Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
May 4, 2008

Rev. L. John Gable

THE PRACTICE OF PRAYER

Matthew 6:1-8

Who is your audience?   Who are you trying to play for?  Who do you hope will notice the good things that you do?  This is the critical question Jesus asks in our lesson today.  We have been listening to His teaching from the Sermon on the Mount for the past couple of weeks and we have heard Him tell of the rather “upside down” Kingdom He is introducing, where the poor are satisfied and the hungry are filled, where the meek inherit the earth and the poor and persecuted are given the Kingdom of Heaven.  He has reminded us that as citizens of this Kingdom we have a place in the world and a role to play as salt and light, and He has engaged us with His teaching about how His law has less to do with our outward actions than it does with our inner attitudes.  And now He takes that teaching to an even deeper level as He begins talking about the way we practice of our faith by asking us the thought-provoking question, “Who is your audience?”
 
Jesus knows us well.  He knows that it is human nature to crave attention and a natural instinct for us to want to be noticed.  We want to be caught doing something right as much as we don’t want to be caught doing something wrong.  So, He asks, who do you hope will notice all that you do as you give alms and pray and fast?
         
Before He even gets into how we are supposed to do these three great corner posts of every great religion – almsgiving, prayer and fasting – He issues a stern warning, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in Heaven.”  And I will confess that I hear this warning with particular clarity because Jesus is taking ready aim at the professional religious leaders of His day, so I am assuming He is taking similar aim at the likes of me, today.  In this teaching He is using the language of the theater and throughout He accuses the religious leaders of being “hypocrites” which is the Greek word for “actor”, one who can put on or take off a mask or a role at will, and He cautions them/us about not doing what they do in order to be “praised or noticed by others”, which again is the root for our word, “theater.”  So Jesus is being very clear as He instructs us when we pray, fast or give alms to know who our audience is.  Simply put, if it is God who we hope is watching us and is pleased by our actions, then that is called “faith.”  However, if it is anyone else, our spouse, the boss, our neighbors, the pastor, the person sitting next to us in worship, the IRS, if it is anyone other than God that we are hoping to please or impress, then whatever response we get from them is the only reward we should expect to receive from anyone, including God.
         
“So when you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you like the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.” 
         
It is curious that Jesus begins this teaching on religious practices by talking about money; yet we know He talked more about money than any other single topic.  Again, He knows us well.  He knows what a trap and hindrance it can be to us.  So He says, when, not if, but when you give alms.  It was understood, then and now, that no one is so impoverished that they cannot give to someone else who is in need.  The Jewish Talmud states, “Even the poor man who lives by alms may be charitable.”  But again, Jesus is moving us beyond the mere action to the motive.  Clearly the need around us is great and we are constantly being challenged to decide in which instances we should or should not give, and if so, how and how much, but Jesus is asking the deeper question, “Why are you giving?  Who is your audience?”  Are you giving in order to win the approval of the recipient of your gift, or the accolades of those who witness your generosity?  If so, you have received your reward.  But faith calls us to give for one reason only, to win the approval of our Heavenly Father, in our giving we are playing to an audience of One.
         
One winter when I was in college I remember my father organizing a blanket donation for the street people of St. Louis.  As I recall there was a dangerous cold spell and their pastor, perhaps preaching on this text that day, made an appeal for people to bring blankets to be distributed.  My dad took that to heart so he gathered up the extras from our linen closet, called his best friend Jim, who agreed somewhat reluctantly, and together they went house to house to all of their friends until the car was crammed full, they then took them all downtown.  After they made their delivery Dad got back in the car feeling pretty good about what they had done, but he couldn’t find Jim.  He went searching and finally found him being interviewed by one of the local TV stations for the evening news.  Suddenly Dad confessed to a conflicting thought.  On the one hand, they had been found out, per the text, they had lost the reward.  On the other hand, Jim, who didn’t even want to come along in the first place, was getting all the credit for his good idea!
         
So Jesus says, “When you give alms do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  What He is saying is, our giving, whether it be to charity or to the church budget, is a matter between you and God alone; it is really no one else’s business.  I’ll take this opportunity to tell you, as your new pastor, that I have made it a practice in my ministry not to know what anyone gives, and further, that information is kept confidential by our book keeper, so really no one here should know what anyone else is giving.  I have had other pastors and fund raisers tell me, “People will give more if they know that you know what they give” and I say in response, “That is a pretty shallow reason for giving and a rather worthless reward.”  So, if you are giving to, in any way, impress me or anyone else here, you needn’t.  However, each of us, regardless of our station or situation in life, should be giving as an expression of our faith, yet what you give is a matter between you and God alone.  He knows our hearts. “Your giving done in secret will be seen by your Father who sees in secret and He will reward you.”  Remember you are playing to an audience of One.
         
Jesus follows this same line of thinking when He begins talking about public prayer.  He repeats the warning about not making it into a theatrical production which is intended to impress or entertain any listener other than God, and again I take that to heart.  His corrective is “go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who sees in secret, so that your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Which means, when we pray there is only One who needs to be listening.
         
In his autobiography, talk show host Phil Donahue tells the story of covering a mining disaster one winter early in his reporting career.  Late at night a group of rescuers was standing around a fire barrel for warmth when a local minister began leading them in prayer for the men trapped underground.  Donahue recounts how moving the prayer was and how perfectly it captured the scene, but the cameras froze and he missed it.  With cameras fixed, he approached the pastor and said, “I thought your prayer was very moving and it would summarize beautifully the mood here.  Could you repeat it again, so I can film it for the evening news?”  Surely the temptation must have been great for that local pastor to have his words shared with the nation, but instead he answered very simply, “The ears that it was intended for have heard it and there is no need to say it again.”
         
It is interesting that Jesus’ earliest teaching on prayer is that it should be private.  Clearly He demonstrates the importance of prayer in His own life, but here He underscores that the primary purpose of prayer is that it is a personal and private conversation with God, which only makes sense.  If I want to have a personal, intimate conversation with a close friend, it would only be natural for us to move away from the crowd and find a quiet place where we could visit undistracted or disturbed.  If my intention really is to communicate just with this friend, face to face and heart to heart, and it is not for the hearing, much less the entertaining of others, then such privacy only makes sense, and the same is true in prayer.  Certainly there is a time and a place for public prayer, but Jesus here teaches that prayer really is intended to be a personal and private conversation between a believer and God, between a child and their heavenly Father.
         
To that end, Jesus closes this section of teaching with two caveats to prayer which can be summarized, “Not much” and “He knows.”  The first is, it needn’t be long.  I don’t know how we’ve come to the mistaken notion that prayers need to be long-winded with words and phrases and cadences we use in no other kind of conversation.  Jesus says, “When you pray, again when, not if, but when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do who think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them.” 
         
Underlying this teaching is a basic understanding, or perhaps it is a misunderstanding, about God.  Ours is not a begrudging God who is trying to avoid or ignore us, such that we have to talk on and on in an attempt to gain His attention or win His approval.  No, our God is a loving heavenly Father who like any loving parent, listens intently to the prayers of His children.  So, when we pray we don’t need to go on and on and on, certainly we can if we want to, if we enjoy being in His presence like two friends who never want their conversation to end, but Jesus says we don’t need to in order to be heard.  As Luther says, “Our prayers should be brief, frequent and intense”, which means we can rid them of flowery language and empty clichés in order that we might speak openly and honestly, from the heart, and we might just as well since no one is listening in on our conversation, save One.
         
There is a characteristic little story which is told about Dr. John Duncan.  He was a scholar, mystic and theologian.  He knew the Hebrew language like his mother tongue.  It was rumored among his students that when he said his prayers at night he prayed to God in Hebrew.  One day two of his students resolved to listen outside his door at the time of prayer.   They waited intently to hear those flights of mysticism and theology going up to God in the Hebrew tongue.  But as they listened, this is what they heard: “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon this little child, pity my simplicity, and suffer me to come to Thee.”
         
The second caveat to our practice of prayer is that “He knows”.  “He knows what you need before you ask Him”; which begs the question, then why pray at all?  The purpose of prayer is not simply to get what we want, nor is it to inform God of what we need, like some kind of intelligence briefing.  Rather, the purpose of prayer is to engage in an intimate, personal conversation with the One who loves us dearly and knows us even better than we know ourselves.  The purpose of prayer then is not to get what we can from God, but to get to be with God.  Again recall a conversation with a spouse or a trusted friend, it ebbs and flows between talking and listening, but mostly it is just about being, together, and so it is in prayer.  St. Augustine expresses it well when he says, “Remove from prayer much speaking, but not much praying.”
         
So, “not much” and “He knows”.  We needn’t heap up empty phrases and endless words, they aren’t necessary.  Perhaps our deepest prayers are simply, “Lord, help me!  Lord, save us!  Come, Lord Jesus, come!”  And don’t think that you need to tell God everything you know, He knows all of that and more, so just tell Him what is on your heart, and that you seek know His love, and to be in His presence, and that will be sufficient, for when we pray in this way we are truly seeking to please an audience of only One.
         
Jesus teaches us how to pray in this way, in the model prayer we have come to call “the Lord’s Prayer”, and we’ll talk more about that in the weeks to come.