Standing in the Need of Prayer by Rev. Kathy Sides (Preached at Fort Des Moines UMC 9-27-09) There's an old story about a man who was caught in a flood. We'll call him Fred. The water was rising at a steady rate, and Fred was forced to climb out on the roof of his house to stay above water. There he sat, watching the water rise around him. He began to get a little frightened, so he thought he'd better pray. "God, this is Fred, I need your help, please save me from this flood." Not long after his prayer, a man in a boat came by. "Hop in and I'll take you to safety, he said." "Oh no, that won't be necessary," Fred replied "God is going to save me." So, the boat went on, and there Fred still sat, waiting. A few hours later the water had risen higher. In fact, Fred had to sit on the peak of the roof to stay dry now, and he was beginning to get really scared. So, he thought he'd better pray again, maybe God didn't hear him the first time. So he prayed, "God, this is Fred again. I really need your help now. Please save me"! He felt better after his prayer, and settled back to wait again. In a few minutes another boat came by, and someone called, "Come on, get in!" "Oh no," said Fred, "I've prayed, and God is going to save me. Thanks anyway. " No amount of coaxing would change his mind, so the boat went on, and there Fred sat. An hour later Fred had been forced up on the chimney by the water, and he was really starting to panic. So, he prayed once more. "God, this is Fred, HELP!!!". He was clinging to the chimney with the water creeping over him when a helicopter stopped and hovered above him and a ladder was thrown down. "Climb up!", someone called, "We'll get you out of here!" "No," called back Fred, "I'm sure God is going to save me. I prayed!" So, the helicopter went on to rescue someone more willing to be rescued. --- Well, Fred drowned. Soon he found himself in heaven. He was pretty disappointed, and even a little angry that God had let him down. So, he went to talk to God. "God, why didn't you help me? I prayed! Three times I prayed!! And I believed!! Why didn't you answer me???" God shook his head and said, "Fred, I sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want??" Today's scripture reading from James has this to say about praying: "Are there any among you suffering? They should pray....are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them,...the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. 1
There's no doubt when we read the scriptures, and when we look at the example of Jesus, who was constantly turning to God in prayer, that prayer is important. We should pray. For ourselves, for one another. We know that. And yet, there is an awful lot about prayer that we don't understand. And we often end up disappointed or even angry at God, when, like Fred, our prayers are not answered in the way that we expect. Prayer ought to be simple. Just us, talking to God. Like a little child carrying on a conversation with a parent he loves and trusts. Expressing honestly our hopes and dreams, heartaches and hurts. Saying "thank you", saying "I love you", saying "I'm hurt and I need you to hold me." But so often we make prayer complicated. We think we have to have just the right words to say, as though we were making a speech before a stern teacher preparing to critique and grade our every word, instead of talking to the one who knows and loves us better and more deeply than any other. The words don't matter all that much. Whether we are praying silently or out loud, we don't have to use fancy, proper words. We just have to speak our heart. Honestly, simply, freely. As though we were talking to our best friend. Which, in fact, we are. Prayer ought to be simple, natural, easy. Yet too often we misuse prayer. In his book: When Bad Things Happen To Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner has nearly a whole chapter devoted to the subject of prayer, and how we fail to understand what prayer ought to be about. He gives some examples of bad, or wrong uses of prayer. Things like praying for selfish desires, praying for harm to come to another, praying for the impossible or unnatural, praying for God to re-write the past, and praying for God to fix something we already have the power to fix ourselves. I imagine most people are probably most often guilty of that last one. When we see problems in the world, sometimes it is tempting to point them out to God and ask God to fix them, rather than asking God to use us to help fix them. I ran across an old poem the other day that tells a story of just such a situation. It's called "Prayer and Potatoes." and is written by J. T. Pettee PRAYER AND POTATOES by J. T. Pettee An old lady sat in her old arm-chair, With wrinkled visage, disheveled hair, And hunger-worn features; For days and weeks her only fare, As she sat there in her old arm-chair, Had been Potatoes. But now they are gone; of bad or good, Not one was left for the lady's food Of those Potatoes. And she sighed and said: "What shall I do, Where shall I send, and to whom shall I go For more Potatoes?" 2
And she thought of the deacon over the way, The deacon, so ready to worship and pray, Whose cellar was full of Potatoes. And she said: "I will send for the deacon to come, He'll not mind much to give me some Of such a store of Potatoes." The deacon soon came from over the way; He was more accustomed to preach and to pray Than to give of his hoarded Potatoes; So, not hearing a word that the old lady said, He rose to pray, with uncovered head; But she only thought of Potatoes. He prayed for patience and wisdom and grace, But when he prayed, "Lord, give her peace" She audibly said, "Give Potatoes;" At the end of each prayer which the deacon said, He heard, or thought that he heard, in its stead The same request for Potatoes. The deacon was troubled - about what to do, 'Twas very embarrassing tohave her act so So, ending his prayer, he started for home, But as the door closed, he heard a deep groan: "Oh, give to the hungry, Potatoes! About "carnal Potatoes." And that groan followed him all the way home; In the midst of the night it haunted his room -"Oh, give to the hungry, Potatoes! He could bear it no longer; arose and dressed, From his well-filled cellar taking in haste A bag of his best Potatoes. Again he went to the widow's lone hut: Her sleepless eyes she had not yet shut; But there she sat in that old arm-chair, With the same wan features, the same sad air; And, entering in, he poured on the floor A bushel or more of his goodly store Of choicest Potatoes. The widow's heart with its joy ran o'er, Her face was haggard and wan no more. "Now," said the deacon, "shall we pray?" "Yes," said the widow, "now you may;" And he kneeled down there on the sanded floor, Where he had poured his goodly store; And such a prayer the deacon prayed As never before his lips essayed; No longer embarrassed, but free and full, He poured out the voice of a liberal soul, And the widow shouted aloud "Amen!" But said no more of Potatoes. 3
And would you, who hear this simple tale, Pray for the poor and, praying, prevail? Then preface your prayers with alms and good deeds, Search out the poor, their wants and their needs; Pray for peace, and grace, and spiritual food, For wisdom and guidance - all these are good - But don't forget the Potatoes. I guess that is to say that praying should be in addition to, and not a substitute for action. It is right that we pray for the needs of others. But if we use prayer as a way of getting us off the hook, as a way of avoiding having to get involved by trying to make the needs of others God's responsibility alone, then that is probably not a good use of prayer. God has many ways of helping meet needs, and sometimes it may be though his people. That's us, folks! We listen to the story of Fred, and see how absurd it was for Fred to reject human help because he expected God to reach down and pluck him off the roof, instead. And yet sometimes we can't see that we get caught up in thinking like Fred, expecting dramatic, divine intervention on behalf of someone in need, when we could be God's answer to the need in another's life. We should pray for others, by all means, but we should also listen to see if maybe we are part of God's answer. I mentioned Rabbi Kushner before. He goes on in his book to talk about what prayer does for us. First, he says, prayer puts us in touch with other people. When we share our joys, fears, and griefs with one another, when we pray for one another, we do not feel so alone. We know that there are people who care for us, and we find strength and courage through their presence and concern. Kushner says that the second thing that prayer does for us is put is in touch with God. But, he says; "I am not sure prayer puts us in touch with God the way many people think it does - that we approach God as a supplicant, a beggar asking for favors, or as a customer presenting Him with a shopping list and asking what it will cost. If we can come to understand what prayer can and should be, and rid ourselves of some unrealistic expectations, we will be better able to call on prayer, and on God, when we need them most". Kushner goes on to contrast two prayers found in the Bible as examples of good and not-so-good prayers. They are both prayed by Jacob and found in the book of Genesis. In the first, Jacob is a young man, leaving home after quarreling with his father and brother, Esau, and setting off to a strange land. He prays: "If God will be with me on this venture, protecting me, giving me food to eat and clothes to wear, and if I come back safe to my father's house, then the Lord will be my only God. I will dedicate an altar to Him and set aside a tenth of all I earn for Him." 4
Kushner writes, Jacob's prayer here is the prayer of a frightened young man who is setting out to do something hard, is not sure he can do it, and thinks he can "bribe" God to make things work out for him. He is prepared to make it worth God's while to protect him and make him prosper, and he apparently believes in a God whose favor can be won and whose protection can be bought with promises of prayer, charity, and exclusive worship. His attitude, much like that of so many people facing illness or misfortune, is expressed in this way: "please God, make this work out well and I'll do whatever you want. I'll stop lying, I'll go to services regularly - You name it and I'll do it if You just grant me this." When we are not personally involved, we can recognize the immaturity of this attitude, and the immature picture of God at work here. It is not immoral to think that way, but it is inaccurate. That is not the way the world works. God's blessings are not for sale. Jacob's second prayer is prayed 20 years later. He is returning home with the wives, children, flocks and herds he has accumulated, and he has to face his brother Esau, who threatened to kill him 20 years earlier. Again he is frightened and unsure of what is ahead, but his prayer is much different this time. He prays: God of my father Abraham and of my father Isaac, I am unworthy of all the kindness You have shown me. I last crossed this river with nothing but my staff in my hand, and now I have grown to two camps. Deliver me, I pray, from my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him...for it was You who said to me, I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea." Of this prayer Kushner writes: Jacob's prayer no longer tries to make a deal with God, nor does it present God with a long list of demands - food, clothing, prosperity, a safe return. It acknowledges that there is no currency in which God can be paid for blessing and helping us. Jacob's mature prayer says simply, "God, I have no claims on You and nothing to offer You. You have already given me more than I had any right to expect. There is only one reason for my turning to You now - because I need You. I am scared; I have to face up to something hard tomorrow, and I am not sure I can do it alone, without You. God, you once gave me reason to believe that I was capable of making something of my life. If You meant it, then You had better help me now, because I can't handle this alone." Jacob doesn't ask God to make Esau go away, to cripple Esau's strength or magically erase his memory. Jacob asks God only to make him less afraid, by letting him know that He is at his side, so that whatever the next day might bring, he will be able to handle it because he won't have to face it alone. 5
And then Rabbi Kushner concludes; That is the kind of prayer that God answers. We can't pray that He make our lives free of problems; this won't happen, and it is probably just as well. We can't ask Him to make us and those we love immune to disease, because He can't do that. We can't ask Him to weave a magic spell around us so that bad things will only happen to other people, and never to us. People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles, any more than children who pray for bicycles, good grades, or boyfriends get them as a result of praying. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. They discover that they have more strength, more courage than they ever knew themselves to have. There is so much more that could be said about prayer, and even if we said it all, there would probably still be a great deal we would fail to grasp about the necessity and the blessing and the power of prayer in our lives. Maybe it's not so important that we fully understand prayer. What it important is that we - to borrow a phrase - "Just Do It!!" To not worry if we're getting it exactly right all the time or not, but just to pray. For others, and for ourselves. In seminary we had a Gospel Choir. Sort of a Black Gospel Choir. What kept us from being a real Black Gospel choir is that almost all of us were white. But we sang the wonderful, moving music of the Black Gospel tradition. One of the songs we sang was "Standing in the Need of Prayer". We had a lot of fun with the song because the name of one of the men in the choir was Lee. And at rehearsal we couldn't resist occasionally bursting into: "It's Lee, It's Lee, Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer." It was all in fun. But isn't that what we so often do? We look at others and see how in need of prayer they are. And we diligently pray for them. Which we should do. But sometimes we forget that we need to look at ourselves, too. To see our need for prayer. To know how much we need God. How much we need to go before God and express our failings and our fears and our hurts; to ask God to forgive us and to walk with us, and to give us the strength and courage and faith to face each day. To say, "Here I am God, standing before you, and oh, how I need you. It's Me. It's Me O Lord. Standing in the need of prayer. 6