Prayer With Action
Posted on Jul 24, 2016 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in each of us.
When I first began planning my sermon plans a few months ago, I was actually excited about preaching on this text. I mean, I find prayer to be a powerful thing and I love to talk about prayer. But, to be honest, after what has happened in the past month, the shootings in Orlando, Dallas, Baton Rouge, and St. Paul, the senseless killings in Nice, France, and Berlin, and of course the killing of another police officer, David Melton, right here in Kansas City this week, it is difficult for me this week to talk about prayer. I have continued to pray for peace, for healing for the sick, and I always give thanks. But lately, life just seems overwhelming and that God is too far away, so why are we all bothering to pray.
Now, don’t worry, I haven’t given up on prayer, but I have asked, particularly this week as I read and reread these words of Jesus’, why am I doing this and I suspect many of you are asking the same question as you watch the news each day, or as you deal with the illnesses and issues in your own lives. In fact, I have had some of you ask, “Does God really answer prayer? If so, why are some of my prayers not answered?” And, if God does really answer prayer, can I pray for anything, healing, wealth, a loving relationship, and expect God to answer? Or, if God doesn’t answer my prayer, does that mean I prayed wrong? These are difficult questions and in some cases they are impossible to answer, but I think we still have to wrestle with them to try and figure out what it is Jesus is really saying to us in this story today.
Now, there is no doubt that when asked how to pray, Jesus had a few critical points that he was clear on. Frist, he wanted his followers to know that the God we pray to, is not like any other god. Our God is like a loving parent who will do anything for his, or her, child and our God is different from all others because our God is holy. Secondly he teaches us that we ought to pray that God’s world will become our world. And finally he says, we have to trust that God will make this happen and so we ought to boldly and persistently pray for it.
Now, one of the problems with this text is that for most of us we have memorized the words, at least the words the church used hundreds of years ago and we can say it without realizing what we are praying for. Think about it, when we pray, “thy kingdom come, they will be done,” or “your kingdom come, your will be done…” are we serious. Do we want God’s kingdom to come? If so, God’s kingdom is very different from this world we live in. Do we want God’s will to be done? If so, remember what happened to Jesus when he said, later in this same Gospel, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). God’s will was the cross for Jesus. This prayer that we call the Lord’s prayer is not about a wish list of things we want, or Christmas list that we send of to Santa. Jesus says if you want to know how to pray like I pray than pray for our Father’s will to be done.
Now as I thought about that this week something struck me, all too often I think of prayer as a passive activity. All too often I when I pray, I say the words, then I walk away and expect God will do something about what I just said. My assumption too often is that God will do the work and all I have to do is say the words, but I don’t think that is what Jesus was teaching his disciples. What if, instead, prayer is about being in full relationship with God? What if instead of treating prayer as if we were putting a message in a bottle and hoping God finds it, we treated prayer as a way to be in conversation with God? What if when we prayed we trusted that God not only heard our prayer, but then did what God said God would do and that is empower us with the gift of the Holy Spirit. After all, that is what Jesus said God would do when we pray at the end of our text today (11:13), “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
So, if prayer is first knowing who God is and trusting that God will do what God says, and, if prayer is that ongoing conversation with God that reminds me that God has empowered me with the gift of the Holy Sprit, then instead just sitting back and waiting for God to answer my prayers, after I pray, I would start moving, get to work, actually start living into the reality of what I’ve prayed for. So rather than pray for someone who is lonely, maybe I need to go visit that person. Maybe instead of just saying God bring peace, I need to get involved more with issues surrounding guns and their availability, mental illness and our societies unwillingness to provide help for those with such illnesses. Maybe I need to protest when police use unnecessary force, and find ways to support them when they are being attacked and killed while they are trying to uphold law and order. Maybe instead of saying, “Lord, take away my sister’s cancer,” I need to support her more. Maybe I need to call her, visit her and make sure she knows I will be there for here every step of the way.
I can’t end violence. I can’t stop terrorists from doing what they want to do. I can’t end cancer, but I can be active in bringing about moments of peace. I can be willing to live differently so that God’s kingdom can come. I can support medical science so it can find a way to cure cancer.
Look, I know this doesn’t answer all of our questions about prayer, and it certainly doesn’t ease the pain of when we feel our prayers are not heard. But it does invite us to imagine that as we live into the future we pray for, we ought to pray boldly and constantly. As we pray, we ought to know that we are in relationship with God and we are saying that we are willing to be part of the solution.
At times prayer is words that we say alone in moments of thanksgiving or desperation. At times prayer is words we share with others, gathered as community, or around a hospital bed. And at other times prayer is action and work as we try to live into and even bring about those things we’ve prayed for. Praying is also knowing that God does understand our hurts and disappointments because that same God we pray with and to, took them on for us in the form of Jesus. Today, Jesus challenges us to pray with confidence trusting that if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will God give us as we embrace God’s Holy Spirit and live, as well as speak, our prayers.
Brothers and sisters, there are so many people who need our prayers; prayers of words and prayers of action, so go, pray with action. Amen.