July 25, 2010

Was Jesus Naïve about Prayer?

Luke 11:1-13

 

A clergyman owned a parrot with an acquired vocabulary of cuss words from a previous owner. It was embarrassing. A woman in his congregation suggested a remedy. She would put him with her well-behaved parrot. Her female parrot said nothing except, “Let’s pray.” The birds were put together. The pastor’s bird took one look at the lady parrot and chirped, “Hi, Toots, how about a little kiss?” The lady parrot responded gleefully, “My prayers have been answered.”

Last Sunday evening at our worship gathering in the fellowship hall, we talked for a few minutes about some of the mysteries of the faith. Without a doubt, one of the great mysteries of our faith is prayer. Are our prayers truly answered? Inquiring minds want to know! Perhaps all of us have opinions based upon our personal feelings or experiences, or based upon what we have been taught. It seems to me there are three general answers to the question, “Are prayers answered?”

First, some people believe prayers are always answered, either in the affirmative or the negative. If nothing happens then the answer to the prayer was “no.” Second, some people believe prayers are sometimes answered, perhaps depending upon how faithful we have been to God or what kind of mood God happens to be in on that particular day. And third, some people believe that prayers are never answered, that prayers are simply words uttered to no one in particular. “Prayers to the air,” we call it.

Are our prayers always, sometimes, or never answered? Of course, the question, “Are our prayers answered?” implies that prayers are always questions. I personally believe that the best kinds of prayers are those that express our genuine feelings without asking God for something, although asking God for things seems to be very natural and heartfelt for most people. I don’t believe there is any such thing as a bad prayer, just as we are told as school-aged children that there is no such thing as a bad question. I’m assuming, of course, that our prayers are a genuine expression of our feelings or thoughts. As Mark Twain said, “You can’t pray a lie.”

Whether our prayers are answered or not, I have come to the conclusion that prayer is a supplement to our spiritual lives. Think about supplemental vitamins. These vitamins are taken in order to supplement our diets, which often lack in adequate nutrition. For many people, prayer is a supplemental vitamin to our spiritual diet. We somehow know we are not quite getting all the nourishment we need from our faith, so we try to supplement our spiritual hunger with prayer. When you think about it, prayer is an attempt to eat directly from God’s dinner table!

I don’t mean to sound cynical about prayer by suggesting that it is like taking vitamins to supplement our spiritual diets. Whether prayers are answered or not we still gain something from prayer. I know a man who likes to say about certain food items with a Texas drawl, “It’s good for your bowels.” Well, whether we get some tangible benefit from prayer or not, prayer is good for our spiritual bowels! But whether prayers are answered or not, we still have to live our lives. We have to keep peddling through life even if prayer proves to be vacuous. As a Russian proverb says, “Pray to God but continue to row to the shore.” George Santayana said it well: “Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.”

Now, if you ask me if our prayers are answered, I have to admit that I simply don’t know … for certain. Like you, I’ve had experiences in my life that seemed to indicate an answered prayer—even some in the affirmative. One story in my life that continues to baffle me occurred when I was a young man playing on a softball team. I had hurt my shoulder and could not lift my arm up very high. A friend requested to pray for my shoulder. I said, “Go ahead, what could it hurt.” He laid his hand on my shoulder, prayed for a minute, and afterwards I was able to lift my arm up high!

I still don’t know what to think of that. The skeptical side of me always seems to whisper in my ear something like, “Don’t be naïve; it was just a coincidence,” or “It was psychosomatic.” I don’t have a clue. At the end of the day I’m willing to allow prayer to continue to be one of the great mysteries of the faith. I’m willing to concede that we will never know exactly how or why or even if prayer “works,” but I’m also willing to suggest that it can and does add needed nourishment to our spiritual lives.

Nevertheless, as I read the text for today from Luke’s Gospel, the question kept popping into my head, “Was Jesus naïve about prayer?” That is, was his approach to prayer sort of childish, unsophisticated, or countrified? Is his view of prayer too difficult for we who are more mature, sophisticated, and modern to accept? Luke 11:1-11 gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ understanding of prayer. The disciples ask Jesus how to pray, and he begins his answer by offering a simple little prayer, which is a shortened version of what we call “the Lord’s Prayer.”

After that he elaborates by telling a story about a person who knocks on a friend’s door at midnight to ask for bread for another friend. At first, the man doesn’t want to answer the door because everyone is already asleep. But because of the persistence of the door-knocker, the man finally opens the door and gives bread to the hungry person. He continues with these inspiring words: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” And then he follows that with a lesson about God’s faithfulness. If we, who are evil, know how to give good (and appropriate) gifts to our children, then surely God will be even more faithful in this regard. God will give us whatever we ask for.

In these verses, Jesus seems to believe several things about prayer. First, like the Lord’s Prayer it should be simple, repetitive, and to the point. Second, we should be persistent in prayer, knocking on that door as many times as we need to. And third, we can count on God to answer our prayers appropriately. So here’s Jesus’ philosophy of prayer: Repeat, persist, and expect. Repeat, persist, and expect. But again, I repeat: Was Jesus naïve about prayer? Do we really think that if we repeat our prayers over and over again, persistently, that God will always answer them? Is that our experience? Or was Jesus being naïve?

The word “naïve” comes from a French word which implies someone was “just born.” This is why in our attempts to prove to people that we are not naïve we will often say, “I wasn’t born yesterday.” The word “naïve” is usually used in a derogatory manner. If I called you naïve you would think I was belittling you. A naïve person is usually thought to be childish, ignorant, unsophisticated, simple-minded, gullible, credulous, and overly trusting. Seldom do we apply the word “naïve” to someone we admire or want to emulate.

And so when I ask whether Jesus was naïve about prayer, you might think that I’m belittling him or that I somehow think I’m smarter and more sophisticated that he is. To be honest, I really struggled with that for a while. I felt very uncomfortable with certain thoughts that were swirling around in my head, such as, “Could it be that I am somehow more evolved than Jesus was? Could it be that my approach to prayer is more sophisticated and more philosophical than Jesus’ approach?”

Let me tell you. You never want to start thinking that you are smarter than the person who inspired your entire religion! There are layers of guilt that come with those thoughts that you don’t want to experience! So I found myself in a very precarious situation. If I truly believe that my thoughts about prayer are more sophisticated or intellectually honest than Jesus’ understanding of prayer, what am I going to do about it? Change my views? Change religions? Start a new religion (since I’m so smart)?

What I decided to do was think more about what it means to be naïve. So I did a little more research about the etymology, or origin and development, of that word. I discovered that the closest words to “naïve” in the English language are the words “natural,” “native,” and “innate.” Think for a moment about what these words imply. To say that someone is naïve is really to say that what they are thinking is natural for them. One source I read suggests that a naïve person is really someone who has a “native disposition.” Their views are “innate,” that is, “true to their nature.”

All of this proved to be very helpful in my struggle with Jesus’ views on prayer. I began to realize that just as my modern, skeptical view of prayer is natural for me as a 21^st century, fairly educated, philosophically-minded Protestant minister, Jesus’ view of prayer is entirely natural for a first century God-soaked Jewish rabbi. In other words, because of my native disposition, I may always struggle with the question, “Does God answer our prayers?” But because of Jesus’ native disposition, he didn’t struggle with the same question. He assumed God hears our prayers and answers them faithfully.

Perhaps then I should weigh my view of prayer against Jesus’ perspective. Perhaps Jesus’ view of prayer should serve as a critique of my view of prayer, rather than the other way around. And perhaps my understanding of prayer is just as naïve as his understanding, if only because it is natural for me.

I did a little more research on the word naïve. This time I looked at some words that are fairly synonymous with the word naïve, but words that have a more positive meaning. I found words such as instinctive, spontaneous, harmless, trusting, sincere, open, and unpretentious. I believe all these words describe Jesus’ approach to prayer. At the very least, his view of prayer is harmless, as implied in the question I asked my friend that day, “What can it hurt?” And that is really the bottom line about prayer, even for 21^st century sophisticates like our selves. What can it hurt, really?

Does it hurt to pray for those who suffer? Does it hurt to pray that the oil spill does not completely destroy the gulf and its coastlines? Does it hurt to pray for an end to war? Does it hurt to pray for jobs? Does it hurt to pray for God’s kingdom to come, for daily bread, for forgiveness and the ability to forgive others, for God to protect us from trial and temptation? It may seem a little naïve to pray for these things. It may seem naïve to think that “persistence pays off.” It may seem naïve to think that God will answer every single prayer that is uttered. But at the end of the day, we need to supplement our souls by connecting with God in the most direct way possible. Let us eat from God’s dinner table.