But notice that outside of liturgical prayer, intercessory prayer (crudely
put, "asking God for stuff") plays a very small role in my life, and even the intercessory prayer I engage in at church, as
part of my liturgical responsibility, I don't really think of as trying to get God to do things, as if God will not care for
the sick or desire world peace or side with the oppressed unless I ask him to. As Luther says, God does all this even without
our prayer. In fact, I would suggest that the opposite is the case. We need to pray fervently for peace as a way of reminding
ourselves that peace is God's priority and should, therefore, also be ours. I just can no longer deal with the idea of God
as a supernatural being, like Zeus, who has to be manipulated into doing the right thing by our fancy prayers and sacrifices.
We need to be getting beyond childish things.
Soren Kierkegaard, the founder of Lutheran existentialism, felt the same way.
Here is a poem he wrote advocating a new understanding of prayer (new to Lutheran parishes--monks and mystics had been practicing
this prayer, well, for ever).
As my prayer
became more attentive and inward
I had less
and less to say.
I finally became
completely silent.
I started to
listen
—which
is ever further removed from speaking.
I then learnt
that praying is hearing,
not merely
being silent.
This is how
it is.
To pray does
not mean to listen to oneself speaking.
Prayer involves
becoming silent,
and being silent,
and waiting
until God is heard.
This is hard work. Liturgy, remember, means "work of the people." We
have to enter deeply into this silence, but also into the data of our lives (which is why the journaling component is so crucial
for me) and be open to what God is telling us. Here we can be thwarted by conventional expectations. If we assume we know
what God will say, if we put pious limits on what we will allow God to say, then silence will be merely dead air. As God said
to Isaiah: "Behold, I do a new thing." In Jesus, God did a new thing. Jews called it blasphemy and Greeks called it atheism--they
were deaf because of their expectations, because of their theology. Theology, dogma, can be a barrier against God. John Philip
Koehler, an important Midwestern theologian of the early 20th century, said that dogma can impede Gospel. Then we need to
silence our dogmatic certainties and re-enter the silence and wait for God to speak.
So far in the 21st century, religion has been a reactionary force--retreating
to 19th century fundamentalism or worse. But the way forward is forward. We may be scared, but God is not. Be silent and deep
in your heart that capacity for love and justice will open up and speak; that form of courage that we call faith will rise
up again to meet new challenges. The old wine skins are tearing, but as in the past, so today we will find God doing a new
thing. As Christopher Fry said, events are now soul-size. A progressive, joyous, fearless Christianity is waiting to be born.
The fear-mongers who use religion to hold us back must be firmly resisted. We will become new Christians and we will pray
and work, and God will come to us anew.
