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Pray always?
Somebody recently asked me, "Does prayer actually work?". Well the devil is in the detail, as they say. The trouble lies in the word 'work'. It makes prayer the 'request of the day', hoping that the Divine DJ will play your record and when you hear it played you are overjoyed. When it doesn't, you feel deflated. It turns God into a vending machine, little more than Santa Claus writ large, who brings us the presents we want. Or we hope God does. Often as not we get the orange when what we really wanted was the nice new Aston Martin. God, in this scenario, is turned into one of two things. Either the servant bringing us what we want or the feudal lord granting favours to those whom have pleased him enough. This, of course, may be a bit of an exaggeration but I hope it makes the point. Prayer becomes everything it should not be. Often our liturgies even encourage this. Yet prayer is far greater, far more important, far more essential, than simply us wishing upon a star. Yet if we are honest with ourselves, that is what we were often brought up to think. Don't get me wrong though. I guess any connection with God is better than nothing and God can wrap up what we have and tie a ribbon on it - make something beautiful of it. Paul said, though, as a man he put away childish thinking. We need to grow up and grow into real prayer. In the film 'Schindler's List', there is a moving moment (one of so many) where close to the end Schindler, who has spent every penny to keep his Jewish workers safe from the Nazi regime, summons them onto the factory floor to tell them the war in Europe is over. They can try to find their families, but in most cases will not find them. He asks for three minutes silence to honour the dead. At the end of it the Rabbi amongst them raises his voices and starts praying the "Mourner's Kaddish". This is the great prayer in Judaism said in grief at various times and at every Shabbat service. It is a beautiful, haunting and exhilarating prayer. Not a single word of it is about death but it is about blessing the God who gives life. It is a statement of honouring the dead by recognising what is good and the desire, nay defiance, to go on in the face of trauma and intense grieving. There is almost a stubbornness about it but ultimately it is a firm statement that, no matter what, we are grounded in God and our life arises out of God's Spirit and power. It always makes the hairs on the back on my neck stand up, particularly when it is proclaimed loudly in Hebrew. This gives a substantial clue as to what prayer is about. It is relationship. It is building, day by day, the remembrance of who we are and where we come from. It is a turning back to God - the real meaning of 'repentance' - and remembering WE are the Eternal One's people (all of us, not just those who don a religious label) and the Eternal is our God. Jesus reminds of this in the greatest commandment, from the great 'Sh'ma' - the Jewish statement of faith:
You cannot, of course, command the 'feeling' of love, but the defiant act, day by day, of returning to God, of building and rebuilding our relationship with God over and over, sometimes in the face of Job-like suffering and turmoil. Like the Kaddish it is defiant. This is no slavishness before the Almighty. This is a people saying to the one who created them "Oh God, who wilt not let me go, I wilt not let you go". This is faith as faithfulness. This is relationship, even when the feelings of anger and fury are there, when the mourning is there, when the hopelessness is there, when the joy is there, when the ecstasy is there. This is prayer. Then, having returned once again to God, we must do what all true relationships allow for - the silence of two companions, out of which the response of the Eternal One may begun to be quietly, so very quietly, heard: You are my child. Today I have begotten you. The prayer cannot change the Eternal One but in the pouring forth of who we are in our humanity - and yes that includes our hopes, dreams, worries, needs, and concern for the world, so do not leave them out. Then, in spending time and again in silence waiting upon God, just as we sit in silence with our closest loved ones, we give our God the Eternal One room to pray with us. As a Benedictine saying has it, "God speaks in the language of silence, but it takes a stilled heart to hear it". So pray. Do not hold back. Do not limit it to the equivalent of letters to Santa. Pour out your humanity to God. Build a life with God in which we hold nothing of ourselves back - including all the hurt and darkness, for God can take it and wants the true you, not the sugar coated one. Then allow God to build a life with you, sitting together. God listens to you. You listen to God.
Let us say: AMEN. Chris Mayo
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