Sermon Series on Prayer


Abstract:
I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all that theology stuff - I just have faith."

Body:
I start a sermon series on prayer this Sunday evening. I'm struggling a bit with my perspective. It's hard to preach about prayer without sounding like I think I'm good at it. Good at prayer? I can't figure out if the idea of being good at prayer is presumptuous or just absurd. Maybe like I'm good at tossing mountains into the sea. Maybe like I'm good at breathing and pumping blood.

Plenty of people have written about prayer, about what parts of it are talking and what parts are listening to God. The other night at Trinity, Tony Campolo spoke beautifully about prayer bringing us to the "thin place," as the Irish monastics said, about "driving back the animals," about bringing us into the presence of God. He quoted an interview with Mother Theresa in which the interviewer asked her, "how do you pray to God?" She replied, "I listen to God." The interviewer, flustered, asked, "and what does God say to you?" She replied, "God listens to me. And if you don't get that, I can't explain it to you."

Those who regularly pray develop the sense that the best work of prayer is simply to center us, to bring us before God. But let's face it: most of us wouldn't ever begin to pray at all if we didn't feel a need to ask God for stuff.

So for me to even attempt to preach about prayer, I feel I'll have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not "good at" prayer. When it comes to daily spiritual disciplines, I feel I'm doing great (for me) if I hit four days out of seven. I always feel like a hypocrite when I talk about the importance of daily spiritual discipline, because I'm lousy at it. But I also know the difference between a day begun with prayer and a day without. My grandfather read the same half-dozen psalms every day. He began every day by saying "this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." When he came home from the war, all but one of his high school buddies had been killed. I think that verse meant something different to him than it does to me. It drove him to give thanks daily to God. When you look at his Bible, you see the darkened thumb prints from where he turned the pages on those same few psalms every morning. It's like looking at a path that someone's feet have worn in the grass, walking from the house to the well and back, every single day for years on end.

Anyway, when I am on a spiritual disciplines roll, I like to use A Guide to Prayer for All God's People. It follows the lectionary, and each day begins with a psalm. Today's psalm, 131, floored me. I sat there staring at it for a long time, trying to catch my breath:
My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother.
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forevermore.

I know I've read these words before, but they didn't stun me the way they did this morning. I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all that theology stuff - I just have faith." But the image of the weaned child captured me. I could see the baby who has finally learned that it won't die if it doesn't get the breast. I heard, "shush - all shall be well." That's what I would like to get out of prayer. To bring my laundry list of requests to God, to bring my hunger and my anxiety, my theological questions, my frustration, and to be stilled.

I also hear something about spiritual maturity implied in those verses. A weaned child is not an adult. She cannot drive or take out a mortgage or maybe even speak. But she knows she won't die if she doesn't get what she wants immediately.

Here is the tentative schedule for the sermon series:
1. Pray Then in This Way: The Lord's Prayer
2. Have Mercy: The Jesus Prayer
3. Be Still and Know that I am God: Centering Prayer
4. Active Prayer: Praying and Doing

I know I blew it with the Hell series, but this time I really do plan on getting these puppies recorded. And I do still intend to go back and write a synopsis of the Hell series. After all, I may want to repreach it someday.

edit: How appropriate that my Dad just posted a piece on accountability. I should have mentioned that I always do better with spiritual disciplines when I have a someone else to check up on me. We just started a Covenant Discipleship group for our Singles ministry, and I'm helping them launch. Accountability groups provide me with the motivation to get my spiritual act together and to pray regularly.

Posted: Mon - January 22, 2007 at 10:12 PM           |

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