In the lectionary that I use, and that we have copies of in the vestries of both churches in this benefice, against the Sunday readings there’s usually a few words in brackets that amount to a theme for that particular Sunday of the year. Today, those words are ‘God answers prayer’ and if we think about our readings this morning, there’s no doubt that’s a very fitting theme for today.
In our Old Testament reading we hear about Abraham calling again and again on the Lord to spare the people of Sodom for the sake of a few just men who might be found there amongst the multitude of sinners. And again and again, the Lord hearing Abraham’s pleas and granting his request. This morning’s Psalm is a great song of thanks to the Lord for hearing the words of his faithful servant. Our reading from Colossians can be seen as an answer to the prayer that God may forgive us our sins and of course where we find that prayer is in the Lord’s Prayer which is the answer Jesus gives to his disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray, which we read about in the Gospel reading this morning. So there’s no doubt that ‘God answers prayer’ is a very fitting theme for today given our readings this morning.
As Christians, we’re called to be people of prayer. We’re called to be people who pray regularly because we sincerely believe that God can and does answer prayer. For many people though, as I’m sure we all know, prayer is regarded as something of a last resort, something to try when all else has failed to help or to provide an answer when they’re faced with a difficult situation. But for us, prayer should be our first response to a problem or difficulty, or to any situation that’s of concern to us. We should be praying to God both for his help and for his guidance so that we can help ourselves. And as those people of prayer, I’m sure we all know what it’s like when our prayers are answered. At least I hope we all know that. I do, and I know many other people who do, including some here today, because they’ve told me about times when their prayers have been answered. But as people of prayer, we’ll know that there are times when it seems that our prayers are not answered. For all of us, there must have been times when what we’ve prayed so hard for, hasn’t happened, or what we’ve prayed so hard might not happen, has happened. So why should this be? How can we make sense of why some prayers are answered and some aren’t?
I think a good starting point would be to think about what we read in this morning’s Gospel. Jesus’ disciples ask him to teach them how to pray and, in response, Jesus teaches them what we’ve come to know as the Lord’s Prayer. But what is the Lord’s Prayer? What are we actually praying for in the Lord’s Prayer?
One of the criticisms that’s sometimes made of intercessory prayers in the Church is that they can amount to little more than ‘wish-lists’, a list of things that we want, or at least would like, with a prayer that God will let us have these things. But in praying the Lord’s Prayer, that is, praying as Jesus said we should pray, there’s no great list of wants or wishes. In fact, what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer can be summed up under two headings; we’re pray that we might live holy lives, dedicated to God and to his service, and for our daily bread, for what we need simply to live, and to live those holy lives dedicated to God. At the end of this morning’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples,
“What father among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
So in the Lord’s Prayer, we’re praying for what we need rather than simply what we want and, as a good Father, God will give us what we need, especially the Holy Spirit so that we can be the holy people we’re called to be.
So, for example, both parishes in this benefice are faced with financial difficulties at the moment and I know people are praying that we might find a way out of these difficulties. Some might be praying that someone might win the lottery and give the parishes vast sums of money to solve these financial problems. If they are, that prayer hasn’t been answered, at least as far as I know. But despite the financial difficulties our parishes are facing perhaps that’s a prayer that shouldn’t be answered because do we really need the kind of money that a lottery win would bring? I’m not saying that this is always that case because I know it’s not, but in my experience generally, the wealthier a parish has been in financial terms, the more poverty stricken it’s been in spiritual terms. The more money a parish has had, the more worldly and obsessed about its money it’s become.
And the more worldly a parish, or a person, becomes, the more likely they are to lose sight of the heavenly things we need to be God’s people. So, if you’ve ever prayed for a lottery win or something along those lines, even for a worthy cause such as helping your parish church, but that prayer hasn’t been answered, perhaps it’s not because God hasn’t heard your prayer, it’s because he knows what you’re praying for is not what’s really needed.
That’s a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of making the point but another, far from amusing area of apparently unanswered prayers is our prayer for healing of the sick. We only have to look at the names of the sick on our intercessions list or hear them during the intercessions in church to know that many of the people we pray for have been ill for a long time; we’ve prayed for them regularly for a long time, and yet, many of them are not healed. In fact, they often get worse and some of them die while we’re still praying for them to be healed. So why aren’t these prayers answered?
Well, again, I think we have to consider what’s needful in these situations. By that I don’t mean that illness and suffering are needful. In some certain circumstances where individual suffering happens for the sake of others you could make that case, and indeed that’s exactly what we see in the Passion and Cross of Christ. But on the whole that’s not the case. What I mean by needful is what’s needful to the individual whom we pray for, the one who is sick, the one who is dying. Whether we like it or not, and without wishing to sound too much like our dear friend Fr Neville Ashton, one day we’re all going to die. We get older, our bodies deteriorate, and we come to the end of our earthly lives. And we can, and do, eventually come to a time when, whilst we’re praying for healing as a recovery from illness and prolonged earthly life, the one who is ill is praying for a release from illness and suffering through the end of earthly life. In these circumstances, essentially, while we’re praying that they may live, they’re praying that they may die. And in these circumstances, whose prayer should be answered? What is most needful to the one we’re praying for in these circumstances. Of course, not every situation is like this but I think we always have to remember that eventually, and for all of us, the restoration to wholeness of health and life that we pray for the sick can no longer come in this life, but only in the next life and in those circumstances, whilst it may be very hard for us to bear, our prayer for healing hasn’t fallen on deaf ears, it’s just been answered in a way other than the way we wanted it to be.
The knowledge that different people in the same situation can pray for different things also helps us, I think, in trying make sense of perhaps the other great area of unanswered prayer, our prayers for peace.
I don’t think there’s anyone who would deny that peace is needful to all of us. I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t long for true and lasting peace in the world, and it’s something that we pray for constantly. But, as events in recent times have shown, peace is still a long, long way from being a reality, an answered prayer in the world. The problem though, I think, is not so much that some people don’t want peace, they do want peace, I’m sure they do, but they want it on their terms, and they’re quite prepared to sacrifice peace today so that they can impose their idea of peace tomorrow. But of course, because everyone has a different idea of what peace should look like, tomorrow never comes. But we shouldn’t really be surprised at this because didn’t Jesus himself say,
“…you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.”
By Jesus’ own admission then, war is inevitable, so we shouldn’t be surprised that our prayers for peace in the world have not been answered in the way we’d like them to be. But that wasn’t the peace Jesus came to bring to the world anyway. The peace Jesus came to bring wasn’t peace between human beings but peace between human beings and God, and he gave us that peace though his Passion and Cross through which our sins are forgiven. And so when we pray for peace, we might see our prayer for peace in the world between human beings go unanswered, but our prayer for peace has already been answered in a different way because we’ve been given a peace that’s even more needful to us, peace with God himself, and that is a more needful peace because that’s the peace that leads us to eternal life.
So does God answer prayer? Yes, certainly, it’s just that sometimes we’re praying for the wrong things and looking for the answer to our prayers in the wrong places.
Amen.
The Propers for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 