Teach Us to Pray

(Part 4)

In the delightful movie Sister Act Whoopi Goldberg plays the part of a nightclub singer who needs to be protected from gangsters. The police hide her in a convent. In her first day as a “nun” she sits down to a meal with the sisters and winds up asking the blessing on the meal. Apparently unaccustomed to praying, this is her prayer:

Bless us, O Lord, for these thy gifts which we are about to receive….and…Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of no food…I will fear…no hunger. We want you to give us this day our daily bread…And to the republic for which it stands…And by the power invested in me I pronounce us ready to eat. Amen.

I guess you could say that’s a pretty honest and genuine prayer! We are continuing this series of sermons on prayer. In Matthew 6:5-8 Jesus tells us how to pray and how not to pray. He says don’t be like hypocrites who love to pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so they can be noticed. But, when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus also says we are not to heap up empty phrases (the Greek word here means “babble”) as the Gentiles do, imagining that the more wordy the prayer the better chance we have of being heard. Remember, Jesus says, that God knows what we need even before we ask.

It might help us if we can understand some of the background behind Jesus’ words in Matthew 6. Jews in Jesus’ time valued prayer and had a number of different prayers that they were to pray daily. These were beautiful prayers and could be prayed from the heart with loving devotion. However, these prayers could also be an empty habit, mumbled with little thought or meaning.

The devout Jew would pray three times a day at set times: 9 a.m., 12 noon and 3 p.m. Whatever that person was doing at those times had to be stopped for prayer. Imagine someone stopping what he was doing, and at the designated prayer time standing with arms stretched out, palms upward, head bowed (the Jewish posture for prayer), going into a long prayer where everybody could hear. It could become a performance or show.

Also, in some of the pagan religions people would repeat a phrase over and over, as in 1 Kings 18:26 where the prophets of the pagan god Baal for a half a day kept crying out, “O Baal, hear us”! So, this kind of repetitious prayer could become almost a magic incantation. So, Jesus is warning us about prayer that becomes an outward show, or praying that is mere ritual or hollow repetition of words without thought or meaning.

If we think about it, can’t we fall into these same prayer traps today? In our private prayer life, we can easily mumble words while our mind is on something else. For instance, saying grace before a meal can become empty and repetitious, perhaps our offering the same sing-song type of blessing before each meal. Prayers in church can become hollow ritual. We might say the words of the Lord’s Prayer without much thought, or we may repeat liturgical prayers from a hymnal or church bulletin while our mind is on some other thing. Prayer can become just as much an empty ritual even in an informal praise service if we wind up praying the same kind of extemporaneous prayer week after week.

Please note that Jesus is not forbidden public prayer. I’ve heard some people say that they’re against praying out loud with others because Jesus says we’re to pray in our room with the door shut. Hebrews of the Old Testament prayed publicly and together. Jesus prayed publicly with His disciples and others. Christian in the New Testament Church prayed out loud together. Jesus is not forbidding public prayer, but rather telling us that prayer should not bring attention to us but to God, and prayer should not degenerate into merely hollow repetition of words.

Let’s think more about Jesus’ words and what they can say about our praying. First note that our prayers should be natural. Sometimes a person will talk quite naturally in conversation with others, but when this person prays he or she will kick into a different mode, as though one has to talk differently in prayer, or have to sound religious or “churchy”. If prayer is simply communication with God – talking and listening – then we should forget about “praying” and just talk to God in a natural way! Of course, God is awesome and holy! I’m not suggesting that we get so chummy with the Almighty that we ever lose a sense of reverence. We can bow in awe before God and yet talk in a natural way.

A lot of Christians are very timid about praying out loud with others around. Think about that. Why are we afraid to pray out loud? Probably because we’re afraid we won’t say the right words, or we’ll stumble around and people might laugh at our prayer. But you see, we are not praying to the people around us. We are talking to God! I heard a story about Tony Campolo in this regard. He had prayed before a group of people. After he was done, someone came up to him and said she didn’t like his prayer. In Tony’s usual forthright manner he replied to her: “I wasn’t talking to you!”

A man tells of the time when he was asked to open a morning worship service on the 4th of July with prayer. He worked up a very eloquent and patriotic prayer to impress everyone. But he got nervous and excited as it came time for the prayer. He got up and prayed very eloquently. When he got back to his seat one of the other leaders in the worship service asked him who was the lady off the coast with scales in her hand! He had meant to refer to the Statue of Liberty!

Now there is a place for beautiful, eloquent prayers, as long as they are from the heart. But the goal is not to present an eloquent prayer but to communicate with God. I like the approach taken in the Alpha course. Leaders are instructed that if they pray out loud in the group to make the prayer simple, like “Thank you for the weather!”. That way someone who may not be used to praying might think, “Well, I can do better than that!”.

Prayer should be natural.

Also, our prayer should be honest. When we pray, don’t we have a tendency to say what we think God wants to hear, or to pray what is the expected thing – as if God would be shocked if He really knew what we’re thinking or feeling! This is foolish, because God knows what we’re thinking and feeling anyway.

For instance, think about our saying grace before a meal. Have you ever sat down to a meal or dish you didn’t like and prayed a nice grace over it? “Thank you Lord for this food which we’re about to eat. Thank you for giving us food when many are hungry in the world. Help us always to be grateful. Praise you, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Then immediately after praying we turned up our nose and said, “Ugh. Leftovers again!”

A famous preacher named Peter Marshall used to hate a certain dish. When that dish was served at a meal he would usually say to his wife, “Catherine, you’ll have to say grace tonight.”

Keith Miller is a Christian author. His book The Taste of New Wine was a landmark book that helped spark the lay renewal movement of the last 30-40 years. Included in his book is a stimulating chapter on prayer. He told of his own struggle to develop a regular period of prayer in the morning. He writes: “At this point a new honesty crept into my prayers. Before this, I had always started out by saying ‘God, I adore you’ (whether I really did or not that morning). Now I could say (when it was true), ‘Lord, I am sorry but I am tired of you today. I am tired of trying to do your will all of the time, and I’d like to run away and raise hell’. But I could also continue: ‘But Lord, forgive me for this willfulness; and even though I don’t feel like it, I ask you to lead me today to be your person and to do your will.’”

He continues, “Instead of saying, ‘Lord, today I exaggerated a little on my expense account, but you know everyone does’ I was able to say, ‘Lord, I cheated on my expense account today. Help me not to be a dirty thief.’ Or instead of saying, ‘Lord, I couldn’t help noticing that secretary down the hall…but you know that boys will be boys’, I began to be able to level with God and to say openly to Him, ‘Lord, I thought of sleeping with that girl in my imagination. This is the kind of man I am. Forgive me and give me the power and desire to be different.’”

One of my all time favorite honest prayers goes back to my days in theological seminary. We students would each take a turn to open this one class with prayer. It was a day of a big exam. The professor handed out the sheet with the test questions. I looked at it and sort of gagged. The student who prayed that morning prayed this prayer, and I quote: “God, help! Amen.”

Years ago I came across an offbeat little book written by a British minister named David Head. The book is called He Sent Leanness. It is a tiny, rather humorous volume of prayers. These prayers represent the kind of prayers we would probably never say, but words that we may think or feel. Here are some of those prayers:

“We have done wrong, but we hope nobody will find out.” “God forgive him…for I never will.” “Bless all (minorities), but don’t let them come to live next door.” “Bless all natives in foreign ports, and keep them there.” I’ve always lived a decent life. What have I done to deserve this?” “I thank thee that I had more gallstones than Mrs. Peters.”

Here is a litany from that little book: “We pray that the sick may be visited, the prisoner cared for, the refugee rehabilitated, the naked clothed, the orphan housed, and that we may be allowed to enjoy our own (homes), evening by evening in peace. Lord be good to us. Christ, make things easy for us. Lord, deliver us from the necessity of doing anything.”

Have you ever really looked at some of the honest prayers found in the Bible? Check out some of the psalms, or the prayers of Job, of Jeremiah, of Moses! These great people of the Bible were not afraid to be honest with God in what they prayed. Our prayers should be honest.

Then too, our prayers should be to the point. Something can be said for brevity in praying. The value of a prayer is not judged by its length. A 20 minute prayer is not necessarily twice as effective as a 10 minute prayer. All of us may have had the experience of listening to long prayers that others pray. Perhaps we have been half put to sleep by the long-winded prayers of a prayer warrior! I still remember as a child gathering for the opening part of Sunday School, and hearing the superintendent pray very long prayers week after week. He was a very nice man, but we kids joked about his long-winded prayers!

On the other hand, a radiant Christian I knew many times told the testimony of how he was converted to Christ when in desperation he prayed a prayer of 7 words: “God, help me, help me, help me.” I still remember the exact words of a brief prayer one of my seminary professors would often pray as he opened his class: “God, save us from ourselves, lest we perish.”

I think a good rule of thumb is this: for public prayer, keep it short. For private prayer, pray as long as we feel we need to pray in order to keep our relationship with God alive and well. There is certainly something to be said for taking time in our own private praying to nurture our relationship with God – especially since many Christians today spend little time praying. The crucial issue, I think, is not how long our prayer is, but does it come from the heart? Is it honest? Do we say what we mean and mean what we say?

When Jesus said that we are not to repeat empty phrases in our praying, I believe He also means that our prayers should be sincere and earnest. There is this great verse in the New Testament Book of Acts: “While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him” (Acts 12:5). The word “fervently” in the Greek means “stretched out” – literally “strained.” It suggests this imagery. You are running a race, and as you approach the finish line there are several runners ahead of you. So you stretch every muscle and fiber, every ounce of your strength and being, to try to pass them and win the race. This is what our praying should be like! The word used in Acts 12:5 is the same word used of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He prayed so fervently that He sweat drops of blood. This kind of earnest, heartfelt prayer is contrasted to the hollow repetition, the mumbled words of a half-hearted prayer.

One Sunday in a city in the Midwest a youngster was acting up in church. The parents did their best to keep him settled but had little success. Finally, the exasperated father picked up the little guy and walked sternly back the aisle to leave the sanctuary. Just before reaching the narthex the little boy called loudly to the congregation, “Pray for me! Pray for me!” Now that is an earnest prayer!

Perhaps you are thinking, “Harry, a lot of my prayers are not that intense. In fact, a lot of times when I pray it just seems to be kind of dry and routine.” A little boy was asked if he ever prayed. He answered, “Sometimes I pray, but sometimes I just say my prayers.”

I’ll bet we can identify with the words of this little boy.

If we pray regularly, most likely a lot of our prayers are not filled with excitement and pizzazz. In a way, this is realistic. Building a meaningful prayer life doesn’t mean we’re going to be on a mountain high every time we pray. We need the discipline of praying even when we don’t feel like it, of hanging in there when we go through dry spells and it doesn’t seem like God is near at all. It’s kind of like building a good marriage. Many times we give a perfunctory kiss to our spouse as we leave the house. Often we don’t feel waves of romance or emotion. But we hang in during these times so that there can be those moments of passion and romance. Don’t get discouraged or beat on yourself when prayer time seems dry and routine.

What we’ve talked about in this sermon can add freshness to our praying. Jesus said we are not to heap up empty phrases, vain repetition. We are not to babble when we pray!

When we catch ourselves praying in a way that we’re not even thinking about the words we’re saying, or when we simply repeat hollow, ritualistic prayers, stop! Think about what we’re doing and saying. And try to be more natural, more honest with God. Say what we mean; mean what we say. Try to put into words what we’re really feeling, and I believe our prayer life can be rejuvenated.

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