Practically Praying: How to Pray (i)
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
16 February 2003

In this, the third service in our series “Practically Praying,,” we reach what, for many, will be the meat of the subject. I mentioned at the outset that this would be very much a “how to...” series and our focus for the next couple of weeks will be on the nuts and bolts of how to pray.

LORD TEACH US TO PRAY!
In our reading from the New Testament this morning we saw the disciples coming to Jesus with their request “Lord, teach us to pray!!” They had been his companions in ministry and watched him “wow” the crowds with his preaching and teaching, inspire them with his compassion, and stun them with his miracles.

But when they finally dared to ask - it wasn’t for the power to perform miracles they begged, but to be taught to pray. “Lord” they said “teach us to pray!”

At the Church Life Team’s meeting on Monday night plans for a workshop to complement this series were being discussed. One of the people there was frowning and concentrating. “But how would you go about it? - it’s hard enough even teaching a child to pray!!”

At the end of the day, books can’t teach us to pray, sermons can’t teach us to pray, seminars and courses can’t teach us to pray, others can’t teach us to pray. I can’t teach you to pray.

But, if I’m sure about that (that I can’t teach you to pray), I’m equally sure that God can. And because, though God can act independently, God generally uses means, I know that God can use what I want to share with you during the next few weeks to help you to start to discover Him and develop your relationship with Him in new ways.

PRAYER

Lord, teach us to pray. We know that books and sermons can’t teach us and that no-one else can help us apart from you.. Help us, beginning today, to see that without you we shall remain unfulfilled, our deepest longings unsatisfied. Open our eyes to the possibilities of a living lasting and growing relationship with you, our Creator and Saviour God.
Amen

DIFFERENT WAYS OF PRAYING
At the end of the day, people can only learn to pray by deciding to be open to God and doing it!! But I want to outline this morning some of the different ways people pray. We’ll concentrate, in turn, on:
* using the prayers of others.
* free prayer
* conversational prayer
* arrow prayer
* wordless prayer

It’s important to realise that it isn’t a matter of choosing ONE of these ways. Most people who pray regularly will use a combination of these ways of praying. What suits one may not suit another. A person who uses “free prayer” isn’t necessarily a “better” Christian than someone who doesn’t - or vice versa!! Think of the different ways of praying as a “menu” from which you choose, combining elements in the way that most suits you. Your individual particular Christian history, your personality and your life situation./ circumstances will influence the way you pray. The fact that you pray is much more important than the way that you pray!!

Because as has been pointed out: “there are as many approaches to prayer as there are stars in the sky or people on earth.”

CHRIST-CENTRED PRAYER
Of course, ours is the Christian way - and that means that it is centred in Jesus Christ Himself. We can’t come to God apart from Him - He is “the Way” or as Paul calls him “the Mediator/ middle man” “No-one can come to the Father” Jesus said (approach God, be familiar with the Father, know God) except by me....”

1. USING OTHER PEOPLES PRAYERS
We’re going to look in turn at different ways of praying. First, there’s USING OTHER PEOPLES PRAYERS - in private, as well as in public prayer, this is where most older people (and some of you who are younger) probably began.

If you were taught to pray as a child then quite likely a “set prayer “ - a sentence or two repeated at bedtime was what you learned. Perhaps some of you are old enough (as I am) to remember being taught the Lord’s Prayer in school!

In Public Prayer, too, in the services, morning and evening, it is the prayers of others you make your own. There’s a world of a difference, by the way, between passive listening and active participation in our Sunday prayers -

MAKING THE MOST OF PUBLIC PRAYER
I suspect that passive listening is more common though it’s least helpful - passive listening in public prayer is a kind of unfocussed approach, and an invitation to the Devil to distract us! Who has never been distracted; never found their mind wandering; never fidgeted or fondled their watch strap during a prayer!!

That’s what passive listening leads to! What I’ve called active participation is a different approach. It’s focussed and intentional. For many years I have found the best way to avoid distraction and prevent my mind turning to Sunday lunch when I’m sitting in a pew rather than standing in a pulpit is either:

i) to repeat the words of the minister - to say them to myself, engaging my mind and, where possible,
my imagination. This involves, for example, picturing that homeless person I passed earlier in the
week while the minister’s leading prayer for the homeless; or recalling the devastating image from
Southern Africa that I saw in the newspaper (or the preparations for war in Iraq( when praying for
the hungry or for peace.

ii) but if the minister language isn’t “me” - isn’t my language or style (if I’m in the pew )instead of
repeating the minister’s words I’ll actively engage myself in prayer by paraphrasing them - so that
if, for example he prays (as one of my supervising ministers did every single week!) for “the lambs
of thy flock...”......I’d pray something like:

“Lord, its the kids, the young people, I want to pray for them too because they’re living in a rough and god-denying world and so many of them know nothing about you....”

BOOKS OF PRAYERS
But speaking about USING OTHER PEOPLE’S PRAYERS it’s really books of prayers and that kind of thing I’m talking about. These range from collections of classic Christian prayers drawn from many Christian traditions, through the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in its traditional and modern forms, to the more popular writing of folk like Eddie Askew and the wide range of popular contemporary devotional material that is available in Wesley Owen and all good Christian Bookshops.

When we feel inadequate or tongue tied - or when we’re lacking inspiration ourselves, then the well- known prayers of Christian disciples in previous ages and generations may prove invaluable - sometimes you’ll find you can use them just as they are and turn them into your own prayers.

The ancient prayer of St Francis is a good example;

“Make me a channel of your peace...”

I’ll guarantee you that no-one can say that prayer - or at least pray that prayer (and there’s a difference between saying a prayer and praying it!) - no-one can pray that prayer every day for a year and be the same person walking out of the door at the end of the year as walked in at the beginning of it!!

ANOTHER WAY
But there’s another way the classic prayers and collection of prayers of past ages can can aid us, and that’s by acting as “pump primers” if I can put it that way. Sometimes when the well is dry and the water of praise has ceased to flow, the use of classic prayers or collections of prayers can “prime the pump” of prayer and get us going.

But in addition to collections of classic prayers there are numerous books of devotion which help us both to listen to God and to speak to him..as one example, there are a number of “Day by Day” books giving a verse or passage, thought for the day and a daily prayer....

One is called “Day by Day” by Billy Graham, and here, as an example is todays verse, thought and prayer:

READ PASSAGE FOR FEBRUARY 16

A selection of recommended devotional books is on display this morning in the Puillar Hall and I’ll be hanging around too, so don’t hesitate to ask for advice or for a recommendation of what you might find helpful.

One way of praying is USING OTHER PEOPLES PRAYERS.

2. FREE PRAYER
A second way is what I’ve called FREE PRAYER - and by that what I mean is is just praying in your own way and your own words.

It can’t be stressed too much that there is no special language of prayer!! Speaking to God in ordinary language and in their own words is a problem for some. Take Alastair:

Naturally quiet and reserved so that those who don’t know him think of him as “shy” Alastair is comfortable only in the company of his few closest friends - amongst them he has plenty to say; he’s relaxed and unafraid. But put him in a group of strangers - or even confront him wish a single individual he doesn’t know from Adam, and his conversation’s awkward and stilted. If he ever had to meet someone famous, he knows he’d just dry up completely and present them with an embarrassed silence and inane smile.

If that’s how difficult it is to speak to a member of the royal family, an earthly “great” or “popular star”, how much more difficult it must be, we think, to speak with the eternal and all powerful Creator - with majesty sublime, with God Himself!!

There are many Alastair’s among us!!

But the way of what I’ve called FREE PRAYER is healthy prayer - it doesn’t involve special language or special forms and things like grammatical correctness, big words and clever phrases are entirely irrelevant!! Speak to God as you would to a close friend - has he not instructed you to come to Him not as the eternal, the all-powerful, all-knowing One, but as a child to a loving caring Father - “Abba” - Daddy, that is, Da-Da!!

AN AMUSING STORY
In public prayer, of course, grammatical correctness is more important and there is such a thing as inappropriateness.

I remember John Notman, once an Elder in this congregation and now a Minister in Stonehaven, relating how, when he was assisting with the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in an Edinburgh congregation in which the Minister was a curious blend of liberal-conservative-charismatic-reformed and liturgical all rolled into one, the Minister during what is commonly called the Eucharistic Prayer (in a highly liturgical form of the Lord’s Supper) suddenly referred to God as “the cat’s pyjamas”

In public prayer there may a certain appropriateness and inappropriateness of language. In private prayer it is not so - speak to God as you would to trusted and trusting friend.
In relation to FREE PRAYER - first, no special language; second - no holds barred!

NO HOLDS BARRED!
Tell it like it is!! There’s no need to hide you’re true feelings from God.!! If you want to pour out your heart to him - pour out your heart. You don’t need t be polite or stand on your dignity. If you’re angry when you come to him - scream at HIM; if you HATE him, tell Him so. Because He knows and understands!!

Listen and understand this:
No one is better trained in the school of the broken heart than God. He understands the hurt and broken, the disappointed, the spurned and betrayed, because He Himself went through all that in Jesus.

Bereft? Weeping at the grave of a husband or father, a sister or mother, a son or a daughter - God has been there! Standing at the grave side of a close friends little boy a mother was hard to say to her friend: “God knows what it’s like!” She never spoke a truer word - when Jesus died, God’s first-born, his only precious Son cruelly died - and God saw it and suffered as none other has!!

In what I’ve called FREE PRAYER, we speak to God in our own words, expressing our own feelings and sharing with him our own desires and disappointments -
two rules:

no special language and no holds barred!

CONVERSATIONAL PRAYER
I’ve called the third way of praying CONVERSATIONAL PRAYER - most Christians, when they think of prayer, remember the words of Jesus “When you pray, go into your room and close the door.....” They see prayer as a defined time - a definite time spent listening to God and speaking with Him - what in Christian tradition many people used to call their “Quiet time”

And it’s this verse that’s used to provide a scriptural justification and stamp of approval to that practice. I don’t want to knock it - indeed I want to say a good deal about it (it’ll be our main focus) next week!

But the context in which Jesus spoke these words reveals that the contrast He was making was not between praying in all of your life through the day and having a particular set time of prayer, but between showy self-centred pseudo-piety and a humble walk with God:

(Mtt.6:5) "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (6) But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

It wasn’t primarily place and time that Jesus was dealing with here but motive and spirit - a misunderstanding of this has driven prayer from the street and market, the work place and hustle and bustle of every day life - from the public into some private, secret sphere.

When you look at Jesus life what you see is an integrated life with prayer, the practice of the presence of God, listening constantly to God the Father and speaking with Him, at the centre!

CONVERSATIONAL PRAYER is free prayer spread through the day - in which the heart is constantly open to God speaking and constantly communing with Him...

Try it and you will find, through time, with discipline, practice and perseverance, that what’s at first a conscious effort and hard work will become easier, natural and then, in time second nature to you. It’s this, as much as a daily “Quiet time” , I’m certain, that’s the secret of a healthy walk with God.

Some of you know that Mary and I spent a week recently in a chalet at Crieff Hydro - and every day we went out for a walk for a couple of hours. together. If I only spoke to her at breakfast (between 8 and 9 o’clock, say) and then ignored her and never spoke a word to her for the rest of the day - what would that say about our relationship?

If conversation is at the heart of a healthy human relationship, how much more is regular conversation and communication be at the heart of a healthy relationship with God!! And although it may be difficult at first and will take some effort and discipline to establish, it will eventually become not an effort but a relief!!

Now I want to emphasise again what I’ve already said, that these WAYS OF PRAYING aren’t mutually exclusive, but may be and will be blended in different ways into each Christian’s life. And that’s why I briefly want to mention two more WAYS OF PRAYING. They’re both elements within CONVERSATIONAL PRAYER:

ARROW PRAYERS
Just a word about what I call and many others have described as “arrow prayers.” If you’re not naturally a prayerful kind of person, you may find this a simple way of prayer beginning to become an integral part of your life.

An arrow prayer is, in its simplest form, a wish or thought turned Godward. In one of his books Archbishop Anthony Bloom speaks of the way in which the deepest and most primitive cries of the human heart can simply be turned into prayer;:

“There is no-one” he says “who has not cried out ‘Let it be!’ or ‘Let it not be’” and “it is the shortest of steps” he points out, to say “Lord, let it be!” or “Lord, let it not be!!”

All that it takes to turn your worries about war in Iraq and desire to see war averted is to turn it Godward, to convert “Let it not be!” into “Lord, let it NOT be!!”

Or you sit on a hillside and watch a sunset turn the skies red as the water laps quietly on the shores of the loch and and the stillness enfolds you in its warm embrace. And you heart is bathed in wonder. It takes no more than a simple and effortless act of will to turn that wonder into the words:

“Lord, it’s so beautiful. Thank you!”

And again, while at first this turning of your joys sorrows, hopes and fears, feelings and desires into prayer may at first be a conscious effort - with perseverance this, too, can become second nature - almost automatic:

“Lord help!” “Lord, thank you!” “ Lord comfort her!” “Lord, strengthen him!” “Lord, s top them hurting eachother!”.... and so on!

This is just one element within conversational prayer but you might find it a good place to start praying!

WORDLESS PRAYERS
The final way of praying I want to say a word or two about is WORDLESS PRAYER. In her book “Prayer for Pilgrims” Sheila Cassidy describes this way of praying or element of prayer as “naked attention of the will towards God.”

To some it comes naturally; to others it always seems beyond reach. But to those who achieve it ( or should I say to whom it is gifted) it may be heaven itself! It is the deep unspoken communication, the contentment of BEING, that exists between lovers - it is enjoying the company of the Great Other in silence
And then there is the daily time with God we call the Quiet Time. I’ve intentionally said little about that today, but it’s ground we’ll cover next week in the second sermon on “How to Pray”.






There is a wise word attributed to the English Benedictine John Chapman, to whom I give the last word. He offers this advice:

“Pray as you can, not as you can’t”
May the Lord teach us - US - you and me! - to pray!
AMEN

After the service I will be happy speak with you and advise on how to start and what might help you.

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