Speaking of Slippery Slopes

Chapter 17 of John’s Gospel is a prayer by Jesus. It’s quite long and deeply personal so clearly Jesus did not limit himself to the recitation of formal prayers. But in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), he sets out, in what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, a simple pattern of prayer for his disciples. And it’s prefaced by a few words of caution. The warning is for everyone, but pastors, preachers and all those who pray publicly from time to time need to pay particular attention.

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. 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. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5-8)

First, beware of hypocrisy. If I pray, particularly in public, because:

• as a pastor it is expected of me,
• I want to be seen as a man of God,
• I enjoy putting words together for public consumption,
• I have things I want to say that are hard to preach about, but when alluded to in prayer are difficult for people to take issue with,
• I like to be the centre of attention,
• people tell me my prayers are particularly powerful or beautiful,
• and so on and so forth,

I just may find that my prayers can be answered without God’s involvement at all. It’s the prayer of my heart, not my mouth, that matters to God. He might graciously grant what I want, and even what I can only manage to want to want, or even to want to want to want. But it seems a bit much to expect him to grant what I’m only pretending to want in order to impress other people. To shamelessly misquote Abraham Lincoln "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool God ever!!!."

The other problem we have is babbling. God knows all we need and all we want. For Jesus, prayer is clearly not about informing or convincing God of anything. So don’t talk too much in prayer, it only gets in the way.

So we should never forget that public prayer is a great opportunity for temptation; what the Catholics call an occasion of sin. And most pastors have a story or two to tell.

One of my pastor buddies, for example, told me of an occasion when he heard himself say, in the middle of the service, in the pastoral prayer, “'Or to put that more simply'. Just who did I imagine might have a problem understanding what he’d just said?” he chuckled. “God? Think I forgot for a moment who I was talking too”. Then he added ruefully, “Or perhaps I remembered.” -- At times like that you’re relieved to know that most people doze off in the pastoral prayer and will never notice a subtle faux pas, no matter how outrageous.

Another pastor friend of mine once called his congregation to prayer with this gem: “Now let us bow our heads and pray the prayer that Jesus taught us. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep...’” Guess even the pastor dozes off occasionally.

Of course there must have been times when I embarrassed myself in public prayer, but unfortunately these occasions seem to have been reduced to repressed memories. Sorry ‘bout that.