Sermon Tone Analysis

*Studying the Bible with Brother Jack*

*/Part III: Does Prayer Work?/*

*/July 24, 2011/*

 

Q   Do you know what one of my biggest *insecurities* has been?

Prayer, especially *praying* *out* *loud*.

I have worked with pastors who are eloquent and insightful; I am stumbling and clumpy (whatever that means).

·         I know that it goes with the position, but given a choice, I will let *someone* *else* *pray* every time.

Part of that is because I am not “*smooth* of *speech*.”

But it also used to be the *awkwardness* with *prayer* itself.

I have been given *books* filled with *stories* about great men and women of faith and the amazing prayers God has answered, but they don’t inspire me, they *depress* me.

Q   Do you know what has helped me the most?

It’s not *desperation* – being desperate helps me pray a lot for a short period of time.

But most important thing for me in becoming a man of prayer is *understanding* *prayer* *better*.

I know that many of you cannot relate – you might say that we don’t need to *understand* *internet* code in order to use Facebook, nor do we need to understand prayer.

I envy you.

·         I am a *weird* *duck*, and I know that, but the better I understand prayer the better I am at doing more frequently.

Here is *how I think*: God is all *knowing* and all *powerful*; he doesn’t *need* our *permission*.

Won’t he do what’s *best*?

And if that is true, then isn’t prayer a *meaningless* *ritual*?

·         So I will pray as *best* I *can*, but don’t be surprised if it *lacks* *consistency* or *passion*.

And here is where *Lewis* comes in for me.

He was a man of prayer, but you can tell he had struggled with the same thing, because he thought more deeply about the “why’s” of prayer than most.

He has two main works on prayer, “The *Efficacy* of *Prayer*” (link online) and “*Letters* to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer,” a collection of letters to a fictional person.

·         This has *helped* me, and I hope it helps *you*.

Prayer

 

*Scripture reading: James 5:13-18*

 

 

Prayer under a microscope

 

Have you heard about the most recent *scientific* *study* of prayer?

I found out about it via some of my atheist friends posting in on their *Facebook* account.

Patients who had *heart* *surgery* were divided into three groups, on that was not prayed for, one that was prayed for but did not know they were being prayed for, and a group that was being prayed for and were so.

The first two groups had no difference in recovery rates, but the third group actually had worse recovery.

The study hypothesized that the knowledge of the prayers created false hope and a pressure to recover.[1]

Q   So what do we do with that?

Does it mean prayer *doesn’t* *work*?

The funny thing is that Lewis saw something like that coming some *60* *years* ago:

 

I have seen it suggested that a team of people—the more the better—should agree to pray as hard as they knew how, over a period of six weeks, for all the patients in Hospital A and none of those in Hospital B. Then you would tot up the results and see if A had more cures and fewer deaths.

And I suppose you would repeat the experiment at various times and places so as to eliminate the influence of irrelevant factors.

The trouble is that I do not see how any real prayer could go on under such conditions.

“Words without thoughts never to heaven go,” says the King in Hamlet.

Simply to say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as men for our experiment.

You cannot pray for the recovery of the sick unless the end you have in view is their recovery.

But you can have no motive for desiring the recovery of all the patients in one hospital and none of those in another.

You are not doing it in order that suffering should be relieved; you are doing it to find out what happens.

The real purpose and the nominal purpose of your prayers are at variance.

In other words, whatever your tongue and teeth and knees may do, you are not praying.

The experiment demands an impossibility.

/“The Efficacy of Prayer”/

                                   

·         That’s like praying for all the patients in *Skagit* *Valley* Hospital, but none of those at *United* *General* in Sedro.

Wrong question

 

Okay so you can’t create an experiment to figure out if prayer works.

But that sounds a bit like a cop-out.

So *how* can we *know* if *prayer* *works*?

The problem, according to Lewis, is that that is the *wrong* *question*.

For up till now we have been tackling the whole question in the wrong way and on the wrong level.

The very question “Does prayer work?” puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset.

“Work”: as if it were magic, or a machine – something that functions automatically.

/“The Efficacy of Prayer”/

 

 

Gumball machine prayers

 

When I left His Place to come here, after being a pastor almost 9 years, Pastor Bruce gave me a *gumball* *machine* – thee gumball machine – he’d had in his office for years.

It doesn’t work great, *skips*, *doubles* *up*, so the kids *keep* *turning* it until something comes out.

·         That is how so many treat prayer – a gumball machine; we have *all* *the* *tricks* to try to get the prayers answered.

But sometime you can keep turning it until your fingers are numb, and God still *doesn’t* *give* you any *gumballs*.

So if the purpose of prayer is to *dispense* *favors*, our experience tells us it *doesn’t* *work*.

·         That is the wrong question; the right one is “What is God’s *purpose* for prayer?”

Otherwise, we can’t know if it works.

Jesus’ prayer didn’t work

 

The Bible was *not* written like a *theology* *book*, so it doesn’t have a nice set of questions and answers.

There is no place that says, “This is the reason I set up that whole prayer thing.”

Instead we have *stories*, lots of stories.

Some are about *good* prayers, others about *bad* prayers.

Some about prayers that are answered, other about prayers that are ignored.

And from these stories, we learn through observation just what God is up to.

One prayer in the Bible *stands* *out* to me among all the others.

It calls into question so many of our ideas about prayer and why God answers them:

 

*Mark 14:32-36 *  32 ¶ They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”

33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.

34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them.

“Stay here and keep watch.”

35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.

36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you.

Take this cup from me.

Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Here is Jesus, God in flesh praying to His Father.

He is prefect, there is *no* *sin*, there is no *doubt*.

Every *qualification* for the perfect prayer that should be answered, yet the answer is still no.

Everything is possible with God, yet he says no.

 

Q   Did Jesus prayer *work*?

Well, *why* was he praying?

Was it to *change* *God’s* *mind*?

Was it because he thought there was another way?

No, Jesus knew the answer would be no.

He and the Father had hashed this plan out in Heaven long ago.

Jesus purpose for praying was not to *get* something.

What did he really want?

What we all want when we are in our darkest times – to be *comforted* by those *closest* to us.

·         Jesus was praying in order to *be* *with* His *Father*.

As near as I can tell from this and many other stories in the Bible, a key purpose of prayer to *develop* and *deepen* our *relationship* with God.

Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.

Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.

In it God shows Himself to us.