What I don’t like about prayer,

And why I pray anyway

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Transcribed from Sermon preached March 7, 2004

The Pope was discussing the financial situation of the church with the College of Cardinals. There was a great orphanage whose survival was in jeopardy. They decided to search out new and different support. One day Colonel Sanders came to the Pope and said, "I will give you five million dollars under one condition." "What is the condition?" asked the Pope. "Change the wording of the Lord’s prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread to give us this day our daily chicken.’" The Pope said, "Are you kidding me? We could never change the words to the Lord’s prayer."

Three years later Colonel Sanders returned and asked the Pope again. "Ok, I’ll give you ten million dollars, and I only place one condition on it that you change the Lord’s Prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chicken.’" "I already told you," said the Pope, "Such a sacred prayer of the church is not for sale."

Another three years went by and once again Colonel Sanders returned to the Pope. "I know you are hurting financially and I am a charitable man. I will give you twenty million dollars with only one condition. Change the words of the Lord’s Prayer from ‘give us this day our daily bread to give us this day our daily chicken.’"

The Pope went to speak with the College of Cardinals. "Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Colonel Sanders has blessed us with twenty million dollars and the orphanage will survive. The bad news is we lost the Wonder Bread account."

Thursday night at "Got God?" our new kids program and adult prayer group, we had a little discussion on prayer. "Why do we have to do the Lord’s Prayer every week? If we do it too often it loses its significance; it becomes just words we repeat without really meaning them." This may in fact be the case. It is important to remind ourselves why we do the things we do, to remind ourselves to pay attention, to be present in the act of worship.

I spent most of my teens and twenties being angry at the Church, thinking that if I was a minister I would change almost everything, that we would always do new and creative things. I am certain that we retain much of our ritual, doctrine and theology simply because it is always harder to change than to stay the same. It takes time and effort and struggle to come up with something new.

On the other hand there is something soothing and powerful in ritual like repeating the Lord’s Prayer. It connects us to faithful from every time and place, uniting us in common language. Also, ritual lets the mystery of the divine remain mystery. Enlightenment thought, scientific thought attacks problems, not mystery. We approach a problem from different angles until we solve it and then move onto the next problem. God is not a problem or something to prove, God is mystery. The more you know about the problem, the smaller it gets. The more you know about mystery, the deeper it gets.

Prayer then, takes us deeper into God, into ourselves, into our collective identity. One day in Houston, I went to share communion with a 92 year old woman named Anna and her daughter Sarah. Anna suffered from Alzheimer’s. When we first arrived she thought Al, the elder with me was her daughter’s dead husband. We sat recollecting stories from church. Anna had been a long time faithful member of San Pablo Presbyterian, teaching several generations of children prayer and faith. Psalm 91 was a favorite that she repeated to her children both at home and at church. Her daughter told a story of when they were young; Dad was not home and a horrendous hurricane came marching inland from Galveston at night. The power had been knocked out and they were in total darkness except when lightning struck. The house literally shook from the pounding wind and rain. Mom began to recite psalm 91, Sarah said. "I will never forget that prayer. And then the storm just seemed to stop." There in the same house, so many years later I opened my Bible to psalm 91 and began to read. "He who dwells in the shelter of the most high, will rest in the shadow of the almighty. I will say of the Lord," and then Anna and Sarah joined me, "You are my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust." I stopped. Anna, the 92 year old with progressing Alzheimer’s continued, "Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. God will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge…For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways." She went all the way through the psalm by heart. There is something unifying, soothing, deep about ritualized prayer.

Another problem I have with prayer, perhaps a more fundamental problem, is that I struggle with my faith in God. I took a trip down to Guatemala and Costa Rica following my graduation from seminary. My wife and son Nicholas stayed with her parents in Guatemala a few extra days while I went ahead to Costa Rica to get in a few days of surfing. Flying into San Jose Costa Rica is a little tough. We came in over a couple of volcanoes and through a few thunder clouds, making a sharp dropping turn toward the runway.

Just at the point where the pilot drops the wheels to hit the runway, we started to fishtail…in a big jumbo jet. Our tail slid out from side to side while the wings just barely missed the ground. The further we went down the runway the worse it got, until the pilot hit the power. We gained control as we took off again, back up into the air. We circled around and around as the pilots gathered their wits, dumping fuel. Meanwhile the fire engines and TV crews lined the runways waiting for us to make another attempt at landing.

It seems to me this situation is somewhat like Jonah’s. On the one hand Jonah was in the horrible storm, lost in the sea, ready to drown, and then he is apparently saved, swallowed by a great fish. Jonah bursts forth in a prayer of thanksgiving, but he wasn’t out of trouble. I have to admit, I had a hard time praying like Jonah up there in the air. I was thankful that we did not cartwheel down the runway in a burning ball of fire. But we still had to land.

What do you pray for? If God can get you out of that situation, then he could have kept you out of it in the first place. And what makes you think God should pay more attention to your prayer than that of those who have died in plane crashes, or car accidents, or any accident? More than anything I thought of the praying mothers in Guatemala, attending to their children with malnutrition, diarrhea or pneumonia: women and children who were no less faithful than I, in fact more faithful, yet they had not the joy and privilege I had. Wasn’t it greedy for me to want more, to demand my life not be ended now, like some spoiled child who, after a fun day doesn’t want to go to bed? I had already lived a rich and meaningful life. Who was I to demand more from God? If there was a God who could grant such a request, if there was a God.

At least my pregnant wife and child were not on the plane. On the one hand I wanted to hug them one last time; on the other hand I was grateful they were not on the plane. Here was my first honest, sincere line which I prayed without equivocation: "Lord, I pray that my children grow beyond the grief of losing me. May they grow up healthy and strong and have lives that are more happy than sad."

There is the bargaining. "Ok, maybe I haven’t been so faithful. If you save me I will stop procrastinating on my taxes, and I will tithe and really and truly dedicate my life to you." But bargaining is cheap prayer. I wouldn’t like it if I was God. Just talk to me straight up, don’t change your ways on my account. It is as if God is the battered wife, falling for the "I won’t do it again" line one more time.

Ok, Ok, but I do need to confess my sins. You know them already, better than I do, but I am asking for forgiveness…and forgiveness means letting me live. Ok, I know, I drop that last part. Who am I to say what forgiveness means?

Actually, this is really selfish, but I haven’t even gotten my vacation yet. I have been dreaming of surfing in Costa Rica for years. I did my time in seminary, I am about to serve you in the ministry, and I deserve this vacation. Not only do I demand to live, but I want my surf boards intact as well. And I think I deserve good waves.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the captain. We are going to make a mock landing at one thousand feet, to see if everything is working alright."

"You deserve a vacation. Now that really is a petty and selfish prayer, and you have a family you are supposed to love and care for. I should crash the plane just because you have such thoughts. In fact that is why I decided to crash this plane in the first place, because you left them."

Now that would be ok, God. Maybe I do deserve to die for such thoughts, for leaving my family, but surely you could do it without taking out that nice lady and her little baby in front of me at the same time.

That is right, God is not that way, my God is not that way. I don’t know what to pray, but God is good, and I have had a good life, and life is wonderful, despite the pain and suffering. Thank you, God for life. This plane crash will not end God’s goodness or the value of life.

End. The end. Heaven, hell? Where will I go? Will I go anywhere, or will my life end right now in a burning ball of flame? Maybe that is Hell? Maybe I will see my wife and children in Heaven. No, I don’t want to, not yet anyway. Heaven is not a consolation; I am not going to fall for that. I want to continue in this life with my wife and kids, thank you very much.

Ok, so who am I talking to anyway? The air. Shouldn’t I be uniting all these people in public prayer? Me, the minister and leader? Who is God? What is God? Isn’t God more Spirit, more a force than a personality? Maybe there is just nothing, nothing more than this life of mine right now. When I die all will turn black.

But you are here, somehow, someway, you Spirit you. And you love us. You love the mothers in Guatemala. You cry with them, you struggle with them. Somehow this prayer goes out and reaches you and you translate it into the right prayer. You pray with us. You connect us.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain. We are going to attempt to land once more. Stewardesses, please prepare for landing." "Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts, place your seats and tray tables in the upright position, and put your head between your knees."

I looked over to the man next to me across the aisle. He had a picture of a child in his hand and a look of utter terror/despair on his face. I reached out my hand. Everyone did. The whole plane of people was holding hands, except for the woman holding her baby. I reached up and touched her and her baby.

The pilot dropped us like a ton of bricks. People burst out in primal screams of victory, the kind we learned long ago through fighting lions and bears and other humans and somehow surviving. And then we wept, all we macho surfers and Costa Rican cowboys, mothers and friends. We wept. We were mortal, and we knew it.

Had I lost my faith up there, the recent graduate from seminary? Was I a spiritual weakling, a fake? Now we all had to live up to our promises and bargains. I wouldn’t do it. Thanks, God, just the same. If you are out there.

Two days later my friends and I hiked into a jungle waterfall, similar to the one in the opening scene of Jurassic Park, when the helicopter lands. It stormed as we hiked down the canyon wall. We saw Giant Saba and rosewood, huge ferns the size of mobile homes, vines, orchids and a thousand other plants, birds, insects and animals. The rain stopped and sun rays shown down through the jungle canopy. I took off my clothes and dove into the pool beneath the waterfall. As I came up from my dive, water poured off my face. I felt alive, born again from the womb of creation. I lay out on a boulder, looking straight up. I wept again. I lay still, saying nothing, in prayer. Life is beautiful, and somehow I feel connected to it all. God. Thank you. You are my friend. I talk to you even when I don’t believe. I cannot do otherwise. Even my faith struggle is a prayer. I cannot do otherwise. I will pray. Amen