We Christians have been told many times prayer is something we ought to do. This past Friday in my spirituality group at the hospital, the group members somehow got interested in this topic of prayer which wasn’t actually the topic of the day. Looking too religious, it seems, evokes a very religious conversation at times. One of the group members said, “I always pray. I always talk to God.” What this comment says is her understanding of prayer as conversation with God. What do you think prayer is? Is it talking with God? In our Prayer Book, we have the Catechism. It is a great resource if you have questions about fundamental Christians concepts. If you open up the page 856, it defines what prayer is. It is “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” And “Christian prayer” is “responding to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
What’s interesting and strange is that prayer is responding to God, not just talking to God. Responding presupposes someone has already talked to you, that God has already reached out to you, that God has first initiated God himself to you, that God has first loved you. Then, it means even before we begin to pray, meaning even before we begin to respond, God speaks. God prays. All our prayers are simply our conscious or unconscious response to God who first comes to us. What do you think of this understanding of prayer as responding to God? When you pray, do you feel like responding to God? If so, what exactly are you responding about? If not, what do you pray about? If prayer is about our responding to God, then our response better be good. So much pressure! Who would really want to pray, thinking my response to God should be right, smart, noble, and spiritual? It’s like responding to a teacher who gives you difficult questions. Then, another question is to whom are we really praying and responding? Are we praying to a strict teacher who is eager to give us an F or a furious and punitive judge who picks on what we say wrong? Or are we responding to God who is good, loving, caring, impassible, omnipresent, and omnipotent? In today’s gospel lesson, we see Jesus prays. We listen to what he prays about. There’s something interesting about listening to someone’s prayer. In my visit with patients, I pray with them quite a bit. And sometimes, I find out the roommate of the patient I pray with listens to my prayer. There was once this patient whose roommate I just prayed with commenting on my prayer that it was “good.” As we listen to Jesus’s prayer, what do you think of it? Let’s not forget that Jesus prays not only for his disciples but also for those who believe in him. This means he also prays for us, and today’s prayer in the gospel is his prayer for us about being one with God. “I in them and you in me.” “Jesus in us and God the Father in him.” What we hear in Jesus’s prayer is God’s desire of being in union with us. And Jesus responds to that desire of the Father as he too desires to be in union with us. God prays in Jesus, and Jesus responds to God. This prayer of Jesus, however, doesn’t help us pray or respond well to God. If we’re taught to pray for all the spiritual matters or something like world peace, let’s be honest, no one will be eager to pray. That kind of prayer life would be lifeless, boring, and pretentious. I don’t believe that is what Jesus is doing here. He’s not just praying right things before God. He really is asking something for God. The content of it represents his will being one with God’s will. The base of his prayer is his petition to God. He prays what he wants from God. If we look at the prayer Jesus has taught us, that is, the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father, it is filled with petition. In the beginning, it’s about praying what God wills. Then, Jesus asks for daily bread, forgiveness, protection from temptation, and deliverance from evil. So again, I’m back to the question I asked you in the beginning. What do you pray about? And how is your prayer life? Has it been consistent or only happening at bedtime? Is your prayer about God’s will or world peace? Often, prayer can be something we feel like we have to do as Christians. Even when you pray privately, you might get easily distracted and bored. Victor White and Herbert McCabe, both Dominican friars, say something very interesting about our prayer life. They say the reason why people don’t like to pray or get distracted in their prayer life is because they are praying for something they ought to, not something they want. They suggest that we should pray for what we want, not just something vaguely, but something that we really really want.* That can be your health, the car you dream of, or some kind of material you would like to purchase. This can be a beautiful house. It doesn’t matter what you want. It matters you pray for what you want. Knowing what you really want is where you start when you pray. This approach changes then the way we look at God. We’re no longer praying to a god who is a mean and strict teacher, picking on your wrong answers, but to God who is so in love with you. Whatever we say to him, it is fine. There’s no rebuke. There’s no judgment. There’s no F in your transcript. Be honest to God. Find out what you really want and desire as you respond to God’s love in your prayer. Knowing your true desire is knowing who you are. And God will start from there. God will grow you and raise you from where you are. And remember this is a dangerous and daunting business because once we start praying for what we really want, God will change and transform us. God will help us find what we truly want from him. And in today’s gospel lesson, according to Jesus, what we really want even know we do not yet know and feel that’s what we want is being one with God. All we want is God, Jesus prays. Asking what he really wants is how Jesus starts praying to God the Father who is love. Let’s not forget Jesus’s prayer that he said before his death on the cross, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” (Mk 14:36) He honestly brings what he really wants. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to drink the cup of death. Yet, he learns in his prayer that what he really wants is what God wants, whether that is death or life. As Christians, all our prayer is done in this prayer of Jesus who shows what he wants and discovers all he wants is God. And in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus prays for his disciples and all those who believe in him what we will truly want for ourselves. In his prayer this morning, we are being prayed to discover what we truly want from God for ourselves. This is one of the reasons why we pray to God the Father, through Jesus the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Through the prayer of Jesus, we figure out what we want. So my friends, pray. Pray for what you want. Do not judge yourself if you’re praying for something that is not spiritual, far from the will of God. Start from where you are as you talk to God what you want. God will then grow you. God will show you what you truly want for you and for God himself. Abbot John Chapman once said, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.” St Paul also assures us not to worry too much about praying right. He says, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Rm 8:26) Once you start from what you want, Jesus is already in you and God the Father in Jesus. And the love that God the Father has loved Jesus is also in you. This will eventually change. We will confess in our prayer that it is not Jesus who is in us. It is not God the Father or God the Holy Spirit in us. It is us who are in the loving presence of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And all we want is God himself. That’s when we respond to God, “yet, not my will but yours will be done.” (Lk 22:42) Prayer becomes the place where God’s grace is intimately active. Prayer becomes our journey to God who is love. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. * Herbert McCabe, God Matters , p. 223 |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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