Praying as Discipleship

October 3, 2021 • 19th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:7-8 (adapted from NRSV) and Matthew 7:7-8 (The Voice)
Pastor Jeff Wells

[You can view the worship video recording, including this message, at: Facebook.com/churchofthevillage/videos.]

Click HERE for a list of recommended resources about process theology
and ecological civilization.

The theme today is prayer –
specifically, prayer as discipleship. 

So, I want to begin by reminding us of the questions about discipleship John Cobb posed at the end of his first sermon three weeks ago: 

What does it mean to be a Christian? 

What does it mean to think maybe we have good news for the world in a time when the world is headed for utter disaster? 

If we have good news, what should we be doing about it? 

For me, being a Christian means following the way of Jesus. I don’t mean doing exactly what Jesus did. I mean modeling our lives on the ways that Jesus connected with God and connected with people and the world. That means we ought to base our attitudes and actions on the principles Jesus expounded during the course of his ministry. Most fundamentally, that means loving God, loving our neighbors as ourselves, loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, seeking justice, showing compassion, and promoting healing. And yes, we have good news – the good news that God is, at every moment, at work in our lives and the life of every creature, loving, leading, and luring us to participate in the Divine Commonwealth. And specifically, in this dangerous moment in history, God calls us forward to lay the foundations for a whole new kind of civilization – an ecological civilization.

How does prayer fit into that? In my experience, praying is a crucial part of what it means to follow Jesus. Our communal and liturgical prayer that we engage in worship and other spaces is very important, but today I am focusing on personal prayer. Now, clearly, Jesus saw regular prayer as a crucial way of staying connected with God. You can hear that in the two passages Alfida read from the Gospel of Matthew. We know from the stories in the four Gospels that Jesus himself prayed frequently – certainly he did that at meals and other times with his followers, but often he would go off to pray on his own. We also know Jesus taught his followers how he thought they ought to pray and how not to pray, as we heard in the scripture lessons today. According to the Gospel of Luke, once when Jesus had just finished praying, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus responded with a sample or model prayer that came to be called, “the Lord’s prayer.” In our church, we usually refer to it as, “The prayer that Jesus taught us.”

I don’t believe God wants us to strictly follow Jesus in a rote or dogmatic manner, but to emulate his creative, loving spirit. The universe is evolving, changing, and filled with novelty and creativity. Our understanding of God and our relationship with God has evolved and changed, too. So what can we say today about prayer as an aspect of following Jesus? Jesus said, “don’t use too many words.” In fact, sometimes we don’t need words at all. Prayer is a dialogue, so it’s just as important to listen. Remember, too, that God is intimately present in us and in everything in all places and times. God experiences every moment of our lives, even more deeply than we do. God experiences our whole being and experiences the life and action of every atom and every cell in our bodies. So we don’t have to use words because God feels our prayers at a level that is deeper than words. In one sense, there is no “wrong” way to pray because no matter how haltingly or incoherently we communicate with God and in whatever language, God always understands. So God doesn’t need words, but we sometimes do need words in order to express for ourselves our tentative emotions and longings.

I have found that God rarely communicates to us in words. Much of God’s leading, luring, and inspiration happens at a subconscious level. When we are able to consciously grasp that God is luring us – or calling us forward, as John said last Sunday – it may not be crystal clear or may take time. Or, it may be God calls us in a general direction, but doesn’t provide a specific road map. Often, when I am getting ready to preach, I have the experience of “accidentally” or serendipitously coming across a quote or article or video that is extraordinarily relevant to the theme of my sermon. Of course, I am in the mode of seeking, yet it often feels as if God led me to find that resource. “Seek and you will find,” doesn’t mean you will receive exactly what you ask for, but if you are open, God will lure you to what you need. As Catherine Keller said in the quote earlier in worship, praying prepares the way. 

For me, this way of seeing our dialogue with God gives me a much deeper perspective on the apostle Paul’s declaration in the Letter to the Romans: 

“The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. For we don’t know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit expresses our plea with groanings too deep for words. And God, who knows everything in our hearts, knows perfectly well what the Spirit is saying because her intercessions for God’s holy people are made according to the mind of God.” [1]

Though we may feel like we are the ones to initiate prayer, it is actually God who is always ready and waiting for us to dialogue. 

How, then, shall we pray? God doesn’t coerce or force our actions or determine our future, yet God is powerfully active in our every moment in loving relationship with us and with every creature. That dramatically shifts how I think about praying. For example, I can’t ask God to heal someone’s disease. Of course, I can ask, but God can’t deliver on that prayer. On the other hand, I can pray to God to lure and inspire researchers and scientists to develop cures, where possible, and for medical professionals and others and devise better treatments for those who are suffering. I can pray that the person who is ill feels surrounded by love and care. I can pray that the natural healing capacity in that person’s body, mind, and spirit be strong and effective. And ultimately, I – we – can pray for compassionate hospice care and for deep connection with the Divine Spirit when anyone is approaching death.

Remember that we are in a relationship with God and God with us. That relationship changes us, but it also changes God. God feels all of the billions of prayers offered at any given moment and all of those prayers become part of what constitutes the reality of the world as it is. God takes that reality – that new configuration of the world in each moment and calls it – calls us – forward to a future not yet determined.

The way I pray and what I’ve prayed for has evolved and changed a lot over the course of my life. For a long time, even after I stopped believing God was all-powerful and coercive, I still prayed for specific persons to be healed. Now, I pray for whatever healing may be possible in a person’s life, not limited to physical healing, but including mental, relational, spiritual, and social healing. I believe that God’s relational power can influence the actions of cells, so I do pray and hope that diseased cells won’t spread. Yet, I know God cannot guarantee that.    

I have a slight fear of flying. Actually, it’s a fear of crashing. So, whenever I had to fly, I used to pray, “God, please help everyone on this plane to get safely to their destinations.” Then, I expanded that to say, “God, please help everyone flying today to get safely to their destinations.” For a while, I changed it to, “God, please help everyone using any mode of transportation today to get safely to their destinations.” You can see the problem with that kind of prayer. Because God is love, if God could, God would. But God can’t. What I pray now is more practical and effective and, could actually change human behavior. Something like, “God of Love, lure engineers, manufacturers, mechanics, pilots, and air traffic control to make loving choices and do their very best to prevent equipment failures and accidents.” I confess that still, on occasion, when I am in a hurry, I pray for a parking spot in Manhattan, even though I long ago stopped believing that God can or even should do that. 

We don’t have to let the prayers of our upbringing determine the ways we pray now. We are not required to think about God as “Father” or of any gender when we pray. We have the freedom and a solid theological basis for an expansive and relational experience of God’s love and our dialogue with God. 

Of course, there is not one “right way” to pray and I am not trying to tell you how to pray, only offering suggestions that align with loving and being in dialogue with our relational God. 

Finally, I am increasingly aware of the need to account in our prayers for the understanding that we are an integral part of an ecosphere facing climate catastrophe. And, to God, we are not more important constituents than any other creatures or elements of nature. How can this knowledge help us reimagine prayer? Recently, I said we need a paradigm shift. I think we may include our prayer life in that shift. We’ve tried to incorporate some of that change into our prayers in worship. I want to challenge us to keep that in mind in our private prayers as well. Of course, that will ask of us that we cherish and respect all other creatures and every element of that ecosphere. Even beyond that, I dream that we can begin to feel ourselves as being in community with the whole of the ecosphere. That the focus of our prayers move beyond human concerns to include animals, plants, reptile and insects and fungi, as well as the water, air, and soil. I know that God has a relationship with my dog, just as much as with me. Surely, God experiences deeply the lives of trees and maybe even feels their “prayers,” because trees certainly have longings since they communicate with and work to heal and protect other trees. Why should we think God doesn’t feel the “prayers” of fungi?

Of course, it isn’t new to pray for and even with the rest of the natural order. In the 13th century, Francis of Assisi sang praise to God through Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the wind, the air, and Mother Earth. Now, we are in a new reality, a new context, facing new challenges. So, let’s enter into this dance with God, participating as God works with the world as it is to bring it toward what it still can be.

(c) 2021 Jeffry Wells
All rights reserved.

1.   The Inclusive Bible