CUPS OF WATER Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50 The Brooklyn Tabernacle, a 3,500-seat evangelical prayer palace in downtown Brooklyn, was built in 1918 as one of the largest and grandest vaudeville houses in North America. It is still a hot ticket. Its youngish, racially diverse congregation packs the pews each week to praise God and bask in the sounds of a Grammy-winning 250-voice gospel choir. But the tabernacle is more than just a popular church. It is also a destination for evangelicals from all around the United States and beyond, lay[people] and ministers alike, who come as acolytes to study prayer. The Brooklyn Tabernacle operates a prayer line on which people can call or e- mail requests. [Pastor Jim] Cymbala read a request from a woman who had recently been evicted. She s either from Virginia or her name is Virginia, he said, squinting at the paper in front of him. Either way, I want God to help this person and the others who have contacted us for prayer. According to a recent study by the Pew Forum, 75 percent of Americans report that they pray at least once a week. Interestingly, only 39 percent attend a worship service once a week or more frequently, suggesting that prayer in America is becoming detached from traditional denominations. (Zev Chafets, Is There a Right Way to Pray?, The New York Times Magazine, 9/20/09) You are people who do come to church; many of you come regularly, once a week. And you pray, at least insofar as you participate in this worship which includes 1
prayer of all different sorts. But perhaps you also pray outside this setting, perhaps every day, perhaps many times a day. We read in the Letter of James that, The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. In my view, you are the righteous, maybe not perfect, but righteous, by which I mean that you are people who strive to do the right thing. After all these years, I know most of you pretty well, some of you very well; I know the effort you make, and to me you are righteous people, and in the liberal Lutheran sense of the word, you are saints, and I love you. Let me not get too sentimental. You are righteous and you pray? Is your prayer powerful and effective? As an example of powerful and effective prayer, St. James recalls the story of Elijah. He says, Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. Is your praying that powerful and effective? I rather doubt it, but then again, neither was Elijah s praying that powerful and effective. The text from the Old Testament that tells Elijah s story speaks only of Elijah s prophecy of drought, not of a prayer that causes drought. After all, if prayer worked like that, why wouldn t Elijah simply have prayed that Israel live at peace for evermore with all of its neighbors and everybody enjoy a fine prosperity? If physical facts can be changed by praying, as James suggests, why bother getting out of bed in the morning? Why bother doing anything? Just pray hard and everything will be taken care of, simple as that! It will be like having a genie at your disposal and unlimited wishes. According to this way of thinking, powerful and effective prayers are prayers that can get God to do your bidding, prayers that wheedle out of God what God would not otherwise do Gimme what I want, God, c mon, make it happen, and don t be slow about it! 2
The author from whose article I reported about the Brooklyn Tabernacle writes of people in a church in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia: They prayed to a God with whom they were on a first-name basis, and they believed their prayers gave them power, which they used on behalf of their asthmatic sisters and infirm grandparents and a kid they knew with burns on his body. Sitting in church on Easter morning, I realized I was probably never going to become a praying man. But if, by some miracle, I ever do, I hope my prayers will be like the prayers of the people I met at Love church in Berkeley Springs. Straight-up Gimme! on behalf of people who really need the help. Well, that s all very nice, and very patronizing, and it is on every level nonsense that is rooted in superstition, prayer as a refuge of the desperate who in their powerlessness are willing to believe pretty much anything in the name of God. Surely there must be another way to think about prayer. There is. The great pray-ers from all the great faiths have urged us and counseled us to pray not to get things from God, but to seek God s will in all things for what one should do and how one should live. The purpose of such prayers is not to get God to do our bidding, but rather to find the wisdom and courage to do God s bidding. Prayer is not about me and my wants but about God and how to live according to God s Word. Which is why as Christians we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, who is, according to our faith, God s Word in the flesh. The will of God is for us represented in the life and teachings of Jesus as these are known in the Bible. Christian prayer is essentially that we become as Jesus, little Christs in Luther s homely phrase. 3
As a case in point, take Jesus response to the disciple John s complaint that he has seen someone casting out demons in Jesus name. Jesus tells John not to worry if the exorcist is acting in Jesus name for the benefit of someone, and he goes on to say, For I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. In other words, deeds of compassion are the mark of one who is faithful to the will of God as it is known in the name of Christ. Prayer is for the purpose of discerning God s will, and Christian praying is praying informed by the gospel of Christ which calls for us to love our Creator and the whole of creation. Or consider the prayer most closely associated with Jesus and named for him, The Lord s Prayer. It is a prayer to God the Maker for spiritual enlightenment, the central petition of which is that God s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Bread is prayed for in the course of this prayer, but we would do best to see this as prayer for spiritual sustenance, like the manna in the story of the Israelites in the wilderness. They want melons and cucumbers and a nice piece of founder, which is entirely understandable, but this is not the food that God has to give. The bread of heaven is the wisdom of a godly life in the wilderness of the world, dedication to the building of human community and peace as represented in the notion of the promised land. Moreover, the bread of heaven is bread for all give us this day our daily bread. The Lord s Prayer is prayed, when it is prayed and not merely recited, to align us with God s will and to teach us how to pray. The prayers we pray when we gather as we have this morning are for the most part public and occur in several forms. The liturgy we use to guide worship is hardly anything else but prayers to orient our attention to God s Word in Christ. The hymns and other musical offerings are prayers which have the same purpose as does the liturgy. The 4
specific prayers we pray in the service are models for praying even as they are the communal expression of our hope in Christ for our lives and for the world in which we live. The lessons and even this sermon also serve the interest prayer in that they are occasions for us to encounter the Word of God in Christ. We are at this minute and throughout this hour people at prayer. Whatever else we do as people of faith is the expression of our prayers, whether in this building or beyond, cups of water in the name of Christ. Amen. Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 27, 2009 Emanuel Lutheran Church 5