Scripture can be found here…
How do you pray? Do you pray? No judgment here. I think there are probably as many ways of praying as there are pray-ers. Maybe you like to have a conversation with God, just pouring out your heart—you could be sitting by a window, or with a candle nearby, or lying in bed, as you close your eyes at night. Maybe you find yourself praying when there is an urgent need, either one of your own or one you become aware of—a quick prayer, what I once read was called a “arrow prayer,” shot right out of the bow of your heart, aimed at heaven. Maybe you have a devotional book or magazine that you like. A few years ago I became aware of one when someone who was dying recommended it to me. As she spoke about it, she talked of how many people she had shared it with, and what a profound impact the book had had on many lives.[1] Maybe you have created a breath prayer for yourself—a brief prayer using the personal name for God that you prefer, and asking God for what you feel, most deeply in your heart, that you need. Maybe you pray that breath prayer throughout the day.
In the era of social media, we have lots of new opportunities to pray—I have dozens a day, at least—to offer prayers in a comment on a post on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. To pray over the news, as theologian Karl Barth said: the bible in one hand and the newspaper (or, in this case, your preferred website) in the other. This weekend I’ve had the opportunity to pray for a Twitter friend who has gone into labor with twin girls. Clergy groups I belong to are filled with requests for prayers for congregations, and congregants, and pastors who are struggling with illness or burnout or family traumas.
And, of course, every Sunday that we gather together we pray—we pray many times throughout our time of worship together.
How should we pray? Why should we pray, and for whom? Not too long ago, on a summer Sunday morning, we shared a passage from Luke’s gospel in which Jesus is asked how to pray, and responds with the barest bones of what we now know as the Lord’s Prayer. Today we have more instructions on prayer, but this time, in a letter exchanged between two followers of Jesus, and probably written more than a generation after the resurrection.
This morning’s scripture passage is a portion of the first letter to Timothy, traditionally attributed to the apostle Paul. After his conversion from being a persecutor to being a follower of Jesus’ Way, scripture describes how Paul traveled throughout what we would think of as the Middle East, Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey, Greece, and Europe, at least as far west as Rome. His purpose was to share the gospel, and he left many new faith communities behind in the places he visited, maintaining relationships with them through letters and return visits.
On Paul’s second Missionary Journey, he met Timothy, and, together with Silas, they traveled together, Paul mentoring the younger man. The letter from which we’re reading today consists of Paul’s advice to Timothy, and our passage is about prayer.
The first words of Paul in this passage give us some insight into what must have been a burning issue in the church. He writes,
“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone…” (1 Tim. 2:1).
So something had happened. Maybe not a big event, maybe not even a clear-cut decision. But the church Timothy served—or maybe, generally, churches of that era—had stopped praying for “everyone.” Someone was being left out.
Who? Why? Was there a movement that specifically called for followers of Jesus to pray only for people within their own community? Or, did followers of Jesus feel they couldn’t or shouldn’t pray for certain people—maybe because they perceived them as hostile to the gospel? In the first chapter Paul hits hard against those he accuses of false teaching—and please remember, the false teaching Paul is most known for battling had to do with requirements that caused people to be excluded from the community. Paul is on record for inclusion, again and again—Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women, all are one in Christ Jesus.
And not only is Paul calling on Timothy to ensure that the people pray for “everybody,” including those considered outsiders, he is calling for specific kinds of prayer: prayers on behalf of those people. One of the prayers is described by a Greek word that usually refers to a time when someone is given an audience with a king or other exalted kind of person. The king is Jesus, and the ones who have an audience with him are his followers. This very much indicates that Paul wants followers of Jesus to use their pull, their influence on behalf of people who aren’t followers of Jesus!
But of all the prayers that Paul insists we pray, the one that gets me is “thanksgivings.” We are to be thankful—for everybody.
It is easy to thank God—so easy—for the people who make our life full and rich and happy and delightful. For the parents or grandparents who are good to us; for the spouses or partners who give us joy; for the children who carry our hopes and dreams to the next generation; for our friends, the people who get us, who stand by us, who show up for us, who worry about us. Of course we thank God for people like this, people who impact our lives for the better. Thank God for them!
But Paul wants us to thank God for those other people, too. The people who are not on our top ten favorite list—or even top 100. In fact, for the people who are on our top ten list of—well, people we don’t want to be with, or don’t like, or don’t get. Antagonists. Enemies, if we have them. Paul wants us to thank God for them. People who hate us, people who want to harm us. Paul wants us to thank God for them.
What does this even mean? What is he thinking?
Well, you know that old saying: prayer doesn’t change God; it changes us. Kathleen Norris says prayer is asking to be changed, in ways we can’t imagine. Maybe, in ways we’re not sure we want. I don’t particularly want to give thanks for those I think are bad, harmful people. But Paul is pressing me, pressing us to understand that God’s love and grace are larger than we can fathom, too large for us, sometimes. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.
In this way, prayer is participating in the life of God, through focusing our thoughts and intentions on God. Prayer is about entering into God’s way of being. What could be greater evidence of that than this insistence that we pray for people we probably don’t really want to pray for? But if we want to enter into God’s way of being, we are forced to recognize that they’re God’s people, all of them, though maybe in a disguise that makes it hard for us to recognize that.
The second thing Paul tells Timothy is that we should pray for “kings and all who are in high positions.” The first entreaty to pray for all people is encouragement to do what is right and objectively good. It reveals an effort to pray for all, because all of us are God’s children. And while praying for the king, or the prime minister, or the president also, certainly, falls under that category, there’s another reason Paul gives for this particular kind of prayer: he says we should pray for them “so that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” Of course, we all want our leaders to help that to happen—a life for everyone in which they may live in peace and dignity; a life of in which all God’s people are able to follow their own beliefs and understanding of how God calls them to live in this world.
It’s a challenge, praying for someone for whom we’re not naturally inclined to pray. In our class this morning, the 8th-graders-and-up were offered an opportunity to try intercession-prayer exercise. While you can certainly use it for friends family, loved ones—why don’t we try it now, thinking of someone it’s not so easy for us to pray for? Let’s try it together.
Make sure that you are sitting comfortably. It helps to close your eyes. Maybe take in a deep breath and release it; then, relax your shoulders and breathe gently. As you focus on your breath, allow yourself to become aware of God’s presence. God is here, all around you. Let God’s presence fill you.
Choose one person who is in need of healing for mind, body, or spirit.
Imagine your hands are cupped, as if holding water; but instead, you are able to hold this person in your hands. Now, in your mind’s eye, lift this person to God.
See God’s love bathing this person, dissolving pain, bandaging what is broken.
Imagine this person in a state of wholeness, re-created by God, fresh and beautiful.
Knowing that God has a design, a plan for this person—as God has a plan for each of us—ask God to bless this person with that wholeness, that re-creation, that fresh beauty, according to God’s design.
Thank God, and release that person into God’s loving care. [2]
How do you pray? Can you imagine incorporating the kinds of prayers Paul calls upon us to pray into your life? What if each of us prayed for one person or group of people we found it really hard to pray for, every day—just one. What if that prayer resulted in our participation in the life of God in some new and wholly unforeseen way—what if prayer, as the old adage goes, doesn’t change God, but changes us?
What do you think? Do we dare pray?
Thanks be to God. Amen.
~~~
[1] Sarah Young, Jesus Calling (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2004).
[2]Adapted from“Paul, Prayer, and Peace,” Feasting on the Word Curriculum, 9-22-2019, Westminster John Knox Press.