2165 Poorly Organized Words on Prayer

During our meeting at the Black Dog Café the other night, as the conversation topic got around to prayer and before we actually prayed, Judy asked me, more or less, to define prayer, that is, how I conceived it. “What is prayer?” she asked. As I was pondering that one, she said, “It’s not a wish list.” I agreed with that, but beyond that I had a little trouble. I don’t remember what I said. It always works that way. When someone asks me a profound question—not very often—I can’t come up with an answer that satisfies me. 

So I go away, let it stew for awhile, and write about it. I write stream-of-consciousness. I have a few ideas about what I want to say, but I’m likely to head down some rabbit trail at any time. I can’t help it—that’s just the way my mind works. The result is an unorganized mess, full of awkward word and phrase choices and riddled with grammatical mistakes. That’s what happens when you bat out 1700 words in two hours. Do I edit? Not as much as you might think. I do sometimes go back later and clean it up a bit--correct misspellings, tortured syntax, the more obvious errors of grammar. Sometimes I'll add a paragraph. But over 90% of what you read here is exactly as I put it down the first time. Well, not this entry, I admit. I have edited this one a bit more heavily than others; the original-as-I-wrote-it material is probably down to 80%.

I’ve probably read a hundred—maybe more—essays, testimonies, and the like that purport to define prayer. Some of them are very beautiful, inspirational, poetic, and true, but none of them work, for me, to answer Judy’s question, “What is Prayer?” This essay is an attempt to answer Judy, but you can expect some diversions. The thoughts are all mine; I haven’t consulted any outside sources. I’m sure many people have expressed many of my ideas, but, for better or worse, I own them. I arrived at them independently.

I’ll get to what prayer means to me, eventually, but now that I’ve had a chance to think it over, here’s the best definition of prayer I can come up with: If you think it’s a prayer, it’s a prayer; if you think it’s not a prayer, it’s not a prayer. In other words, there is no satisfactory definition of prayer. Prayer cannot be placed in a one-size-fits-all box. It is  bigger than any box we can construct. Too, it is such a personal thing that even if I attempted a definition, mine would differ from yours. Everyone has a different conception of prayer. There are commonalities, but, at least in my experience, no two people share the exact same feelings and thoughts about this most personal activity. If everybody has their own definition, there is no definition at all. For you, Dear Reader, prayer is what you think it is. For me, prayer is what I think it is. For anyone else, prayer is what they think it is, regardless of whether you or I accept it. 

Too, my definition of prayer—and yours, too, probably—is constantly shifting. One minute, you might think prayer is a supplication, cry for help for yourself or on behalf of someone else, and you’d be right. The next minute, you might think it’s a chance to give praise to the creator and sustainer of the universe, and you’d be right then, too. And in yet the next minute you might really believe prayer is that wish list Judy rejected, and even then you’re right, distasteful though Judy and I might find it. You might think your actions are your prayer. You’re right. The bottom line is that prayer is whatever you think it is at the moment you’re praying.  

Even Jesus, as far as I know, never tried to define prayer, at least not publicly. The gospels tell us he was a man of constant prayer, and they demonstrate that his very life was a prayer. I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m only aware of three instances in which the language of his prayers was recorded. The first is where he taught us the Prayer of Jesus, the one church-going Christians recite—usually without thinking about it—every Sunday morning. The second was in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he asked that the cup be taken from him and finally surrendered to God's will. Finally, there was his agonized cry upon the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Three, and only three, very different prayers. If there are others, please let me know; I’ll stand corrected and incorporate the information into a future revision.

I don’t know, but I think that most people, when they think of prayer, which is probably not very often, think of bowing their heads and clasping their hands, perhaps kneeling, getting real serious (putting on their God-face), and uttering some high-falutin’ language, generally expressing noble thoughts in words they’ve used so often they’ve lost all impact. They may request healing for themselves or someone else, maybe they’ll request God to reach down and instantly make them better people, or they’ll ask for something called “world peace,” (as if they have any conception of what that would look like—heck, I know I don’t). Finally—and I think this is most common—they ask for stuff. A girlfriend or boyfriend. A new job/car/house, money, or some other tangible object—the wish list that Judy and I both despise. (Can I get an Amen, Joel Osteen? Robert Tilton?)

Sometimes, our prayers aren’t really prayers at all. Instead, they’re mini-sermons, or exhortations, in disguise, imploring you, Dear Reader, and me to adopt the sort of attitude, behavior, or belief they think we should adopt. (“Teach us that Donald Trump is thine anointed, O Lord,…”) And I admit it’s hard to keep that kind of thing out. How can you object to something like, “Teach us to love one another?” But think about it: why do you have to be taught to love one another?” Better would be “Teach us how to love one another.” But now I’m being pedantic.

It has been a long time since I was asked to stand in for the minister and lead a worship service. In olden times, however, I was asked to do it a number of times. Part of my duty as a substitute preacher was to offer a sermon and, later,  that essential part of any mainline Protestant worship service, the Pastoral Prayer. Now I believe that on Sunday morning, the preacher is addressing the most important things in their congregation’s lives. Accordingly, I believe the congregation deserves the very best the preacher can offer, every time. Some preachers can wing it but not many. A lot more think they can than actually can. It is quite a feat to prepare and deliver a good sermon or pastoral prayer in any case, but to deliver it off the cuff or with a bare outline—that’s like hitting the triple double in basketball, batting for the cycle in baseball, or picking a trifecta at the horse races. And to pull it off over and over again?

It takes work—exegetical, theological, rhetorical—to develop a coherent twenty-minute sermon or a pastoral prayer that catches people’s attention and speaks to their hearts, that both challenges and inspires them. A preacher’s belief that they can do that without adequate preparation may be sincere, but in most cases such a belief leads to negligence at best and, at worst,  masks for laziness or intellectual/spiritual incapacity. 

How many times have I heard something like, “I’ll just say whatever God puts in my heart.” Well, when it comes to excuses for not preparing, that one’s right up there with “The dog peed on my homework.” You, sir or ma’am, are not the Apostle Paul. You’re not Moses. What if God doesn’t want to put anything in your heart that day? What then? You have to have a Plan B, because your congregation is expecting a sermon. You can’t just say, “Sorry, guys, God hasn’t told me what to say today.” Do that more than once and you’ll find the congregation forming a search committee and looking for an interim pastor. And, sooner or later, God will refuse to put anything in your heart, just to teach you a lesson in humility.

I don’t know how good I was at preaching a sermon or offering a pastoral prayer—probably pretty good but not exceptional, except for one sermon I delivered on Lent—now that was a sermon! (I guess everybody has one.) However good I was, however--and I'll leave that judgment to those who were there or read it later--there is no way I could have been as good as I was if I hadn’t done my exegesis, painstakingly wrote, edited, and re-wrote my script—both sermon and pastoral prayer (and yes, it is a script)—rehearsing my delivery, and reading it in the pulpit from a manuscript after having gone over it enough times so that I wouldn’t look like I was reading it while I read it. I’ve heard too many bad sermons to think that many preachers can get away with anything less. (Apropos of nothing, once I wrote on the blackboard in a seminary classroom, “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my exegesis…” I thought it was funny. The class didn't get it.)

Back to prayer. I’ve never been very good at extemporaneous prayer. That’s one reason I place so much emphasis on preparing and writing things out. In fact, I’m a bit suspicious of those who are good at it. Numerous times I’ve been at a gathering where someone was asked to give a blessing, whereupon the chosen one ripped out 90 seconds of nonstop chatter that sounds good but means nothing, because it’s just done by rote with no thought given to the context. It is a salesman’s spiel, a pitch. They might just as well be selling vacuum cleaners. It always makes me wonder, “How many times have they rattled off that same speech?” I know that blessings and the like share many of the same elements and that certain expressions are common to all, but…Admittedly, some of these guys really are that quick thinking—sincere, thoughtful, and eloquent. I believe that more often, however, the pray-er has likely rattled off the same words so many times that they’ve lost all meaning for both speaker and audience. Just one more box to be ticked off on the event program. (Am I too cynical? I’ve been accused of that.)

No. Give me a prayer that might not start until the person has had a minute or two to think about it. Give me a prayer where they consider the context—the occasion, the audience, and the setting. Give me a prayer that doesn’t come out in one long smooth pitch, but, rather stops and starts as the person gathers their thoughts and searches for the right things to say. That’s my kind of extemporaneous prayer—the kind that’s never the same twice, that’s reborn every time it’s offered. I find the spirit of God in such a prayer.

Now. After meandering like young Billy in one of those Bill Keene Family Circus cartoons and chasing down one rabbit trail after another, Judy, I’m finally ready to tell you how I think of prayer for myself. I wish I could say that when I pray alone or with a partner or small group, I pray for humanity, the wretched of the earth, or any of the other noble prayers that other people pray. And when I write a prayer, I do write about some of those things. But in a more intimate and personal setting, I lower my sights to the personal and immediate. I look at prayer as a series of chances—chances I can take or not, depending on my courage that day.

Prayer gives me the chance to come to the quiet and bring others with me.

Prayer gives me the chance to let go of those fears, anxieties, and depressions that I’ve written about before and let God shoulder them, if only for awhile.

Prayer gives me the chance to unload on someone who is always ready to listen and never grows tired of my bleating, someone who suffers when I suffer.

Prayer gives me the chance to drop my mask, not worry about my vulnerability, and open myself to God.

Prayer gives me the chance to reach out to those who are with me, to experience the joy of human touch, both physical and spiritual, to help them lift up their concerns and to experience their caring.

Prayer gives me the chance to open my eyes to really see the world in new ways, in all its distress and beauty, and to feel God’s compassion for all creation. It gives me the chance to envision a world where there is justice everywhere and where there are no more tears, no more pain and sorrow.

Prayer gives me the chance to open the doors that stand between me and the Universe and God in the Universe; to transcend my human limitations; to talk to God in ways that require no words; to lose myself, come out of myself, and join God’s dance in time and infinite space.

I’m sure I’ve left some things out. 

I don’t pray often enough. I don’t know why. Sometimes I'll pray every day for awhile. For the last month or so, I've been in overdrive. But my prayer life, as I suspect is the case with many of us, waxes and wanes. Perhaps having a prayer partner now will inspire me to keep at it, 

And this is my invitation to you: If you are standing in the need of prayer, if you need a prayer partner, I am here for you. Call me. We’ll work it out.

Amen.