Prayer: breaking the Anglican taboo

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 1 Kings 3.5-12, Psalm 119.129-136, Romans 8.26-39, Matthew 13.31-33,44-52

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”

One upside of lockdown is that people had more time to pray. And apparently they did! Here we started saying morning and evening prayer together and have up to a dozen people each day gathering online, which will continue through August in mornings. August usually offers a slower pace of life so, led by our readings, I thought today is a good day to speak about prayer. In the Church of England private prayer is rarely talked about; It’s almost seen as something slightly embarrassing; Everyone does it, of course, but it’s very much private and personal; it would perhaps be bad taste to talk about it.

You couldn’t cover the subject in ten-minutes, but in true Anglican-sermon-tradition I’ll give you three things that prayer isn’t. And three things prayer is.

So what prayer isn’t: Prayer is not magic. Prayer is not “entering the void”. Prayer is not something we do.

So firstly, prayer is not magic, which is sort of how we often explain it, and have it explained to us as children, which of course leads to a lot of disappointment. I mean by this that it’s not a power by which we change the world with our minds. Most of us have been affected by tragedy, and if prayer were simply a means of invoking God’s intervention then we might right now be asking some big questions. Prayers are not spells.

Rhiannon told me the other day that crafts and buying craft materials are two separate hobbies. I have to remind myself that reading and collecting books is the same. And, importantly, that buying a book is not the same as reading it. It’s also possible to collect prayer materials – bibles, books, rosaries, icons, books of ancient prayers, candles, incense – to learn techniques with impressive names: lectio Divina, the Jesus Prayer, glossolalia (praying in tongues); these can help – like yoga blocks and belts can help you stretch further, but prayer is not an arcane art. It’s not that our force of will, our spiritual energy, changes the world. But having said that – do pray for what you want. What God does in the world is not always easily explained. And as our intercessions in church are there to remind us of the needs of our community, we’ll not find praying very helpful if we pray for things we don’t want.  Solomon wanted to be wise. Be honest in your prayers. If they’re ridiculous, narcissistic and selfish you’ll know, and that self-knowledge is worth something. The jarring sensation of praying to Christ for vengeance, should wake us to spiritual weakness. Praying by saying what we think we should say is just a waste of time. Prayer should hone our desires.

Secondly, Christian Prayer is not about ‘entering the void’. People sometimes talk about ‘clearing the mind’ and ‘thinking about nothing’. There are religions which suggest there’s no reality to either our transient world, or to ourselves. These are not Christian practices. Christian prayer always focuses on something – it may be as simple as your breathing, the light of a candle, a simple one-line prayer. But the point is to achieve focus, not dissolution.  ‘A higher state of consciousness’ is an irritatingly high pitched 90s house dance track by Josh Wink, not the goal of Christian prayer.

Thirdly, prayer is not something we do. It will not aid us a great deal if we sit down for 60 minutes of prayer and spend that time striving to achieve something – whether that becomes memorisation, the ability to kneel a long time, or an hour without speaking, which may well be an achievement, warmly encouraged by your friends and family, but has little spiritual benefit.

All we can do in prayer is set the conditions where God may speak to us. That may feel fruitless. Prayer often feels like a waste of time, especially if we’re very active souls. Who actually has half an hour to do nothing? You could use that time much more productively watching an episode of Friends. And, of course, one of the astonishing things about the show is that, like God, at any time on some channel, an episode of Friends is playing. Omnipresence, they call it. But, be warned, it’s also often the most active, and the most easily distracted, minds that benefit the most from time spent in prayer. Prayer is something that God does. Not us. ‘It is Christ Jesus [who] intercedes for us.’

Enough negativity. So three positive things about prayer. Prayer is discipline. Prayer is discovery. Prayer is direction.

In prayer, discipline is everything. When you start running everything is heavy and wobbly. Various parts of your body protest, You can’t get your breathing right. You’re heart pounds. You’re heavy on your feet. If you haven’t run in a while, you’ll feel no benefit, only discomfort and pain. Prayer is the same. If you want to know how easily distracted you are, try and sit for twenty minutes thinking only about your breathing. It’s like an assault. Before you know it you’ve compiled a groceries shopping list, an amazon wish list, and a directory of people you should must email immediately. Our minds are crowded, noisy places. The ability to hold our attention, to gently place each distraction as it arrives to one side, is not achieved overnight. And even once the various distractions have been put to bed, then our minds, sensing stillness, will seize the opportunity to engage sleep mode.

Rhiannon loves to point out that some of my time in prayer seems very similar to napping. To the uninformed eye, they can appear similar… Being still and alert, for most of us, will feel wholly unnatural to begin with. Here’s where the practical things really count. Don’t pray lying down. Don’t pray when you’re hungry. Don’t pray somewhere you’ll be disturbed. Always set a time limit and an alarm. This is particularly key. Anyone who’s been in a counselling role will tell you that very often it’s the thing a person says when their hand is on the door handle to leave, that’s the reason they’re really there. The same is true in prayer. It is often what occurs in those last 3 minutes when you’re desperate to move, eat and watch television, that define the experience. Always stick to the parameters you set at the beginning.

 And if we do persevere, and stay awake, prayer is one of the best ways to discover who we really are. Prayer should be a form of self-discovery, of self-understanding. A cynic might think of it as therapy for one, but whether we’re reflecting on the day that has passed, or the day to come; If we’re seeking forgiveness, or testing the desires of our hearts; In considering the stories of the wisdom of the past, Or reflection on current events, Prayer is a time to think through our motives and actions. To understand and confront how we have behaved and what are the forces at war in our hearts.

 To follow our instincts, our habits and our desires, within the space of our social contracts is what makes us animals.  And we are animals. To take time to reflect on what makes us who we are as a person, on where we have gone wrong, and how we might do better; that is the peculiar liberty of being human. Prayer is the Christian method self-discovery, and the means of achieving freedom from our unconscious programming, which St Paul called in last Sunday’s reading ‘the glorious liberty of the children of God.’

But discipline and self-discovery are little worth if they don’t lead to direction. Prayer’s primary purpose is to orient us towards God. I don’t mean this in a pious way. We know that God is love. Directing ourselves towards God means allowing the barriers we raise to certain people (mostly not like us) drop away. It means trying to keep on when we’re tired or hungry. It’s reminding ourselves again and again that this world, every part of it, and every person in it, is loved by God. That excruciating act of trying to put other people before ourselves, that can seem so natural to other people, but is so exhausting.

 But if all that sounds like too much hard work, it’s worth remembering that there’s no point in going anywhere if we’re not facing the right way. That there’s no more rewarding task than uncovering the person we are and are meant to be. That is a pearl of great price. And if you have known the joy of running, of finding the steady state, where the body and mind flow effortlessly, if you have experienced in playing or listening to music that synergy, that sense of rightness, you may also in prayer have found that equanimity, or that still small voice that is the basis of conviction. The metaphors Jesus uses in today’s parables are all about something great coming from something that almost passes without notice: A mustard seed, yeast, something buried, underwater. Prayer is the gift of God to unlock what is small and buried: from silence and wasted time, to bring forth the kingdom of God. Amen.