The Strange, Beautiful Power of Prayer

I’ve been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  Chapter 3 is entitled “The Day Alone” and it covers the personal life of a Christian.  In that chapter he has an insightful section on prayer.  I have found what he says here to be true.  As a pastor too, I have observed that when people who’ve been at odds begin praying for one another, remarkable things happen.  Here’s what Bonhoeffer says:

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.  I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.  His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.  This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others.  There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned.  Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day.  The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.

Some theologians have described prayer as a means of grace or as an instrument of sanctification.  Truly it is.

Luther on the Lord’s Prayer

“To this day I suckle at the Lord’s Prayer like a child, and as an old man eat and drink from it and never get my fill. It is the very best prayer, even better than the psalter, which is so very dear to me. It is surely evident that a real master composed and taught it.  What a great pity that the prayer of such a master is prattled and chattered so irreverently all over the world! How many pray the Lord’s Prayer several thousand times in the course of a year, and if they were to keep on doing so for a thousand years they would not have tasted nor prayed one iota, one dot, of it! In a word, the Lord’s Prayer is the greatest martyr on earth (as are the name and word of God). Everybody tortures and abuses it; few take comfort and joy in its proper use.”

From A Simple Way to Pray

(Reposted from Yinkahdinay, 09.14.06)

How to Address God in Prayer

I’m continuing to read and enjoy Herman J. Selderhuis’ Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms.  In a section on “Prayer as Covenant Communication,” Selderhuis remarks that Calvin “describes the contact between both partners of the covenant as ‘familiariter,’ a term which suggests a child speaking with his father.  This contact, though, is most threatened when prayer is neglected.  The remedy for this is to regularly address God in prayer as ‘my God.’” (219)

In a footnote, Selderhuis refers to Calvin’s commentary on Psalm 5:2.  Unfortunately, the most common edition of Calvin’s commentary on the Psalms (published by Baker Book House and widely available) does not give a satisfactory translation from the Latin.  I have a .pdf of an earlier English translation (by Arthur Golding), but this page is not very legible.  So, this is my idiomatic translation from the Latin:

Furthermore, if we don’t feel like praying or our devotion to God is under swift attack, we must pay attention to these ox-goads which will prick us.  Just as the Psalmist called God “my king and my God,” and so sharply incited himself to better hope, we ought to learn to apply these titles in a similar way.  In so doing, we render God to be family with us.

Calvin makes an excellent point here.  This is exactly why the Lord Jesus taught us to address God as “Our Father.”  We should make it our habit to address God in family terms.  There is nothing wrong or sinful about calling him “Lord” (the Bible does that too, on many occasions).  But to consistently and regularly address him as your God and your Father is beautiful and serves to undergird the nature of our relationship with him.

Leading in Prayer

Kevin DeYoung has an excellent post on leading congregational prayer.  I appreciate everything he writes and I do try to follow most of this as much as I can.  For instance, I write out most of my congregational prayers.  I find that it helps to keep my prayers disciplined and focused.  One of the best ways to lose a congregation in public prayer is to begin sermonizing — you’re ostensibly addressing God, but the real target is still the ears of the congregation.  This is much easier to do when praying ex tempore, off the cuff.  After all, the one big thing on the minister’s mind is the sermon that he just preached.  He is a preacher.  However, when he prays, he must be a supplicant and intercessor.  It can be hard to make that switch.  Writing out the prayer before getting on the pulpit makes it easier, at least for me.

We ministers ought always to remember that congregational prayer is challenging for those who are praying with us.  The minister has it easiest.  He should try to do everything he can to assist the congregation in their participation.  Prayer requires focus and it is easier to focus when you are the one speaking the words.  If the attention span of a congregation for preaching is limited, how much more do you think their span for a corporate prayer will be limited?  I might get some flack for saying this, but I would say that a prayer that goes beyond five minutes is too long.  Do that and I’ll bet that you’ve lost at least 75% of the congregation.  Didn’t the Lord Jesus have something to say about long prayers?  It’s probably not pretentious (I hope not!), but it is unhelpful and will result in the hollowing out of our worship.

You Can Pray to Christ!

One of the strangest teachings floating around some Reformed churches is the idea that we are not allowed to pray to the Lord Jesus, but only to the Father.  By that same token, hymns of praise to Christ are also out of the question.  The problem with this view is that we find examples in Scripture of the early church and the apostles praying to Christ.  I mentioned this in my sermon yesterday morning:

While he was being stoned to death, we hear Stephen praying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” and “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  Stephen prayed to the Lord Jesus and in the centuries to follow, thousands of martyrs would repeat his prayer. In 1 Corinthians 12, we read of how Paul prayed to the Lord Jesus and pleaded with him to remove the thorn in his flesh.  In 1 Corinthians 16:22, we read the brief prayer of Paul for the coming of the Lord Jesus, “Maranatha!  Come, O Lord!”  The apostle John echoes that prayer in Revelation 22:20, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”  If the apostles and early Christians prayed to the Lord Jesus and their example is in the Bible, certainly we also have that freedom.

This morning as I was preparing my notes on Volume 2 of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, I noticed that he commented on this as well:  “…the Holy Spirit dwells in and among us, with the result that our prayers are directed more to the Father and to the Mediator than to him” (311).  Notice that Bavinck speaks of directing our prayers to the Mediator — and this is fine.  It’s also okay to pray (and sing) to the Holy Spirit, though it would not be our regular practice.  Wherever this thinking came from, it didn’t come from Bavinck.

For those who do think that it is sinful to pray to the Lord Jesus, I would want to ask:  which commandment is being broken?  Further, if it is sinful to pray to the Lord Jesus, then it is also sinful to sing to him — in which case the Canadian Reformed Churches (and other Reformed churches) are living in sin and should be called to repentance.

Finally, I am convinced that this line of thinking contributes to the depersonalization of the Saviour.  It robs our faith of vitality.  By saying that it is a sin to speak with him, we are in danger of making him into an abstract concept rather than recognizing him as a person and treating him as such.  Think about it:  what sense does it make to have a Mediator with whom you’re not even allowed to speak?