Romans 8:12-17
I did not truly learn how to pray until I was a young adult. I grew up in a Christian home, I went to my family’s Episcopal Church every Sunday, I attended youth group and Christian summer camp, I loved church and the prayerbook and I listened to the sermons as best I could. I saw my grandmother and my mother kneel in the pew with their heads bowed in silent prayer after communion every Sunday, so when I was old enough to hold somewhat still I started doing the same. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing beyond those physical acts of kneeling, bowing my head, and closing my eyes. I would try to think about Jesus or the sermon or something else that seemed appropriately pious, but my mind would always wander and I would start to fidget. I could go through the motions of standing, sitting, kneeling, and I could read the words on the page and I even memorized the responses to some parts of the liturgy, a feat which I remember being a little too proud of, as if worship were a set of skills I could master. I wonder if that was some kind of foreshadowing. But I did not know what I was supposed to say when there wasn’t a script in front of me, and I had no idea how to listen once I had finished talking. This is something we Episcopalians are often pitied or judged for, that we are so reliant on our written prayers and our beloved books that we do not know how to pray “from the heart.” I was a prime example of that potential pitfall for a long time, but I don’t think it was anyone’s fault or negligence that made it so.
Praying is difficult. Or rather, we make prayer difficult. For those who value extemporaneous prayer from the heart, there is a social pressure to perform, to pray well and often for a long time, quoting the Bible as many times as possible in the process. For those who value common prayer, a written set of prayers and liturgies that have been written and tested by generations of faithful Christian theologians and liturgists and authors, there is a risk of placing those prayers between ourselves and God, using our book as a shield between the more tender parts of us and our Father in heaven. I know that I have done this. If you only talk to God when you’re here in this building, you might be doing the same.
Neither written nor extemporaneous prayer is enough on its own. There are moments when our own words fail, and we need the words of another to give voice to our pain or our joy. And there are situations where no prewritten prayer will suffice, when the truth of the moment is so specific or so vulnerable that only a spontaneous cry to God will meet the need. Our prayerbook contains one thousand pages of prayers and stage directions for prayer, and still the Church is constantly writing and rewriting prayers that speak to and for the world we live in now, one so very different in many ways from the world our ancestors were praying in. Our language with God is ever expanding, and still there are many of us who struggle to find the words to pray.
This is not a new problem. Our siblings in the early Church struggled to understand their relationship with God. Some of them grew up in the Jewish tradition, and needed help understanding how God could be One and also be Father, Son, and Spirit. Others grew up in polytheistic traditions, and needed help understanding how one God could be all in all. They needed help, they needed teachers, and we continue to learn from those same teachers. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he spends a lot of time trying to help the Christians in Rome to understand how they were to relate to the God of Israel. He likens their baptism to an adoption, bringing Gentile believers into the chosen family of God. Moreover, Paul tells them, not only are they now adopted children of God but their very spirits have been taken up into the Spirit of God. Everything about them is now caught up in the divine life of God.
Paul gives the example of prayer to explain this. “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” When we call out to God, when we reach for God in prayer, that impulse itself is inspired by the Spirit of God dwelling within us. When we pray, we experience God calling to God. When we pray, we experience the mystery of the Trinity.
Later in the same letter, Paul returns to this understanding of prayer. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.” Your Bible may have it translated as sighs too deep for words, which I like a little better. For Paul, it is very important that the young Christian community in Rome understands that prayer is not something one does “at” God. Instead, when we pray, Paul believes we are participating in a dialogue already taking place within the heart of God, and through our baptism, within us as well. When a Christian bows their head or kneels in prayer, they are joining a conversation between the persons of the Trinity, a conversation that has no beginning and no end. We do not need the right words or the perfect understanding to pray, because we are not the only ones involved in the dialogue. Prayer is not a test, or a competition, or a chore. It is a relationship, a loving response to love itself.
During all those years of bowing my head in fidgety silence, unsure of how to speak or what to think, I believe God was there. Not waiting for me to say the right thing or ask the right question or impress God with my memorized prayers. God was just there. I think God probably smiled indulgently at my attempts and took seriously my adolescent intercessions and just enjoyed my company. And when I got older and learned about rosaries and walking labyrinths and Centering Prayer and iconography and breath prayers, I’m sure God was just as patient with my wandering mind and perfectionist approach to worship. Maybe you’ve done the same, wandering through different languages of prayer looking for one that feels natural to you. At the end of the day, I have found that very often the writings of prayerful people have given me words when mine fail me, and I keep coming back to my prayerbooks and written prayers. There is a prayer by Thomas Merton that I believe captures what it really means to cry out to God, and to know that the Spirit is bearing witness with us. So let us pray.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart form that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
Mother A Writes 