Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Luke 18:1-8; Mark 5:45-52

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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In our text from the gospel of Mark we find one of the many times that Jesus intentionally went off by Himself to pray. Jesus and His disciples had gone off to what they thought was a deserted place to rest for a while. It had been a busy time, and they needed both physical and spiritual renewal. So, they climbed into a boat and headed off to what they thought would be a quiet place. But, many people saw them, and hurried on ahead. The news spread to others, and by the time Jesus and His disciples came ashore, their quiet, deserted place was filled with a large crowd.

Jesus just couldn't send the people away. He taught them, and afterwards blessed loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and five thousand people were fed. It was amazing. It was miraculous. For Jesus and the disciples it was also a hectic, draining experience.

Now, Jesus sends the disciples on ahead in a boat and goes off to pray. There clearly was no question in Jesus' mind that that was what He needed most at that point in time. Jesus needed some time to pray.

How about us? I suspect that there are times when each one of us has struggled with our prayer life. Why should we pray? What meaning does it have for us? Is God really listening? These and a variety of other questions are often part of this struggle.

It's easy to get busy with other things, to think that prayer is somehow less important than the other things that we do. It's easy to be consumed by our schedules and all that we have to do, or at least think that we should be doing. There are times when prayer seems like one more thing - when we already have too many things to do. There are times when we leave prayer for last - for the end of the day, only to find that we're just too tired, and no longer feel motivated to pray.

Often when we've hit a dry spell in our prayer life, what does motivate us to start being more faithful in praying is some special need or concern that has arisen either in our own lives or as an important concern that we feel deeply for someone else. We begin praying more faithfully because there is something special, something important that we want God to know, that we hope God can help us with.

Prayer at it's very heart is a conversation with God. Like with other conversations that we have, it's a two-way street. In other words, we need to speak, and we also need to listen. When we have a conversation with someone else, we always express ourselves, as well as listening to what the other person or people in that conversation have to say. We know that it just doesn't work if we don't listen, or if we decide ahead of time what the other person is going to say, and don't pay attention to what they really say. Good conversation requires listening as well as speaking, and so does good prayer.

Sometimes we get lost right off, because we forget about the listening part. We know that we're supposed to talk, and there are certainly times when that can be intimidating enough. We don't know the right words to express what we want to say. We don't know how best to say it. We fumble and we're uncertain, because we're struggling to say something exactly right.

But, with God the pressure is taken off of us. Remember all of those times where the Bible reminds us that God knows us through and through, that God knows us even better than we know ourselves. God knows what we want and need, and even what we're going to say. With God we don't have to struggle to find exactly the right words, or to pretty things up so that we come off looking better than we really should. With God, we just need to be open and honest.

But, we do need to listen as well as to talk. For there is much that God would say to us, much that we need to hear, and while God knows what we're going to say even before we say it, we don't have that same advantage. Often we have no idea what God wants to say to us and it catches us by surprise.

Sometimes when people feel like God isn't responding to their prayers, I suspect that what they're really running into is that they aren't listening to God. They have a very rigid, narrow expectation of the kind of response that they want from God. Essentially, if God doesn't do just what they want, they decide that God isn't listening. In a very real way the question becomes, if God isn't going to do what I want, why should I even bother to pray?

The answer is that God always listens. God always hears. However, God doesn't always respond the way that we want or expect. When we pray openly and honestly we are reminded that we aren't in charge, that God is God, and that we can't control what God might say to us, or even how God will say it. We need to be ready to hear the response - however it comes, and to listen for God's response in unexpected ways.

The importance of listening as well as talking in our prayer life is underscored by Lee Phillips' comment on prayer. He said, "The prayer that does not alter circumstances can alter our attitude toward the circumstance." Often we approach prayer expecting that we will or at least should get what we want. In prayer, we are reminded that we are not in control, that God knows far more than we ever shall, and our own needs and concerns are put in a larger context. When we listen while we pray, sometimes our attitudes are changed, and we find ourselves better able to cope with the circumstances and situations which are bothering us so much.

When I read the gospels I am often struck by the number of times when they mention that Jesus went off to pray for a while. I'm struck by this for a couple of reasons.

The first one is that prayer is normally something that we do privately. Other people don't know when or how often we pray. Yet here in the gospels, where many details are omitted and only those things that were considered important are mentioned, there are many times like we find in our text from Mark where it specifically mentions that Jesus went off to pray for a while. Before Jesus chose disciples, He prayed on a mountain for an entire night. Before He began His ministry, He went into the wilderness for forty days. Often either before or after something important happened, we find Jesus stopping to pray.

The second reason why I'm struck by the number of times that Jesus went off to pray, is that prayer was something that in the Israelite culture was done continually throughout the day. Our text from the gospel of Luke underscores the need to pray regularly and continually. Most people in Israel did this as a matter of course. That was how they lived. I expect that this parable was written down more for the new people coming into the church from other traditions. Here they are reminded of the importance of praying to God night and day, just as they are reminded that God will listen and hear their prayers.

Jesus knew that. He prayed regularly and continually, and the frequency with which these times of prayer are mentioned underscores our need to do the same.

Billy Graham once described prayer with the image of a large ship that he watched while it was docking in New York Harbor. First they threw out a rope to the men on the dock. Then inside the boat the great motors went to work and pulled on the cable. But with all of that pulling it wasn't the dock that was moved. The ship pulled in next to the dock, rather than the dock being pulled out to the ship. Prayer, he says, is the rope that pulls us together with God. That doesn't mean that it pulls God down to us, rather it pulls us closer to God. Prayer is not a way of enabling us to use God to do what we want, rather it is to get us in a position where God can use us, where we begin to say with Christ, "Not my will; but thine be done."

Amen.