Teach Us To Pray

What does it mean to pray?

In these last weeks, we have been urged to pray by our community leaders for what seem to be almost immeasurable, impossible things – the executions in Bali, those afflicted by the earthquakes in Nepal and Papua New Guinea – and prayer can often seem like an act of last resort. If you can do nothing else, pray.

Prayer commonly appears as the reflection of impotence; it is identified as the antithesis of action, a mark of desperation. We have tried everything and it has all failed. So now we fall to our knees.

In complete contrast, Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote

Prayer is no panacea, no substitute for action. It is, rather, like a beam thrown from a flashlight before us into the darkness. It is in this light that we who grope, stumble, and climb, discover where we stand, what surrounds us, and the course which we should choose. [Man’s Search for God]

When we consider the prayers of Jesus, and the words he spoke concerning prayer, we understand that prayer is neither an alternative, nor a last resort. It is the first place for Jesus, inherent in his ministry and his life. Prayer guides Jesus’ actions and informs his teaching; it is equally concerned with healing and justice, with praise and the assertion of God’s reign in the world.

The Talmud reads, “Never pray in a room without windows.” Never pray without the world in mind, in other words. The purpose of the spiritual life is not to save us from reality. It is to enable us to go on co-creating it. [Joan Chittister]

Calling out in prayer is an affirmation of joy, of hope, of God’s presence in all the world. We must pray for those in need; we must also pray for the next revealing of God, the next act of God in all the world. Our hope is not only to restore the broken; it is to anticipate God’s creation of the next moment of wonder.

There will be times when all we can do is pray, and even when our prayers are inchoate or reduced to silence. Do we ever believe that leaves us – or our world – unchanged?

The prayer Jesus gave us honours God and cries out for the revealing of the kingdom; it affirms that God will provide and that we are conspirators in the restoration of relationships and justice. We pray in hope and humility, and our prayer engages our living. We pray as first resort – and we pray as last resort, because we are found, first and last, in Jesus.

Abba our God
whom the heavens disclose,
may your name be held holy,
your authority come.
May your longing be fulfilled
as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us today
the bread of tomorrow,
and cancel our debts
as we have already forgiven our debtors.
Do not draw us in to sinful enticement
but set us free from the grip of evil;
for authority and power and glory are yours alone, for ever.
Amen.

“Christians are formed in the way they pray”
(Preface, The Alternative Service Book, 1980)