A one-sentence prayer has the advantage of simplicity and economy, but the disadvantage of leaving too much room to read between the lines. The book has the merit of presenting a God who loves us and wants to bless us. It has the weakness of a rather mechanical view of how "blessing" from God works.
The author tells a fable as illustration: A Mr. Jones dies and goes to heaven. As St. Peter takes him on a tour, Mr. Jones sees an enormous warehouse and asks about it. St. Peter is reluctant to show it to Mr. Jones but relents and takes him inside. The building is stocked with row upon row of boxes wrapped as gifts with red ribbons, each bearing a name. "Is there a box with my name?" Jones inquires then rushes to row "J" to see. When he opens his box he sees inside all the blessings God had wanted to give him on earth but did not because Mr. Jones never asked.
While I believe prayer can make one more aware, open and receptive to the blessings that God pours out on all of us, I cannot believe in a God who withholds blessings until we know to ask. Sometimes God calls us to "faithful disbelief."2 One cannot believe everything -- though some days I like to try.
Moreover, the prayer of Jabez seems so self-centered, just the prayer for the "culture of narcissism" we have rampant in our nation:
The book turns its eye from the terrible disparity of material blessing which we witness on this earth. And it, despite the author’s warning, feeds into a kind of "prosperity gospel" which is popular in American culture, a "gospel" which promises material blessings to those who have faith and ask. Such a gospel is only superficially biblical and falls far from the highest revelation of God to Israel and in Jesus of Nazareth. A true biblical theology of blessing includes both material and spiritual blessings, but it always emphasizes the call to share those blessings and to use them in service to others. So in God’s originating call to Abraham and Sarah, God says: "I will bless you . . . so that you will be a blessing. . . . in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12: 2-3 NRSV).
I do not wish this series of sermons to be a debate with that book. As has been wisely said, "One is more nearly right in what one affirms than in what one negates." This series is, however, a kind of answering voice, hopefully the sound of Jesus praying.
What I propose to do in this series is to offer the prayers of Jesus as a way of understanding his spirituality and the way of life he offers to those who take his path. If we pray them with him we will not be the same.
The prayer of Jabez is a prayer for one season in one’s life: Where one is acquiring skills, power, wisdom, wealth and influence. It seeks nobly to receive such gifts and to use them to good purpose and God’s purpose. There have been moments in my life when I have prayed a version of this prayer: "God, if you will give me this thing I want, I will use it for your glory and other’s good." Self-interest and altruism are so joined -- which is better than self-interest alone. It is often where faith starts.
The prayers of Jesus are prayers for all seasons of one’s life, the best and the worst of times. Their basic posture is not acquisitive but self-emptying, a pouring out of one’s life in service to God and others, a participation in the flowing river of God’s blessing as one who freely receives and freely gives. It is the life of simple gratefulness given in sumptuous sacrifice for the lessening of another’s suffering and the enhancement of another’s joy.3
I therefore subtitle this series: The Gift and Call of Blessing. Blessing is an important theme running through Hebrew and Christian scriptures. All that we have and all we are are gifts from the generous hands of God. Such blessedness calls us to a life of service that we, blessed and beloved of God, might help others flourish in the blessings of God. By this we become children of Abraham and Sarah and followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
I
There are in total nine prayers placed on the lips of Jesus in the New Testament gospels. I group them into five: 1) The Daily Prayer, or what we call the Lord’s Prayer; 2) The Prayer of Thanksgiving Amid Life’s Reversals; 3) The Gethsemane Prayer; 4) Three short prayers from the Cross; and 5) Three prayers in John’s gospel.
Our Abba4 in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us in the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours,
now and forever.52. The Prayer of Thanksgiving Amid Life’s Reversals. Found in Matthew 11:25-26).
I thank you, Abba,
Lord of heaven and earth,
that you have hidden these things
from the wise and understanding
and revealed them to babes:
Yes, Abba, for such was your gracious will.
3. The Gethsemane Prayer, prayed the night before his public execution. Found in Mark
14:36 with parallel versions in
Matthew 26:39 and Luke 22:42.
Abba, all things are possible to you;
remove this cup from me;
yet not what I want, but what you want.
4. The Prayers from the Cross:
a. Abba, forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
b. Eli, Eli, Lama sabachthani, that is, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46).
c. Abba, into thy hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46).5. Jesus’ Prayer for His Followers. As my focus for the prayers in John, I have chosen the key sentence of a longer prayer called the High Priestly Prayer in John 17.
Holy Abba, keep them in your name
which you have given to me,
that they may be one,
even as we are one
(John 17:11b)..
Now my soul is troubled,
and what shall I say?
"Abba, save me from this hour"?
No, for this purpose I have come to this hour
(John 12:27).
It is my hope that as we study these prayers of Jesus we will breathe the Spirit of God along with Jesus. Prayer is a kind of breathing the Spirit of God along with our own breaths. It is also my hope that this study will offer you a clearer picture of Jesus. Inevitably, our portraits of Jesus are in some measure self-portraits. I hope my face does not get in the way of our view of him who is to me as he was described by my beloved mentor George Buttrick: "surprise of Mercy, outgoing Gladness, Rescue, Healing and Life."6
II
We know more about the way Jesus prayed, however, than from the handful of prayers from
his lips.
He is described as following in the ways of prayer practiced by his Jewish tradition in
community.
But to describe his faithful life of prayer from within his tradition does not say nearly enough. The gospels portray him as one who spent hours, even whole nights, in solitary prayer:
And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went to a lonely place, and there he prayed (Mark 1:35).
And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray (Mark 6:46).
Especially before important decisions he went aside for concentrated prayer:
In those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples. . . . (Luke 6:12 RSV).
Jesus prayed prayers for children and blessed them (Mark 10:16), prayed for his disciples (Luke 22:32), prayed for his friends (John 11:41) and prayed for Jerusalem and his nation Israel (Luke 19:41-2).
For Jesus prayer was at times a spiritual combat with the forces of evil in the world. These are no wimpy prayers but a call to arms: "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation" (Matthew 26:41). Once Jesus’ disciples came back discouraged because their spiritual power was not sufficient to drive out certain evil spirits. Jesus replied, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer" (Matthew 17:21).
In Luke 22:31 Jesus describes his prayer for Peter in face of Peter’s spiritual testing:
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded you to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
Finally, there are Jesus’ teachings about prayer. I mention three:
1. No show-off prayers
2. No long-winded prayers
First, in Matthew 6:1-6 Jesus warns against those who parade their prayers in public. He here does not forbid public praying but rather the kind of prayers we give in order to be seen by others. He calls them "hypocrites" who pray this way --which is a good description since "hypocrite" in the Greek means "play-actor."
It is important to remember who it is to whom we pray. No one else matters. The anecdote is told about Bill Moyers when he was press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson asked him to pray at some state dinner. Mid-prayer Johnson interrupted and said, "Speak up, Bill, can’t hear you." Moyers replied, "Mr. President, you’re not the one I’m speaking to." So no show-off prayers designed for the admiration of others.
Second, prayers need not go on and on:
Jesus is not forbidding all repetitive prayer,10 but rather the kind of praying which believes that it can by its way of praying earn God’s favor or wear God down until God finally listens. Jesus is saying, God’s favor is already with you, God’s ear is already inclined. No need to go on and on. God is your Abba who already knows your need and is coming to help.
Third, Jesus says we need never be ashamed or embarrassed about coming to God for help. He tells a parable about a man in a predicament. Someone has come to his house late at night and asked to stay. The sacred rules of hospitality were that you always provided shelter when asked -- and supplied a meal as well. Such rules were life-saving courtesies in that first-century world. The host is terribly embarrassed because he has nothing to give the guest to eat. So he goes to a friend’s house at midnight. The door is shut, meaning everyone is in bed and the children are asleep -- probably all in the same main room of the house. You know how hard it is to get children to go back to sleep once they have finally settled down! The man answers from within: "Don’t bother me; the door is closed for the night. Can’t you see? My children are asleep." Jesus says, "Even though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s shamelessness,11 he will get up and give him as much as he needs."
Jesus then says:
Our God is a "how much more" God, a God beyond our human capacities to love and to give. So no ashamed prayer, no embarrassed prayer.
I heard of a businessman’s breakfast. As all the "suits" were seated, one more rushed in at the last moment and sat down. Naturally, they asked him to return thanks. He began, "God, you probably are as surprised by this as everyone else at the table!" Go boldly, unashamed before God. Bang on the door in the middle of the night. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter if God hasn’t heard your voice for awhile. Nothing matters except that you matter to God.
Joachim Jeremias, one of the great New Testament scholars of our time,
says: "Jesus appeared in this world with a new prayer."12 This new
prayer, or new way of praying, begins with the word Abba, the most tender and
intimate address imaginable for God. Our every prayer, our every word, our every breath
matters to this God.
To be continued.--
1. (Sisters, Oregon: Multinomah Publishers, 2000).
2. See Christopher Morse, Not Every Spirit: A Dogmatics of Christian Disbelief (Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1996), p.3.
3. Edith Wyschogrod, Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 146-7. It is Wyschogrod who first joined for me
sainthood, sacrifice and sumptuousness.
4. In all these prayers except the Gethsemane prayer in Mark the Greek text uses the word pater,
father, I follow the suggestion of Joachim Jeremias that behind every pater on
Jesus' lips there is the echo of his Aramaic Abba. So I translate not forward into
English but backward into Aramaic, the reason to be discussed later.
5. With one change excepted (Father has become Abba), this is the
version of the Lord's Prayer adapted by the Iona Community and found in their new worship
book: Iona Abbey Worship Book (Glasgow, Scotland: Wild Goose Publications, 2001),
p. 17. The version makes use of current New Testament scholarship. I use it also because
its "strangeness," its difference, from the standard translations used in most
liturgies helps us become reacquainted with its power and truth. Sometimes as Fred
Craddock says, our strategy as teachers is to make the familiar strange; other times we
try to make the strange familiar.
6. George A. Buttrick, Prayer (New York: Abingdon, 1942), p. 83.
7. Joachim Jeremiah, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), Chapter one.
8. So directs the Didache, the earliest church manual dated around 100 CE. (Didache
8:3)
9. "Blessed be thou, Lord our God,
King of the world,
Who makes bread to come from the earth."
10. Repetitive and contemplative prayers are appropriate as ways of communing with God,
being in the presence of God, but such is quite different from long prayers designed to
curry favor with God or wear God down.
11. The Greek word anaideia is often translated "importunity" or
"persistence." But this Greek word is in all ancient literature translated
"shamelessness."
12. Joachim Jeremiah, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), p. 186.