“Giving God Advice”

October 17, 2004

Scripture Reading: Luke 18:1-8

 Rev. Dr. Carol L. Kerr

Blue Point Congregational Church

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost  

Once there was a tent evangelist who was very successful.  He had a charismatic personality and was a good man.  After a particularly good evening revival meeting in a small village on the south shore of Nova Scotia , he was counting up the money.

Just as he finished and placed the money in a cloth bag, a young man who wished to speak to the pastor was ushered into the tent.  As they spoke, the man’s despair was obvious.  He and his family had left their home seeking employment, which never materialized.  They had spent the last few nights in the car and were completely out of money.  They didn’t know what to do.  

But the pastor did.  He said, “Let us kneel and pray.”  And they did.  They prayed for help and salvation and grace and comfort.  And when the prayer was over, the pastor opened his eyes and there directly in front of him, was the bag of money.  

“Let’s pray some more,” said the pastor.  And off they went, praying deeper and longer and more powerfully, calling on the saints and the angels to help this man.  When the prayer was complete, the pastor opened his eyes…and there was the bag of money.  

“Let’s really pray,”   he said, and pray they did – passionately, begging, cajoling, pleading for a sign of hope for this young man and his hungry, destitute family.  After that prayer was done, they once again opened their eyes.  And there was the bag of money, still sitting silently by.  

Finally, the pastor picked up the bag, passed it to the man and bid him farewell.  

The evangelist and the man were practicing what is called intercessory prayer.  They were asking God to help this man.  There are other kinds of prayer.  There is prayer of praise, thanksgiving, contemplative prayer, and others.  Of all the kinds of prayer, I find intercessory prayer the hardest to really understand.  On the one hand, it is easy, just asking God for things you want.  But, how does that really work?   For intercessory prayer to really work, to be more than just wishful thinking, or hot air, it has to somehow influence God.  This is where I get hung up.  Is it true that our little prayers are telling the big guy in the sky what to do?  This is the Being who got the big bang of the universe going, the one who flung countless galaxies out upon colossal space, who made time itself exist?   Who are we to make suggestions to the One who has a plan of the universe so large and so deep and so wide that our minds cannot even begin to comprehend its scope?   Once the comedian Flip Wilson said, “I’m going to pray now.  Anyone want anything?”  Was this just a painfully bad joke?  Or, was he speaking a truth that pierced to the heart of reality itself?   

Take the evangelist and the man who was having hard luck.  Did God plan to have that particular man go to that particular evangelist right at the time with that particular bag of money sitting in front of him?  Or did God plan something else, but when they started praying God changed his mind?  Certainly the mind of the evangelist was changed.  He was praying so hard because he didn’t really want to have to give the money to the man.  Finally, he relented.  But, was the mind of God changed too?  For instance, had God been intending to use the evangelists’ money to further his ministry and spread the word of God throughout Canada ?  God would be all for that idea.   Then the prayer started coming in from this man living in the car with his family.  Did God start feeling bad for the man and said, “O.K., O.K., take the bag of money. I’ll figure something else out.”   

Often we like to think that God knew that that was going to happen all the time.  God always intended that this man would get the offering and not the evangelist.  But, then why bother praying at all?  Is intercessory prayer a chance to voice our desires, hopes, needs and frustrations but we cannot assume that it is going to change anything?   Jesus didn’t think so.  God might have an omnipotent and omniscient plan, but part of that plan has to do with us being part of the planning.  Certainly God has the better vantage point.  He/She has the big picture.  But, perhaps there are many ways God’s plan can work.  Our prayers become part of the cosmic reality God has to work with.  God can use them to “tip the balance.”  God can consult with us and figure out the next step as we report in.   God needs our prayers.  God looks to us for advice.  God is concerned and can be influenced.   

I know this sounds crazy - us giving God advice.  Such advice often will and does deteriorate to nagging and whining.  Even Jesus saw the humor in it.  He likens God to a judge who could care less about anyone but himself.  Yet, there is this widow who won’t quit badgering him.  “My rights are being violated!”  She protests.  She keeps harassing him with her issues that finally he gives in just to shut her up.  The widow invented Chinese water torture before the Chinese did.  Jesus says imagine a penniless widow can break down a ruthless judge by the fact that she has a lot of nerve and keeps nagging him, how much God will listen who really loves us.  

Walter Wink, a well known scholar of the Old Testament, says that prayer in the Old Testament was that of a demand.  Prayer was saying to God, “I believe in this and I want some action!”   The way Abraham prayed is a great example of this.  God was about to destroy all of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because the “sin of those cities is immense.”  Abraham blocks God’s way.  He says, “Are you serious?  Are you planning on getting rid of the good people right along with the bad?  What if there were 50 decent people?”  God relents, “O.K. Abraham I won’t do it if there are 50 decent people.”    “What if there were 45 people?”  God relents, “O.K., O.K., no if there are 45 either.”  “What if there were 40?”  And so Abraham continues to bargain with God, until God completely changes his mind and leaves the scene.  (Gene 18:20ff.)     

Most of us we were told somewhere along the line not to give a list of things we want to God when we pray.  We are not suppose to test God by implying that he is not really God unless he can do the things we want.  Certainly when we were kids, and many times as adults our intercessory prayers start looking a lot like the things we are asking Santa for Christmas.  But, I wonder if there are other reasons why some of stay away from intercessory prayer.  Are we convinced enough that God hears us to pray for things?  Do we think prayer is a lame attempt at a last resort as in the expression, “The only thing left to do is pray.”     

Moreover, I think there is a danger if we do not practice intercessory prayer.  The danger is that we will quietly start disengaging from God altogether.  As a counselor we learn about group dynamics.  In the first four weeks of a 12 week group, people are very nice to each other.  No one really challenges anyone.  Everyone leaves saying, “This was so meaningful for me.”  Then around week 5 someone gets angry with someone else.  Someone asks, “Why don’t you do things this way?”  People start pressing for their real needs and showing their real selves.  Parts of them that aren’t so nice and sweet.  If the group gets through this they will enter a new and authentic level of intimacy.  If they don’t go through this stage, the group will never really jell.  People will drop out and disengage.  The energy will stall out.  

Likewise, I think if we do not practice intercessory prayer a lot, if we don’t nag at God and pull on the hem of God’s coat over and over again until God turns around and starts paying attention to us, then we too will eventually disengage from the relationship altogether.  We will be constantly accepting God’s will with no input.  We may seem to be obedient believers, but underneath the surface nothing will be happening.  There will be no growth.  We will remain on the outside looking in.  Eventually we will walk away.  

In order to take on intercessory prayer whole heartedly, to shake off the dust of your old practices, I suggest we yell our prayers to God periodically instead of saying them in quiet little voices.  If you think this is sacrilegious, take look at the Psalms.  These were people who were in no uncertain terms telling God exactly what they thought of him and what they thought he ought to be doing.   Often we intone the Psalms as if we were reading the words to a funeral march.  Take Psalm 43:  

Rouse yourself!  Why do you sleep, O Lord?  Awake, do not cast us off forever!  Why do you hide your face?  Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?  For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground.  Rise up, come to our help.  Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.  (Ps 44:25-26)  

Perhaps the language bogs us down.  Eugene Peterson version of the Bible called, The Message//Remix, updates the language.  The Psalm is yelling at God! :  

Get up God! Are you going to sleep all day?  Wake up!  Don’t you care what happens to us?  Why do your bury your face in the pillow?  Why pretend things are just fine with us?  And here we are – flat on our faces in the dirt, held down with a boot on our necks.  Get up and come to our rescue.  If you love us so much, help us!  

Now there is an intercessory prayer with some oomph!  There’s no beating around the bush here.  There’s no passive compliance.  And, this is important, there is no disengagement with God.  They are mad with God, they are asking God for help in no uncertain terms, but they are not walking away from God either.  They are passionate in their relationship with God.   

We usually pray the Lord’s Prayer as if it is a prayer of compliance.  We lower our voice, bow our heads, say it as if God’s will is the only will, and what ever we have to say is irrelevant.  On the contrary, Walter Wink suggests that the Lord’s payer is really a prayer of action.  The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer of intercession.  As such it should be yelled rather than whispered.  The person should demand the Lord’s Prayer.  If you give this a try the meaning changes and comes alive.  It would go something like this:  

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Hey, You, God up there in heaven!  We both know you are great, holy, and mind blowing.  

Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We all know your Kingdom is coming so why don’t you hustle and get it down here on earth now.  What are you waiting for?  

Give us this day our daily bread.  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

I have a few suggestions for you if you want to get you Kingdom going down here as fast as you can.  First, we can’t do without bread.  Second I suggest that you get over the stuff we’ve done wrong, and we’ll get over the mountain of things people have done wrong to us.  Plus, give us a break and quit tantalizing us with things that are hard to resist.  If you want us on your side, you had better get us away from bad things as fast as you can. 

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever.

I’m giving you this advice because the ball is in your court and you are the strongest player.  You want to keep it that way for ever and ever.   

In the last part of this sermon, I want to give you a way of going about intercessory prayers.  Jesus thought of the silly widow and the judge as a way of describing it.  I thought of my own parable, it is also silly, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it really works.  As the judge in Jesus parable was not inclined to help the widow at first, so am I not inclined to let my dog in when I have just laid down on the couch after a long hard day.  Shadow, my black lab, can teach us all how to pursue intercessory prayer.  In other words, he knows how to break me down so I finally get back up on my tired legs, go over, open the door and let him in.  We can adopt his process and use it with God.   

First, I have just laid down on the couch in our family after a long hard day.  I am exhausted.  My legs are tired.  I just closed my eyes and sighed, “At last!”  However, Shadow wants to come in and be with me.  So he climbs up on the bulkhead that is just under the windows of the family room.  He stares at me through the window with his yellow eyes.   At first I see him.  I think, “No way!  He is a dog.  I am the human.  I am tired.  He can just stay outside while I rest.  I have been getting up for everyone all day.  No way am I going to get up for a dog now.”  I close my eyes again.  I wait a minute.  I open my eyes.  Shadow is still staring. Shadow is trying doggy mental telepathy.  He is staring at me and thinking, “Carol let me in.  Come on Carol, you love me, you know you really want to let me in.  Just this one time, I promise, just let me in this one time.”   This is how we start our intercessory prayer with God.  We start thinking about God.  We get into a space where we can concentrate on the presence of God.  We gaze and gaze on God saying “Let me in God.  I would love to be with you God.  Here I am God.  Remember me?  Get up God.”  As Brother Lawrence once said, “My commonest attitude is simple attentiveness, a habitual, loving turning of my eyes to God.

Eventually I think, O.K.  I’ll open my eyes and look at him.  I open my eyes.  He sees that I am looking at him.  He starts to wag his tail as he stands on the bulkhead looking in at me through the window.  He is thinking of all the fun things we have done together.  He is thinking of how fun it is going to be just as soon as I let him in.  Likewise, after we gaze with loving attention on God, we then can think of all the things we love about God and all the things God has given us.  “To dream is to see love and desires transformed into symbols, word.  It should not be frightening, then, that God, who is love, speaks to us through our dreams.”  (Rubem Alves)   

Watching Shadow watching me watch him annoys me some, but with his tail flopping banging like a drum on the bulkhead makes me smirk as I close my eyes once more.  Sometimes Shadow will race around to the front of the house to see if I really mean to let him through the front door instead of the back.  So too in intercessory prayer, if one way seems to be closed to us, maybe God has opened up other ways to answer our prayers. 

But, this time, the front door is not opened for Shadow.  So he comes back around onto the back door and starts scratching at it and barking.  He has big paws, and tough finger nails, that usually need trimming.  So he quickly scratches at my nice red door, exposes the wood, and keeps pawing at it and barking.  This is the part in intercessory prayer when we start telling God in a loud voice what we want him to do.  We start yelling if need be (remember the Psalms?).  We keep at it.  Marjorie Thompson says, “If you receive no indication that you are not meant to receive what you ask for (no “stop” in the mind, no closed doors) keep on asking.  This is not anxious repetition but trusting perseverance.”  Shadow is very good at trusting perseverance, especially when it comes to scratching the back door to be let in.  I am totally irritated and am worried he is going to do permanent damage to the door.  So finally I relent, get up onto my sore aching legs, and let him in.  

As soon as Shadow is in he is wildly happy.  He wags his tail and nudges me for lots of pettings which I do with one hand while I lie back down on my couch and close my eyes.  So, when we receive a clear answer to our prayers let our praise and thanksgiving be sincere and whole hearted.  

This fall after years and years of Shadow on the bulkhead wanting me to let him in I broke down and bought a doggy door, which we put into our screen door.  Shadow can now come in and out of the house as he pleases.  Likewise if we are persistent with intercessory prayer God will give us our own door to come and go as we please.  We will be developing an ongoing and committed relationship with God.  Our will will be in tune and connected with God’s will.  There will be an understanding between us.  We will know the truth of what Alfred Lord Tennyson says, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”