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09.27.09

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

WHY PRAY?

JEREMIAH 31:31-34; LUKE 18:1-8

Prayer and Healing

A Study on Prayer

If you’re planning to have heart bypass surgery in the near future, you might be better off not asking the people of the church to pray for you

A 2006 study funded by the Templeton Foundation concluded that prayer has no effect on heart surgery recovery
In fact, there’s some clinical evidence that being prayed for might cause additional complications!

In the project, researchers followed 1800 heart bypass surgery patients at six medical centers to try to determine the effect that prayer had on their recovery

The patients were split into three groups of about 600 each
One group of patients were told they were being prayed for
A second group of patients were told that there was a possibility that someone was praying for them
For the patients in these two groups, the researchers recruited Christian volunteers who were given the first name and the first initial of the last name of some of the patients, and they were asked to pray for them for two weeks beginning the night before their surgery
The patients in the third group were also told there was a possibility that someone was praying for them, but no one was actually assigned to do so

The study considered any complications that developed within thirty days of the surgery, and it concluded that prayer had no effect on a complication-free recovery

59% of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed complications while only 52% who were told it was a possibility they were being prayed for developed complications
So the question arises, “Why pray?
If prayer doesn’t produce the results we desire, why should we pray?
It’s nothing more than wasted breath and wasted energy

The Templeton Study actually proves nothing because prayer isn’t something that lends itself to scientific study

Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, asks this question of the Temple Study: “Why would God change his plans for a particular person because he or she is in a research study??
And he concludes that science “is not designed to study the supernatural”
To that, we can add a hearty “Amen!”

The Efficacy of Prayer

The question, “Why pray?” is one we expect people with little or no faith to ask

After all, if a person doesn’t believe in God at all, there’s really no point in praying
And if a person does believe that God exists but that God doesn’t care about what happens to us, praying to such a God is a waste of time
But even those of us who are more spiritually and theologically astute, who make an effort to practice the faith we profess, often find little value in prayer
It seems to be an odd spiritual practice, and one that seems to be unnecessary
If God is all-knowing, sovereign, and all-caring, why would we need to bother God with our petty requests?

The efficacy of prayer depends upon what we expect to happen when we pray

What we expect most often is that prayer will be a “miracle cure” for all of our woes
We expect that because we have prayed about a particular problem that the problem will instantly go away, and that was one of the purposes of the Templeton Study
The Templeton Study on prayer sought to determine if prayer worked like some medical procedure that could be employed to get God to do something regarding the health of the person being prayed for that God would not have done otherwise
In other words, is prayer a prescription for some magical, cure-all medication?

The reason why so many of us, including those of us who strive to be faithful Christians, often become so frustrated with the practice of prayer is because we expect that our prayers will change God’s mind

We hope that, in some way, we might influence God’s will and get God to do things our way instead of God’s way
It’s no wonder we become frustrated with prayer
Even those of us who pray regularly still seem to approach God with the attitude that we know what’s best of us
Our innermost desire, if we want to be honest, is that God would say yes to everything we ask

In the move Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey plays a character who is given God’s power for a week

He has a lot of fun with this power at first
Instead of dividing the Red Sea as Moses did, Bruce uses his power to divide a bowl of Red Soup before he drinks it
He is quickly inundated with millions of prayer requests, first in the form of voices in his head, then in the form of emails on his computer
He can’t cope with all of this, so he sends a blanket reply “Yes” to every request
Thousands upon thousands of people prayed to win the lottery, and they all do, but because there were so many winners, their payout was only a few dollars each
Although they got what they prayed for, they were still angry at God for giving them so little
The point of this scene is obvious: Prayer and providence are a lot more complicated than God just indulging our every whim or removing our every sorrow

Prayer and Living

The Purpose of Prayer

If we can’t use prayer to indulge ourselves and satisfy our selfish desires, what is the purpose of prayer?

If we can’t influence God and change God’s mind, even on behalf of others, why should we bother to pray at all?
Yet, in the life of Jesus, we see the importance of prayer
He prays before receiving the Holy Spirit at his baptism (Luke 3:21-22)
He’s involved in an all night prayer vigil before selecting his twelve disciples (Luke 6:12)
Two of his parables that Luke records in his gospel focus on prayer

(Luke 11:5-13, 18:1-8)

Since prayer was so important for Jesus, it must have a purpose for us

The answer to this dilemma is that prayer is not intended to do something for God, it’s intended to do something for us

It’s purpose isn’t to change God’s mind and get God to do something for us
It’s intended to change our heart and life so that what we desire is more in accordance with the will and the way of God
Prayer is one of the mechanisms God gives us in order to build and maintain a relationship with God
The better we get to know God personally, the more we begin to understand, desire, and accept God’s will
God may not need prayer, but we do

Covenant of the Heart

That God wants us to know him and have a personal relationship with him is the point of Jeremiah’s words to the people of Israel

The old covenant didn’t work because it was too impersonal
It could have worked had the people been willing to follow God’s commands, but they chose not to do so
Laws in tablets of stone can easily be broken, which we see is true in the story of Moses’ return to the camp after spending 40 days on the mountain with God
When Moses saw the people of Israel dancing around a golden calf, out of anger Moses smashed the tablets of stone on the rocks

In order to have a meaningful relationship with God, the love of God must be written upon our hearts

It’s that love of God written upon our hearts that helps us begin to understand the way and the will of God
It’s that love written upon our hearts that leads us to believe that God wants only what’s best for us and helps us to trust in God’s mercy and grace
As we do our part to nurture and develop our relationship with God, seeking to do the will of God becomes a more primary focus for our lives

Persisting in Prayer

In the first sentence of chapter 18, Luke tells us the purpose of the parable Jesus is about to teach his disciples: “that they should always pray and not give up”

In this parable, Jesus uses a common Hebrew teaching style to make his point
In this parable, we see the contrast of opposites
Through these two characters—a ruthless, uncaring judge, and a poor but persistent widow—Jesus teaches some valuable lessons on prayer

Unlike the judge, who had to be badgered time and time again before he finally gave in and addressed the needs of the widow, God does not need to be badgered by us in order for God to give us what we need

God is not ruthless and uncaring; God is kind and loving and compassionate, and will quickly respond to our needs
God does not grow tired of us coming to him in prayer, nor does God give us what we ask simply to get rid of us
God desires a relationship with us and delights in our coming to him, and it pleases God to give us what we need—and more

Unlike the widow, we don’t need to nag God in order to get God to do what we want

God already knows what we need before we ask, and will graciously grant us what we need, even though God will not always give us what we want
Despite the fact that God already knows what we need, Jesus still encourages us to be persistent in prayer
That persistence is important, not to influence God to give us what we want, but to build an intimate and personal relationship with God
The better we know a person, the deeper the relationship becomes
So it is with God—the more time we spend with God, the better we get to know God, and the better we know God, the more we will trust God’s love and grace

Yet, it’s significant to note that the encouragement not to give up indicates that God’s response may not always come when we expect it—we may have to wait

While Jesus says that God will respond quickly, we must also remember that God’s time isn’t the same as ours
So it’s important that we stay in touch with God through prayer because prayer is one of the ways by which we develop patience as we wait for God to act quickly in God’s time
This patience is the point of the question Jesus asks at the close of this passage: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Just as we must wait for the time to be right for Jesus to return, so too, we must be willing to wait for God’s answers to our prayers
Waiting requires both faith and trust, and faith and trust are what helps us not to become discouraged as we seek to know and understand and do the will of God

Prayer isn’t about persuading God to do something God would not otherwise do

It’s for laying before God our sincere desire for the well-being of others
Prayer isn’t futile activity
It won’t change God in any way, but it will change us, and it will change those for whom we pray

The writer of the book of James exhorts us to call upon the elders of the church to pray for the sick, because the prayers of the faithful are powerful and effective

Prayer is one of the ways the church cares for others
Prayer’s power and effect isn’t that of a magical prescription to make illness and suffering disappear
Instead, it’s power is to uphold one another, to encourage one another, to strengthen each other in faith, to build up our courage, to increase our wisdom, to give us clarity of vision
And the prayers of the church also strengthen our patience because it’s easier to wait on God when we know we’re not facing our struggle alone

God does listen to our prayers and Jesus encourages us to pray

When God lays it upon our heart to pray for someone, by all means, we should do it
Prayer isn’t something to add to our medicine chest as one more pill of sorts
Its power is greater than that because it’s a discipline and a means of experiencing grace
Its primary purpose is not to twist God’s arm, it’s to open up the pray-er to God

It’s a way through which we orient ourselves to God’s perspective on the world