Ash Wednesday February 22, 2012
Is.58:1-12
Ps.103
1
Cor. 5:20b-6:10 Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21
As a pastor and priest, I am very happy when my congregation
gather to pray in our public gathering places on public street corners. I want the people of St.
John the Divine to be seen, as often as possible, praying on the street corner
of Peak Avenue and Marcia Street.
There was a young man who suddenly stopped coming to church
so when his pastor saw him in a store, he asked him why he had not been to
church lately. He said that he had read
the Gospel and was convicted by the words of Christ to become a Tameion
Christian. The pastor asked, “What is a
Tameion Christian” The young man said,
“Perhaps you have forgotten your New Testament Greek…but Tameion is the Greek
word for closet. And Jesus said we
should pray in our closets and not on the street corners or in public places of
worship.
Well that adds a new twist to our Gospel. Did Jesus of Nazareth have a “Don’t ask,
don’t tell policy about prayer?” Did
Jesus really want us to live in the closet about our prayer orientation?
Street corner public praying or closet praying? Which is it?
Maybe I should be grateful for all of the people who are not coming to
church to pray in public. Maybe I really
have lots of people who are praying in secret and that is well and good, but
what does that do for my worship attendance record?
Should there really be a disjunction between private prayer
and public prayer?
I would like for us today to consider the meaning of prayer. Perhaps the season of Lent can be a time for
us to learn about how prayer can be practiced in such a way that it brings us
unity, congruence and authenticity in how we live our public and private lives
of prayer.
What is prayer? What
is public prayer? What is private
prayer? Perhaps if we can have some insights
into prayer we can come to some insights on the Gospel words of Jesus.
What is prayer? An
answer to this question is found in the Catechism in the back of the Book of
Common Prayer. According to the catechism of the Book of
Common Prayer, “Prayer is responding to God, with or without words.”
If our prayer orientation is primarily toward God, then we
do not have to worry about the difference between public and private prayers.
Prayer is responding to God, with or without words. Perhaps this definition is much too general
for your taste. The catechism also specifies
the principal kinds of prayer: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, petition,
intercession and oblation.
Using this definition of prayer, we can at any time stop and ask
our self the question: Is my life
prayerful right now? Can I see my life
right now as responding to God, with or without words?
If we have a limited notion of prayer, we can reduce prayer
to the public performance of religious obligations. And we can find ourselves in the role of the
“public actor of prayer” or to use the Greek word from the Gospel, “hyprocrite. Public prayer simply out of peer pressure is
a motive of prayer that Jesus criticized.
But how can I always walk around being prayerful or having
the attitude of prayer? Prayer could get
in the way of my work, if I have to have a conscious attitude of prayer at all
times.
Perhaps, you’ve heard the exhortation wrongly attributed to
St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words?”
The same can be said about prayer: Pray at all times and if
necessary use words. One of the
principal kinds of prayers is called oblation.
What is oblationary prayer?
Oblation is when the deeds of our lives are performed in such a way as
being a response to God. Oblation is
when our “body language” speaks louder than our words and prays the active
prayer of love and kindness and moral and ethical behavior. Body language, oblationary prayer is perhaps
the most embracing form of prayer that we can practice. It is much easier to schedule a time to
practice meditative forms of contemplative prayer of praise and adoration, than
it is to have the behavior of our bodies always be offering a prayer to
God.
Perhaps during the season of Lent we could open our selves
to a haunting question: Is what I am
doing with my bodily action right now a suitable prayer to God?
The Isaian prophet was criticizing the separation of the vocal
and public acts of devotion from the actual practice of kindness and
justice. And that is where our prayers
of oblation are most important. If my
public acts and my vocal prayers are saying one thing but my actual deeds are
saying something else then I am living a dishonest life of prayer.
That is the kind of dishonest prayer that both the Isaian
prophet and Jesus were criticizing.
And the best way that we can begin to recover from dishonest
prayer is to begin to look at the prayer of oblation or what might be called
the doing prayer. The doing prayer of
oblation also needs to go with the “being prayer” of intercession.
One way in which we can begin to practice the prayer of
oblation, is first to practice the prayer of intercession. What if the first thing that we did when we
experienced a headache, or an illness or a loss or misfortune, was to stop and
say, “Wow, I am in solidarity with everyone else who has a headache, or an illness
or a loss or misfortune and I offer my condition to God in prayer in solidarity
with all who suffer the same condition.”
And instead of living in “woe is me” state of mind for not being exempt
from certain things in life, we offer our particular condition to God with and
for others. And so with intercession
one can begin to convert ones prayer into an expression of one’s life lived for
and with others.
And from intercessory prayer we can then move to the prayer
of oblation when we “do prayer actively with the deeds of our lives.” And this doing prayer is what will make our
vocal and public prayers honest and valid prayers.
I would invite all of us during the season of Lent to think
about our lives as lives of prayer, “responding to God, with or without words.”
And because this world is full of people in need, the Lenten
season provides for us plenty of opportunities for the prayer of oblation…doing
prayers…the prayers of active generosity to those in need.
Let us commit ourselves to prayer during the season of
Lent. Committing ourselves to prayer is
our way of expressing our connection to God and to each other.
Should be pray in our closets? By all means!
When we are alone let us practice meditation, contemplation, adoration
and praise and petition. Should we pray
in public? By all means! But let us make sure that our public prayers
are coming from those who also offer intercessory prayers and oblationary
prayers.
In intercessory prayer, we accept the conditions of our
lives in solidarity with other people in need.
In oblationary prayers we use the deeds of our lives to practice being
loving responses to the human needs in our world.
During the season of Lent we are invited to learn
intercessory prayer for others and we are invited to learn oblationary prayer
of active generosity in responding to the needs in our world. If we can beef up our intercessory prayers
and oblationary prayers during the season of Lent, we will be able to be more
honest in our public prayer lives and when we do, the Father who sees us in
secret will show us the reward of living honest prayer lives. Amen.
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