Dear Friends,
To our shared dismay and anxious sadness, the pandemic continues, growing more complex with each day. We hear about too many people falling ill, and we learn of some who die; we see shuttered businesses and know their owners are suffering, as are their employees; we see long lines at foodbanks and know that far too many are hungry; we know our children are struggling to continue learning from home, and that they miss their teachers and friends; we learn of the enormity of the challenges that our health care providers, service providers, and first responders continue to take on so willingly. We see ever greater vulnerability among the most vulnerable, here and around the world. We know that even those who don’t suffer directly are threatened by confusion and fear. We all put off the self-care we need because our doctors and caregivers are consumed by more urgent demands.
I find myself praying a lot in these days of crisis.
Prayer is central to our faith as Christians. Before the pandemic, we prayed when we gathered together for Sunday worship. We prayed at Bible studies and church fellowship events. We prayed at services that marked the most significant times of our lives – baptisms, confirmations, graduations, weddings, funerals. Prayer has most often been a powerful part of our communal life together.
Prayer is amazingly flexible; it’s appropriate for us communally and also as individuals. It goes well beyond our formal worship life, adapting to our needs as we make our way through our lives. For many, prayer is so comfortable that it’s a “knee-jerk” reaction. How often, especially when we receive good news in the midst of a crisis, do we quickly utter, “Thank God!” Many of us pray when we wake, or when we go to sleep, when we sit down to a meal, when we hear sirens, when we receive good news or bad – at any of those times when we feel the need to be closer to God. There’s no maximum or minimum time limit for prayer. Prayers can be said in the space of mere seconds or in long contemplation. We pray in the solitude of our private spaces – in our homes, in the car, on walks, at our favorite places, almost anywhere. We pray whenever we need to step back for a moment or longer and just take a break to “be alone.” But are we truly alone?
God is with us. Prayer is the basic practice of communication with God. By praying, we affirm that ultimately, we know that we are never totally alone. There might be times when, in our human finitude and pain (physical, emotional, or spiritual), we can’t grasp that God is with us, and we might feel abandoned. And now, in this time of pandemic, when we’re dealing with communal, governmental, and self-imposed isolation that extends even to our beloved sanctuary, we might wonder if we are isolated from God as well. It is at times like this that prayer, in and of and by itself, reminds us and makes us more fully aware that we are not alone.
Even if you don’t have a specific reason to pray at this moment, take a breath now and offer up a prayer. It can be short or long, no matter. Just the act of praying will empower you and remind you, emphatically, that you are not alone, and your solitary prayer is very powerful.
I’ve met so many people who confess with great unhappiness, even some shame, that they don’t know “how” to pray. “What must I do?” they ask. Be assured; God doesn’t judge your prayers; on the contrary, God hears them.
The singular, fundamental essence of prayer is that it is a way to open us to be touched by God.
There is no set formula for prayer. We pray as we are moved to pray, or as God moves us to pray. That said, professors in divinity schools, teachers in Sunday Schools, ministers, and people who want to get at the essence of prayer try to help those who seek to know the “how” of prayer, and they’ve developed some foundational forms of prayer. I offer them to help you organize your prayerful thought and contemplation. They’re meant only to guide you, if you wish such guidance; they’re not prescriptions for prayer. Again, be assured that God hears your prayers; it’s not important to God whether or not your prayers are sophisticated or that they include all the suggestions below. There is power in all prayers.
With the understanding that there is no perfect way to pray, no required “how,” wise thinkers like those professors and Sunday School teachers have come to see four basic aspects to prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication. A prayer does not have to have all four, or even any, of these qualities. But I hope that knowing these four traits of prayer will help to “prime the pump” for our personal prayer lives. And I encourage you to pray; the more often we pray, the easier it becomes to reach out to God.
Adoration We often begin prayers with words of adoration. “Almighty and powerful,” “Always caring, all knowing God,” “Blessed Jesus,” “Ever-present Holy Spirit.” The list goes on and on. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he began his prayer with words of adoration: “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Adoration is how we praise God, how we revere and glorify God. It’s how we acknowledge how central and significant God is in our lives.
Contrition The counterpart to our reverence for the majesty of God is our awareness of the limits of our finite humanity, and so we confess our limitations and shortfalls. We share with God, if no one else, our wrongdoings – great or small – as a way of recognizing that God is perfect and we are not. And we are able to share those deficiencies and sins because we know God to be not only majestic, but also unconditionally loving and forgiving.
Thanksgiving An essential part of authentic relationship (with God and with one another) is gratitude for the gifts we are given as part of that relationship. In prayer, we accept and acknowledge the many ways God cares for us; we recognize God’s abundant gifts to us. An attitude of gratitude is the foundation of thanksgiving.
Supplication Here is the part of our relationship with God that seems to pose the most problems for us, for it is here that we ask God for what we need. It’s uncomfortable for many of us to ever admit to needing anything. Perhaps it will help if we try to discern the difference between wants and needs, and even that can be difficult. “Want” can mean famine or hunger, but it more often has to do with desire, rather than the essential requirements for life, and for abundant life in the Biblical sense. (We’ll learn more about abundant life on Sunday.) In this time of pandemic isolation, we’re learning that there are all sorts of things we want, but those are different from what we need. “Need” is more fundamental, more essential to life, which includes physical, emotional, and spiritual life. There is a difference between being selfish and recognizing our needs. In our prayers of supplication, we pray for people in need who are close to us and people whom we may not know but only know of, and we pray for our own needs. We pray for our families, our church, our community, our nation, and our world. We pray for loving ways to relate to one another, to God’s creation, and to causes that might seem far beyond our abilities to affect but need our prayers. God welcomes these prayers, whether they are for ourselves or for others, known and unknown, to us. God’s love, remember, is unconditional and eternal.
I’ve said several times here that prayer is powerful. But what is the power of prayer? It’s something we discover as and when we pray; the act itself of praying is powerful. George MacLeod, a minister of the Church of Scotland and the founder of the Iona Community (a retreat and prayer center on the island of Iona off the coast of Scotland), gives a wonderful description of the power of prayer. He writes:
“Where people are praying for peace the cause of peace is being strengthened by their very act of prayer, for they are themselves becoming immersed in the spirit of peace.”
Let us pray together,
All-loving God, we come before you in humbleness and humility, recognizing our inabilities to make the world into a place that would foster and nurture all of your children, our sisters and brothers. We are awed by the abundance of your life-giving love for us all. We thank you for gifts of community, and for moments of peace in our individual lives, in our families, and our global community. Yet we are bold to ask for your loving grace to cascade upon us even more. Be with us, and be with those who are sick, those who mourn, those who are suffering loss of livelihood, those who are afraid, those who hunger, those who are lonely, those who face death. Be with them and be with us, we pray. In Christ’s name and by the power of the Holy Spirit we raise our prayers to you, Almighty God, now and forever. Amen.