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3 March 2004
Alpha Talk 5
Why and How Should We Pray?
Javier A. Viera
At family gatherings I have always been the
designated pray-er. That may not surprise you given the line of work I’m in, but I have always
resented it. I’ve always fought it because I know that more than anything my family insists
that I pray before holiday meals for three reasons: 1. No one else wants to do it. 2. It’s
the mandatory ritual we perform so that we feel better about being gluttons. 3. They assume
that a prayer should sound like a prayer and if anyone knows what a prayer should sound like
then it should be me.
At our most recent family gathering I argued with
my Mother and Father as our thirty plus relatives stood in circle holding hands waiting to eat.
Now remember, this is a Puerto Rican family so they aren’t standing in a circle quietly or
piously awaiting the prayer to begin. On one side my aunt Nilsa is yelling at my mom to leave
me alone, and on the other side my brothers are yelling at me to just hurry up and say the
prayer. “We’re all hungry” they remind me. And everyone knows that we can’t get to the buffet
line until Javi says the prayer.
On this occasion my family endured thirty seconds
of silence. About 15 seconds into it my cousins started sucking their teeth in an act of
frustration. They assumed I was feeling deeply spiritual and preparing for some long, deep
prayer. They had no patience for this. About 20 seconds into the silence my mother starts
clearing her throat nervously and whispers under her breath, “Ave Maria Javi!”– which isn’t
easily translated but is the equivalent of “I can’t believe you’re doing this!” About thirty
seconds into the silence I said, “Amen.” And before you knew it everyone dove into the buffet
of roast pork and yucca and rice and beans. “Amen” was the only word they really wanted to hear
and it was the only word that mattered. This prayer was a lifeless ritual that served as a
ticket to something better.
I haven’t always been so obstinate. During my
years in seminary I would return home and offer wonderful prayers. Titi Nilsa would tell me
so. And that was the point. I had to show off that my education was worth something, if for
nothing more than the annual Christmas or Thanksgiving family prayer. Oh, those prayers were
filled with spiritual and even mystical language. More often then not they were clever and at
times controversial. One thanksgiving I prayed entirely for people who had no food to celebrate
this day and I asked God to help us be mindful of them as we ate our meal. After I said that I
could hear my mother under her breath, “Ave Maria Javi!” After I uttered the much-anticipated
“Amen,” no one moved. My uncle Raul broke the silence by looking at me and smirking while
saying, “Nos jodiste la cena.” I’ll have to clean up a bit, but basically that meant, “Thanks
for ruining dinner.”
There’s a reason I’m sharing these experiences with
you. Each and everyone of us here has certain expectations as to what a prayer is and what a
prayer should sound like and what a prayer should feel like. That is why so many people are so
frustrated with prayer. Nothing is more maddening to people in the spiritual life then this
thing we call prayer. People say to me all the time, “I just don’t feel anything.” “I don’t
know what to say.” “My mind wanders.” “I don’t know what to pray for.” “I feel as if I’m
talking to myself.” “Why doesn’t God answer my prayer?” “Why pray?” And so many of us either
resort to praying as if we were writing a wish list to Santa Claus or providing a high priority
protection list to the secret service. “Protect my aging parents. Help my husband find a job.
Don’t let anything bad happen to my daughter. Don’t let my boss get to me so much. Help my son
find a good wife.” Like my family holiday prayer ritual, for most people I know prayer is a
necessary deed which serves as a ticket to something better.
I know that may sound a bit cynical, but it’s not.
What it is is honest. And after eight years at this type of work, I have discovered that most
people, especially clergy, are least honest when they pray. We feel a pious obligation to
pray. We feel as if prayer should sound a certain way and accomplish certain things. And we
think that if we find just the right formula or method, our spiritual life will really take
off. The irony in all this is that when we are at our most dishonest we are communicating with
the One who knows us better than we know ourselves. Prayer, therefore, runs the risk of
becoming an exercise in pretending– no wonder we find prayer so frustrating.
This is a hard subject to talk about because there
is perhaps no other subject so laden with expectations for a minister than prayer. People
assume that I pray and that I should pray well, whatever that means. I remember when the bishop
sent me here to interview for the position I now occupy. It was a spirited interview, as those
who were present can attest to. Toward the end of the interview, and before the Staff-Parish
Relations Committee deliberated on whether they would accept me as your pastor, someone on the
committee asked me to pray. Now, as much as it was an earnest desire to seek God’s wisdom,
which it was, it was also a test. It was a test to see how I pray. Thus, in that moment I
wasn’t offering a prayer that was the authentic prayer of my heart. I’m not proud to admit
that, but we’ve been together long enough now that I can admit my lapses to you and hopefully
you can handle it. In that moment I wasn’t really praying, instead I was making sure that I
sounded as if I was praying; I needed to make sure I prayed to God as Father and not mother; I
was making sure that I sounded earnest and I had a deep sigh or two to indicate my earnestness.
I also had to say something about God’s will being done and about helping us live with the
outcome of the deliberation regardless of how it went. And I had to make sure I found a way to
drop in the name of Jesus without sounding formulaic.
The other people in the room were listening to me
and asking God if this is right person for our church, but they weren’t overly focused on God.
I can’t guarantee that, but I’d put money on it. They wanted to know if I could pray well; if I
moved them when I prayed; if I used familiar and traditional language; if I was boring and rote
or if I was earnest and sincere. Thus the exercise was about more than just prayer, which left
wondering if it was prayer after all. I thought about that event when I read the following
thought by Stanley Hauerwas, a former professor of mine. He says, “Notice how in spite of our
best intentions our attention wanders when someone “drops” into the pious tones and set formulas
we associate with saying a prayer...I suspect, that the “holiness” associated with prayer makes
the attitude of prayer more important than the words we actually say. All that matters is that
someone is praying. As a result, prayer becomes an emotive exercise that only confirms our
narcissistic needs.”
So let’s answer the first question of the night.
Why do we pray? Again, if I’m going to answer that question honestly I will need to answer it
very personally. I can only answer it by telling why I pray. I pray because I breathe. I pray
because I exist. I pray because I have no choice. I believe that my entire life is an act of
prayer. Prayer isn’t something that I do at any given moment. It isn’t something for which I
set time apart and say, “This is now my prayer time.” I know people who do that and for whom it
works very nicely, it just never has for me. That isn’t to say that I don’t have moments when I
am talking to God. I do. Quite often, actually. However, I don’t distinguish between that act
and the act of having dinner with friends as one being prayer time and one being social time.
They are, for me, both acts of prayer. Let me explain.
I have often heard prayer defined as “our
relationship with God.” There was a period in my life when I believed that, but I don’t
anymore; at least not if it means that my relationship with God is that moment when I’m on my
knees next to my bed addressing God in an act of deliberate praise and petition. The problem I
have with that definition is that it assumes that this very specific moment is what it means to
be in relationship with God. The truth is that I understand prayer to be every single instant
that I am alive. Every act, every word, every thought I have is an act of prayer. I believe
this because, for me, prayer is life and my life is a prayer. And in order to believe this it
means that we must conceive of prayer in a way slightly different than those moments when we
pause to give thanks to God, or to ask God for something, or to simply praise God. All of these
things are aspects of prayer, but they are not prayer in and of itself. This understanding of
prayer also requires that we de-sentimentalize what prayer is and it requires that we set aside
our pious associations with prayer.
Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians says
this: (Read 1Thess. 5.13b-18). He is describing for them what life in the Christian community
is all about. The line that should obviously stand out to us tonight is when he says, “Pray
without ceasing.” What can this possibly mean? How can someone possibly pray without ceasing?
The only reasonable way to pray without ceasing is to understand ones entire life as an act of
prayer. Thus sleeping becomes an act of prayer and communing with God. Eating with friends
becomes an act of prayer and communing with God. Driving home from Alpha, taking a shower,
talking with a co-worker, picking up your child from school, these things become acts of prayer.
Why? Because prayer is our consecrating our lives
to God for God’s purpose. (Repeat) And if we think of prayer in this way then the way we live
our lives must necessarily change. Imagine the fight you are about to have with your friend or
spouse. Some of you already know what it is. As you think about it imagine it as an act of
prayer. And if you consecrate that very moment to God, what will it require of you? How will
you need to engage one another? What will need to be said and not said, done and not done? How
will God’s purposes be advanced in you in that given moment? If you think about it, prayer
changes the whole tenor of your life, doesn’t it?
William Temple, the 98th Archbishop of Canterbury,
wrote the following which I think captures what I’m trying to say much better than I can say it:
O God of love, we pray thee to give us love:
Love in our thinking, love in our speaking,
Love in our doing, and love in the hidden place of
our souls;
Love of our neighbors near and far;
Love of our friends, old and new;
Love of those we find hard to bear,
And love of those who find it hard to bear us;
Love of those with whom we work,
And love of those with whom we take our ease;
Love in joy, love in sorrow;
Love in life and love in death;
That so at length we may be worthy to dwell with
thee,
Who are eternal love.
Every part of us, every moment, is consecrated to
God’s purpose, and we know that God’s purpose is love. Thus, when I say I pray because I don’t
have a choice, what I mean is that my life is a gift of love from God and so it already belongs
to him. God claimed me long before I claimed God. Before I consecrated myself to God, God had
consecrated that it would be so. Therefore, my life, which is my prayer, belongs to God simply
because I exist and because God formed me. I thankfully have no choice but to pray and in the
same way that I thankfully have no choice but to live.
The second part of our question is “How do we
pray?” At one level this question has already been answered. You live, that’s how you pray.
But I know you well enough by now to know that you will be sorely disappointed if we stop there.
More must be said, but not a lot more.
I was at a conference recently where all of the
participants had been invited to participate. Most of us didn’t know one another. As a way of
introducing ourselves to each other, we were all given a question ahead of time that we were to
answer at the opening dinner. My questions was: “When do you feel closest to God?” That wasn’t
an easy question for me to answer, but I was glad for the opportunity to reflect on it. What I
discovered is that I feel closest to God when I am writing my sermons. And what I discovered
about myself is that the writing of my sermons is the most intentional time I spend in prayer
each week. And the reason that I feel so vulnerable when I preach is because I realize that
every Sunday I get up and share with you my most intimate prayer and my most intimate moments
with God.
Now, I’ve already said that I’m not terribly pious,
and I fear that what I am about to tell you will sound terribly pious, but I’ll have to get over
that. When I am writing my sermons I ask myself relentlessly three very specific questions: 1.
Do you really believe this or are you just saying this because you feel as if you have to? 2.
What do I need hear from God and what do the people who will gather for worship need to hear
from God? 3. Does what I am saying honor God? And so for me the writing of a sermon is the
most intentional time I spend discerning God’s will, reflecting on God’s desires, and pondering
what is going on in the lives of the people I’ve been called to serve. It’s hard work, but I
love it. I feel that those hours in front of the computer are the most privileged way anyone
can spend their time. And so preaching is one way I pray.
But that isn’t terribly practical for you. Most of
you aren’t getting up on Sunday morning to preach. How should you pray? I’ll give you four
very specific pointers:
1. When speaking to God, speak honestly. Another
way of saying it might be: When living with God, live honestly. God already knows what you are
going to say. Then why say it? Because it is a way of being honest with yourself. It is a
wonderful opportunity to say that which you never thought you could bear to say. God can handle
it. God has probably had deal with much worse than anything you could probably throw his way.
Our prayer of confession that we often pray at the 8.00 a.m. service reminds us why we can speak
with such honesty. It says: “O God, you know us as we are and yet you love us.” So speak
honestly and live honestly. Anything short of that is pretending.
2. When speaking with God don’t think only of
yourself. Another way it might be said is: When living with God be selfless. This is trickier
than we might think. We could easily be lead to believe that if we petition God on behalf of
someone else then we aren’t being selfish. But in reality that isn’t always so clear. For
example, here is something I often say: “God, please protect Anabel and Juliet and don’t let any
harm come their way.” If I’m really honest I will have to admit that I do desire God’s
protection for my children, but I must also admit that behind that prayer is the very real
sentiment that goes something like this: “God, please don’t ever let me know the emptiness of
losing a child.” And so you see how cleverly we can trick ourselves into thinking we are being
selfless when in actuality we are thinking of ourselves. To be selfless is the work of a
lifetime, it is the work of life, and a great place to start is in our communing with God.
3. Pray to be humbled. Part of what is so
frustrating about prayer is that we often feel as if we are talking to ourselves and that no one
is listening. We get frustrated with God because God doesn’t answer our prayers. That’s a good
thing. It reminds us that God is not a fairy godmother, and it reminds us that we are not at
the center of the universe, regardless of what we might have told ourselves. God isn’t some
cosmic waitress ready to serve us whatever we order. Thus, prayer is a cure for narcissism. It
reminds us that there are others in the world and it helps keep us and our lives in
perspective. At the same time, part of being humble means knowing that God longs for you and
for your prayer, your life. This is the paradox of prayer, of life in general. When we live
for God, when we offer God our earnest prayer and realize that God longs for that, it humbles us
because we can’t understand why the God of the universe would care for and desire me. Ironic
isn’t it?
4. Lastly, pray simply because you love God. In
other words: live for God. Don’t spare any part of yourself for there is no reason. As a
matter of fact, to pray simply because you love God, to live for no other reason than for the
love of God, is to truly understand the nature of prayer.
Peter Gomes, the minister to Harvard University and
one of my mentors, prays the following prayer before each and every single sermon he preaches.
I close with these words because I think they capture the purpose of life, and the meaning of
authentic prayer.
“Help us, Lord, to become masters of ourselves that
we may become the
servants of others. Take our hands and work
through them. Take our
lips and speak through them. Take our minds and
think through them;
and take our hearts and set them on fire for you.
Amen."
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