The path of prayer leads to worship and charity

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112618.cfm
Revelation 14:1-3, 4b-5
Luke 21:1-4

Prayer has been on my mind this past week. And after some time, finally on my lips. I experience this problem often. Reminders to do something hit my desk, or my phone, or my brain, but I let them linger. They’re like a dog staring at me, waiting for me to do something that I’m not inclined to do just that moment. Sometimes I even stare right back.

I’ve noticed I can simulate also the dogged path of walking several times in a circle to so much of what I do. I rotate around an idea or thought, either warming up the ground with my feet in order for me to formally lay down, or procrastinate in an odd solo dance, just going round and round. 

We humans call this pondering. Pondering has two affectations — to ponder and to be ponderous. We can study a thing and roll it about in our head, and we can overthink so much as to be burdened by a great weight.

Prayer is often like that. We can sidle into prayer and take time to ruminate with God, sharing thoughts and listening for his promptings; or, we can slink into it, encumbered with worry, fear and shame. In the first way, we end up laying down, comforted. In the second, we are overwhelmed, and brought to our knees. 

In both cases there seems to be too much time going on before we get personal with God. We’re slow to meet up with him. Prayer sits there, reminding us that God is available and eager and ready for us. And we just stare at it.

The transition from thinking about prayer and then praying should be simultaneous, I think. Or, at least instant — automatic attention to a conscious prompting. We see a stop sign ahead, for instance, and our feet automatically prepare for the inevitable decline in speed. Foot raised to hit the brake. We don’t even think about it. A child cries and our heart stops quickly. It’s impossible to assume any child’s cry signals nothing of importance. We automatically consider if we can help, even if we don’t have any children. Our hands reach for an innumerable list of things dropping from a table, our lap, or the wind against our hat. Even simple things like advertisement on billboards, posters, web sites, and t-shirts trigger recognition signals from our vast store of logos, words, pictures, and sounds. We’re trained in so many ways to urgently respond to a host of attention switches. Shouldn’t prayer be like that? Shouldn't we engage in prayer as an ingrained reaction, ready at every moment in time?

Perhaps I am wrong about prayer, that it should not be impulse-driven at all, but a carefully designed and coordinated activity. We should set ourselves into physical and mental position to speak to God. After aligning our fears and worries into an orderly pattern, we’re finally ready to call upon God, hoping — no, expecting — that he will hear us. How can he not attend to us if he hears us? Especially if we’re well prepared and convincing!

Oh dear. That’s not really prayer. That’s supplication. It’s OK. Kind of. Prayer is supposed to invoke a conversation, isn’t it? We listen, not just speak. 

Or, are we trained only to bother God when we’re at the end of our rope? Is that the problem I’m having with prayer? Has prayer become the last minute thing that will help us? Maybe we’re too rushed and frantic to pray. Our encounters with God, then, are respites, like going out to dinner, or to a movie, or a shopping spree. God’s a great distraction from life.

That's not what the saints say. I’ve got a rash of books on prayer, from Von Balthasar, St. JP II, Ronda Chervin, all the way to John Eldridge. They compartmentalize it, poeticize it, rationalize it, and even amortize it. Prayer’s got complicated sections and parts — innuendo, decorum, delight, and dependencies. They all say, however, that prayer can be in our every breath.

Yes, prayer has been on my mind, all through my search for a link between the two readings for this past Monday — Revelation’s chapter 14 which describes 144,000 saints singing to Jesus on the top of Mount Zion; and the back end of Chapter 24 in Matthew where the widow’s two coins of charity are called the better offering because they comprised the full lot of her wealth. The prompting about prayer doesn't seem to fit either scripture. I’ve done all this work on prayer. How does it apply here? 

In fact, 144,000 singing and adulating saints and the full-in gift by the poor widow do not represent prayer as much as worship and charity. Prayer, though, is in there someplace.

And, of course, writing it out, circling around it, studying it, and then finally mouthing off to God about the difficulty of finding why he wants me to think about prayer, I am brought to my knees. What I find out is that both pondering and being ponderously burdened are just two different parts of our prayer paths. It’s perfectly OK to wander about in circles before getting settled down. It's also OK to fall to our knees, burdened by the overwhelming blessings of God through toil, trouble, and all that he gives us to do. All these things are part of our conversation with God. Even the staring part is a just another step in prayer.

The singing folks and the widow’s coins tell us something else about prayer that is way more important than the steady and constant act of prayer through both comfort and burden. That is, that the life of prayer leads us to something both radical and awesome at the same time.

All those folks singing to God in worship at the top of a mountain signal that a whole lot has gone on before they got there. Singing to God in worship represents an outbreak of holiness. When people break into song to God they reveal that their lives have peaked. Worship is Christian nirvana, the ultimate expression of experiencing God's love. It comes, though, only after experiencing answered prayer. Well, of course, it does. How can we worship God if we haven’t felt and recognized his presence? We can’t. We can pay respectful homage, and we can perform some due diligence that seems appropriate to give to God. But respect and diligence only mean we know about him. We don’t really have any reason to worship him, unless he’s convinced us personally that’s he’s terrific. 

As far as most of us are concerned, we don’t think that God is doing things for us all day long. If we aren’t praying all day, then we don’t realize he’s involved. It’s just a logical assessment. We can’t attribute blessings and grace that’s been showered upon us if we don’t associate our day as filled with blessings and grace. 

And, frankly, we aren’t going to know we’re getting blessings and grace unless we’re putting two and two together. First, we tell God we’re worried about something, and ask if he can help us deal with it. Then he helps us, and we see that he did it and acknowledge it. Second, we need to hear that God wants us to do something for him. Then we do it. Only then can we realize how cool working with God is. The more this activity goes on, the more we begin to see that he loves us. Pretty soon we’re singing our hearts out and raising our hands, worshiping the God of the universe because we know him. It’s prayer that gets us there.

What about the widow, though? What’s her connection to prayer?

This is the most difficult part of prayer and holiness and worship. Eventually our prayer is going to reveal that God wants us completely. He wants us to depend on him. Even in the physical stuff, like money and housing and family and work and friendships. 

At first, our prayers are similar to laying down bets, or making an investment. We give God some money or time or our efforts and we watch for what God does. If the bet pays off, then we put down some more. If our investment grows, then we trust that God knows what he’s doing.

Pretty soon, though, prayer takes the betting or banking man or woman out at their knees. We are weighted down by risks returning enormous rewards. Frankly, it's an avalanche. We are unable to manage the complexities of our efforts and money and time reaping such huge rewards. We can't grasp all the ways that God is involved. God lets us get bottled up and ponderously overwhelmed on purpose, in order to keep drawing us closer to him. We can't escape his love. 

The big question isn’t are we going to win or are we going to be prosperous in our endeavors. We need to drop the risk/reward and investment/growth volley with God. The big question is are we willing to let go of everything for God. Can we trust him with every part of our life without holding anything back?

The woman with only two coins comprising her wealth shows how that works. She knows through a life of prayer experiences, and holiness through unashamed worship. God is waiting for her to completely trust him in all things. She’s not betting or investing at all. She living out the results of answered prayer and desired holiness. “You take it all, God.”

Giving God everything we have, without worry about our future or our physical and financial holdings, can only be done after a certainty that God is fully in charge and knows our needs. This is only possible from a steady string of constant answered prayers. That’s why Jesus was so excited when he said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”

Jesus is not berating the wealthy who are giving of their surplus. He is pointing out where the process of giving will lead us. He thanks everyone for whatever they give. He glorifies the one who gives everything.

So, as we stare at our prayerful promptings, God’s constant blessings and graces will eventually draw us to him. We will realize he answers our prayers, whether through pondering conversations or the ponderous weight of our brooding. We will be both comforted and brought to our knees over the weights of our risks and investments in a total relationship to God.

We will do this until eventually we can be free as the holy widow.