The Life You've Always Wanted!” Gen 18:20-32/Luke 11:1-10
“PRAYING PEOPLE”
I never thought of football as a particularly religious game until watching a game between the Chicago Bears and the Miami Dolphins. As the seconds of the game ticked away, quarterback, Doug Flutie threw a pass to the corner of the endzone where he'd sent all of his receivers. After the ball bounced around like in a pinball machine the ball wound up in the hands of running back, James Allen. The announcer referred to it as a hail Mary pass and the phrase stuck, the implication being that a pass thrown up for grabs in desperation could only be completed with the help of divine intervention.
The phrase gets its name from a Catholic prayer based on the angel's greeting: “Hail Mary, full of grace!” We sing an altenrate translation in Holden Evening Prayer. Why is that the only play named after a prayer? There are no Hail Mary kick-off returns, or any Prayer Of Jabez blitz plays....
Mary's brought in for the last play of the game because prayer is something most people asso-ciate with desperation. For the majority of the game players rely on their own talents but in the final moment of desperation, when they've run out of time and opportunity, that's the time to throw up a prayer, and if it's caught, it's called a miracle! Desperate people pray. Other than that, not so much.
I just watched a documentary on the New Zealand volcano. One woman said that though she's not a religious woman she prayed to God asking Him to end her life and thus her pain, then she passed out...
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to pray in a time of crisis. One of God's most amazing attributes is that He is humble and gracious enough to respond to people when they turn to him in sheer despera-tion, even when they've been ignoring him for years. Such prayers are the beginning of deep spiritual life for many people. So it was with Louie Zamperini, who's story is told in the film, Unbroken. He prayed such a prayer on a raft surrounded by sharks and wound up living an amazing life of faith.
Still, prayer is meant to be a conversation. It's about nurturing a relationship, not unlike healthy couples invest in each other, sharing and listening to one another. Sustaining a healthy prayer life is critical if our faith is to grow and deepen. If it's only a ritual, or merely an act of desperation, we lose something that was meant to bless us.
Throughout scripture we see how God encourages us through prayer. Consider the story of Abraham. At one point he learns that Yahweh is about to destroy the town of Sodom. Contrary to a common misbelief that prayer has no bearing on the decisions and actions of God we see Abraham operating with a very different perspective in mind. Clearly he feels he is talking to someone whose course of action can be affected by what he, Abraham, says or asks.
“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty good people within the city; will you then sweep it away and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be that from you! Shall not the judge of the earth do what is right?” (Genesis 18:23-25)
God says okay, he will spare the city for the sake of fifty righteous people. You can almost hear the wheels turning in Abraham's head: Do I dare keep going? He does so dare.
“Let me take it on myself to speak to the Lord again, I who am but dust and ashes. Could I possibly negotiate you down to forty-five?” (Genesis 18:27) God so agrees. Abraham keeps at it, whittling the number down in repeated petitions - forty, thirty, twenty, until finally, one last shot, ten.
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God nods his head once more and in the end He spares Lot and his family, even though there are only four of them and Lot is a foreigner to boot. Apparently, it pays to haggle with God.
Jesus teachings and parables on prayer affirm the same thing. Remember the fun one he told about the relentless widow and the judge? She hammers and hammers on his door in the middle of the night in her pursuit of compassion and justice. He's a wicked judge, Jesus informs us, but even he will get up and give the woman what she wants if for no other reason than for a little peace of mind and a bit of peace and quiet! “Alright! Alright! Enough already!” Jesus closes that parable by asking: “Will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones who cry out to him day and night?”
(Luke 18:7)
Persistent prayer changes things. Thomas Merton, pursuing success in a career in literature, felt drawn to spend time retreating with friends who were devoted to prayer. When he returned to the haste and anxiety of his 'normal' life, he wrote: “It occurred to me that these men, devoted to prayer, are doing for their land what no army, no congress, no president could ever do as such: they are winning it for the grace and protection and friendship of God.” (Thomas Merton)
There was something so compelling about the way Jesus prayed that his disciples asked him: “Lord, teach us to pray (like that)!” (Luke 11:1) What's remarkable about that is that the Jews prayed together several times every day. Before every meal, when opening a meeting, when entering the synagogue, at the close of the day. These guys were not unfamiliar with praying. They'd been raised to do so. They weren't asking Jesus what words to say. They saw how it recharged his batteries, how it refocused him for his calling, how he hungered for it and how it fed his soul the way food satisfies one's appetite. They wanted to be nourished the way he was. So they asked.
As followers of Jesus, shouldn't we follow his lead, making talking to our Father a priority? I wonder if it wouldn't help if we grasped the power of prayer from a cosmic perspective?
Consider what we read in the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. In chapter eight, John describes a scene in heaven after the seals have been broken on the scrolls that tell the story of human sin and violence and of God's judgment. That's when something truly remarkable happens.
John writes that “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Revelation 8:1) During this time, John observes, an angel with a golden censer comes to the altar and offers up incense which is a representation of prayers arising from earth. This is what he writes: “The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.”
(Revelation 8:4)
Following this comes great acts of judgment on the earth – pictured by rumbles of thunder, flashes of lightning, and great earthquakes. But what is most striking is that these acts come in response to the prayers of the saints. Did you catch the significance of that?
Usually we think of events on earth being interupted because of actions taken in heaven. How-ever, here it is the other way around. All of heaven comes to a standstill. The endless praises of the heavenly hosts suddenly stop. Why? Because someone is praying - bunches of someones! All of heaven stops so the prayers of the saints – your prayers and mine – can rise before God. They're not only heard - they absolutely matter! They interrupt heaven's routine! It's as if all of heaven inhales as the prayers and incense mix and fill the nostrils of God and all his angelic hosts! And what's more, according to what John witnesses here, what happens next on earth happens because people pray!
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That means that history does not belong to the powerful, or the wealthy, or the nations' leaders, or their armies, or the CEO's, or the global media empires! What they do on their own, apart from God, may look impressive for a time, but the day will come when all human plans and actions will be tossed aside, dust to dust, ash to ash. History belongs to the intercessors!
History belongs to those whose prayers ascend like incense, sweet smelling to God's nostrils and delighting His ears. History belongs to those who believe and pray the future into being. In fact, scripture informs us that interceding is what Jesus is doing now! “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us!” His teaching ministry lasted three years. His intercessory ministry has been going on for over two thousand!
(Romans 8:34)
One of my favorite stories about intercessory prayer comes from Tony Campolo. Just before he was to speak at a Pentecost service, eight men took him to a back room to pray over him. The prayer went on for so long that they started to get tired and began leaning on his head. “I didn't much care for all that pressure on my head. It felt like they were trying to push me thru the floorboards.”
To make matters worse one of the men was not even praying for Tony. “Dear Lord, you know Charlie Stoltzfus. He lives in the trailer, on the right side, a mile down the road.” (Tony said he wanted to inform the guy praying that it wasn't necessary to furnish God with directions.) “Lord, Charlie told me he's leaving his wife and three kids. Step in and stop him Lord. Heal their hurt!”
On the way home that night, Tony picked up a hitchiker who informed him that his name was Charlie Stoltzfus. “I couldn't believe it! I did a quick u-turn and headed to the trailer park.”
“Hey, mister, where you taking me?” “I'm taking you home.” “Why?” “Because you just left your wife and three kids.” The man's shock deepend when Tony drove straight up to his trailer.
“How did you know that I lived here?” Charlie stammered. “God told me.” When his wife emerged, tears ran down her cheeks, then her eyes went wide as Charlie whispered in her ear. Tony preceded to tell them about Jesus and they gave their lives to him on the spot.
Consider as well the experience of Dinesh and Chandra. After the birth of their third child, in rural Sri Lanka, Chandra began experiencing heart palpitations and intense pain. Her buddhist and Hindu neighbors called it “bad karma”, and no doctor or guru was able to help. Chandra's sister told her about a church nearby where people were reportedly getting healed, so on July 23, 2021 they went.
When church members prayed for her, she sensed a battle taking place inside of her. “I felt like I wanted to run away from the church. I started crying out to God: 'I have bowed before every god that I know, but none of them could help me. So please help me. Please heal me!' Suddenly I lost all strength and fainted. That's when I had a vision of demons trying to strangle me until this Jesus stomped on them. I could feel the pain and sickness leave my body as they were defeated. He recited Psalm 34:5 to me: 'Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed'.”
(Psalm 34:5)
When Chandra revived, she realized that she was well. The church members praised God while Dinesh and their kids stood there in awe. Since then their family have prayed for others, seen many healed and led many of their sceptical neighbors to Christ. “We go everywhere and talk about Jesus!”
(from the March issue of Voice of the Martyrs)
There is power in prayer although some times that power is released in the most unexpected of ways. Through prayer we connect with the God who reveals his heart to us in Jesus Christ. God is ready to put heaven on pause in order to listen to you, so “Never stop praying!” (1 Thess 5:17)