What is this thing called Prayer?

In my reflections last week on the terrorist attacks in Paris, I wrote “prayer is not a soft option – not just ‘the only thing we can do.’ It’s a real way of expressing hope and trust, as well as our desire for a world in which there is no hatred.”

It is ironic that at the end of a week in which TV reports showed many posters saying ‘Pray for Paris’, that the body responsible for cinema adverts blocked a simple and inoffensive (indeed slightly anodyne) film from the Church of England showing a variety of people praying the Lord’s Prayer. Many have objected to that decision (including Richard Dawkins!) – but perhaps it challenges us to ask ourselves what we are doing when we pray.

To begin with, we need to affirm that there are times when cannot not pray (double negative intended.)  In the face of something like the Paris attacks, with unimaginable loss and destruction; when we cannot explain a disaster or find words to express our grief – prayer of some sort is a natural and appropriate response. What else can we do? So, even in a predominantly secular country like France, people flocked to churches for vigils of prayer. Others lit ‘votive’ candles at the site of the murders, in voiceless prayer. Philosophical musing, sociological reasoning or political assertions fail to meet the human need - to express sorrow and search for some kind of meaning.

I can see a danger that in saying that I could be implying that prayer – whilst being natural and appropriate – is little more than a gesture. It has a cleaning and palliative effect (which is good), but that is all. Indeed, the words I quoted from my last posting do seem to say just that! Praying makes us feel better- but it does not make any difference: after all, the dead are still dead, and the threat of terrorism remains. Are we merely lighting a candle in the dark?

In itself that is not unimportant. Affirming hope is a refusal to give way to the despair and confusion that acts of terror seek to create. But prayer does not just affect me. It can and does change people and situations. Certainly, it does not reverse the effects of the violence; the death toll is unchanged, the bloodstains remain. And yet the situation is not the same as if we had never prayed. We consciously draw closer to God, and so bring him more fully into the darkness and despair.

Our problem is that we have tamed prayer. William McNamara writes of a priest responding to a request to ‘say a little prayer’ – “I will not! There are no little prayers! Prayer enters the lion’s den, brings us before the holy where it is uncertain whether we will come back alive or sane...” Biblically, prayer is coming before the Living God, wrestling with him, even challenging him - and allowing him to turn us inside out. It is “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” – which means that we should expect things to happen after we pray. Really opening ourselves to God means we will never be the same – nor will the world in which we live and to which we are called to witness.

Prayer does indeed change us – but not in the commonly assumed sense that it makes us a bit nicer.

When we pray for the victims of violence, and for its perpetrators; when we pray for the marginalised people living in the soul-destroying suburbs of large European cities like Paris and Brussels, and for those who exercise power and influence public opinion, we do this in order that something will change. We cannot know how it will change; prayer is indeed an act of faith.

The Lord’s Prayer is full of bold aspirations and subversive requests – Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth; Forgive us... as we forgive; Deliver us from evil. Constant repetition has dulled our spirits, so that we no longer realise what we are asking for! So the cinema censors have done us a favour – both by bringing the Lord’s Prayer film before a much larger audience, and by challenging us believers to think more deeply about what we pray. So let us indeed pray!

Responding to Paris 13/11

Jo and I have spent nearly nine months in and near Paris since we ‘retired’. It feels like a second home; so were especially affected and saddened by the events of last Friday evening. Like many other Christians, we were moved to pray: for the victims, the wounded, the bereaved and the traumatised. It was encouraging to see how quickly many Christian churches responded, and became places where people could gather for vigil, to watch and pray, to grasp at some comfort and hope.

At times like this, prayer is not a soft option – not just “the only thing we can do.” It’s a real way of expressing hope and trust, as well as our desire for a world in which there is no hatred – a world where, in Isaiah’s words, “swords will be changed into plough-shares and spears into pruning-hooks.” Mere words fail us; we don’t know what to say - but prayer draws us to the one of whom St John writes: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”

What more can we do?  We continue to pray for those whose hearts are broken, and for whom our hearts ache – those whose lives have been so brutally cut short, those widowed and orphaned, and the thousands who continue to grieve and who are afraid. We pray for them, though they are unknown to us; for they are known and loved by the God who created them and who, we can dare to say, also weeps for them. And we must continue to pray for them.

Too often, we pray for a few days, and then our attention wanders, and we forget those who are still hurting. And there are others to pray for. We pray for all those who, day after day, live in fear and oppression in the areas under IS control; especially for our Christian brothers and sisters, many of whom suffer terribly, But we also pray for the many Muslims in those areas who suffer abuse and live in fear. We pray that our hearts, and the hearts of Western governments, will not be turned to hatred against Muslims in general, most of whom try to live by the true teaching of the Qu-ran.  We pray for prophetic voices to be heard; that men and women of peace and reconciliation, whether Christian, Muslim or unbelievers, will be raised up and enabled to speak powerfully against the savage and blasphemous parody of Islam that IS represents.

Such prayer is not easy, or cheap. Nor will we see immediate results. But our voices must not be quieted. Jesus’ parables of the unjust judge and the friend calling at midnight remind us that real prayer is persistent and time-consuming. If we really believe that prayer changes things we will persevere. Otherwise we are, in effect, saying “God is powerless to change anything.”

We must not trivialise the evil that has been done by speaking too quickly of forgiveness or understanding; outrage and anger are appropriate. However, in time, we may dare to pray for the leaders and supporters of IS. For did not Jesus tell us, “pray for those who persecute you”? That does not mean pretending that the evil does not matter, or is not powerful; it means declaring that God is more powerful! It is easy to forget that we are all sinners, or to assume that our sins are somehow more excusable.  But St Paul knew the reality and universality of sin, and rejoiced in the Good News, which is that “Christ died for the ungodly...God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6,8.)

We stand against the evil in IS ideology. And we pray for a strengthening of our Christian identity and message. But if we believe what we say we believe about God’s love and the ultimate victory of the Cross, we still need to pray for God’s grace will touch those who believe and promote that ideology. How else will minds be changed and cold hearts warmed?