“Lord,
increase our faith,” the disciples asked Jesus. That was two thousand
years ago, but can we make the same request today? Is that in fact what
we’ve come to church this morning requesting?
Lord,
increase our faith in these uncertain times of global proportions.
Increase our faith when car bombs are driven into groups of children.
Increase our faith in light of ecological disasters that threaten our
planet.
Increase our faith when Arabs and Jews are still at each other’s
throats after 3,000 years.
Lord, increase our faith in the face of such economic disparity and
wrongdoing.
Increase our faith as we deal with troubled relationships, or children
who are fearful for whatever reason, or because we have cancer, or because
someone we love has cancer, or because we struggle with addictions,
or heartaches of every stripe and variety.
Lord, increase our faith that you are there, that we can find you there,
and if not there then perhaps here.
Steven White who is the Episcopal Chaplain at Princeton shares his struggle
with faith in light of his 21-year-old daughter’s death. He says,
It
came to me that the kinds of prayers I was saying—or, more precisely,
screaming in my heart—could best be summarized this way, “Listen,
Lord, your servant speaks.” It further came to me that I had
it wrong; I had it backwards. The prayer that I needed to be praying
instead of “Listen, Lord, your servant speaks,” was “Speak,
Lord, your servant listens.”
The fundamental
problem I was wrestling with—and I don’t think I’m
alone in this—was whether my prayer was intended to change God
or whether it was intended to change me. The more I tried to change
God, the more frustrated I got, and the only measure of peace I’ve
been able to garner has come from my feeble attempts to let my prayer
change me—to let God change me. It boils down to a crisis of faith:
do I have enough faith to move mountains and do I have enough faith
to accept that God is working for the good of us all, even in the midst
of senseless and horrible tragedy?
Theologians argue this point, namely the effect our prayers have on
God over and against the inevitability of bad things happening to good
people, the question of why God allows evil to exist. Some theologians
say that God’s creation is a continuing work in progress and that
we, through our prayer, are active participants in this process of change
and transformation. William Barkley, the great evangelical Biblical
scholar, says,
If we
approach a thing saying, “It can’t be done,” it will
not; if we approach it saying, “It must be done, the chances are
that it will. We must always remember that we approach no task alone,
but that with us there is God and all God’s power.
Another
Biblical scholar, Walter Wink, says, “History belongs to the intercessors,
who believe the Future into being.”
And Jesus
himself in response to the request of the apostles to increase their
faith says,
If
you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this tree,
“Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey
you.
So it
is that we might approach our prayer life and our belief that faith
and prayer can make a huge difference when we say, “Listen, Lord,
your servant speaks.”
Other
theologians, however, view the evil acts of sinners and the capriciousness
of nature as givens in the Created Order and that prayer cannot shield
us from those consequences. Instead it is for us to approach God with
humility and the knowledge that we are nothing without God, and that
as Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “All of the pain and
suffering of this life are as nothing compared with the peace and joy
in God’s eternal presence that await us after this life.”
This view would require us to pray, “Speak, Lord, your servant
listens.”
It would
be my guess that instead of approaching this as an either/or question
that we approach it as a both/and question. For while I believe it’s
true that God is under no obligation to answer my prayer as I want that
prayer answered, it is also true that prayer conveys power, that prayer
changes things, that prayer creates a climate of possibilities. I believe
that God wants us to ask for greater faith. I believe God wants us to
ask for the healing of the world, or even just the healing of one person.
And while it’s true that while God doesn’t always answer
our prayers the way we want God to, prayer itself is an act of faith
that God is out there somewhere, listening.
But while
I believe prayer can effect change outside myself, I also know how much
God simply wants some time to visit. Remember the experience of Martha
and Mary when Jesus came to visit, with Martha playing the role of chief
cook and bottle washer while Mary sits in the living room having a conversation
with Jesus. Martha is upset and Jesus tells her in essence that while
Martha’s gifts are appreciated and necessary, Mary is the one
who has chosen the better way. That little parable tells me that God
will enjoy my presence and availability if I can but allow myself to
enjoy God’s presence and availability. This is prayer in which
we don’t ask for anything, but instead says, “Speak, Lord,
your servant listens.”
Steven White concludes,
For
it is true that prayer not so much changes God as it changes us. By
entering into silence before God and bringing before God all our joys
and all our anguish, we are changed by the awareness that God is closer
to us than we thought, that God is very near and very present. And
knowing that—even just for a fleeting moment—changes everything.
Amen.
