“Prayerful Words: Too Important to Waste”

Matthew 6:5-8

Matthew 6:5-8 (The Message): And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production…. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply…”

[prayer]

Jesus did not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. He was a devout Jew, one who followed the accepted norm of piety. He gave to the poor. He prayed. He fasted. These were, and are, valid spiritual disciplines for God’s people.

He wanted his disciples to maintain those spiritual disciplines, but he wanted them to do so with a sense of humility. He wanted them to maintain them without any sense of self-consciousness. Their piety was to be something between them and God. It was never to be a show for other people. It was to focus on God, not draw attention to themselves.

Today’s text deals with prayer. It is followed by the verses that we know as the Lord’s Prayer. That prayer is a study in simplicity. If there is only one prayer we ever pray, it is the Lord’s Prayer.

Before dealing with prayer in general, I’ll be sharing some commentary about the Lord’s Prayer. Wrote Suzanne de Dietrich, “[This prayer] is less a request than an act of faith and praise, a giving of our whole selves to God in order that his will may be done in and by us. This prayer focuses on God, on his Kingdom; it aims at putting our whole being and its desires in tune with God…”

Wrote W. A. Poovey, “… too often we repeat the Lord’s Prayer without taking time to consider what we’re saying. It is almost inevitable that anything used so often will sometimes be repeated without thought to its meaning…”

What these commentators wrote about the Lord’s Prayer is applicable to every prayer. In one way or another all prayer should focus on God, his will, and his Kingdom. All prayer should be a practice by which we fully attune ourselves to God. Prayer is not about us nor is it totally about what we want or need. Prayer is to be God-centered, not self-centered.

Or as Clair M. Crissy wrote, “Prayer is not for the purpose of informing God of our needs or compelling him to do what we want… it is for the purpose of putting ourselves in line with God’s will.”

No prayer should ever be prayed by rote, without us being fully aware of what it is we’re saying. Such prayers are a waste of our breath and God’s time. They have no spiritual significance. They are an unconscious habit instead of a conscious discipline. They are meaningless.

Just as many of the prayers prayed by First Century Jews were meaningless. For many of them prayer had devolved into nothing more than a gabbled formula. In some cases it had crossed over into the realm of superstition, sounding and feeling more like the incantation of a spell than an act of devotion. Even the rabbis of the time were concerned that the prayers of the faithful not become a formal duty but remain an act of humility by which one obtained the mercy of God.

Jesus was telling his disciples - and through God’s Word telling us – that prayer, even a memorized or liturgical prayer – is to be an act of humility not hypocrisy. A hypocrite is someone whose prayer is a form of ostentatious play-acting. Such prayers are staged. They require an audience. Those who pray them are looking for some sort of applause or recognition. Their implicit message is, “Hey, look at me! See what great piety I possess! Listen to how religious I am! Recognize me for my great devotion!”

That’s why Jesus suggests that we go into what used to be translated as our prayer closets. His advice is to seek seclusion, to find a quiet place. Why? Listen again to The Message, “… so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.” Along with the humility there must be honesty. The words we pray must come from our hearts. They must be based in reality. They must involve us in telling God the truth even when that truth is painful.

And they don’t need to be wordy. Sometimes there are no words. There are moments, in the words of St. Paul, when all we can offer up to God are those Spirit-directed sighs that are too deep for words. Some of our best prayers are silent. Many of our most effective spoken prayers are noted for their brevity and simplicity. As William Barclay wrote in his commentary, “It is easy to [confuse] verbosity with piety and fluency with devotion.” But in our pride-based sinfulness we sometimes ignore those realities, and heap up what Jesus called “many empty phrases.”

I have read today’s text many times. Twice in the past I have preached on it. But as I wrestled with it this week I found myself remembering something my Grandfather Richardson once told a fellow minister. Granddad, a Church of God Evangelist, formed a close friendship with Vernon Miller the Presbyterian pastor of my home church. He often worshiped with us there. One time, in a gentle and humorous way, he chided Vernon on the length of his pastoral prayers.

I have patterned my ministry to a large degree on the model presented by Vernon Miller – and it’s a good model. One of the things I do most like Vernon are my pastoral prayers. If he were alive today I’m sure that Granddad might have a few things to say to me about my verbosity. I can pray a pretty long pastoral prayer.

This is where the text hit home this week. When I pray such wordy pastoral prayers, am I ignoring the teaching of Jesus? Am I following the wrong script? I’ve really been thinking – and praying – about that this week. Have I been confusing verbosity with piety and fluency with devotion? Well, maybe I have. Of course, I’ve done so with the best of intentions. I want to be a good pastor.

But sometimes I suspect that my devotion has been misguided. When I pray the pastoral pray I am very self- conscious. The prayer is sincere, but sometimes I’m so caught up in making sure that I’ve covered all the bases, remembered everybody’s request, and pronounced all the names correctly that I can’t honestly say that I’m praying. I’m talking. I’m talking to God. I’m talking to him about people for whom I really care. I’m being as theologically correct and grammatically precise as I can be.

Sometimes, though, I feel as if I’m on a stage giving a performance. Hoping that God will be pleased with my performance, but also worrying about how you folks are rating it. It’s very easy for the focus to move from God to me. Odds are that I’m being overly conscientious and way too self-critical. But whatever the reason, I find myself walking a fine line between humility and hypocrisy. And in my prideful sinfulness I’m doing that which I should not do; I’m practicing my piety in way that it can measured by the standards of the world. All the while knowing that it can only be truly measured by God on a scale of grace and mercy.

And sometimes it’s as if I’m not so much praying with you as I am for you, playing the role of professional Christian. Traditionally that’s the role I’ve been taught to play even as you have been taught to let me play it. Hopefully you’ve noticed that there was no pastoral prayer today. We engaged together in the prayers of the faithful, or as they’re sometimes called, the prayers of the people. We prayed together, none of us having to be overly self-conscious about what we were doing. I was free to not only pray with you instead of for you, but to also be more focused on God than myself.

I’m through with my flight into transparency. Maybe I revealed too much. But for me part of preaching is sharing with you those moments when, as I have wrestled with the text, a light bulb has come on. That’s what happened this week. The words of Jesus took on a newer and deeper meaning. My view of prayer changed a bit. My sense of how best to be your pastor went through some alterations.

Prayer at its best is personal and relational. It is a time of humbly standing before God’s and opening ourselves to his grace, mercy, and will. It is, even when spoken together, a private conversation with God. It doesn’t have to be loud or long or spoken in the words of angels. It doesn’t have to be carried out in King James’ English, or even English for that matter. God understands all languages, especially the language of the heart.

“This is [our] Father [we] are dealing with, and he knows better than [us] what [we] need. With a God like this loving [us], [we] can pray very simply.” Thus says the Lord. Amen.