Prayer and Sex (Or, how to get exhausted people's attention) ~ Matthew 6:6-15

 

The writer Philip Yancey is in his book on prayer says, “I think prayer is analogous to sex. (People’s ears always perk up when I say that.) Most people would complain about their sex lives; a few do really well. Sex and prayer are intimate and over-glamorized relationships. We all are led to believe that we should be in the stratosphere in sex and in prayer. It sets up a false expectation. And breaks down intimacy.”

And let’s be honest, hearing a sermon on prayer has some parallels to reading a manual on sex. What often sounds thrilling bears little resemblance to how sex usually plays out between two vulnerable people who approach it with very different expectations. Like sex, prayer centers on relationship more than a technique, and the differences between the two parties in prayer are far more profound than the differences between two lovers. Should it surprise us that problems arise? Should it surprise us in a world of Hollywood glitz and glamor that even a hearing a sermon on prayer makes us worried, restless, and tired. And yet I truly we believe that we long to pray, we ache for that intimacy, we desire to know and be known by God (which again is Biblical language for the sexual act). Today I won’t be able to address all your concerns, all your questions, all your expectations, but perhaps Jesus’ words can give us encouragement that is honest without producing the alienation and exhaustion that seems the norm when prayer is the topic of discussion.

And the first thing that Jesus says . . .

You don’t have to perform, vs. 5.

Jesus first teaches us that we don’t have to be hypocritical. We don’t have to pretend about prayer. The word “hypocrite” comes from the world of the theater and can translate as “play-acting,” it involves active deception by pretending to do or believe something that you knowingly do not. We don’t have to act like we are prayer giants, put on a mask, and stand publicly in religious spaces or public places in order to pray. We need to resist a sort of prayer pornography. When I was a college student, the Baptist author and preacher, Calvin Miller was visiting my university campus. He was asked what he thought of the new charismatic worship movement and he spoke about the power of it and some of the good things that he appreciated about it – it’s focus on God, it’s relevance to younger people, it’s intimacy and passion. But then he gave a warning that I believe captures Jesus’ own warning about prayer. He said, “However, always remember that when intimacy joins with publicity you get pornography.” Friends, that Jesus’ point. Not that praying in church like Deb Pine has done is wrong. It’s not that. It’s praying publicly in order “to be seen by others.” If that’s what you’re doing – it’s not really praying – it’s simply performing and Jesus is right – that’s the only reward you’re going to get.

You don’t have to find the right word, vs. 7-8.

Jesus also encourages us that we don’t have to give a persuasive speech. I know I’m skipping over vs. 6 but don’t worry, I’ll come back to it. We don’t have to use the right words to be heard by God or receive God’s attention. We don’t have to do it right. In pagan circles in Jesus’ day, one had to use the right words or even to trick the gods, at times, in order to get what one wanted. It was an ever-exhausting game of chess in which one tried to argue one’s case, or badger a god into granting what one wished. And it always involved a bit of manipulation, making sure to share enough but not too much. Friends, Jesus says you don’t need to say a lot of words because you don’t need to manipulate God – God is already for you and “knows what you need before you ask.” There’s no technique necessary. In fact, if you’ll drop the pretense you simply can’t do it wrong. All you need to do is come. Ask young parents what is the correct way for their toddlers to approach them and you will probably get a puzzled look. Correct way? Being a parent means you do your best to remain available to your children and responsive to their needs. If we know that, how much more does God know that. So remember that the one who God wants to meet in prayer is simply yourself. And if you simply come as yourself – you are already doing it right. Immediately after the birth of her third child my wife experienced a difficult and painful divorce and struggled to pray. So she went to visit the Episcopal priest of the church she was attending. After patiently listening to my wife pour out her heart the priest said, “When you are rocking your child just simply turn your attention to God. And that will be prayer enough.”

You can just go to your room, vs. 6.

In Matthew 6:6 Jesus gives a helpful promise for exhausted people who long to pray. He offers us a timeout (Don’t you think that timeouts are wasted on the young?) He encourages cultivating silence as a key component of prayer. Sometimes translated "private room" modern readers have often imagined that Jesus is speaking specifically about a particular place away from prying eyes but ancient Christians thought something else. Since most people didn't have a private room in those days (generally homes where two stories and single rooms), the Desert Fathers and Mothers understood Jesus to be referring to interior silence. The invitation that Jesus extends here is, if you want to pray, you can simply be quiet.

Friends, Jesus invitation to silence is an invitation to recognize that prayer is often contaminated by worries about performance and wordy manipulations. The authenticity of prayer is the ability to come silently, gently, nakedly, as nothing more than one’s own self. “To go to your room” is the invitation to practice of relating to God without trying so hard. Remember that that the “you” that is invited is the actual “you” that you are, and yes, it actually is the “you” singular this time. This “you” is the you that God wants to meet in prayer.

Jesus then teaches us a prayer. It’s 5 verses! So relax. So it doesn’t have to be spontaneous. Most of us have prayed the Lord’s Prayer so that we say it without thinking. It helps to slow down, reflect on each phrase, and even add your personal application.

Our Father, who art in heaven

We begin with an endearing term of relationship – a father, a dad. I know that can be hard for someone. Not all of us had good fathers and even those of us who did know they aren’t perfect. But this Father is in heaven – he is the one who loves us perfectly, beyond measure. But before we move too quickly, this Father is not only “my” Father, but “our.” It is the recognition that God is never merely mine but also that prayer is not something that I ever do alone. Before you pray, others have. When you are done, they still will be.

Hallowed be your name

Hallow is such a good word. To hallow is to make or declare something as holy and sacred. And to hallow God doesn’t necessarily that we are doing anything to God so much as simply recognizing what the Psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” So to hallow God’s name is to recognize that we go out into an enchanted world where everything is stamped with the divine “mine.” To hallow God is to recognize that God’s true name is the “I am” and that all things were made by him and for him. God, in other words, is like that difficult roommate who labels everything in the fridge.

Your kingdom come

And yet, it’s not all is it should be yet. In prayer we are also able to recognize what needs to be made right because it isn’t right now, what needs to be fixed because it’s horribly broken right now, what aches for help because it’s wounded right now.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven

And so we pray that heaven and earth come closer together. Not so much because these are two separate geographies but because heaven is that place where God’s will is the only will that is done. If you don’t know how to pray – ask yourself – what’s heaven like and pray for that – now – on earth – for your friend, your spouse, a child, an injustice.

Give us today our daily bread

And remember that your body is important and food is important and the nourishment of “us” and not simply me is important.

Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors

You get it, right?

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (the evil one)

Again – you don’t need me to explain this.

Jesus teaching on prayer is sabbath, it’s literally sabbatical. But if you need something even easier. Try this:

Breath prayer for the kingdom:

Inhale: Your kingdom come

Exhale: Your will be done

Inhale: On earth

Exhale: As in heaven.

Eat this book, breathe this air, drop your sword: Scripture for Exhausted People ~ 2 Timothy 3:10-17

 

The metaphor is everything! We all know the Sword metaphor (Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17). I grew up on “sword” drills, those odd Biblical contest where speed and agility in finding a text was held with unquestioned importance. But I was also told that the Bible could defeat any argument, disarm any opponent, and destroy the many who sought to challenge God's rule and reign. And perhaps many of us learned this metaphor too well or failed to learn other metaphors. We’ve seen what happens when your only metaphor for Scripture is a sword – exhaustion occurs and violence ensues. We see this sword mentality in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: “Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

In the movie World War Z, Brad Pitt’s character, a U.N. operative helping a scientist find the cause for a viral outbreak which turns people into zombies, explains to the scientist that the Navy Seal team accompanying them will help keep them safe but are not be able to help them find solutions. “These guys are hammers, and to hammers everything looks like nails.” And friends, if your Bible is a sword only, everything looks like it needs to be slashed and cut. So take a breath. Rest your arm. Put down your sword.

Thankfully, there are other metaphors that are perfect for exhausted people. Other ways of imagining what Scripture is and does. The metaphor matters.

One of the metaphors is a command to eat this book, which God told Ezekiel (3:3), Jeremiah (15:16), and John (Rev. 10:9-10) to do.

Here’s something you know instinctively. You can memorize every bit of a cereal box – its ingredients, its nutritional value, but for that cereal to do you any good, you have to pour it out, top it with milk, and eat it, even hopefully enjoy it. And you don’t fight about it (or, at least acknowledge it's dumb to do so). You also don’t see it do its work, don’t have to concentrate to have it help build muscles, or hair, or provide needed vitamins or fuel.

It’s the same with the Bible. This is a book to be experienced, savored. If we’re only studying something, then we’re going to miss critical parts of it. We must also taste it, enjoy it, gaze upon it. You can describe chocolate but does that replace its taste? These are the ways to come to Scripture exhausted. That’s why perhaps our current moment would be better served by this metaphor of eating rather than fighting. And thankfully, there are other life-giving metaphors as well.

“God-breathed” is what Paul uses in our passage today. The Bible is a place where God’s Spirit continually blows, continually gives life. We’ve already learned that “breath” and “Spirit” in the both the Hebrew and Greek are the same word. And most of us remember that God breathed into human beings (Gen. 2:7), which means that God is the source of our very existence, the One who gives us life. In the same way, Scripture is a respirator for the Christian life, that tank in which God pours out God’s own self. This is also what is meant by Paul when he says in 2 Cor., “the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.” What’s fascinating here is the great sigh that we can encounter God in these words. That God is the life-giving source of this book. So we don’t have to perform mouth to mouth or start doing compressions. We don’t have to defend it or know every answer, we can trust that it is a Spirit filled place, and that God is enough. And God is the one who will use this tool well, and kindly, and effectively. And yet, Paul also gives a warning. There is a “letter” that kills. I think he speaking of an attitude seeks to wield this tool foolishly. It’s those who choose to ignore the warnings and danger of stoking flames of rage around tanks of pure oxygen. It’s those who use it badly, sadly, not to give life but choke people out and steal their breath. And that’s why Paul will offer a number of clarifications in 2 Tim. with regard to Scripture that are very important: he will speak of his own character and the character of those who teach it (if you don’t see the life of Jesus in them, he is saying, don’t listen), he will speak of devotion to Scripture as the habit of a lifetime (vs. 14-15), he will remind us of Scriptures purpose – “to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ” and to live as God intended. Always remember, however, that the scalpel cuts but doesn’t do the surgery. The physician does that. The wrench turns bolt but the wrench won’t fix your pipes. The plumber does that.

That’s why I love our denomination. Not because we are always right but because in our Covenant Resource Paper on Scripture, rather than spend endless amounts of ink on how the Bible is inspired or what precise methods of reading or study one should employ we speak mostly about what attitudes one should bring to read it: faithfully, humbly, communally, rigorously, charitably, and holistically?

What will help us relate with the Bible in breath-giving and ingestible ways? What will help us have the proper character to read Scripture well – with all of those lovely adverbs I just mentioned?

The Sabbath practice: Lectio Divina

The ancient practice of Lectio Divina is a way of metabolizing Scripture, of breathing deeply, into acts of love and service in Jesus’ name, praising God, animated by God’s own Spirit.  

“Lectio divina is not a methodical technique for reading the bible. It is a cultivated, developed habit of living the text in Jesus’ name.” (Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, 116) This is the way that the Holy Scriptures become formative in the Christian church and become breath and food for the world.

Then, follow the steps outlined below (adapted from Charles Bello’s Prayer as a Place).

1.     Ready (Silencio)

Get comfortable, steady your breathing, and begin to quiet your thoughts.

Ask the Lord to meet you in this time of prayer and sit in silence for a few minutes.

2.     Read (Lectio)

Slowly read aloud the passage of scripture you’ve chosen (try to stick with only a handful of verses).

Listen for any word or phrase that catches your attention. I have a friend who collects sea glass at the beach. When I asked her how she does it, she said, “ I look for what shimmers.” That’s what you’re doing here.

3.     Reflect (Meditatio)

Read the passage again.

This time, spend a few minutes reflecting upon that word or phrase. Let it sink into your heart and allow God to speak to you.

Be aware of any emotions or memories that are stirred up.

4.     Respond (Oratio)

Read the passage a third time.

Respond in prayer to this word or phrase.

Dialogue with God. What feelings do you have? What struggle or longing in your life today is God speaking into? Let His grace meet you there.

What is God’s invitation to you through this passage?

5. Rest (Contemplatio)

Rest in God’s presence. No words are necessary. Just be.

Taste and see the Lord’s goodness to you.

One more metaphor. Always remember the metaphor matters. In our Covenant Statement on Scripture. We note that the words of Scripture must leap off the page. “If the text is not acted out in our lives,” the authors write early on in the 2008 paper, “even though it is the word of God, it is left as merely words on a page.” So it’s important that we not regard reading, discussing, studying, praying about, or meditating on the Bible as somehow disconnected from our overarching commitment to see our faith actively working in love.  We are to be the “taste and see.”

We make the leap off the page in order to be changed and to live out the words we read so that the world is as God intended. We follow the example of Jesus himself, who began his own mission because of a encounter with the words of Scripture (Luke 4:16-21). And Jesus’ relationship with Scripture and mission is also ours. Scripture calls us to join him in his work: finding the lost and helping the hurting, restoring the wounded, working for the advance of the good news, and extending God’s kingdom in our world. This leap off the page is an interpretive rule for Covenanters: valid readings of Scripture must lead to greater love and service.  Therefore, we read the Bible faithfully, humbly, communally, rigorously, charitably, and holistically in order to leap off the page and demonstrate God’s grace to our broken world.