What's In a Prayer? Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 5/20/2012

What’s In a Prayer? By Rev Steven R Mitchell Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 5/20/2012 Based on John 17:6-19 and 1 John 5:9-13 As my first child was learning to speak, her mother and I started teaching her some very simple prayers that we would say at meal time as well as at bedtime. Prayers such as, “God is good, God is great, let us thank him for this food we eat”, or “As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” Surprisingly, my mother-in-law was disturbed that we would be teaching her grandchild prayers by rote. As I inquired as to why this was not appropriate, I was informed that “prayer” was supposed to be spontaneous and from the heart. I had to agree, that prayer should be of the heart. I also felt that my child would benefit with specific prayers that were prayed for specific purposes: to create ritual and consistency, to understand that there was someone greater beyond her family or herself, and would have a foundation for augmenting prayers to fit her needs as she grew older, making them more personalized. There are many reasons why we feel the need to pray. In the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd…” gives us that security that God is walking along side of us, although we tend to use this prayer most often when we are experiencing periods of great strife and mega shifts in our lives, it is also a prayer that gives us comfort, strength, and insight during times of meditation. The Disciples of Jesus came to him one day and asked to be taught a prayer, just as John the Baptizer had taught a prayer to his disciples. The beginning instruction of this prayer is, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hollowed is your name…” On Easter Day 2007, it was estimated that two billion Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox Christians read, recited, or sang this short prayer in hundreds of languages.[7] Although theological differences and various modes of worship divide Christians, according to Fuller Seminary professor Clayton Schmit, "there is a sense of solidarity in knowing that Christians around the globe are praying together..., and these words always unite us." Wikipedia Is anyone able to say that this prayer taught and said by rote, does not inspire the heart? If not, then why do so many people of faith say this prayer? In today’s Gospel reading, we have another prayer being shared, this time by Jesus petitioning for those who believe in him. We hear Jesus asking God to protect those who believe in him from the evil that dwells in the world. “15 I’m not asking that you take them out of this world but that you keep them safe from the evil one.” “17 Make them holy in the truth; your word is truth.” The writer of 1 John picks up this point by saying, “10 The one who believes in God’s Son has the testimony within;” “11 And this is the testimony: God gave eternal life to us, and this life is in his Son.” 1 John 5: 10-11 And what is this truth? The truth is this: love is from God, because God is love. 10 This is love: it is not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his Son…. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. 1 John 4:9, 10, & 18 This prayer takes place shortly after Jesus has shared with his disciples that once they arrive in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, he would be arrested and killed. Jesus was sharing these things because he didn’t wish his disciples to be blindsided by what was going to happen. This foretelling by Jesus comes on the heels of the disciples and the seventy being sent out to the surrounding countryside to preach in Jesus’ place and returning in triumph of how they had done such wondrous acts in God’s name. The “good times” were about to end. Life for those who had been following Jesus was about to be turned upside down. The Gospel of John was written to those believers who had lost their place of worship, with the destruction of the synagogue and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD and were being threatened by the Roman Empire, having to navigate in a world that was built by violence and evil. So from a prayer by Jesus for his disciples as they face the future death of their leader, Jesus was again speaking to those who follow his teachings as they face the cruelty and uncertainty that comes through Roman domination. As Rev Kathy Huey writes, “Don’t worry, Jesus tells them, turning to God in prayer, asking that they will be protected, entrusting them, and all who would follow, into God’s care. Jesus asks that they will be one that they will be made holy. More than that: that they will experience joy. In some mysterious way, perhaps all of that is what it means to abide: to trust, to love, to be one, to be holy, to know joy. And this is also what it sounds like when Jesus prays for us.” UCC Lectionary Study, May 20, 2012 by Kathy Huey At some point in our lives, all of us experience the crashing down of our world around us. Whether it comes through broken relationships, financial crisis, lose of health, the death of a significant individual in our lives, or through a faith crisis, we all walk through that valley of shadows, where we experience fear, uncertainty, and aloneness. It is through this prayer that Jesus has prayed for his disciples, this prayer that has been prayed for those who believe and trust in his “truth”, this prayer that was prayed for us, that gives us strength while we walk through our dark times and know that God is protecting us. It is through these experiences, that our knowledge of God is fortified and becomes our “testimony” about God’s unending love at work for us. The Rev Bonnie Miller-McLemore, professor of Pastoral Theology at Vanderbilt University of Divinity in Nashville, TN shares this observation about differing practices of “testimony” within faith communities. “After visiting a church with more orthodox beliefs, a youth in my own congregation observed, ‘they didn’t just say, ‘We believe.’ They said, ‘We know!’” Other youths felt uncomfortable with the certainty of those in a more evangelical and proselytizing tradition than their own. Many Congregations do not practice testimony, at least not self-consciously, in part for fear of inappropriately imposing beliefs on others. [I understand this.] Other communities keep it at the heart of their practice. [I understand this as well.] Lest we immediately assume that testimony involves the community only in Spirit-filled truth telling through word and song, some testimony moves beyond words and appears in concrete acts of compassion. Rev Miller-McLemore goes on to say, “I received a letter from a good friend asking for a contribution but she also testified: ‘I reached a point where I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand what was happening to so many children, women, and men…in large part because they were unlucky to be born poor.’ She is working to build a health clinic in a poverty-stricken town. This also testifies to faith in the promise of life – life given eternally through God in Christ’s love alive in the world.” Jesus’ prayer for protection of those who love God lives on generation from generation, in the stories, in the “testimonies” of his followers, in the testimonies and actions of you and me, as we walk in the path of God’s love. It is important that we share our stories with one another, whether through words or through our actions because that is what gives hope to a world that is constantly being brutalized by power, greed, and self-interest; a world willing to do harm to anyone that stands in it’s way. It is ‘truth’ that we are called to proclaim! And that truth is: God is love and love gives life. “What’s in a prayer?” We will find in prayer: hope, comfort, joy, solidarity. We find strength through ‘prayer’. It is through prayer we are able to “abide”, to trust, to love, to be one, to be holy, to know joy, and to testify the truth of God! Amen