticket. But it is also an essential form of prayer. Isaac asks, “Father, where is the lamb?” to which Abraham replies, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb…” Peter steps out onto the water at the Lord’s command to come. But then a flicker of the tumultuous wave catches the corner of his eye; his vision is drawn away from the Christ to the physical world around him; and, he begins to sink – “Lord, save me!” In the epistle of James we are told that we have not because we do not ask. To humble ourselves before God and acknowledge our own inability to know, much less, achieve, what it is we truly need is a step toward letting go of our small self and growing into the person whom God sees in us. “Lord, teach us to pray” is petitionary prayer at its best.
Colloquial Prayer: conversation with God. How often do we talk with God in our own words? This is the kind of prayer that seems quite common in the Old Testament, in the early books. But as worship moved to the cultic centers and became a priestly function, it seems that many of the laity were willing to lay aside this aspect of their spiritual life. For some great conversational prayers between God and man read the book of Job or of Daniel.
Intercessory Prayer: prayer for others. This type of prayer brings us to this wonderful story of the patriarch of us all – Abraham. In the larger story, remember that Abraham is singled out by God to leave his family and his home and journey to “a place I will show you” to begin a great and new nation. With fits of ups and downs, of heroism and cowardice, of trust and fear, Abraham has settled in the hills of Canaan whilst his nephew, Lot, with his family has settled in the plain to the east and as the story opens are living in Sodom. Betsy spoke last week of Abraham and Sarah’s hospitality to these unexpected strangers – to God in the flesh – suddenly appearing at the door of their tent so to speak. This further highlights the “sin of Sodom” - the outcry that had come to heaven - which, contrary to inculturated opinion, had nothing to do with sexual preference or practice. Rather, we are plainly told in Ezekiel that “pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me…” It was inhospitality, the abuse of the stranger in their midst that was the great sin of Sodom. Yet Abraham, one who had experienced hospitality as a stranger in Haran, in Canaan, and in Egypt could show himself hospitable – as God would generations later admonish Abraham’s descendants in the desert – “Love the stranger, therefore, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 10) and yet intercede for others. Out of our own neediness before God we become the vehicle for meeting neediness in others – we become at once, intercessor and vessel of blessing.
And with all that said, just as life is better lived than watched from the sidelines, so prayer is better practiced than preached.
Lord, teach us to pray.
And in our prayer give us joy, peace, the life of Christ so that as we celebrate his death and resurrection, we might truly say, AMEN!
John Dryden Burton
29 July 2007
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