THE PRAYERS OF JESUS: PRAYER IN THE LONELY PLACES

(Preached on Sunday, February 29, 2004)

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.                                                                                                          -Luke 4:1-2a

 

“Miss Watson, she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing came of it.  She told me to pray everyday, and whatever I asked for I would git it.  But it warn’t so.  I tried it.  Once I got a fish line but no hooks.  It warn’t any good to me without hooks.  I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work.  By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool.  She never told my why, and I could never make it out no way.  I set down one day in the woods and had a long think about it.  I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Wynn get back the money he lost on pork?  Why can’t Miss Watson fat up?  No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothin’ to it.”  Such is the reflection of Mark Twain, through his character Huckleberry Finn, on the practice of prayer.

 

Most of us would profess fairly easily that we believe prayer is important.

But in our honest moments, most of us would also confess that we do not pray as we should.  We are conflicted, just like Huck, over prayer.

We struggle to understand what it is all about, how it works, how to pray.

Modern people, we don’t want to seem superstitious.

Religious people, we don’t want to appear too secular.

Mostly we are uncomfortable with prayer.

Yet, something deep inside stirs in us and we understand that prayer is important.

 

This is not a new struggle.

The early followers of Jesus asked him “teach us to pray.”  And he did.

Not just with the words of that prayer that has come to be called the Lord’s Prayer, but through many other teachings and by numerous examples of practice.

The Gospels provide a surprising breadth of materials that narrate or refer to occasions when Jesus prayed and to many teachings he gave on prayer.

In fact, there is such a rich and diverse banquet on prayer that it becomes clear that Jesus did not just say prayers some of the time.  He was prayer all of the time.

It was, and is, not just a good idea, it is a vital practice for one who wishes to be closely connected to God, the source and sustainer of life.

 

So, over the next few weeks, leading up to and including Easter Sunday, we will embark on a journey exploring some of those practices and teachings of Jesus on prayer.

It is my prayer that this exploration will help us all deepen our own practices of prayer and help us resolve some of our struggles and confusions about prayer.

 

One of the first things we notice about Jesus and his practice of prayer is that he often sought out the solitude of lonely places.  Over and over again the gospel writers mention Jesus going out to a lonely place to pray.  Last week we heard of him taking three disciples on a mountain hike to get away and pray.

This week we hear of the Holy Spirit, immediately after his baptism by John, leading him into the wilderness for a time of solitude and prayer.

 

The first thing we learn from this is that Jesus had a deep need to be alone, silent and still, simply because he was human.

Henri Nouwen pointed out that “A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive” and, I might add, shallow, dissipated and lacking in any sense of direction.

The busier life is, the more need there is for a still center; a place deep within us to which we can withdraw after the day-to-day buffeting and storms; a place where we can reflect on experience and try to make sense of life; a place where we can mull over events and savor them more fully; a place where, above all, we can listen ... to what others are saying verbally or non-verbally, to what our feelings and fears are saying to us, and to what God is saying through circumstances, through people, through creation and through God’s word spoken in the depth of our being.

 

To cultivate that inner space where we can go on a daily basis, we need to take whatever opportunities we can find to experience solitude and being alone.

We can do that with retreats, or planning a quiet day from time to time, or by choosing deliberately to take a solitary walk or drive, or by sitting quietly in a garden, park or church when we know we will be undisturbed.

 

Some people are unnerved by too much silence.

They feel it is not for them.

But if we can learn to befriend the silence it can be transforming.

Gerard Hughes discovered this spending a month in complete solitude on a small island off the coast of Scotland with no access to telephone, mail, TV, newspapers or radio.  He had total silence, except for the sound of wind, waves and the gulls overhead.  He writes: “Sitting, watching, gazing became the patter of my days.  The beauty and peace of this lovely isle began to take hold of me.  It was like an inner cleansing of the mind and senses. ...The island silence was of a different kind.  I did not ‘practice’ silence; it took hold of me.  Prayer became much less of an exercise and more of a repose.  God is everywhere and God is mystery.”

 

So solitude in the lonely place is one way we can reconnect with God and with what is important.

The second thing we can learn about Jesus’ prayer in the lonely places is not to fear the lonely places.

The desert is one of the Bible’s most powerful images.

It is the place of terror and trial; the place where you come to God but you also come to yourself; the place of vision and prophetic insight; the place where you discover your identity and vocation; the place where the spiritual struggle ism ore intense.  The desert was the place of testing for Abraham, Jacob, Moses and the Israelites searching for the Promised Land, for Elijah.

In the desert Jesus faced all the horror of self-questioning and self-doubt, the temptation to enter the power game and ensure success for his mission, to attract attention and win converts through sensational methods, to take the enticing path of compromise which would provide an escape clause to suffering.

 

We need to remember that the desert, the lonely place, is not just a physical place.

We have many such places in our lives: emotional deserts when relationships don’t work out; bodily deserts due to illness, accident, germs and viruses, genetics, age; vocational deserts, economic deserts, social deserts, even spiritual deserts.

At such times the questions surface: “Am I? Am I really a child of God?  Or do I entertain illusions of grandeur?  Certainly God does not love me...?

We can push these questions aside in our busyness, but they won’t just go away.

They lurk around to pop up again when we are feeling particularly weak, or in the face of a crisis.

At such times of testing, perhaps the last thing we want is solitude.

We’d rather keep the pain at bay by immersing ourselves in more activity.

Yet, it is actually in solitude and silence, as we spread our doubts before God, without any attempt to wrap them up nicely, that we receive confirmation of our relationship with God, that we really are beloved children of God.

 

Frightening as it may be, going through the testing of the lonely places sifts us and helps us come to better know ourselves.

Jesus knew who he was, knew what kind of person he was.

He was one who knew that life was more than bread alone, one who worshiped God and served only God, one who did not put God to the test.

He knew who he was because he wasn’t afraid to enter the lonely places to pray.