Prayer

When I was a boy I used to pray all the time. We would say the Lord’s Prayer every week in Sunday school. It was more of a group recitation than actually praying. I was never sure what “hallowed be thy name” really meant. My good friend Dick and I always sat next to each other in our little Sunday School class. Every time he said the Lord’s Prayer I could hear him say “and deliver from eagles.” He wasn’t trying to be funny. He really had it wrong in his head. I never had the heart to correct him. We moved away before he found out he had been saying the wrong words for years. (Actually, I think there is a sermon lurking there somewhere—an unwritten sermon I have entitled “And Deliver Us from Eagles.”)
But I also prayed in earnest. I remember one morning, I must have been in first or second grade, noticing that it was 8:00 as we came into the the classroom. I knew that my mother was scheduled to go in for surgery at that hour in a big hospital downtown, and I prayed that she would be all right. My world then included a child’s sense of a powerful God who could intervene on my behalf. (Most of my praying in school, I must confess, happened right before major exams.)

Friday of this past week was a national day of prayer. I doubt that many of us participated. Perhaps my years in journalism left me a tad cynical, but this call for a national day of prayer seemed motivated more by political needs for good press than by genuine compassion or heartfelt remorse for our human failings. I am frankly puzzled by those who believe in a God who hears individual prayers and who controls nature. Why would they pray to a God to help the victims of a hurricane when that same God showed no interest in preventing the hurricane’s destruction in the first place? Why would an all powerful God allow the murder of millions of innocent people when He could prevent it without lifting a finger? And how is my asking God to do what is so obviously the right thing to do supposed to make any difference? I have a hard time imagining God thinking to himself, “Well, I was going to let Pol Pot kill millions of Cambodians, but since Peter very humbly asked me to intervene, I think I’ll stop that rascal.”

Well, it was heretical thoughts like this that put a stop to my praying. I gave up praying before I could vote. One sarcastic wit described prayer as a request that the laws of the universe be suspended on behalf of a petitioner who is admittedly unworthy. That summed up the way I had come to view prayer. The idea of prayer would conjure up that old irreverent Janis Joplin song: “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz; My friends all drive Porches, I must make amends.” The song goes on to ask the Lord for a color TV and a night on the town.
I gave up prayer and never gave it much thought for a long, long time.

Then I became a minister. Now I lead prayers. What happened? I learned to think of prayer in a different way.

Prayer. What in the world does it really mean to pray? And what can prayer mean for religious liberals, for skeptics, for agnostics and even atheists? Can an atheist pray? And what does it mean, as our morning reading implores us, to be our prayer?

Prayer is one of those loaded religious words, words that come dragging tons and tons of baggage. One of the great challenges for each of us is how we relate to traditional religious ideas and practices. And one of the great dangers we face is that, in our haste to reject what is superstitious and destructive, that we also throw out something vitally important. Lots of traditional religious language gives us trouble: sin, repentance, redemption, salvation, faith and, of course, God.
Certainly, I still find much in the traditional view of prayer that needs to be left behind. The first thing we need to leave behind, I believe, is the idea of prayer as a kind of cosmic request line. This is not easy. Oh, it is easy enough to reject the silly notion that some deity is going to get me a Mercedes Benz or help me get an “A” on an exam I didn’t bother to study for. It is much more difficult to give up the idea that some loving and almighty god is going to save my sick child from dying, help my mother through her surgery, protect me when I go into battle, or receive my spirit when I die. It is not emotionally easy to live in a universe that is immense and indifferent. I would rather believe in a personal God that takes a personal interest in me; I just can’t.

And I would just as soon leave behind the notion that some infinitely tolerant god is going to absolve me of responsibility for all my screw ups. There is something powerful and cleansing about confessing our failures. There is something significant and valuable about striving to move beyond our moral failings, seeking reconciliation, and committing ourselves to begin again, determined to do better. But there is something cheap and irresponsible about harming others and then believing we can make everything all right by asking God for forgiveness. Saying we are sorry is not enough. It does not make everything all right.

And, hard as it is to relinquish, I don’t think the practice of asking the almighty to smite our enemies is something we should cultivate (even though I am convinced that my enemies truly deserve it).

So, what can prayer mean to us if we don’t pray for divine supernatural intervention, if we don’t pray for forgiveness, if we don’t pray to a god that is a kind of person? Once we dump out the superstition, what is left?
Quite a lot, actually; quite a lot.

Prayer can be a kind of meditation, a time when you and I open our hearts, open our awareness. Prayer can be a time to reaffirm our concern for other people. Prayer can be a time when we connect with what we hold sacred, a time when we remind ourselves of what is truly important, what really matters to us. Prayer can be a time when we remind our selves of our highest aspirations and a time when we confront, in all humility and honesty, how we have fallen short of what strive to be. Prayer can be a time when we quietly rededicate our selves to becoming what we hope to be. Prayer can be a time for opening our selves to new possibility, to new direction—a time for listening to that quiet, gentle, persistent voice that dwells in us. We have to be quiet to hear that voice; we have to be still.
This is the core of what personal prayer has always been. This is the essence that remains after we strip away outmoded notions of god as a ruler, of god as an all powerful patriarch. Prayer has always been a time of quietly coming face to face with what we hold sacred, what we call holy. Prayer is a kind of relationship, an experience of standing before creation.

Personal prayer need not involve any words. The key is to make time, to reflect, to be still, to allow our selves to feel our connections to life, to others, to the unity of all creation.

Today, as every Sunday, we will offer a pastoral prayer. In this prayer we share our thanks for community. We share our gratitude for being alive, for beauty that surrounds us, for loving friends. We share our concern for members of our congregation who are suffering loss or difficult times. We rejoice with others who have cause for celebration. This is what every community should do—share life’s joys and life’s sorrows, be grateful for what we have, hold the wider world in our embrace, aspire to serve. Our collective prayer is like a hymn. Our prayer expresses our compassion and our hope. Such a prayer helps bind us together. Such a prayer does not require a belief in anything supernatural.

My personal prayer today is for inner peace, for a bit more patience (I dare not ask for a miracle) and a bit less crabbiness. My prayer is for wholeness, for allowing myself to experience the joy of being alive. If I am still and open and centered, gratitude comes over me. I would pray for the wisdom and energy to serve this community effectively.

My prayer for our congregation is that we prosper, that we remain open hearted, that we be a true beacon of compassion, understanding and acceptance. I pray that we help bring wholeness and love to each other, that we honor our elders and raise our children to be kind and strong. My prayer for my world is that it become a place of peace, understanding, and justice, a place where life is affirmed and violence disappears.

When you are still, when you are in that place of profound peace and strong connection to your inner self and to the universe, what is it that you would pray for? When you look at your self, those you love, this community and our world, what is it that you dare to hope for?

I suspect our prayers would have a lot in common. When we stop to be still, to open our hearts, to express our deepest longings, we find that we share much. We want wholeness, peace, joy, love, acceptance.

Once we pray in this way, once you and I allow our selves to be in contact with our innermost longings, when we experience our hopes and express them, then you I and have laid a foundation. For praying without acting is not enough; it never has been.

Prayer is a prelude. Prayer is preparation.

Our true task is not finished. If in my prayer I feel compassion for victims of hurricane Katrina and then fail to do anything, what good is my prayer? If I pray that human life may prosper for millennia to come and then do nothing to help create a sustainable world, what good are my hopes? If my prayer for our community is that we be open and welcoming, yet I never open my heart to embrace new people and make them feel truly welcome, what good is my prayer? If I pray for justice but never work for it, my prayer is simply an act of hypocrisy.

Our prayers will only be answered if you and I answer them! Our love can only find expression through what you and I do. Love is not some fuzzy abstraction; love is acts of love, acts of kindness, acts of compassion. Peace is not concept; peace is a relationship. Justice is a relationship.

Ultimately the person who really needs to hear my prayer is me. The person who needs to hear your prayer is you. The people who need to heed our collective prayer is us.

The first step is to be still, to hear our innermost voice, to be filled by our love for life and for each other.

Let us pray with all of our hearts. Then let us act. Let us live our prayers. Let us become the kind, caring, alive, joyful, grateful, idealistic, world transforming people we long to be.

Let us pray. Let us come honestly and humbly into the presence of all we hold sacred. And then let us be our prayer. When our life becomes our prayer and our prayer becomes our life, then we will truly have learned to pray.

Let us pray. Yes, let us pray.

So may it be.

Amen.