Prayer And Patience

“It’s alright for you thinnies” Boris Johnson apparently told the cabinet as he explained his desire to start a new campaign against obesity once the Covid crisis is over. “It’s alright for you thinnies” Boris has come to see the fact that he is overweight as one of the reasons why he suffered so badly when he caught the Corona Virus and has come to realise that he and other fat people need to be helped to lose weight.

For the last 30 years the government - whether it has been a labour government, a coalition including the Lib Dems or a Conservative government - has sought to get us to lose weight. And it has always come across as a Nanny state thing- “you really ought to lose weight”

“It’s alright for you thinnies” - There is a difference in Boris’s message on this which has nothing to do with whether you support him on any other issue. Here Boris is saying “we should lose weight. I’m in just as much as a mess as many of you - and we need to lose weight”.

It’s often the same when the church talks about prayer. Nanny Church says “You ought to be praying more. You ought to be praying longer. You ought to be praying better”

I think instead the message should be “it’s alright for you holy people...”. Many of us struggle with prayer. Many of us know we need to be praying better. We don’t need an expert ticking us off. We need something like a slimming world for people who want to pray better - where other people who are struggling tell us what is helping them.

Todays reading is about prayer and patience.

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. 13When they had entered the city, they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of* James. 14All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

Prayer and Patience.

The disciples - Mary, the Apostles, Jesus’s brothers - go to the upper room to wait. The last thing they were told by Jesus was that they were going to receive this power from the Holy Spirit and once the power comes they are to be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” But they have no idea how long they have to wait. Is it going to be a few hours? Is it going to be tomorrow? Is it going to be a few days?

God’s timing is not our timing.

In the 1960s, a Stanford professor named Walter Mischel began conducting a series of important psychological studies known as the Marshmallow experiment.

The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow.

So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later.

The researcher left the room for 15 minutes.

As you can imagine, the footage of the children waiting alone in the room was rather entertaining. Some kids jumped up and ate the first marshmallow as soon as the researcher closed the door. Others wiggled and bounced and scooted in their chairs as they tried to restrain themselves, but eventually gave in to temptation a few minutes later. And finally, a few of the children did manage to wait the entire time.

The interesting result was not what happened then but what happened later in the children’s lives. But we will come to that….

First a little clip from a comedy show about a psychology experiment into waiting…

{clip 1 from Community}

More on that in a moment.

Mary and the Apostles and Jesus’s brothers were “constantly devoting themselves to prayer”.

What place does prayer have in our lives?

Corrie Ten Boom was a dutch Christian sent to concentration camp for hiding Jews. Corrie asked

“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”

I am very grateful for the fact there is a spare tire in my car - but I try not to use it. I try to keep it there only for when the tire explodes on the A40. The steering wheel on the otherhand….

But prayer isn’t just there for emergencies. Prayer is there for every part of our life.