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Sunday of Easter April 28, 2002
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Lots of people claim to be Christian. I remember very distinctly as a fourth
grader sharing my faith with my friend, Robby. He told me that he was a Christian.
Maybe so, but it was clear to me that Robby’s manner of being a Christian
was far different than what I was learning in my home and in my church.
So how do you know if someone who claims to be a Christian is a true disciple
of Jesus Christ? Jesus will say to us later in this Sermon on the Mount that
you know true disciples by their fruit. But that can be very uncertain criteria.
Lots of folks are able to do “Christian” things regardless of their
relationship with the Savior. Anyone can take on Christian looking disciplines.
In fact Jesus makes clear in this section of the teaching that it’s very
possible to do right things with misplaced motives. So how do you know? I’ve
come to the place where I believe that there is indeed a pretty good sign
of true discipleship: prayer.
A few years ago we were gathered for our annual district assembly when the
district superintendent called on our former district superintendent’s
wife to lead us in prayer. Though feeble in body, she came to the microphone
and opened her mouth. When she was through in just a few moments, I was left
in awe. Not because of her eloquent words. Not because of her impeccable theology.
When she finished, I said to myself: “She knows God.” She wasn’t
praying for us. Her words were not for our benefit. They were spoken in fierce
devotion to a God and Father that she obviously spent a lot of time with.
Genuine prayer: one of the marks of a true disciple. Now you might be saying,
“Wait a minute, pastor, you’ve really missed the point of this passage.
It’s all about praying secretly and not publicly.”
No, that’s really not the choice here. It’s not about whether prayer
is private or public. It is about whether prayer is artificial or genuine.
Let’s look carefully at it.
We are, of course, in the midst of one of the most significant teaching sections
of Jesus in all of the gospels. This is the Sermon on the Mount. This is holiness
as Jesus taught it. This is the core of what it means to be Christian.
Last Lenten season our focus was on chapter 5 and we learned there that the
essence of discipleship is not outward conformity to law but a changed heart.
It is a deeply moral life but that morality, that righteousness rises from
within and is the natural expression of a life surrendered to the lordship
of Jesus Christ.
Now in chapter 6, the focus changes a bit to acts of piety, acts of discipleship
like giving, prayer and fasting and seeks to locate the proper motive for
those kinds of Christian actions. We saw last week that giving, for example,
done out of a motive to get credit or to advance one’s own reputation
is condemned by Jesus. He blesses instead giving that is willing to embrace
anonymity, service that just happens out of love for God regardless of whether
or not anyone ever notices.
I may need to clarify that what Jesus condemns is not recognition but improper
motive. It’s not wrong to recognize and honor selfless acts of service
and it’s not wrong to be recognized for them. The issue is when my motive
for doing them is to get that recognition. Jesus’ pattern of teaching
this was simple. “Don’t be like hypocrites who give in order to
be honored. You give in secret. God will know about it.”
We move into our verses for today and see the same basic pattern. “Don’t
be like hypocrites who pray for how it will impress others. Pray to your Father,
not to anyone else. Then he will hear you.”
Now it’s important to remember that no one can accurately judge the motive
of another person. So the focus of Jesus’ words here is not on judging
the prayer of others or on forbidding public prayer altogether. His focus
is on teaching us to be honest and careful about our heart when we pray. To
say that Jesus is here condemning public prayer is really wrong-headed. It’s
as wrong-headed as the guy who was elected to the worship committee of his
church and showed up to his first meeting.
"Preacher," he said, "I don't mean this personally, so no hard
feelings, but I think about the most boring thing we do in our worship services
is pray. Therefore I propose that we eliminate as many prayers from our services
as we can and fill the time with other things." I’m not sure what
“other things” he had in mind, but I would suggest to you that the
most important thing about what we have done here today is talking to God.
That’s what worship is all about. It’s about Him. It’s about
listening to him and responding to him and loving him and honoring him as
God. If ever we think that prayer is a second-class citizen in our worship,
we are headed downhill fast. If we are bored with prayer in worship I would
suggest that it’s not prayer we are bored with at all – we are bored
with God .
D. L. Moody, the great Chicago evangelist, said it well: “I'd rather
be able to pray than to be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught his
disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.” Indeed it was watching
Jesus’ pattern of prayer that made his disciples hungry to know the Father
like their teacher knew him. That’s what made them come to Jesus and
nearly beg, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
So what specifically does Jesus teach here about the kind of praying that
is a mark of the true disciple? Well it seems to me that he speaks of ways
not to pray and ways to pray, so let’s think about them. First, there
are two things Jesus says must be avoided in genuine prayer. One is praying
to impress others. Two is praying to impress God. The real issue in each of
these is that we forget who we are talking to.
Have you ever heard someone give announcements in prayer? I remember one of
my childhood pastors coming to the end of the service and apparently realizing
he forgot to announce a special service later that evening, so he prayed:
“And Lord bless us as we all return at six o’clock this evening
for our special service and fellowship time afterwards.” At least he
didn’t say “Bless those whose names start with “A” through
“L” as they bring the sandwiches. . . "
That is the danger of public prayer. I’ve caught myself leading us in
prayer and telling God what hospital somebody was in and what was wrong with
them – as if God doesn’t know that. But more importantly than that,
there are many of us that live in terror of being called on to pray in a Sunday
school class or a Bible study or even with our families. Why? That tells me
that somehow how I look to others has become more important to me than what
God knows is in my heart. I need to be careful of artificial humility.
I love to be with groups and hear people pray who aren’t very “good”
at it. They are a breath of fresh air. I love to hear small children pray.
They haven’t learned the “right” way to do it yet. And that’s
what Jesus is after. He is simply saying to us that our prayer needs to be
honest and genuine, a true expression of what is in our hearts. He is not
condemning public community prayer. It was customary for the Jews to pause
in whatever they were doing about 3pm in order to offer prayers in conjunction
with evening sacrifice in the temple. And “go into your closet”
should not be taken literally since many of his hearers lived in simple homes
that lacked such a private room. The real point is clear: prayer must be directed
to God alone.
The other focus of Jesus’ concern here is what he calls “babbling”
or “many words.” Obviously words don’t impress God. A contrite
and surrendered heart does. Children have so much to teach us here. We seem
to get the idea that in order to let God know how serious we are in prayer
we have to go on and on with many words. I love the faith of children who
when concerned for someone simply pray, “Lord, be with grandpa.”
And that’s enough for them. They aren’t worried about God hearing
and understanding exactly what they have need of. They just believe he will.
Sometimes our prayers of many words don’t come from pious faith but from
our anxiety over whether or not God will hear us.
Jesus says simply, “Leave these worries behind.” And then he gives
a plain description of how to pray. First, remember that God is the audience
of your prayer. That’s the real sense of “go into your room and
close the door.” Enter into personal dialogue with your Heavenly Father.
The second thing is, pray with confidence knowing that God already has his
heart turned toward you. He already knows what have need of before you even
ask him. It’s not about how you pray, but about who God is. Genuine prayer
is to trust the character of God and to learn to rest in his care.
And third, pray simply. We are focusing on the Lord’s Prayer during the
Sunday evening services during this Lenten season. Suffice it here to say
that when the disciples long to know something about the deep prayer life
that Jesus obviously knew, he teaches them simply and briefly with this model
prayer. It’s just 66 words in King James English. Thirty seconds to pray
it. And yet, as many have said, a lifetime of learning and shaping in Christ
character can be found here.
Genuine prayer is not a matter of getting the words right. It’s a matter
of the heart being so open and so honest before the Lord that we can see him,
see ourselves, and see his power to make us true followers of his Son.
Many of you know that one of the results of my father’s illness is that
his words are gone. He is nearly mute, unable to communicate except with the
simplest scattered words. My sister asked me a few weeks ago, “Do you
think dad can still pray?” My quick response to her was, “Maybe
now that he has no words, dad is praying more purely than he has ever prayed
before.”
We talk an awful lot about prayer. But I want to ask you a very simple question:
“What does God know about the prayerfulness or the prayerlessness of
your heart?” Is genuine prayer a mark of your discipleship? Do you, when
nobody is looking and nobody is listening, spend time in prayerful communion
with your Father in heaven?
I do believe that you can learn an awful lot about a person’s spiritual
maturity by hearing them pray. What does your prayer life reveal about you?
Would someone overhearing your prayer ever say, “She knows God?”
May it be so.