Praying to Be Heard

Introduction

Last week we discussed the place that prayer has within the church; in fact, we could call it one of the faithful fundamentals. To practice this fundamental is the discipline of our faith. This practice, of course, is not something that just developed out of thin air or was placed as an institution of men within the church. It is a fundamental of the faith instructed to us by Christ himself. We see this important instruction in many places, by word and by example in the Gospels, but today’s passage contains the central prayer of our faith. Today’s passage is taken from Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” which serves as a cornerstone of the teachings of our Savior. Therefore, today’s excerpt from Christ’s words contain His expectation for how we are to pray.

Bad Prayer

Christ introduces us to proper prayer with a warning against how not pray. This warning seeks to guard us against two types of bad prayer: ostentatious prayer and repetitious prayer. This first, the ostentatious, type of prayer is that of certain local Pharisees: standing up in church or on street corners praying out loud, with an emphasis on loud, with one purpose in mind: to be seen and heard by all within earshot. Whoever does this is doing it with the express purpose of showing off and impressing people with their piety. But Christ prescribes that a proper way of praying is to do so in secret; for if we are earnestly praying to God for the purposes of our hearts and our own faith and our relationship with God, then we do not need the favor of anyone but God our Father, who rewards openly the one who prays to Him in secret. We must be careful to understand that Jesus is not prohibiting all manner of public prayer, but instructing us to have a humble and loving heart when speaking to God. Sure, those who pray for earthly approval will receive their approval when all acclaim this public piety but the sinner who quietly prays for grace and mercy will receive a heavenly reward.

The second kind of bad prayer that Jesus warns about is repetitious prayer. This can be confusing for us today because we find repetitious prayer to be an important part of our prayer life, both personally and in worship. He is warning us specifically about the repetitious manner in which the way pagans pray. We can look at both a biblical and a historical example both for what Jesus is referring to. The “vain repetition” Jesus ascribes to the pagans is seen in 1 Kings 18 in which the prophets of the evil Ba’al continually shout aloud, without ceasing day and night, louder and louder: “O Ba’al, answer us!” and they receive no answer; eliciting mockery heaped upon them by the Prophet Elijah. The ancient Romans were another group of pagans that repetitiously prayed when they made their votive offerings to whichever god they wished to receive a positive outcome from. These repetitions, the Romans believed, would ‘butter up’ the god they sought such favor from and as such they would repeat a refrain of exultation over and over again during their sacrifices. As St. Augustine once appropriately put it, Jesus here is making a distinction between much speaking in prayer and much praying.

Much like the first warning, we see that it is the intent behind the prayer rather than necessarily the practice. Are our repeated or public prayers to God and God alone or are they for the approval of someone else or some false hope of favor from a useless quarter of idolatrous faith? We pray to be heard, but who is our audience? Who do we want to hear us pray?

The Model Prayer

Christ then offers us a model prayer; a model to guide us in how to pray to God rather than a clichéd and magical set of words to pull from rote memory, this model prayer is lifted up for us to learn who to lovingly and humbly petition our Lord. It is a prayer given with three purposes: the first, an address to the Divine to honor and praise Him, the second, six petitions of God’s Providence which we depend upon, and finally, an address to fulfill our personal needs: physical and spiritual sustenance, forgiveness, and the deliverance from temptation and evil. Jesus gives us a model because He does not simply want us to avoid bad praying but wants us to know and fully embrace the alternative: good praying. The reason I call this a model is so that we may not think that we are to only pray this prayer but rather to shape everything, our whole faith and prayer life, after the example of Christ. To double back to last week, this is why we believe in the power of prayer, for good prayer is based in the gracious and powerful example of Christ our King.

The Pious Life

Finally, we see why our intentions and words and practice are all connected together in this model prayer: to make us a pious and loving people. To shape us into pious people, those whose holiness is evident not by their vain prayers in public but how they live their lives, contending with and striving against their sins and setbacks, to do their duty of love and grace for their God and their neighbor. Christ reminds us in the final two verses of our passage today that if we are to expect our sins to be forgiven when we pray for such deliverance then we should expect to forgive the sins of others with such endless magnanimity and generosity as God has shown us in forgiving us. God does not reward the haughty, self-centered prayers of this world for they wish to show piety for the approval and ingratiation of their peers and society. God rewards the piety that springs forth from a life modelled humbly after Christ’s life and teachings. That, although we may not do so correctly all the time, God expects His servants to work so that His will be done on earth as it is heaven. This is thusly our charge: to live the life that Christ has instructed us to live, grounded in the faith in His work on the cross, fed by the gift of righteousness and piety, and forged in the prayer He has modelled for us. Thanks be to God.