Prayer and bread. They form the bottom line of faith and are fundamental to being the church. Yet, sometimes we drift from our moorings and get lost in life’s waves. There was a time back in the 1960's and early '70's when prayer was viewed even among some clergy as suspect. The fear was that looking inward was an excuse to not look outward, into the world of action. This is particularly odd given the fact that Gandhi and Martin Luther King, giants of social change and justice, were grounded in prayer. Fortunately, we are well beyond those artificial divides of prayer versus action, fellowship verses service as we have returned to our roots where we understand that prayer and service, fellowship and action are all parts of the same cloth, woven neatly together into the whole fabric of faith.
We take prayer seriously around here. The Prayer Chain, a ministry of our Deacons with strong support of the Presbyterian Women, is an active on-going community of prayer. I read a number of emails every week with invitations for prayer. In addition, every Wednesday our staff meetings conclude with prayers for you, the people of this community of faith. We pray for you by name and give voice to the concerns or joys that you share with us by email or phone. This past week one member wrote of concerns for a daughter and a dear cousin. Then she ended her letter with these words: “We are so grateful for all our blessings, not the least of which is to be part of such a wonderful and caring Christian community as FPC and you can be sure I give prayers of thanks for all of you more often than you can imagine.” What a gift it is to share in prayer.
Luke tells us that the church, from its very beginnings, was built upon prayer. I’m speaking about the foundations of church life these three weeks. In Acts we read a line that sounds like a marvelous statement of goal: “they ate their food with glad and generous hearts.” It is a fine way to live--with gladness and generosity. And how did this come about? Luke tells us that the people “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” and to generosity--giving “to all, as any had need.” Today: part two in the series of strong and faithful churches--the breaking of bread and prayers.
People of faith eat together and pray together. The breaking of bread: whether it is pancakes at the camping week-end or at the Shrove Tuesday dinner, the casserole delivered to the new mom, the shared soup of Maundy Thursday or, most importantly, the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, the breaking of bread is crucial to a community of faith. We eat together and we pray together.
Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer and we say it every Sunday. Beyond that model of prayer the New Testament does not say a whole lot about technique or style; the stories are more about the need to keep on praying. I think that this is quite intentional. It’s not the words or the issues of eyes open or closed, silent or spoken, printed or extemporaneous: the issue of prayer is one of consistency and perseverance. Fred Buechner writes:
According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it. The images he uses to explain this are all rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic to have to explain it at all. He says God is like a friend you go to, to borrow bread from at midnight. The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, but you go on knocking anyway until finally he gives you what you want so he can go back to bed again (Luke 11:5-8). Or God is like a crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there’s nothing in it for him. But she keeps on hounding him until finally he hears her case just to get her out of his hair (Luke 18:1-8). Even a stinker, Jesus says, won’t give his own child a black eye when he asks for peanut butter and jelly, so how all the more will God when his children .... (Matthew 7:9-11)
(Wishful Thinking, p. 70-71)
The bottom line is not with the “right” words or the correct technique, it is found in perseverance.
Prayer is not magic, it is communion with God. Prayer is the experience of intimacy with the Holy Other, the mystery of life, the ground of our Being. Prayer is silence before God. Prayer is singing praises before God. Prayer can be tears or angry protests thrown to God. Prayer is the expression of hope, longing, anguish, wonder, confession or care. Prayer is being open and honest before God. And, it is crucial to faith. The sixth century monk John Climacus said that prayer, as “a dialog and a union with God” has the effect of “(holding) the world together.” (As quoted by Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, p. 58)
In her description of strong and vital congregations Diana Butler Bass includes an entire chapter on prayer, with an emphasis on silence. The church provides healing, holy silence in the midst of all the noise and clutter of the world. I’ve wondered if we should just hang a sign on the front of our sanctuary: “Open for quiet--one hour free from cell phones, television, email, blackberries and noise. Come in to enjoy and live.” Thomas Merton wrote: “Prayer is then not just a formula of words, or a series of desires springing up in the heart--it is the orientation of our whole body, mind and spirit to God in silence, attention, and adoration. All good meditative prayer is a conversion of our entire self to God.” (As quoted by Diana Butler Bass in Christianity for the Rest of Us, p. 121.) The keys are silence and openness. Prayer is not about formula or the power of words, even the right words; prayer is about openness, attentiveness and vulnerability, vulnerable to the Spirit of God.
In recent years my favorite prayer is the singing of “holy, holy, holy” in the midst of communion. I love the way that the words surround me in the chancel as your voices blend with those from the choir. It is wonderful. I also cherish the prayers that we have shared... in hospital rooms, at the birth of a baby or when gathered around the baptismal font. I hold as precious the prayers spoken at times of great anguish for a loved one, for care of the world, at a time of death. As Anne Lamott notes: We are a broken people. We live by mending and “the grace of God is the glue.” (Quoting Eugene O’Neill in Traveling Mercies, p. 112)
This glue that is God’s grace is spread by way of prayer. It holds me together, it holds us together--body, soul and spirit. It is remarkable how a community of faith lives and thrives on prayer. As we heard in that letter this week: “... you can be sure that I give prayers of thanks for all of you more often than you can imagine.” The grace of God... even more than you can imagine.
