the vicar's blog about being a Christian 2006

Pray or delay? January 14, 2007

The Children’s Prayer Lord's Prayer October23,2005

Conflict and Prayer September 4, 2005

A Word of Prayer April 10, 2005

When I was in my 20s I went on a mission with a man who was a member of the Free Presbyterian Church (the ‘wee frees’ they were called). He was a godly man who prayed amazing prayers. I was very impressed by the way his prayers started. No jumping straight into requests. He took his time recounting the wonderful character of God, as he had learnt to do from his reformed heritage.

I learnt a lot from his prayers. But there was a temptation to pray for the sake of the beauty of the language. It was a tricky question. Was the prayer composed out of respect for God – to honour him by the way I spoke to him? Or was I myself the real audience? Or worse still –was I praying to the people who were listening?

Audiences are very powerful. That is one reason Jesus said to shut the door when we pray – to shut out all audience except our Father.

Some of us, especially when we first begin to pray in public, find the audience intimidating. We are afraid of saying the wrong thing, or using the wrong words, or failing to use the right words.

But there is a bigger problem when we pray on our own. What is it that will really get God’s attention? Do we need to pray many times? Do we need to give God all the details? Do we need to tell him exactly what we want done? Is our faith shown by the fact that we ask for specific things? And if so how specific do we need to be?

Or is it earnestness that counts? Will God pay attention to half-hearted prayer? When we listen to Jesus’ instructions, we are surprised by the way he seems to cut the ground from under our prayer. He says our Father in heaven knows what we need before we ask. So the obvious question leaps out – so why pray?

But that may not be the only obvious question. Another question might be – why delay? If he knows what we need before we ask, then getting an answer seems hopeful. And without any need to get his attention, or impress him with lots of details.

Sometimes we are not sure whether he knows what we need as well as we do. That’s why it is so good to be praying to a Father, actually not somebody else’s Father but our Father. And maybe, since he has kindly adopted us as his children and brought us into the same family as his only Son, we can give him the benefit of the doubt about that.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, did he intend that they should repeat the same words over and over again? One of the difficulties we have in working this out is that Luke’s report of the Lord’s prayer is shorter than Matthew’s.

One possible reason is that Jesus suggested a similar prayer on different occasions. Luke reports that the disciples wanted to learn how to pray. So Jesus said they should say this prayer, or perhaps he meant they should say this kind of prayer.

Both versions of the prayer omit the doxology we are familiar with (it seems to have been added later by people who wanted to end the prayer with a good ending. In our Bible it ends with a sobering request that we will not be brought to the time of trial (NRSV), or temptation (NIV), or that we should be delivered from the evil one (NIV).

The change in translation from “temptation” to “time of trial” has found its way into some of the modern Anglican liturgies. Personally I think this is a good change. In the western world we have tended to focus on personal sins to which we are tempted, as though this was the whole of the difficulty of the Christian life. But in the time of Jesus and in the following few centuries, the big issue was persecution and the temptation to give up one’s faith in the face of hard testing.

The word used in the New Testament for temptation is the same word we translate as testing. So the context has to tell us which translation is best. In the Lord’s prayer the testing amounts to a temptation to give up one’s faith. The other part of the request is that we be delivered from evil, or from the evil one. Jesus thought that behind the pressure to abandon faith in him was the activity of the Evil One who had already tested Jesus himself in the desert.

Perhaps the prayer is meant as a guide to the kinds of things one might pray. Each of the parts of the prayer can be expanded into many prayers. The ending of the prayer reveals Jesus as a realist who was concerned for his disciples in the hostile situation he left them in.

Despite the difficulty of following Jesus the prayer is a very personal prayer, addressed to one on the throne of heaven whom we are to call Father. In the face of trouble it is our own Father we call out to. It is the Father of the whole group of disciples who knows what we need before we ask.

In the last week there has been a flurry of stories about the closure of churches. Many of the stories are connected with events in Bandung. Others are closer to home.

The matter is complex of course. Some of the buildings where church meetings are alleged to have taken place apparently are not licensed as places of worship, even though the churches are registered. Town planning regulations in developed countries might also prevent such services taking place. But the news reports were not about local government officials doing their job. Many parties are involved in these disputes.

As in all situations of conflict there is the possibility of a movement towards a better solution, and there is the possibility that matters may deteriorate. So far, it seems, there has been face to face dialogue which must be worth something.

Those who read the papers will know that this problem is not new, and that it has many dimensions. One of the questions that can be asked is why there are so many church meetings in unlicensed premises. No doubt there is more than one answer to this question.

We foreigners who watch from the sidelines often don’t know much about the issues, and even if we do, we don’t always understand them very well. But we see brothers and sisters in difficult situations. And we see disagreements that affect the life of the nation. But we can understand that the issues are fairly complex, and that they have a history.

So we must pray. And we can ask our friends to pray. With the internet we can point overseas friends to news articles in the local press which probably never get reported in overseas media.

I suppose all of the Christian foreigners in Indonesia are here to make some contribution to this nation. We are not here just to exploit it or to make a lot of money for ourselves. We have friends here, and we want to pray for this wonderful country.

This is an interesting time to be in Indonesia. It is a time of change and growth. New ways of living are emerging, struggles are everywhere. I believe now is a time for us Christians to pray hard: for our brothers and sisters, for the people of this great nation, for its leaders.

I was at a meeting this week when the leader suggested we have a word of prayer. As sometimes happens in meetings, I thought what would a prayer be like which had only one word in it?

What kind of a prayer could one pray with only one word? And what word would one use?

Thanks was the first word that came to mind. I suppose that is a common one word prayer. There are so many things to give thanks for. It could be on our lips all day.

Lord, could be a cry for help, a statement of submission, it could be a question or a query.

Jesus, is perhaps a more personal prayer. An expression of love, adoration, a cry for help or sympathy, a question, a shout.

Help. That is a good prayer. Some people don’t like this word because it reflects on their own ability to look after themselves. But it is the disciples’ prayer. We need help often. That is why we pray. Praying shows our dependence and trust. Help is a prayer of faith.

Father. Like “Jesus” this prayer expresses aspects of our personal relationship with the living God. It is also the prayer of Jesus. It is the prayer that those whom God has adopted as his own children pray. In fact only those who have the Spirit of the Son, Jesus, are able to pray this prayer. It is the prayer of intimacy and the prayer of assurance. Knowing the Father as Jesus knew him assures us that we are God’s children.

Would one pray, Spirit? To ask for help, certainly. While killing off another deed of the sinful flesh, indeed.

And what other one word prayers could there be?

Come!
Pardon, forgive, mercy,