Re Prayer and Great Things!, February
As I read this article I was troubled by the implicit argument that if we pray more, and more faithfully, God will do great things for our church.
Is there another way of thinking about praying for our denomination? Three things stand out for me in the gospels in this regard. First, the disciples had to unlearn a lot about their preconceptions of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God. Peter’s confession (Mark 8:27 – 31) indicates that this unlearning was far from complete as Jesus equates Peter’s bravado with the talk of the devil. Are there not a lot of things we may have to unlearn about being the church in this present age? Is a powerful and successful church really what God wants?
Secondly, we are told that Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer. Prayer is a time to be aware of our temptations—and surely success, power and privilege are among the promises of the evil one. As well, Jesus clearly sought discernment through prayer as the Gethsemane passages indicate. Too often we skip over the existential crisis of the death of Jesus by giving it a (too quick) theological interpretation that makes it less horrible than it really was. But we must all consider what it might mean if in our prayer we discern that God wills the cross! What would dying mean for our denomination, allowing as we must for the hope of resurrection?
And finally, the disciples asked that Jesus would teach them how to pray. Calvin Brown is right in saying that first we must establish a relationship with God; but how? Perhaps we Presbyterians also need to be taught how to pray. Before we rise to the summit of prayer we need first to be led through the valley of unlearning, emptying and dying to all that is distracting us. Why not turn to those who have developed a discipline of prayer over many centuries, such as various orders within the Roman Catholic Church, to help us learn what we need to know?
I agree that our church must change and prayer is an integral part—but it is not simply a question of more and richer. Prayer may also be a matter of less and poorer.
