Another Model of Prayer Ephesians 3:14-21 Dr. Christopher C. F. Chapman First Baptist Church, Raleigh July 26, 2015

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1 Another Model of Prayer Ephesians 3:14-21 Dr. Christopher C. F. Chapman First Baptist Church, Raleigh July 26, 2015 In a sermon entitled Praying for God Brett Younger tells the following story (Lectionary Homiletics, June/July, 2012, pp ). A farmer named Manuel gazed at his field of ripe corn with the bean flowers promising a good harvest. All that was needed was some rain but he examined the sky and said, The rain will come. Rain started to fall during dinner, great clouds came and Manuel said, These aren t just drops of water falling from the sky. The big drops are ten cents and the small drops are five. He was pleased. But the winds picked up, hail started to fall and it continued for an hour. The countryside was white, the beans were left without a single flower and the corn was destroyed. A swarm of locusts would have left more than this, Manuel said, We won t have any corn or beans. All our work is lost. Our only hope is God. The next morning, he sent a letter to God, saying, God, if you do not help me, my family will go hungry. Because of the hail you sent, I need one thousand dollars to replant and live until the next harvest. The mailman picked up the letter, noted the addressee and decided to open it and see if he could respond. Seeing what the farmer needed, he realized he might not to be able to do it all, but he raised more than half the money and mailed it to Manuel and signed his reply God. Manuel opened the letter and was not surprised to see the money, but he became angry when he counted it. The next day he mailed another letter to God, saying, God, I only got $600 of the money you sent. Please send the rest of it again, but don t send it through the post office because the mailman is a thief. Such is the way we often think about prayer. We ask for what we want, we expect God to jump when we say jump and if something goes awry, we look for someone to blame. In other words, as Rabbi Harold Kushner once said, we confuse God with Santa Claus. 1

2 Prayer is about honest communication with God and so, of course, we name our personal concerns and those we have for the world. We ask for what we need. For example, I would love for my left knee to work properly again, for the scar tissue from surgery to heal so that I can run normally. I would love to be able to see again like I used to so that I wouldn t have to wear these irritating things. Far more importantly, I would love for the violence in Syria to end, for the hungry in Sub-Saharan Africa to be fed, for everyone on the planet to experience religious liberty, for our nation to find a way to balance security and hospitality concerns in regard to all the immigrants coming our way. Of course, prayer includes our honest expressions of concern and requests for help. But prayer is more than this, much more. Every week in worship we share one model of prayer, the one Jesus has given us. It is a prayer for God s reign to come, for God s will to be done. The only petitions are for daily bread, which is more about trusting God one day at a time than demanding bread, and forgiveness which is linked to forgiving others. So, even the petitions are ultimately about God s reign, God s ways, not our demands. It is a different perspective. There is no confusion between God and Santa Claus. In today s reading from Ephesians we find another model of prayer and it too has a different perspective. Paul writes from prison and thus, one might expect him to pray for deliverance so that he can get on with his work. But he doesn t pray for himself, he prays for the church in Ephesus, and what he prays for probably doesn t match their wish list. It is not an ordinary set of demands. But there is much we can learn from this prayer as we think about our ongoing communication with God. One thing worth noting in this model is that prayer centers on changing us, not God. Paul prays that the saints in Ephesus will be strengthened in their inner being through God s Spirit and that Christ will dwell in their hearts through faith. Rather than praying that the world will change to make life easier for these early believers, that the culture around them will be more receptive to their witness, that God will do something directly to alter reality for them, he prays that they might grow in faith and trust so as to live out their calling in this world. 2

3 It seems like an obvious perspective. Of course, prayer is more about changing us than God because God already is more than we can imagine - more loving, more powerful, more kind, more just. We don t inform God of anything, we can t out-wish God, and surely God s goodness toward us is not contingent upon us asking God to be good. As Scottish social anthropologist Sir James Frazer contended long ago, this is the difference between religion and magic - religion is the attempt to serve God; magic is the effort to manipulate God or the gods. And yet, how much of our prayer has at least a magical quality in this regard? Maybe God has overlooked this concern of mine. Maybe I do need to ask God to do it. Doesn t Jesus say something like whatever you ask in my name? But then, what can we ask in his name, which means far more than just saying at the end of our prayer in Jesus name? What is worthy of association with the Christ? Make no mistake, Paul prays for change, but change in the lives of the Ephesians - that God will strengthen their inner being, somewhat like Isaiah s assurance that those who wait before the Lord shall renew their strength; and Christ will dwell in their hearts, or literally move in or colonize (katoikein). Paul prays for the spiritual growth of the Ephesians because he knows that this is what matters most. God has not always given him an easy path. To follow Christ he first has to confront his own adversarial position toward Jesus, his persecution of Christians. He then has to give witness in ways that land him in prison and cause him to endure suffering. Yet Paul remains true to his calling and thus knows a deep down sense of fulfillment. How does he do this? With the aid of an inner strength that grows out his intimate relationship with the Spirit of Christ. This relationship enables him to trust in God, to trust that no matter what happens to him, nothing, not even death itself, can separate him from the love of God. It is the kind of trust Jewish activist Anatoly Sharansky revealed. He was imprisoned by the Soviet government on false charges of spying for the United States, but came out stronger because he constantly reminded himself that the Power he relied on was greater than the power of those who kept him in prison. God might not have opened the doors of his cell, but God kept him free in ways that mattered. When he got 3

4 out of prison, he wrote his autobiography Fear No Evil, the title being a reference to the psalm he recited on the worst of days. That s the kind of trust that enables us to confront the challenges we face, the kind of trust we develop when God s Spirit gives us strength and Christ dwells within us. What could we possibly wish for that would be any better than these gifts that enrich our lives? In Paul s model, prayer centers on changing us, not God. Another thing worth noting in this model is that prayer is shaped by a certain understanding of God and actually allows us to grow in our understanding. In general, Paul assumes that God is loving and kind, merciful and compassionate. So, his prayers are shaped by this understanding. He doesn t ask God to do things God would not do nor does he assume he needs to tell God to be nice. We ve all had people tell us to do something simple and obvious we already do. It is downright insulting to be told such things, as if we need to be told! But Paul doesn t just assume these things about God s character. He prays that the Ephesians will have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and that they may know this love that surpasses all knowledge, so that they will be filled with the fullness of God. In other words, he wants them to grow in their understanding of God s love in Christ, grow in their understanding of the very nature of God. How will they do this? Through prayer and by knowing, which means experiencing, Christ s love, which may be one and the same. That is, prayer is not only communication with God. It is experiencing the presence of God which always involves love. For Paul, one central purpose of prayer is getting to know God better, growing in our understanding of God s character, not just so that we can know more in our heads but so that who God really is can shape who we become. In October of 1999, Bill Moyers made some formal remarks on the life and ministry of James Dunn on the occasion of James' retirement as Director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. Bill started off by saying that it was hard enough to follow the President of the United States on a platform, which he had just done, but maybe even 4

5 harder to deliver a eulogy when the deceased was present. This was his charge, Bill said, because Dunn said he would rather have us lie about him while he was alive than tell the truth about him after he was gone After listing some of James accomplishments in the realm of religious liberty and social concern, Moyers asked what his secret was. He replied he believes in a very big God. Then, he quoted Walter Rauschenbusch as saying this. Little beliefs make little men (and women) It is possible to play Nearer, My God, to Thee with one finger on a little reed organ of four octaves. But it is very different music when the same melody is played with all the resources of a great pipe organ, and in all the richness of full harmony. Moyers went on to say that James Dunn pulled out all the stops and pumped with all his might in giving witness to God s great love for the world. That s what Paul s prayer desires for the Ephesians and what prayer can make possible for us. If we spend enough time with God, experiencing God s love intimately, and thus grow in our understanding of just how far this love reaches, who God really is, we will live a bigger life and give witness to a bigger faith and God. If God accepts sinners like us, who would God not accept? If God has made the whole world, what part of it is not God s concern? If God comes up with the very idea of governments and establishes kings like David, with all of his strengths and weaknesses, and judges like Deborah, not to mention various leaders to this day, what part of public life is not God s concern? If God has created this world with all of its complexity and given us minds to understand it, what branch of science would be outside of God s concern? Little beliefs make little men and women but big beliefs make big men and women. The bigger the God we believe in, the bigger our lives will become. Paul s kind of prayer helps us enlarge our understanding. One other thing worth noting in this model is that its ultimate object is to bring honor and glory to God, not simply to make our lives more enjoyable. Paul prays that the Ephesians will be changed by the Spirit and the indwelling presence of Christ and that they will grow in their understanding of just how loving God is and wants us to be. The 5

6 end result of all of this is that glory will be brought to God in the church and in Christ Jesus in all generations forever and ever. Paul closes his prayer with a kind of doxology or praise to God which is how we close our worship each week. It is fitting. It is where all prayer and worship should end and it is the object of everything we do, to bring honor and glory to God. Again, this may seem like an obvious perspective, but how much teaching in our time goes directly against this perspective? First of all, how many people live in such a way as to draw attention to themselves, even in the church, even as they give witness to Christ? Ministers can do our work in this way and the measure of ministry can be whether people say something like, Everybody loved him! or Wasn t she wonderful? The measure of our work is whether people are pointed in the direction of Christ, whether they remember our name or not. But it s not just that people give witness in a self-serving way; it's that they pray in a self-serving way. The Prosperity Gospel says that if we ask God to bless us with material blessings - health, wealth and success God will bless us in these ways and this is what it is all about. I m not talking about a homeless person asking for shelter and food. I m talking about the rapid risers of the world asking for more and assuming that this is what God wants. In this view, it s all about me. In Paul s view, it s all about God. I m the one who needs to change and grow so that I can be the person I was created to be and bring glory and honor to God. Authentic biblical prayer leads to a life that points beyond itself. Several years ago a beloved longtime member of this church and professor at Southeastern Seminary died and we held no service for him. I am talking about Dr. Elmo Scoggin and we had no service because these were his wishes. There was to be no service of any kind. We didn t know these were his wishes until after he had died or many of us would have argued with him. We would have lost, but still we would have argued. We thought about ignoring his wishes, but Hannah wanted us to honor them, and anyone who refuses to honor Hannah Scoggin s wishes probably won t make it to Heaven! 6

7 Anyway, after the fact, many of us have tried to figure out why Elmo made this request. The only thing that makes any sense is that he lived such a selfless life that he didn t want the usual sort of funeral or memorial service to take place. The goal of any Christian funeral is to balance the celebration of an individual life with worship of the God who gives us life in the first place and offers us hope for eternal life through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We have all been to funerals where we wouldn t have known whose life we were supposed to be celebrating. And we have all been to funerals where God was never mentioned or at least certainly not needed for the glorification of the individual. I suspect that Elmo feared this latter sort of event or at least too much talk about how bright, courageous and faithful he was and too little talk about the Christ who embraced him in love and became his reason for living. He spent his life serving in humble and thoughtful ways, never wanting to draw attention to himself, always pointing beyond himself to God. He wanted his death to do the same. I still think we should have had a service. We could have found the right balance and we needed time and space to grieve and give thanks to God for this great life. But if this was Elmo s thinking, I have to say I admire it, and I think the Apostle Paul would as well. He prays not for his release from prison and a life of luxury for his brothers and sisters in Ephesus. He prays only for them and that they would grow in faith and understanding and thus, through their love for others, bring honor and glory to God. How might the world around us change if we were to follow this model of prayer? 7