TOWARD A LANGUAGE OF REVERENCE: PRAYER
February 18, 2007 The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
Last week I began a series on the concept of a “language of reverence,” taken from our UUA president Bill Sinkford’s suggestion that we must develop such a language if we are to enter into meaningful dialogue with those of other faith traditions. And actually, I have been saying for a long time that I wasn’t willing to give up much of traditional religious language just because some religions have twisted the meaning; I have wanted to broaden our understanding of words as God, spirit, prayer, worship, and even the word “religion” itself – in many cases leading us back to the original meaning of the words.
I realize, as I delve further into this subject, that what we’re talking about isn’t really words, but rather concepts. My hope throughout my ministry has been that we Unitarian Universalists can enlarge our concepts of these words, Indeed, I know that’s been occurring among more traditional religious traditions. I once knew a Lutheran minister who spoke of the Trinity not as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. He admitted, however, that he couldn’t talk that way to his congregation!
And so today I want to explore the concept of prayer with you. Some of you will remember that I spoke about Prayer about a year-and-a-half ago, at which time I asked the question, “How do UUs pray?” And my answer came from a number of you who responded to an e-mail I’d sent, asking you to share your stories with me. The result was fascinating and inspiring – fascinating because I learned that prayer is not an anathema to all UUs; and inspiring because so many of you had found ways to make prayer a meaningful part of your life, and the lives of your families.
But I can fully understand the resistance to Prayer as a Unitarian Universalist practice; we have all seen instances of its mis-use. I think that probably one reason I left the Episcopal church was because I saw people going to Confession on Saturday, receiving Communion on Sunday, and then ignoring the teachings of Jesus from Monday through Friday. Or maybe it was simply because I myself took the Prayer of Confession so lightly!
As I recall, in order to receive Holy Communion on Christmas or Easter, we’d need to go to Confession the day before. I’d sit in a tiny cubicle and speak through a veiled window in the wall separating me from the tiny cubicle Father Smith sat in. The process would begin with a prayer to God: “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned;” and then would follow a list of my sins since the last time I’d been to Confession. I always used a guide from a prayer book that suggested all kinds of acts that could be considered sinful; so I think my list was always pretty long. (Once, while waiting outside the church for our mother to finish her confession, I happened to find the piece of paper on which my older sister had written her sins. She’d only listed three, which must have made me mad, because I then announced to my brother what her sins had been; I got in big trouble for that!)
After listing all my sins, Fr. Smith might talk to me a bit about them, and then he’d tell me what my “penance” was – usually just to say a few Hail Mary’s and ask God for forgiveness. I don’t think it made much of an impression on me.
But the Prayer of Confession can be powerful, and it does not require a belief in some transcendent “Other” to be meaningful. Rather, it is a time to look closely at ourselves – to ask the tough questions of how we have lived our life, and how we have treated those with whom we’ve come in contact. This is why, in the Jewish tradition, it is the final prayer one is to offer at day’s end; it is a time for self-reflection.
And while in the Christian faith, one is required only to confess to and ask forgiveness from God, in the Jewish faith, one is required to ask forgiveness of those we have harmed. It’s important to make amends with God, true; but it is equally important to make amends to our fellow humans – to repair broken relationships.
Perhaps you read the article in yesterday’s L.A. Times about the woman who met with the man who had killed her husband while driving drunk. An example of what’s called
“restorative justice,” it was a deeply moving piece about the possibilities for transformation when we are able to admit our brokenness and ask for forgiveness.
In that story, the man responsible for the death of another confessed his tragic transgression; and the victim’s wife reached a place of acceptance and forgiveness. Both were transformed by the experience; both can now use their experience to help others heal the brokenness in their lives.
Many of us have become cynical about prayers of Petition, where one asks God to provide help, or even material wealth. Too often these prayers sound selfish and trite – more about what one wants for oneself, no matter how it might affect another.
I have long questioned the theology of those who say they survived a terrible earthquake or hurricane or other disaster because they prayed for help, and God answered their prayers. What about all those who prayed to the same God, and didn’t survive? Were they somehow less worthy of God’s saving grace?
But I am especially cynical of the prayers of petition for something like finding a parking space (as one of my mother’s friends use to do, claiming she always found one because of her prayers!), or winning the lottery, or any number of other benefits that just seem like a waste of God’s time, given all the really urgent problems of the world!
My sister, after watching the UCLA basketball game yesterday, told me of some player (I don’t remember if he’d been a UCLA player or not) who used to make the sign of the cross every time he was about to make a “free throw;” but he still always missed the basket. He finally received a call from his church, asking him to stop making the religious gesture before each throw, as it was giving the church a bad name! (pause)
But prayers of petition don’t have to be simply about getting something for oneself; in fact, that’s never been the intention of prayer, no matter what the tradition.
Ralph Waldo Emerson told the story of his conversation with a farm worker about prayer. The farm worker said to Emerson, “People don’t understand prayer. If they did, they would know that we pray all the time.” This apparently became a core idea for Emerson. “We pray without ceasing,” he wrote, because “every secret wish is prayer; every desire of the human mind is a prayer uttered to God and registered in heaven.”
With that in mind, every hope we express for our children; every cry we utter for the earth; every longing we carry for peace…is a prayer.
UU minister Bruce Southworth once said that, “Prayer is a dialogue with life – with life’s deepest murmurings. It doesn’t change things;” he said; it changes people, and people change things.” So each time we think or express our prayers of hope or longing, we ourselves are transformed – and move a step closer to transforming the world.
So perhaps prayer is really simply about Love – about opening ourselves to its presence, and extending it beyond ourselves; and that can take many forms.
The night before I was to have pretty major back surgery over 15 years ago, a group from my congregation in Solana Beach gathered together to pray for me. I wasn’t with them, but I knew they were doing it – though I had no idea what that would entail; this was a very Humanist congregation, after all! I learned later that about a dozen of them simply sat in a circle, lit a candle, and shared their hopes for my surgery and images of my healing. The surgery was actually done in two parts, ten days apart; and before each surgery, these same people came together to “pray” in this way for me.
I do not believe that their prayers had any effect on my surgeon’s work; I do not believe that the surgery was successful because I had people praying or meditating for me. But I do believe that, knowing of the love that was being expressed for me, I went into the surgery calmer and more hopeful, and that my healing was aided by that knowledge. I believe that through their praying, they and I were changed.
Praying for someone – known as “intercessory prayer – is really nothing more than holding them in our hearts, establishing a bond between us and them, or reminding ourselves of the depth of an already-existing bond. When I ask you to keep people in your thoughts and prayers after they share their joys or sorrows here I am asking you simply to hold them in your heart. And I have had people tell me the strength it has given them to know we are doing that. It is a powerful form of praying that does not depend on any concept of god; it only depends on our love and compassion. And we are all changed by it.
But the most important form of prayer, according to early Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, is the Prayer of Thanksgiving, where one expresses gratitude for the blessings of life. Eckart said that if we utter only one prayer, it should be “Thank you.” And while Anne Lamotte suggests that we end each day with the prayer, “Thank you thank you thank you,” in Judaism we are to begin each day with gratitude, by reciting the prayer, “I give thanks to You, living and eternal God, for having restored my soul with mercy; great is Your trust.”
In the upcoming issue of the UU World, there’s a wonderful sermon written by Galen Guengerich, in which he suggests that the “heart of our faith” – the “central UU theology,” should be Gratitude. I haven’t fully read the sermon yet, as I only received it yesterday from Bonnie Norwood. But I am excited and, well, grateful for the idea. Because I do believe that when we live a life grounded in gratitude, then every other prayer grows out of that.
When we are aware of how gracious life has been to us, we want to carry others and their concerns in our heart.
When we are thankful of life’s blessings, we want to do our best to be deserving of those blessings, and so we want to examine our deepest selves, and confess our failings when we know we have fallen short.
And when we know how many “second chances” we ourselves have received, we want to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us.
It is all in response to our gratitude.
This past Friday evening, we held a potluck dinner here for people who wanted to join the church; I’m delighted to say that two people – Mary Carmen and Bruce Jacobson – signed the Membership Book that evening.
Before dinner we were all sitting around the table chatting about this and that. Somehow we began talking about Grace before meals; I said I thought it was a good idea, and was sorry we UUs so seldom included that ritual in our communal meals. Someone (I think Karen Rose!) suggested that perhaps I could say Grace right then, as we were about to get our food to eat. I must have looked surprised or even dismayed – or both, as folks began joking about it and laughing. But finally I suggested that we pause a moment, and everyone became quiet. I said that we could be thankful for the gathering of friends, old and new; for the food we were about to eat, and those who had grown and prepared it; and for the abundance in our lives. And then I said we hoped for the day when all people of the world would have the same abundance of food as we were about to share.
That spontaneous prayer of gratitude didn’t assure any of us a place in Heaven; it didn’t make us better people, or even better UUs. But it did allow us to focus for a moment on the gifts of our lives, and our hope for those gifts to be granted more equitably. And perhaps it even reminded us in that moment of our responsibility – our desire – to make that hope a reality.
For another way in which we offer our prayers of thanksgiving is through our actions. Susan B. Anthony said, “I pray every single second of my life – not on my knees, but with my work. Work and worship are one with me,” she insisted.
Every time some of you stand on the corner of Oxnard and Topanga Canyon Blvd. in witness for peace, you are praying.
Every time some of you serve food at the West Valley Food Pantry, you are praying. Indeed, we watch our children pray when they gather up the food each Sunday that has been brought for the Food Pantry; and sometimes we see Dick Patrick pray as he comes by Sunday afternoon and loads the food into his car to deliver during the week. All of that are prayers of Gratitude.
Every time one of you gives your time here at Emerson – acting as a Lay Worship Leader, raising your voices in the choir, delivering care to a member recovering from illness, creating or mailing our newsletter, working in the kitchen, greeting visitors, balancing our finances, teaching the children, sprucing up the gardens, fixing maintenance problems – the list goes on and on and on; every act of shared ministry here at Emerson is a prayer of Gratitude.
All of us offer prayers of compassion, of hope and of thanksgiving every day – sometimes with words, but more often with our thoughts of love and our deeds of compassion. We “open our whole selves…” and “pray that it will be done in beauty,” as the poet suggests.
But whether you call what you do “Prayer” isn’t what’s important. Because ultimately, as said last week: language isn’t what makes us a religious community. The point isn’t the words used, but the meaning behind our words – the compassion and authenticity with which we speak to one another.
May this church be a place where the language we use is always a language of hope and love and peace.
Amen.
© 2007 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
