Some years ago I embarked on a long retreat with a new spiritual director, and at our first session he asked me how and how often I pray. Seems like a reasonable question for a spiritual director to ask, but somehow it made me feel a bit like when the dentist last asked me how well and how often I floss my teeth. “Um, pretty well,” I mumbled. “Most days. I guess.” Was he testing me, I wondered? Had my spiritual director—a Jesuit priest—noticed my spiritual plaque? I stammered a bit describing my prayer practices, until finally he interrupted me and said: “let me tell you how to pray. Be quiet and listen,” he said. “Sit there and just listen. Listen until you can hear God call you by name.”
And so I did. Sometimes it took me quite a bit of impatient sitting until I was actually able to listen with my whole heart. But by the time I could hear my name—Julia—in some mysterious way everything else that was on my heart to pray about had already been answered. Because I had just been called by name by the Lord of the universe. I was known, I was loved. All my cares and concerns were known too.
In those moments of prayerful clarity, I also came to understand that experience was actually nothing special. Everyone else’s cares and concerns are known and loved. The God who would call me by name is calling you, and everyone else, by name too. And just waiting for each of us to listen to and know the particularity and depth of God’s love. When I reach that point of awareness in prayer, and am able to rest in it, I realize that everything I really want is already given. I don’t want to suffer and I don’t want anyone else to suffer either, but—to the extent that is part of the human condition and happens—I want to be assured that God is profoundly in the midst of grief and pain with me and with all of us. And prayer reminds me that I am.
Abraham knew it too. He’s kind of my poster child for bad person whose prayers were used for God’s good. In the story we just heard this morning Abraham is a spiritual hero, right? Successfully negotiating with God on behalf of the corrupt city of Sodom. Whose sin—we’d discover if we read the next chapter, definitely has to do with sexual exploitation, but in no way specific to same sex relationships. But get this: Abraham himself had committed the sin of sexually exploiting of his own wife Sarah. Did you know that? The Book of Genesis really deserves a trigger warning!
His own sins notwithstanding, Abraham speaks—debates, really—directly with God. He appeals to the justice and mercy he knows is God’s character, and thereby changes God’s own mind. It’s worth mentioning that this kind of exchange is not really strange by the standards of the Hebrew Bible. In Exodus 32, Moses convinces God not to destroy the Israelites by appealing to the Divine ego. In the Psalms, many of the laments call God to task for not keeping the covenant, and the bulk of Job contains a righteous sufferer’s accusations directed at the Holy One. From our oldest extant Scriptures, we learn that prayer really can be that personal. So if that’s not yet your experience—or if you doubt that experience—let me encourage you to trust the process. It’s not like we have to be perfect people to have our prayers answered: we learn that from Abraham. But he had known himself called by name, and even at his worst, he didn’t turn away from the prayerful relationship that changed both him and God.
That’s why we, in all of our imperfections and sin, continue to pray—week after week—that God guide the people of this land, and of all the nations, in the ways of justice and peace. And that we might honor one another and serve the common good. We pray this even if we are the ones who are not just or peaceful, or if we fail to honor each other. We pray for those who suffer when they are other people, and when we ourselves suffer. Because like those original disciples, we need things like bread, or a fish or an egg, or their 21st century equivalents. I think it’s significant that Jesus used these commonplace examples in the Gospel we heard today, because our everyday desire is where our authentic prayer begins. Being known by God is one of our most basic desires. Through the steady practice of prayers like these, it becomes easy and natural to intercede for each other and bear each other’s burdens. And to intercede for the whole world and this fragile earth, our island home, as our Book of Common Prayer teaches us.
Our Book of Common prayer is elegant, no? But sometimes we liturgical Christians can put so much energy into the form of our prayer that we persuade ourselves that God only answers to Anglican collects. And then we might find ourselves wondering if our prayers aren’t answered because we didn’t pray them the right way. But the Bible assures us otherwise. Much as we might want to get our prayer right, and also might want to understand exactly how prayer works, Jesus seems most concerned that we just do it. And persist in doing it—right or wrong—without necessarily knowing how it works.
Which causes me to wonder: what if prayer were not so much a vending machine for dispensing holy favors as a stamping machine for impressing God’s own image upon us? Jesus prayed. In doing likewise, we become more like him. Speaking for myself, I know that my prayer always changes me. Prayer does not change God fundamental character—from beginning to end the Bible assures us that God’s nature is always to be gracious—even if it takes an Abraham—or you—to remind God of how to do his business. Prayer sometimes changes God’s mind; prayer always changes ours.
So what might this image of God, impressed upon us in prayer, look like? Our scripture and tradition have a pretty clear answer for that: it looks like Jesus himself. From whom we learn that God’s image is manifest in presence, in companionship, in teaching, in healing, in suffering, in joy, and in trust despite all odds. Friends, trust the process of prayer. Trust that you are good enough to pray meaningfully. Trust that God really does show up vulnerable in the most unlikely places, trust that human suffering is not the final word. Trust that a resurrection that occurred some 2000 years ago is not the exception, but the rule that underlies God’s redemptive intent for all creation.
But don’t take my word for it, hear it for yourself. To borrow from the example of a Jesuit priest wiser than me, “Let me tell you how to pray. Be quiet and listen. Sit there and just listen. Listen until you can hear God call you by name.” Listen to the one who longs to call you by name. The one to whom we pray is speaking to each of us even before we think to pray. Did you hear the words God already spoke, intended just for you? They sound like this: ask, seek, knock, persist.
This is wonderful; thank you.