"Only By Prayer"
The importance of prayer
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Text: Mark 9:17-29
It was my first year at university. I was 16, just about to turn 17, when I was given an opportunity, as a member of the Chapel Folk Group at Mount Allison University to go to Halifax, which was about 300 kilometres away, to perform. We really thought that we were superstars, being invited to a church in Halifax, bussed down and put up in a hotel - we were on tour and we were excited!
We got on the bus and drove half the day to Halifax, only to find out that we were being put up at the Lord Nelson Hotel, one of the famous old hotels in Halifax. We were escorted up to our rooms, and my roommate, who sang in the choir with me and also happened to be from Bermuda, and I went our room. It was plush and luxurious and we felt like a million dollars! We sat there waiting for the rest of the day and the evening and since were not singing until the next morning, we decided just to relax. There on the desk was an incredible piece of paper inviting us to enjoy all the benefits of the hotel, including an outline of what was available in room service. My friend and I thought we should avail ourselves of this wonderful opportunity. “After all,” he said, “whenever my father stays at a hotel, he always uses room service.” So, we did. “Look at this, free chocolates! Orange juice! Coke! This is magnificent!” After we had consumed that, we decided to pre-order breakfast for the next morning- Eggs Benedict, fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee. Yes, we would like some flowers on the trolley as well! And, not only that, some hot, steamy, magnificent bathrobes would be nice, too! I must admit these were, far, far more cuddly than the ones we had to endure at home.
This was a wonderful time, we thought. Magnificent! How kind of this hotel to provide so many wonderful things. The next morning, we met up with all the others after having had a great breakfast. They hadn't had the same, I am afraid. We sang our hearts out at First Baptist Church. A splendid morning was had by all. We got back on the bus, went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage, spent a little while getting ready, grooming ourselves for the long trip back to Sackville, when we were greeted by the senior minister and two deacons from the church.
“You two young men in Room 107?”
“Yes?”
“We would like to talk to you, if we might.”
Very ceremoniously and in a dignified manner, they presented us with the room service bill.
Two young men nearly had coronaries! We looked at each other across from those who were glaring down at us. We looked at the bill and thought about our income for the rest of the academic year - and we saw all of it evaporating before our eyes. We concluded we couldn't pay for this, as much as we wanted to. The chaplain of the college, who was also on tour with us, pretended not to know us for a few minutes, and so, finally, the Baptist minister and his deacons, with a wry smile said, “Well, in this case, we will forgive you. Your debts will be cleared. But in future, don't use room service!” We got back on the bus enthralled by the experience, but humbled by what we had done.
All this came to my mind when I read something by Kenneth Wilson. In his commentary on prayer, he said, “Prayer is many things, but it is not room service.” So often, we treat prayer as if it is that kind of thing - a wonderful smorgasbord of all the things that God has for us, and all we have to do is sign on for whatever we want, whenever we want. It seems like room service, but it is not for two reasons.
First of all, at the heart of prayer is faith and belief. It is not simply a case of outlining all the things that we want, all the things that our eyes see and our wills desire, but it is faith. Prayer involves the recognition that when one is asking for something, one is coming to the source of life, one is coming into the very presence of God. It is God who is the object and subject of our faith and the source of everything. We don't come to this God simply with a list of room service requests. To do so is to forget the source.
The other thing that is required in prayer is obedience and responsiveness to God. Prayer is not just outlining all the things that we would like to have or think we should have and all the things we want done. It also requires a response of awe and obedience on our part. Jesus, after all, when he was in Gethsemane said, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Divine will is at the heart of prayer, and obedience is the response to the call of God.
Here we are in this glorious Easter season, basking in the resurrection of Jesus and the victory of God. We have talked about “a new dawn” and “a new day” and “a new life,” and we want to feel good in this time after Easter. But, to do so requires of us something profound, mainly that we get in contact with and develop a living relationship with that very Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead. It was Jesus who said, “Whatever you ask, you ask in my name.” In other words, the relationship that we have with God is through the risen Son, and now, having a risen Saviour, we have a living, vibrant relationship with God and we have that relationship through the Son. How do we develop it? How does that manifest in our lives? How does it affect our prayer life?
That is what I want to look at this morning. I do so, because I think that prayer raises us up. It takes us to a whole new level of being, a whole new status within the world. It does so by raising our consciousness of God. My father used to say that we live in a world that has what he called, “the song of speed.” We are continually bombarded with things and, in that bombardment, there are many things we want as a result of what we hear. The noise and clamour of the world cause us to focus on those things that demand our immediate attention. When we are being bombarded with stimuli - with advertising, with media, with the demands of the world - our brains, our consciousness, focuses on those things that demand our attention - the song of speed, and the rhythm and pace with which we receive this information cause us to forget about God and spending time with God. Who, honestly, in their lives spends time, meaningful time, communicating with God? In this “song of speed,” prayer gets reduced simply to room service. We pray every now and again when we feel like it, or something crops into our minds that we think is worthy of our coming to God's presence. We are limited with this stimulus, and that is how we approach it. We just come to God and ask God to do all these things that are on our minds at any given moment. What we don't have is the living consciousness of God.
In the story in today's text, we see this problem. We see a father bringing an epileptic, probably a child, and asking Jesus' disciples to heal him. The disciples can't do it, and they are frustrated and angry at their failure. The teachers of the law who are present point to them and say, “Look at what they are unable to do, these followers of Jesus.” And so, we are told, an argument ensues between those legal scholars and Jesus' followers.
In the mean time, the father has a son who is ill. Finally, Jesus arrives on the scene, and the father and the crowds appeal to him to do something. Jesus says, and notice the language, “Everything is possible for those who believe.” Jesus then heals the son. Because of Jesus' intervention, the evil that had so got to this child and had so racked him disappeared. The power of Jesus comes into this situation.
The disciples are absolutely aghast. Why couldn't they, the followers of Jesus, be able to perform this miracle? Jesus then says these amazing words, “This is possible only through prayer.” You see, what the disciples had tried to do was to heal this boy by virtue of their own will and their own power. Jesus understood that it was through the power of prayer, and prayer alone, that this boy could be healed.
Jesus also knew that prayer was dependent on belief and faith: “Everything is possible for those who believe.” What is he telling us? He is telling us that we need to live a God-conscious life. We need to live a life that truly believes that our relationship with God is a relationship that sustains itself in such a way that when a crisis or a need comes along, we truly, honestly believe, and have that faith that makes it possible.
The problem is that the room service approach to prayer is not about faith at all. It is a kind of fatalism, wishful thinking. That is what happened with the disciples. There are many people who get angry with God because they say, “Look, I have gone to God with my request. I made this known and nothing has happened.” One of the reasons why there is unanswered prayer is because we ask it in a room service way rather than out of a deep, profound faith and belief. So, I encourage you, as Easter people, to develop that faith.
There is another component, and that is that we are raised up to be a voice for the voiceless. When this boy was ill, he needed someone to intercede on his behalf. Jesus comes in and intercedes. Where this child was sick, where the disciples were unable to handle the situation, where the father was desperate, Jesus was the voice for the voiceless. Many people in this world, my friends, are voiceless and are dying - the politically dispossessed, many of the poor, many who do not feel that they have any worldly power or authority, many people who are vulnerable. They need someone to intercede on their behalf. This is why I believe that the pastoral prayers that are so special in Timothy Eaton Memorial Church are vitally important when we pray for nations, leaders, countries and situations and for people who are grieving. There is a need for intercessory prayer; someone to speak for the voiceless and those in need and to intercede on behalf of the broken.
At the Blessing of the Pets ceremony this morning, I made a comment based on something I heard from a TV commentator this past week, one with whom I am a friend, have lunch from time to time and respect in so many ways. But, in a show this week, he was saying that he didn't feel, for example, that there should be money spent on research for cancer in animals, and that we should only be concerned about human beings. I understand what he is getting at - some people love their pets more than they love human beings. That is just not right! It is humans that are made in the image of God. But, the whole of creation has been created by God. This universe in which we live and all the animals and creatures within it that are often dependent on us are vulnerable and they need our love, compassion and concern. The environment needs our love, concern and compassion, because God created it. The birds of the air, the fish in the sea and the animals need our love and care, and there is nothing wrong with interceding on their behalf. There is nothing wrong about caring for them; indeed, it is the sign of profound humility to do that. After all, if we believe, as I do, that God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the Son of God was present at the creation and the Spirit moved on the waters, then I believe that everything in this universe was made by the hands of the Lord of my life. Will I not then turn to him in prayer for all that he had created? I think so.
But then, some people say, “Should we ask for specific things? After all, isn't it a waste of time, doesn't God just know everything? So, why does it need us to intervene?” In, God in the Dark, C. S. Lewis wrote the following - and he is absolutely correct.
'Praying for particular friends,' said I, 'always seems to me like advising God how to run the world. Wouldn't it be wiser to assume that he already knows best?'
'On the same principle,' my friend replied, 'I suppose you never ask the man next to you to pass the salt, because God knows best whether you ought to have salt or not. And, I suppose you never take an umbrella, because God knows best whether you ought to be wet or dry.'
'That is quite different,' I protested.
'I don't see why' he said. 'The odd thing is that God should let us influence the course of events at all. But since he let us do this thing one way, I don't see why he shouldn't let us do it another.'
In other words, if God says to us, “I give you freedom to do things and to ask for things that are ordinary,” why would you not turn to God in extraordinary things? I think Lewis is right. If we just assumed that God knows everything and is just going to automatically do it, like he would give us an umbrella if he knew it was going to rain, then we wouldn't need to pray at all. But we do pray. The reason we pray is, as one person once wrote, “We pray to the One who moves the world.” To pray on behalf of the voiceless, to pray on behalf of the world itself, seems to me to be part of our calling.
The final aspect of prayer, and we get this from the story of Jesus and the epileptic, and this is profound, is that it lifts us up; its raises us up to fulfill the will of God. To fulfill the will of God, we need to listen. The disciples were just charging ahead trying to heal this boy and they were failures. They were unsuccessful because they weren't conscious of God, and they also didn't follow the will of God. Jesus wanted to follow the will of God.
There is a wonderful story told by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who got tired of going to receptions and having everyone come up to him and make him feel good, saying, “Oh, you are such a wonderful president. You are such a marvellous man. Isn't it a beautiful day? You are a great character.” So, Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided one day that he was going to a reception and he was going to say the following to everyone he met: “I want you to know that this morning I murdered my grandmother.”
So, he goes into the reception and all the dignitaries are there. He goes up to them and says, “I want you to know that this morning I murdered my grandmother.” They reply, “Well, you are a wonderful president, Mr. Roosevelt. You are a wonderful guy.” He then goes to another group and says, “I want you to know that this morning I murdered my grandmother.” They reply, “It's a wonderful day, Mr. President and we are honoured to be at this event.” Then, he says to yet another person, “I want you to know that I murdered my grandmother this morning.” And the person replies, “You are probably the most outstanding president that this country has ever had!” Roosevelt is going out of his mind! Nobody is listening to him! So, finally, he goes up to an ambassador and says, “I want you to know that I murdered my grandmother this morning.” The ambassador replies, “Well, she probably had it coming to her, sir.”
Roosevelt concluded that people don't listen. Can you imagine how much God must think that of us? Everything is possible for those who believe, but we don't listen. We are so caught up in our own world, and our own ideas and our own concerns, so bombarded with all the things we want or the things that we are doing without, that we don't listen. And, a key component to prayer is listening.
In a sense, Jesus, and the dramatic way in which he healed this boy, shook those who were there. He did it nicely, he did it kindly, but he wanted them to listen, to listen to what he had to say about God. I believe, my friends, so profoundly in the gift of prayer. But, prayer is dependent upon establishing a living relationship of faith with God. So, let us not treat God as the great source of room service in the sky and think that we bombard him with whatever crosses our mind at any given moment. Let us understand that to listen and to pray needs to be responsive to the will of God.
My friends, I believe if we do that, as Tennyson said, “More things are wrought through prayer than this world e'er dreams of.” Amen.