Prayer Helps Us Stand Strong

Stand Strong – that’s the overall VBS theme

And each day of VBS has its own theme… but they’re all connected to the overall theme.   So the third day’s theme is Prayer Helps us Stand Strong

I remember many years ago, hearing Bill Cosby talking about being scared in the dark.    He said he once left his friend’s house after dark.   He’d forgotten to leave earlier.   He didn’t want to leave so late – in the dark.    He didn’t want to leave after it got dark because everyone knows that night time is when the monsters come out!   He remembered though that monsters couldn’t attack you if you sang.    So he sang… sort of a scared, looking-over-your-shoulder not-totally-into-the-song kind of singing.   

Comedians do that, they take those things we can all relate to and help us laugh at them.   But the thing is we all have a fear of something.   And for him, singing in the dark helped him to not be so afraid.   Singing kept the “monsters” away.   singing helped him keep his wits about him.  

Prayer has effects on people.   This we know.   It may not always have the effect we want, but it does have an effect.   Back about 15 years ago, a doctor, Larry Dossey, put out some books about this.   His books were for public consumption – they weren’t scholarly books written for researchers.   But they did reference some of the studies showing prayer having effects on the people being prayed for.    And since then, I’m sure there have been many more studies relating to prayer and its effects on people.

But as I thought about this theme, “Prayer Helps us Stand Strong”, I could have focused my words on how prayer does indeed have an effect on those being prayed for… the pray-ees.   But instead I’m led to talk about the ones doing the praying…  the pray-ers.    

Prayer is an act of Hope

Usually (and there are always exceptions) we can’t go more than 3 minutes without air.

Usually (again – exceptions) we can’t go more than 3 days without water

Usually (ditto) we can’t go more than 3 weeks without food

And usually we can’t go more than 3 months without hope

I heard stories of survivors of the Nazi death camps in WWII, and of American prisoners during the Vietnam war.   Those who were able to maintain a sense of hope.. hope to do something, to see someone, to go somewhere….   Just this alone often gave thee people the strength to carry on, to survive what they were going through.   Those with hope – those who hung on for some reason – more often ended up making it through.

I remember when I was younger, we went through anti-terrorist training.  They taught us a whole number of things, like how to break through road-blocks, etc.   But during the section on surviving long-term hostage situations, one of the things I remember the instructors saying was to maintain some sense of Hope.   This is still taught.   Hope is critical to survival!    Find something to hope for… and grab onto it!

Prayer is an act of hope!   Otherwise, why pray?

Prayer is an act of relationship!    Think of a time someone asked you to pray for/with them.   They reached out – to you!      Think of a time you’ve asked someone to pray with/for you.    You’ve reached out to them – in trust!     When I wear the collar in public, it’s not unusual for someone to come up to me and ask me to pray for them, or for someone they know.  

I think prayer is fundamental to who we are as human beings.    It would seem to make sense – we’re relational beings!   I’ve said this before, I knew an anthropologist who said that all human cultures have had three things in common.   1 – Every culture has had laws or mores against some actions or behaviors (like murder, etc).    2 – Every culture has had some form of music.   And  3 – every culture has had some form of religion.    But prayer is even more fundamental to “religion”.    

It involves our most human aspects – to reach out and connect with someone, something.   When we pray, not only are we touching outward – to others, to God, etc.  But we’re also reaching inward – touching inwards into a part of ourselves we might not access often were it not for prayer.  

Prayer is an intimate act!    It involves risk… sometimes fear – fear of rejection, etc.   When you pray with someone, for someone, around someone – you are risking not being in control, or not sounding like yourself.    You are risking intimacy… an intimacy you probably don’t feel most of the time.   When you pray, you are opening up in ways you don’t usually do.   

Sunday I asked people to find someone they might not know very well, and pray with them.  I asked people to share with each other those things that were on their hearts and minds, things they were concerned about.   Imagine being in church, and the pastor asks you to take a few minutes, find someone around you and pray with them.   Would that not scare the living bejeesus out of you?   You should have seen some of the faces Sunday when I asked people to do this.  Some people breathed in so much, it changed the air pressure in the building – caused the windows to buckle!    I held my breath, then said… “just kidding.”     And the pressure returned back to normal once everyone exhaled.                

I asked how many found this to be a very uncomfortable thought… and a few brave souls admitted this would have been pretty scary for them.   Prayer is an intimate act… and the intimacy is even more pronounced when you include someone else in the deal.  

It’s intimate, partly, I think, because prayer is a deeply human act.   It doesn’t mean every human being prays, or prayed.  And it doesn’t mean every human being does it (or did it) the same way.   But it means prayer – the act of praying – is part of what it means to be human!

I’m sure you’ve heard the term, “I’m only human”.  Heck, you’ve probably even said it.   But what are we saying when we say this phrase?     “I’m only human!”      It means we’ve made a mistake, it’s a way of reducing “humanness” to a pretty low bar.       “Only” human?    Only?     What of “being human” were a term that lifted rather than diminished what it means to be here on earth inhabiting bodies we have – bodies that enflesh the souls we carry around?

Remember, Jesus (and pretty much all the other “holy” teachers for that matter) taught us it’s “only Human” to be merciful, compassionate, loving… and to pray!    Praying is a profoundly human act!   

We pray because it is in us to pray.   It gives us hope, it connects us to others and to God, it’s a deep act of “humanness”.    Bill Cosby’s story about singing in the dark to keeps the monsters away… that’s funny, I remember laughing about that.   It’s a caricature of our human need to find strength.  We laugh – oh, children do funny things.   But us adults… we’re grown up!   We’re laughing at the kids right!?          

Maybe singing was his subconscious way of praying.    When I was little, and I got scared, I prayed.  It helped me to focus, I had to think to pray, and if I could think enough to pray, I’d still have my wits about me.    Praying helped me to remember I wasn’t alone.    It helped me to look forward.     It helped me to stand – metaphorically and psychologically.        And it still does.  

         

    

Prayer, however we do it, whether we’re alone or together with others, deepens our human-ness and connects us to something larger than ourselves. 

I could say all this – or I could share with you stories of prayer, and of being strong together.    I remember a female inmate in the Lutheran service.   I think her name was Chrissy.   She was young, very young.   Like maybe 21 kind of young.   Over the few years I did that ministry, I learned a little of her story at a time.   Her history was filled with abuse, and violence.    One of the first things she told me was that she didn’t pray.   She did believe in a God of love and grace and compassion.   But one of the reasons she told me she didn’t pray was because she thought – considering the things she’d done and/or been involved with, she considered herself outside of God’s reach.

For the two years and a half years I was with them, Chrissy never prayed.   She was present for the whole service, she listened, she asked questions, she was involved in those ways, but she never prayed.     Then not too long before I left, as we were about to start the service, she asked me if I could read her prayer during the service – the service is similar to the “normal” liturgical service… there certainly is time for communal prayer.    In the women’s prison, there was a practice of writing prayers down forthose who felt uncomfortable offering their own prayers verbally.    Her grandmother – the woman who raised her, the only person who she could trust as a youth, was dying of cancer.   And she wanted to pray for her.    I asked her if she’d be willing to to share her prayer with others – in her own words.   She reluctantly agreed.

Then we arrived at the time in the service for communal prayers… and I invited Chrissy to pray.    She began haltingly… finding her voice.   She talked to God as we listened.   She prayer for strength for her grandmother.  She shared in the prayer what her grandmother had meant to her as she was growing up, and she thanked God for her.   She shared in the prayer that she felt unworthy to be asking for this – considering her experiences and who she believed herself to be.   But she reached out to this God, she called a loving God.   And she asked this loving God to hold her grandmother close until it would be her time to reunite with her grandmother.   Amen…

By the time Chrissy had ended her prayer, there were very few dry eyes in the room.   Considering her minimal education, her pretty abusive background, and her thoughts on her relationship with God, Chrissy had spoken one of the most moving prayers I’d ever heard.    It was full of heart and vulnerability, and blessing, and hope.     Those years that I’d been with the women there had their challenges for sure!   But these women were able to build a space and place where even the most broken of their number could open up to a God o grace and love in their midst.     They prayed without even having to call it that.   They built each other up – they sustained each other.   

I’m reminded of that here at Abiding Savior.   In its most human levels, it’s a similar place.   Prayer helps us stand strong!    Prayer helps us stand strong     Praying we stand strong!         We need that strength… we’ll need it more than ever!       We pray – together          Amen, amen       and amen