The Spirit Helps Us

In public prayer, things need to be laid out much more carefully, so that others can be drawn in, can follow the line of thought , can give their assent, their Amen.

So in the classroom situation we have looked at the form of prayer used in the brief Prayer of the Day and elsewhere, we have discovered the basic pattern behind them, and then we have tried to compose prayers that follow that pattern.

It is work, but it is worthwhile work.

We work at conversation skills with companions, and even introverts like me can improve.

In like manner, we need to work on our conversational skills with God which we call prayer.

We have used some of our efforts in the sessions of The Way.

It is an excellent exercise, one which we can continue to practice

For the past 12 years we have offered the opportunity of singing Morning Prayer together each weekday morning at 9:00 A.M. in the chapel.

We have been learning the discipline of praying the Psalms, and naming persons and causes in prayer.

We have from one to fifteen persons engaged in this time of prayer.

It continues to be a wonderful time, and I do wish that many more would take advantage of it.

We develop all of these things in the practice of conversation with God, which involves both our speaking clearly what we mean to say, and also listening intently for God's responses and directions which may come in a variety of forms.

But there are times...

there are times when all of our attempts at prayer seem to fall short,

when all of our practicing and clear speaking simply fall to silence.

What should we be saying in prayer about Palestinians and Israelis, and Syrians?

--The various sides claim to be defending truth.

--We know that “peace” which we try to use in prayers is much larger than the absence of bullets flying.

--It involves everything and everyone in their proper relationship with each other, and all those involved in that situation are a long way from that.

--How can one balance the cries for justice, and life from Palestinian Christians and orthodox Israelis, secular Israelis, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslims, Druse, Syrian Christians, and more.

--Claims on all sides go back many generations; there is right and wrong all over the place.

What are we to say in prayer?

An uneasy silence falls on us.

Or, what does one say when asked to pray for the opening of a new hotel?

Would one pray for a good profit for the builders?

Or that only honorable things go on in the rooms? Or what?

Or, for what do we pray when we walk into a hospital room where we know that a diagnosis of cancer was just given?

One pastor wrote down the dialog this way:

Said the patient, “I need some help!”

“What kind of help,” responded the pastor.

“For what should I pray? Do I pray for healing?

--Why me and not everyone else in the hospital?

--If I am healed, I can do good things at church, in the community, etc.

--But isn't that being like a kid who promises anything to God, in order to get out of a jam.

--And who am I, anyway, to be making this prayer to to God, because I've wandered around.

I have a lousy prayer life.

How dare I come like a blithering idiot demanding anything from God?”

What do we pray there, in the face of that insight?

Our tongue gets twisted as we try to sort it out.

There will simply be times that we fall into confused silence.

And that is the time that we need to her the good word from Paul in Romans today.

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought...”

If the purpose of our prayer-conversation is to shape us into the will of the Father, we are quite right to be hesitant, and do lots more listening than talking.

Our prayers need to have a very large measure of the prayer that Jesus used in the garden of Gethsemane:

“Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done....”

To pray like Jesus is hard, for it mans that prayer is not simply a means of getting what we want, but of getting what God wants!

It is an audacious idea that prayer might be effective, that is, that our will is shaped by the will of God.

It is properly with fear and trembling that we even attempt it.

But Jesus asks us to pray.

Jesus also gives us the model for prayer.

So we will attempt it, we'll dare it, as youth and as senior adults, and everyone in between.

There will be times when we falter in prayer, when we don't know what is best for us to pray.

But all is not lost, for we have a Pentecost promise from the Lord Jesus, who sends the Spirit to help.

When we cry “Abba, Father,” it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep deep for words.”

The hymn that we sing next is prayer in song; prayer for catechetical students and all of us, that the Holy Spirit will carry us when we are silent and help us as we speak.

It is the backing we need and the confidence for living this day and always. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.