Prayer (Part 1)
Prayer (Part 1)
Matthew 6:1-15
In Jesus’ world, faithful people did three things. They gave to those in need. They prayed. They fasted. All three of these things, if done for the right reasons, could be acts of faith. All three things, if done for the wrong reasons, could become acts of pure hypocrisy.
Jesus sets the stage for our reflection by looking at how we give to those in need. Jesus makes his approach perfectly clear: “Do not practice your piety before others in order to be seen by them for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” You can give to those in need and have all sorts of expectations for how they should thank you. You can give to those in need and expect a whole lot of praise from a whole lot of people. You can give a gift so big that a whole building or an amazing scholarship will be named after you. However, if you do things in such ways, don’t try to count them as acts of faith.
Jesus paints a funny picture to make his point. Here comes the hypocrite, parading down the aisle of the temple, heading toward the collection box. What does he do? In order to make sure that he has everyone’s attention, the trumpets sound! If what they really want is everyone’s attention, they will get it. However, if you want to give as an act of faith, give in such a way that not even your left hand knows what your right hand is doing. Give without looking to get credit. Give in a way which elevates the dignity of the recipient rather than putting them in their place. Give, but do everything you can to not get caught being generous.
I had an experience of such giving this week. Thanks to all of you, I had the honor of driving up a car load of hygiene supplies to PADS—the agency which helps homeless people in Lake County. I arrived, grabbed the first basket full of things and headed to the door. The man who was at the door said, “Hey boss! What do you have there?” Already I was uncomfortable. This was an African American man who I felt like was addressing me in the subservient way that white people like me often expect to be treated. What can I do to show him that he doesn’t have to do that for me?
When I was done handing off baskets to him, he said, “Hold a minute. I’ll be right back.” He returned with a form for me to fill out. I thought it was a form to track their donor groups. However, the form was to document how much credit I wanted to claim on my taxes. “No…we’re a church. We don’t want credit for this.” I handed him back the form and he looked me in the eye and said, “Are you sure?” “Ya…I’m sure,” I answered.
Finally, he asked me to wait one more minute. He returned with his boss, a young woman, who proceeded to start to praise us for our gifts. I told her how happy we were to help, how grateful we were for folks like them who were caring for the neediest people, every moment of every day. I tried to explain to her that what we would really love to do is help more: “Let us know what you need; we’ll do our best to help out.”
Just after she left and the man was inside the door and the door was closing, a truly sacred moment happened. Another man who was bedraggled in such a way that I knew he was a PADS guest, came around the corner with a small bag of hygiene items in his hand and a huge smile on his face. He had no idea who I was. In fact, I have no idea whether he even saw me. As he walked down those steps, though, what I saw was his right hand—the one without the bag—pumping in the air like he had just won a great prize. I got back in the car and said, “Tracy…” Before I could finish, she said, “I know…I saw it, too!”
When it is time to give, it’s not showtime. It’s time to put away the expectations and needs and focus on someone else and his or her needs. It’s time to cover the need and get in and get out. If you’re lucky, every now and then, you might even catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God, of grace and love at work. Again, though, even then, do your absolute best to not get caught.
(A few years ago, someone gave Tracy and me a cash gift at Christmas and challenged us to find the right way to pass that gift on. We decided to go to the Full Moon and sit at the table of the waitress who had always been so caring whom we knew struggled. It was so fun to leave that stack of money as a tip and head as fast as possible for the door!)
The third faith practice that Jesus will talk about a bit after our text is fasting. Fasting isn’t really a religious practice any more for most Christians. We certainly hear about it in other faiths. I think of Ramadan for my Muslim brothers and sisters. However, mostly, fasting is limited to an occasional hunger awareness exercise. Still, though the practice may be a bit foreign, Jesus’ point isn’t. In his world, there were people who fasted in public places and filled whatever space they were in with their groans. Everyone was going to know what an act of faith they were witnessing! It turns out that fasting shouldn’t be showtime, either.
On this point, I think of the local news anchor in Chicago who decided to be “homeless” for a night. The footage showed him lying on the ground, writhing in seeming agony, talking about how miserable he was. Of course, the heat from those camera lights must have helped. The fact that he could get warm any time he wanted must have made a difference, too! What was supposed to be empathy came off as exploitation—a ruse to raise the ratings.
Hold it, though…We went from faith practice number one (giving alms) straight to faith practice number three (fasting). What happened to faith practice number two? That’s the focus of our text: prayer. Now, admit it…next to your dentist asking you if you floss every day, isn’t your pastor asking you if you pray just about the most uncomfortable question around? Here’s the thing, though, I think this is a conversation that we need to start to have…
In Jesus’ era, people prayed three times a day: 9:00 a.m., noon, and 3:00 p.m. There were eighteen prayers that every faithful Jewish person memorized. Those prayers rotated through the regular prayer times. These prayers were said in public whether in the temple or on the street. This was a group practice.
Generally, we don’t pray much in public anymore. Whenever I am invited to pray at some civic function, someone usually sends me a nasty note the next because they didn’t like how I prayed. Maybe we come closer to a shared communal moment when we sing the Star Spangled Banner before a ball game. Sometimes, the music moves us or the lyrics really hit home. Sometimes we start clapping and whistling long before the song is done because we want to get on with the game.
The problem with rituals is that they can lose their meaning and become rote recitations, just people phoning it in and fulfilling an obligation. Jesus says, don’t be like the hypocrites who pray just to be seen. They pray in super loud voices in the middle of the temple or on the busiest street corner. Don’t be like the Gentiles, either. They have so many gods that they don’t know which god to seek out. They don’t know if any of those gods will even care. So, they just keep piling up words, seemingly, to irritate whoever the right god might be into actually responding.
Jesus says that prayer isn’t about impressing people. Prayer also isn’t about how fancy your words are or how fast you can speak or how many words you can churn out in some marathon session. Prayer isn’t even about telling God something that God doesn’t already know. No…prayer is about being who you are and approaching God as you are and using your own words. Jesus suggests that the right place for this prayer might not be the temple or the street corner, after all. The best place might be in privacy of your own room.
Now, if you were listening when we read the text this morning, you know that Jesus is going is to teach us the Lord’s Prayer. We’re going to save that for next week. However, you shouldn’t miss the irony that’s already with us. Jesus wanted us to learn to approach God in private, in our own words. He gave us a prayer so that we could hear how different that prayer might sound. What did we do? We memorized that prayer and we say it together in worship. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Lord’s Prayer. However, I think sometimes Jesus must be watching and thinking, “Great…but where are your own words?”
Prayer is not a way to impress others. Prayer is not a show that we put on. The measure of a good prayer is not the quality or the quantity of your words. Prayer is also not some bargaining session with God, although we’ve probably all tried that out in a moment of desperation: “God…if you help me pass this math test, if you help me get a good result on this medical test, if you get my beloved friend, or spouse, or child through this challenge, I’ll do anything!” Prayer is not about getting God to do tricks or to obey our commands. Prayer is not a transaction.
Prayer is a relationship. This is what I want you to ponder this week. During this pandemic, so many of us have been kept from spending time with those we love. We miss sitting in the same room, looking each other in the eye, laughing hard together and shaking hands and holding hands and hugging each other until it hurts. We ache to connect with those we love. We do our best to value the things that we can substitute, instead: phone calls and Zoom calls and FaceTime, emails and an occasional, actual letter, maybe even sitting outside in the yard at a great distance and talking from behind our masks. Still, we ache to connect.
Prayer is how we connect with the one who loves us most. When we really want to connect with someone we love, we set aside time to check in regularly. We open ourselves up and are willing to be honest and just be who we are. We are at least as interested in listening as we are in talking. Most importantly, if the person is someone we really love, we may come to value most the times when we can sit in silence together and just be.
Prayer isn’t showtime. Prayer is connecting time. If we lose that connection, most of us feel the ache, the “something" that is missing in our lives. I believe that God—the one who loves us—aches, too, when that connection is missing. We don’t pray to get things. However, when we pray, we find perspective, renewed energy, peace, and how to be a less anxious presence for others. When prayer becomes a regular part of our lives, because we have practiced connecting, that connection is there for us on the days when we need it most.
If you watch the flowers in the prairie, you realize that they know exactly where the sun is all day long because they bend and track it across the sky every moment of the day. If you ask a Chicagoan which way is east, we will have no problem. We are always orienting to the lake. If you ask a faithful person where God is in this tough moment—whatever it may be— chances are they’ll know because they’ve been staying connected to God all along.
Next week, we’ll explore what Jesus had to teach us about a very different way to pray…