Luke 18:1-8
In a small Texas town, Drummond's Bar began construction
on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started
a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work
progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar
and it burned to the ground. The church folks were rather smug in their outlook
after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church
was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through
direct or indirect actions or means. The
church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's
demise in its reply to the court. As the
case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the
hearing he commented, 'I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but as it
appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of
prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.'
But prayer is a
complicated thing. There is a very
powerful story in the book, Leaving Northaven (Michael Lindvall. New York: Crossroads Publishing Company, 2002) that I would like to share with
you. The backdrop of the story is a
woman struggling with Parkinson’s who is being told by everyone to pray for God
and trust that God will heal her. She is
speaking with her pastor, named David, at this point.
“On
the 12th of March, 1918, a prairie wolf followed me home from
school. I was walking the righthand rut
of a two-rut road, alongside our cornfield, just stubble in March, of
course. I remember the snow was lying
only in the furrows, blown in there by the wind. It was like black and white stripes. I saw him in the woods on the other side of
the field. Every once and again, he
would move out of the woods, and I would see him moving along with me; he was
watching me. He kept up with me for
maybe half an hour. He was all bone, he
was. Sometimes he would stop and lower
his head and just look at me. I was
scared, but I was afraid to run, like running would let him know I was
alive. So, I just walked real steady and
watched him without turning to look. And
David, I prayed. I prayed like I never
prayed in my life…. It was 1918. The Spanish Influenza. I ran the last hundred yards and burst
through the door glad to be alive. My
parents and brother looked up at me from the kitchen table. Their eyes were red, I remember how their
eyes were red. I’ll never forget it, the
three of them sitting there, looking at me.
My father got up and came to me.
I can still see him. He took me
by both shoulders and looked down at me and told me that Gert had just died,
not ten minutes ago. They had just come
downstairs from our room. Then he held
me tight, so tight it almost hurt. I
remember that especially, how tight he held me.
And then he sobbed. Not for the
whole of your life do you forget it when you see your parents weep. That was the only time I ever saw him
cry. I don’t know that my mother ever
did. Gertrude was my older sister. She was fourteen. I never even told them about the wolf. Never told anybody till now….It was like God
had answered my prayers when the wolf was following me home. So the wolf let me go, but he came for
Gertrude. That’s what I thought. For years, I thought it must have been my
fault. It was like my prayers had caused
it. I know other families had it worse
in the influenza, but I adored her, David.
Why didn’t God answer all those prayers for Gert?… I stopped praying that Parkinson’s would
leave me alone because I remembered the wolf, the wolf and Gertrude and the
Spanish Influenza. I was afraid of what
my prayers might do. I didn’t pray for
two, three years. I ached to, but the
old words wouldn’t come. And then
finally, after all these years, I finally decided that it wasn’t my fault. I decided it was never Gertrude instead of
me. I prayed again, but I said bigger
prayers. I just tell [God] what I think
and how I feel. I don’t much tell [God]
what to do. I just tell Him I’m afraid,
afraid for me and afraid for the boys and afraid for that old fool of a
husband. I suppose He knows it all
already, but words make it solid. I
always whispered them at night when I was awake.”…
(The pastor
continued,), I had no quick words in the face of her transparency, but knew
only candor would do. “I do think God
answers prayer,” I answered. “But I’m
not sure anymore just what it means.
I’ve watched too many people pray their hearts out and get nothing that
looked like an answer. And then I’ve
watched folks pray for miracles and get them.
I don’t know.”
“Well
Pastor, don’t worry. This old lady’s
prayers have been answered.” Minnie
MacDowell suddenly switched to the formalities of Protestant address to preach
her sermon, “Not the answers I wanted, though.
God didn’t take away the Parkinson’s but he did take away the fear.” (p
116)
I believe that prayer
“works” but I don’t believe it works by manipulating God, in the way that so
many people believe that it does. About
20 years ago one of the big storms that so often hit the East coast blew
through the Eastern Seaboard. A
prominent televangelist took a group of about 12 people down to the coast and
they formed a tight prayer circle as the storm approached. They prayed that the storm would not hit the
coast where they were. Sure enough, the
storm went around them. Instead, it hit
the coast a few miles north of where they stood and killed many, many people. This particular televangelist went on TV
spouting his proof that prayer worked, and it surely seemed to for those 12
people. But what about for those who
were also surely praying, further north?
I recently saw a story about a man who insisted that all the climate
problems were a result of God responding to the prayers of anti- LGBTQ people
by punishing the country. Then his house
was destroyed in one of the hurricanes.
But somehow he did not see THAT as an answer to prayer or as punishment
from God or as a message from God. I
feel that prayer used in this way, comments about God’s will as determined by
what happens around us – that these are dangerous, and shows a very poor
theology.
Every time someone
tells me that someone received healing after being prayed for, I find myself
cringing a bit because every single time I remember all of those who were also prayed
for who did not survive, did not heal.
Did those other people just not pray hard enough? Was their faith not strong enough? I don’t believe that. Was God just saying “yes” to some and “no” to
others? I struggle with that, especially
when it is a child who has suffered. Does
God “need” certain people to be in heaven?
No, I can’t see that either. God
gave us life and wants us to have it in fullness. I struggle with the idea that there is a God
who answers prayers for some but allows the Holocaust to take place, slavery to
go on in different places and in different ways, throughout history and even
now, and who is not preventing the
damaging of the earth or the extinction of whole species of animals due to Climate
Change. I think we have to understand
prayer differently if we are to believe in a good and loving God.
In the book, Tattoos on the Heart (New York: Free Press, 2010), Father Gregory Boyle tells this
story:
Willy crept up on me from the
driver’s side. I had just locked the
office and was ready to head home at 8:00pm.
“Shit,
Willy,” I say, “Don’t be doin’ that.”
“Spensa, G”, he says, “My
bad. It’s just.. well my stomach’s on
echale. Kick me down with twenty bones,
yeah?”
“God, my wallet’s on echale,” I
tell him. A “dog” is the one upon whom
you can rely – the role-dog, the person who has your back. “But get in.
Let’s see if I can trick any funds outta the ATM.”
Willy hops on board. He is a life force of braggadocio and
posturing – a thoroughly good soul – but his confidence is out-size, that of a
lion wanting you to know he just swallowed a man whole. A gang member, but a peripheral one at best –
he wants more to regale you with his exploits than to actually be in the midst
of any. In his mid-twenties, Willy is a
charmer, a quintessential homie con man who’s apt to coax money out of your ATM
if you let him. This night, I’m tired
and I want to go home.
It’s easier not to resist. The Food 4 Less on Fourth and Soto has the
closest ATM. I tell Willy to stay in the
car, in case we run into one of Willy’s rivals inside.
“Stay here, dog,” I tell him,
“I’ll be right back.”
I’m not ten feet away when I hear
a muffled, “hey.”
It’s Willy and he’s miming, “the
keys,” from the passenger seat of my car.
He’s making over-the-top, key-in-the-ignition senales.
“The radio,” he mouths, as he
holds a hand, cupping his ear.
I wag a finger, “No, chale.” Then it’s my turn to mime. I hold both my hands together and enunciate
exaggeratedly, “Pray.”
Willy sighs and levitates his
eyeballs. But he’s putty. He assumes the praying hands pose and looks
heavenward – cara santucha. I proceed on
my quest to the ATM but feel the need to check in on Willy only ten yards
later.
I turn and find him still in the
prayer position, seeming to be only half-aware that I’m looking in on him.
I return to the car, twenty
dollars in hand, and get in. Something
has happened here. Willy is quiet,
reflective, and there is a palpable sense of peace in the vehicle. I look at Willy and say, “you prayed, didn’t
you?”
He doesn’t look at me. He’s still and quiet. “Yeah, I did.”
I start the car.
“Well, what did God say to
you?” I ask him.
“Well, first He said, ‘Shut up
and listen.’”
“So, what d’ya do?”
“Come on, G,” he says, “What am I
s’posed ta do? I shut up and listened.”
I begin to drive him home to the
barrio. I’ve never seen Willy like
this. He’s quiet and humble – no need to
convince me of anything or talk me out of something else.
“So, son, tell me something, “ I
ask. “How do you see God?”
“God?” he says, “That’s my dog
right there.”
“And God?” I ask, “How does God
see you?”
Willy doesn’t answer at
first. So I turn and watch as he rests
his head on the recliner, staring at the ceiling of my car. A tear falls down his cheek. Heart full, eyes overflowing. “God… thinks… I’m… firme.”
To the homies, firme means,
“could not be one bit better.”
Not only does God think we’re
firme, it is God’s joy to have us marinate in that. (p23)
And in that is the truth of prayer. And yet, there is something deeper here. I heard someone say once that God doesn’t
answer our prayers, God answers US. Someone
else told me, we keep asking for answers, but God keeps sending us people. Under all of this is what C.S. Lewis says
about prayer, “I do not pray to change God.
I pray so that God might change me.”
We open ourselves up to God through praying, through speaking our truth
and then listening. We learn about
ourselves through our honest communication with God, and we allow for growth
and change to become possibilities as we listen for God’s voice and look for
God in our experiences, in other people, in the world and life around us. I believe that God is more present in our
prayers than we can even imagine. God
begins the conversation and we respond to it by praying. God begins the conversation by creating us,
by calling us, by choosing us and by inviting us into relationship with
God. We join that conversation through
our prayers, and then, hopefully, by our actions of love and care as well.
That doesn’t let us off the hook for praying. I was given a wonderful article by Edward
Hayes, written last year I believe called “Thanksgiving Thoughts.” He wrote ‘friendship takes time, education
takes time, meals that are truly holy and wholesome take time – and so does
prayer. We Americans are a people who
suffer from a great poverty of time. We
are always short of time: to write letters to visit old friends, to enjoy
life. And the near future, especially
for middle-class Americans, will find our clocks running faster and
faster. With husbands and wives both
working, numerous commitments to the parish, school and community and with
children involved in numerous extracurricular activities, we are left with less
and less quality time within the family.
Consequently, we can expect to see, in the coming years, more instant
foods and quick worship services. But
just as a 19 ½ pound turkey baked only for a minute will be a disaster dinner,
so will prayers dashed off “on the run.”
The soul, like the body, knows hunger, and it will not easily be able to
digest even a half-baked prayer, let alone some kind of ‘minute meditation.” Hayes goes on to describe the different steps
of basting, preheating, stuffing and finally cooking for a long time our
prayers just as we would cook a turkey.
His point is that relationships with God take the same time that any
relationships take.
Prayer is important, but not because we control God with
it. It’s important because it helps us
build a relationship with God, and if that seems meaningless to you, prayer is
important because it helps you to hear your own thoughts, wishes, fears, what
you are grateful for, who you are becoming, who you have been. Prayer opens us up to hearing God, to being
moved by God, to changing and growing.
Prayer takes time, but it is very well spent and should be a priority
for all of us. The good news in this? Well, prayer is where we meet God. And more, where God meets us. Amen.
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