Prayer
May 12, 1973
There is a great deal of talk today about the energy crisis. We seem to be standing on the edge of a steep Cliff, looking down on a threatened collapse of our economic and environmental systems. Every day renewed that the source of the earth’s energy, coal and oil, is drying up and this is scary.
But today, I want to concentrate on another type of energy crisis. We, in the church, seemed to be standing on the edge of a steep Cliff looking down on the threatened collapse of our systems. If we look below the surface of our busy churches, we can observe that the source of our spiritual energy, prayer, is drying up, and in many respects, this is more frightening of the two crises
Can you imagine a church without prayer? A religion without talking to God? A faith without some sort of ongoing dialogue with the Almighty? Sounds of silence would be terrifying.
Sometimes it surprises me how quickly prayer is drying up. Yes, we still go through the motions, in most churches, but somehow there’s a feeling abroad that we have outgrown prayer. In our day, we do not pray before an examination; we simply study. But pray for rain, we simply seed the clouds. When a friend is ill, we do not usually indulge in prayer by his bedside; rather we go to a phone and call a specialist.
Perhaps our age is so advanced that we’ve passed beyond the need to pray.
I have always been fond of the story of the two men in a rowboat in the midst of a storm. As the waves rose, and the boat threatened to capsize, the two men they needed outside help. They were not religious, but they decided that prayer was all that was left, so in the teeth of the Gale, one of them shouted the only prayer he could muster. Ohh God you know that I haven’t bothered you for the past 15 years but if you’ll just get us out of this mess, I promise you that I won’t bother you again for 15 years
Another reason that prayer is drying up is that we’ve lost contact with whom we’re talking. We’ve become so concerned about relevant language, lack of repetition, and familiar wording, that we have forgotten that prayer is simply talking with God. I think it becomes easy to neglect prayer if it is seen as some type of performance. If we worry over originality and sound, then it is best for professionals, and our task, if any, becomes a minor critic. Quickly, the spiral goes downward, from tentative speaker of prayers, to critic of prayers, to non-user or neglectful of this aspect of the Christian experience
I confess that there are times when I wonder about the shallowness of the Christian Church. I ride around and think about the institutions that are established in all their beauty. My mind runs to the buildings we occupy, the bureaucracies that we have built, the techniques we have mustard, and the brains that we have commandeered for Christ say. Frequently, I am driven to ask myself, did ever so many labor with so much, to produce so little?
Jesus said, not to the world at large but to his disciples, without me, you can do nothing. We can build our buildings and issue our position papers, we can structure our committees, and push for various causes, but where it really matters, where we’re in for the long haul, where we require the energizing of the spirit, it is still true that without God we can do nothing. We seem to have everything in the Christian Church, but the power of God’s Spirit. We suffer the sterility of abandoned prayer; our spiritual energy crisis is long past the mildly serious stage.
Well, what can we do about it let me try to speak to each of you personally. You may be among those who feel that we have with prayer, if you are, I should like you to challenge you to try it again. Don’t say that you will wait until the major social problems are solved, or your own doubts are clarified, before you pray; you may have forgotten by that time what prayer is all about.
You may be among those who feel that praying is really for the professionals. if you are, I should like to challenge you to begin, right now, and talk to God. Talk about what you have done and what you have failed to do. About who you are and who you wish you were, and who the people you love are, and who the people you don’t love are. Talk to God about what matters most to you, and then join the familiar words using these corporate prayers of the ages to press your innermost feelings. And finally, whatever your thoughts were in the past about prayer, I challenge you to believe that somebody is listening. Believe in miracles. Believe that your father hears you and cares for you, and loves you, and will come for you as you speak to him.
Let me read you some wise counsel from Brother Lawrence. He comes from a much simpler and less complex civilization than ours, but he has a lot to tell us.
God lays a great burden upon us with little remembrance of him from time to time, a little adoration, sometimes to pray for his grace, sometimes to offer him thanks for the benefits he has given you and still gives you in the midst of your troubles. He asked you to console yourself with him as often as you can; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to him. And then you’ll not cry very loud, for he is nearer than you think.
That’s it, the secret of overcoming our energy crisis in the church. It’s really very simple, you need not pray very loud, he is nearer than you think Amen