In the Scripture we have just read, Jesus tells the story of two men who went to church to pray. One was a well known sinner, and the other was a well respected religious leader. Jesus interjects some humor when he says that the religious man was praying “about” himself. Another way to translate the phrase is that he prayed “with” himself or “to” himself. He is having a great time praying, the only problem is that God is not listening. He is merely congratulating himself and thinking how proud God must be of him. But God was not nearly so proud of him as he was of himself. We know from his prayer (or should we say his speech) that he was not a robber, an evildoer or an adulterer. We also know that he practiced certain religious rituals. He fasted and gave one tenth of his income to God. We also know that he looked down on people who were not as moral as he. He practically sneered as he thanked God that he was not like the tax collector he noticed praying in the temple with him. We get the idea that the man is praying out loud. He is hoping the tax collector heard him give his little dig, and he is hoping that the other people standing around him heard his speech extolling his piety.
The tax collector, however, was not listening. He has other things on his mind. He openly confesses his sin. He does not come near the sacred place where others are standing. He will not lift his eyes to heaven, and only prays that God will have mercy on him. He prays with wonderful honesty. What is shocking about this story is that it is the sinner who is justified before God, and the righteous man is not. The Pharisee left the temple unaware that he was not right with God. In fact, he would not have been able to comprehend God’s rejection of him and his prayer, and he would never have believed that the sinful tax collector found favor in God’s eyes. Jesus ends the story by saying, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The main message of the parable is that it is not a matter of whether we pray, but how we pray that matters. What is the attitude of our hearts when we come before God? Are we being honest? Do we come before God with humility, or do we come informing God of how well we have done?
How are we supposed to pray? How do we come before God? The first thing we need to consider is that: Prayer is an act of worship. The first part of prayer should always be worship. So often prayer resembles whining more than worship. We come to God armed with complaints, and they are frequently followed by demands. But we dare not rush into God’s presence spouting off our needs and requests. We come joyfully, but we come reverently, understanding that we are in the presence of the great and mighty God. The Bible says, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15). Jesus taught us to begin with worship in his model prayer. He said that we should begin with words like: “Our Father, in heaven, holy is your name.” There is a difference between thanksgiving and worship. Thanksgiving is thanking God for what he has done. Worship is praising God for who he is. He is God and there is no other. We worship God for being holy. We worship him for being all-powerful, yet loving, merciful, kind and forgiving. We worship him for being faithful and true.
Anyone who has truly come into the presence of God is awestruck. Throughout the Bible, those who came into contact with God landed on their faces. They did not walk up and put their arms around God like their good buddy; they were overcome by their own sense of unworthiness and the totally otherness of God. I love the story of Jesus and the disciples as they are out on the lake when a terrible storm comes. The waves are whipping the boat about, and the disciples fear for their lives. But Jesus is sleeping in the stern of the boat. They awaken him, asking why he is not concerned that they are about to perish. They are, in effect, questioning his love for them and his ability to take care of them. Jesus then stands up in the boat and rebukes the winds and the waves so that a great and holy calm comes upon the lake. You would have expected the disciples to give high fives and cheer, but instead they were terrified. In fact, they were now more terrified of Jesus than they had been of the storm. They exclaimed, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him ” (Mark 4:41). They understood that Jesus was not just a great man or a holy prophet. He was something totally other than they had ever come in contact with. He was the God who ruled the wind, the sea and all of nature. He was, in fact, in control of the universe. The only appropriate response to being in the presence of God is worship. Worship is a need of the human heart. The Bible says, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (John 4:23).
And then after we have worshiped God for who he is, we want to thank him for what he has done. Never should we pray without finding time to thank God for all he has done for us. All of us are more blessed than we deserve, and we need to make sure we take the time to thank God for his goodness and faithfulness to us. What a sin it is to receive great blessings with little thanks. I think of the story in the New Testament of Jesus healing ten lepers (Luke 17:12-19). All ten were healed, but only one came back to thank him. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” (Luke 17:17). So often were are like the nine who receive our blessings and run off on our own business, never taking the time to be thankful. Prayer that is empty of worship and thanksgiving is empty indeed. The Bible says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
The second thing we need to consider is that: Prayer is an expression of the soul. Prayer is not just words. It is an attitude. It is inward communication. As Eli and I were talking this week he said, “I see prayer as the deepest part of me getting in touch with the deepest part of God.” That’s good. It sounds like the scripture which says, “Deep calls to deep” (Psalm 42:7). Sometimes we don’t even know how to pray, and words fail us. The apostle Paul experienced this, for he said, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27). Isn’t that beautiful? It is so full of mystery that we will never understand all the ways that God has helped us in our prayers. God adds to our prayers. The Holy Spirit gives expression to what we cannot express. The Holy Spirit continues to pray for us when our prayers have come to an end.
So prayer is not just a bunch of words we throw in God’s direction. It is an expression of who we are, and a desire to get in touch with who God is. Sometimes we just walk in God’s presence, knowing he is there. We know that he is all around us. We begin to share his joy and live in the confidence that he has overcome the world. We understand that we are known at the deepest level of our existence and are loved unconditionally. We realize that he is acquainted with our most profound needs. We understand that he cares for us. As we worship him, we feel the Spirit ministering to the places in us that only he knows. We reveal things to him that we can reveal to no one else. We get real with him. Our heart is reverberating with the heart of God, and our prayer is an expression of our soul.
It is here where we move beyond church member mentality and going through the motions of religious ritual. Here is where prayer is not just praying for our physical problems or those of others. This is where prayer becomes a living thing — part of who we are. It is an expression of our deepest desires. It is the cry of our soul to know more of God. We confess the sins we can confess to no one else, and experience forgiveness and acceptance. We intercede for the needs of others. We petition God with our own needs. We express true worship as we adore God and give him our love. We praise him for his faithful love for us, and thank him for all he has done. Joy begins to well up within us as praise naturally flows from our hearts. We are not worshiping God because someone told us we had to do it. It is a felt need within us, and it becomes as natural as breathing. In fact, we need to worship as much as we need to breathe. Prayer becomes a part of who we are.
This leads to the last point. The third thing we need to understand about prayer is: Prayer is a relationship. Prayer is not a recitation of all the things we want God to do. It is not a list of demands that we want him to meet. It is one friend speaking to another. It is two hearts beating. As we are together we share our love for each other. God shares his joy with us. He gives us hope and a positive outlook on life that allows us to live with confidence. Because we are in this relationship, we have a new power over the temptations of life. Sin loses its power because it loses its attractiveness and allure. Our desires are turned upon God and the way of life he has shown us. We find an assurance that God cares for us, even though we may be experiencing struggles.
Because prayer is a relationship, it is not confined to church or a certain time of the day. We live in prayer. It is a conversation we carry on throughout the day. Here is where we learn to love God and understand just how much he loves us. We confess our sins and receive his forgiveness. We are assured that God will go into the future with us, so we are full of hope and confidence.
If we were perfect we would always be in prayer and never be distracted. But that is not the case. John Donne, one of the greatest Christians of all time, wrote about his experience in prayer. He said, “I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither; and when they are there, I neglect God and His Angels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.” All of us have trouble with our minds wandering during prayer, just like they wander while we are talking to another person. Sometimes, however, God is directing our minds to wander and telling us to pray for the thing our minds have wandered to.
I have mentioned before that I have a team of people who work with me in developing the ideas and content of the sermons. We meet every Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., and, by the way, you are invited to come if you would like to be a part of it. But I asked the people in the group to tell about some memorable experience they had in prayer. One person talked about a favorite place by a river where they like to go and pray. Another person talked of feeling the presence of God and having an awareness that someone was praying for them. They felt surrounded by a hedge of prayer. Someone had a meaningful time of prayer as they were struggling with a persistent temptation. My most memorable times of prayer were the times I experienced the power of praying with other people in a group. More than one person felt prayer and worship swell up in their hearts as they listened to Christian music. Joanna often sings to God as a form of prayer. Eli shared that he likes to pray the Scripture. He was reading the story of the woman at the well where Jesus offered her living water, and the words came to him: “Drink deeply.” He went about that day asking God to place within him a desire to drink deeply from the living water that he was providing. Another day he was reading about Jesus’ healing someone and carried the word “wholeness” with him through the day. It became a centering prayer.
I was blessed to see how many forms people’s prayers took. We all prayed in different ways, because we all have such different personalities. Each of us are unique and our prayers will take on a form that is peculiar to us. Some people kneel, others stand, some lay on their face, some sit or lay in a bed. Some pray out loud, and the louder the better. Some prefer to pray silently in their minds. Still others prefer to write their prayers. Some weep. Others laugh. But all are legitimate forms of prayer. God has created us with unique personalities, and he relates to each of us in a special way. And at different times we might use many different forms of prayer. But whatever form of prayer we use, we can be assured that God hears us and that our prayers matter. The Bible says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).
When George McCluskey married and started a family, he decided to invest time every day in prayer. Top on his prayer list was that he wanted his children to follow Christ. Eventually he also began to pray for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren — even before they were born. Every day he prayed for the next three generations. As his two daughters grew, they each committed their lives to Christ. They both married men who went into full time ministry. The two couples produced five grandchildren: four girls and one boy. Each of the girls were involved in Christian work, and the boy became a pastor. The first two children born to McCluskey’s grandchildren were both boys. When the two boys, who were cousins, graduated from high school, they chose the same college and became roommates. During their sophomore year, one boy decided to go into the ministry. The other didn’t. He was feeling some guilt for not going into the ministry like his cousin, but he felt God leading him to pursue his interest in psychology. He went on to earn a Ph. D. in psychology, and eventually wrote books for parents that became bestsellers. He started a radio program which is now heard on more than a thousand stations each day. The man’s name was James Dobson. But without George McCluskey there may not have been a James Dobson as we know him. McCluskey’s prayers not only affected his family, but millions of families around the world.
Prayer is powerful in its affect. It moves the heart of God. It changes the world. But most of all it changes us.
Rodney J. Buchanan
January 26, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Experiencing a Life of Prayer
Questions for January 26, 2003
1. Read Luke 18:9-14. What are your observations about this story of Jesus?
2. Read Isaiah 59:2. Are there prayers that God does not hear?
3. Read John 4:23. What qualities should mark our worship?
4. Read Philippians 4:6-7. What happens when our lives and prayers are marked by thanksgiving?
5. Share a memorable experience that you have had. What does prayer mean to you?
6. How is prayer a relationship?
7. What helps you in your prayer life? Music? Singing? Quiet? Reading the Word? Something other?
8. How much is confession a part of your prayer life?
9. How much is intercession and petition a part of your prayer life?
10. How much is listening a part of your prayer life?
