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<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 For reasons not clear to me, Protestant Christians, whom I spend the most time with, seem to have some very funky notions about prayer, that are not well grounded in the Bible, or for that matter the early Jewish practice of prayer.\u00a0 And some of them are based in a very bad exegesis of what Luke 18 says and implies about prayer.\u00a0\u00a0 Luke Johnson in his fine commentary on Luke (p. 274) has this to say about the matter:<\/p>\n\u201cThe parable itself makes clear that \u2018always\u2019 does not support any technique of \u2018perpetual prayer\u2019 or method of mysticism but rather consistency and perseverance in praying. Luke-Acts emphasizes not only the prayer of Jesus but also that of the disciples (6.28;11.12; 22.40,46;Acts 1.4;2.42;3.1; 6.4,6;10.4,9,30-31;12.5,12;16.13,16,25; 20.36; 21.5; 22.17;28.8).\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n He helpfully goes on to add,\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe love of God can so easily turn into an idolatrous self-love; the gift can so quickly be seized as a possession; what comes from another can so blithely be turned into self-accomplishment. Prayer can be transformed into boasting. Piety is not an unambiguous posture.\u2026 The pious one [i.e. the Pharisee in Luke 18.1ff.] is all convoluted comparison and contrast; he can receive no gift because he cannot stop counting his possessions. His prayer is one of peripheral vision. Worse, he assumes God\u2019s role of judge: not only does he enumerate his own claims to being just, but he reminds God of the deficiency of the tax-agent, in case God had not noticed. In contrast, the tax-agent is utter simplicity and truth. Indeed, he is a sinner.\u00a0 Indeed, he requires God\u2019s gift of righteousness because he has none of his own. And because he both needs and recognizes his need for the gift he receives it\u2026.For Luke, prayer is faith in action. Prayer is not an optional exercise in piety, carried out to demonstrate one\u2019s relationship with God. The way one prays therefore reveals that relationship\u2026if prayer is self-assertion before God, then it cannot be answered by God\u2019s gift of righteousness; possession and gift cancel each other out. \u201c[1]<\/a><\/p>\n No wonder God so often answers our prayers with an emphatic NO!\u00a0 Prayer as a means of self-exaltation, self-indulgence, self-agrandizement, self-congratulation, self-promotion, or prayer used as a sort of ouija board to get what we want out of a reluctant God are all very bad, and very unBiblical models of praying.\u00a0 Thankfully, Jesus came to teach us a new model\u2014 the Lord\u2019s Prayer, which should really be called the Disciple\u2019s prayer, though interestingly Jesus seems to pray a form of this prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.\u00a0 What is noteworthy about the Lord\u2019s prayer is that it is a collective prayer, a prayer for the people to use together\u2014 \u2018give us this day\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 it says,\u00a0 \u2018forgive us\u2019\u00a0 it says.\u00a0\u00a0 We should not be praying for things for ourselves that we would not want to share with the body of Christ.\u00a0 And notice that this Lord\u2019s prayer encourages us only to pray about the basics\u2014- praising God (hallowed be thy name), asking that God\u2019s saving reign and God\u2019s will be done on earth as in heaven (not his in heaven, and our wills on earth), asking for daily bread (not, notice, lavish banquets), asking for forgiveness of sins and debts (an increasingly necessary prayer in our debtor nation), recognizing that in some mysterious way, our receiving of\u00a0foregiveness is affected by our willingness\u00a0to forgive and actually forgiving those who have wronged us, and we pray not to be put to the test, but to be delivered from the Evil\u00a0One.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is Praying\u00a0 101 for Jesus\u2019 disciples, and it does not sound like the old Janis Joplin song\u2014 \u201cOh Lord won\u2019t you buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends\u2026..\u201d<\/p>\n If we turn to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector there is yet more to ponder from this same chapter.\u00a0<\/p>\n The example of the pious Pharisee in this parable, who is no hypocrite, reminds us that prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, while all excellent religious practices commended by God and the Bible, in themselves don\u2019t make a person more \u2018spiritual\u2019 or \u2018holy\u2019. Indeed, these practices may simply make you more focused on your own needs, more hungry, and poorer!\u00a0 Much depends on the heart that uses these spiritual disciplines, and in the case of the Pharisee we are right to see a note of pride and self-centeredness in his prayer.\u00a0 The word \u2018I\u2019 keeps coming up in that prayer, and he improves his sense of self-worth by putting others down.\u00a0 It is then not the spiritual discipline itself that makes a person more holy.\u00a0 It is the humbling one\u2019s self in the sight of the Lord, being completely honest about one\u2019s sins, and pouring out one\u2019s heart with open hands to receive what God will give, that makes the difference in this story.\u00a0 Notice that the tax collector has no previous \u2018good deeds\u2019 or spiritual practices to appeal to, to make his case with God.\u00a0 It is God alone who justifies and sanctifies the man, not the spiritual practices, though God may use such practices to that end.\u00a0<\/p>\n We are always looking for a short-cut, a how too self-help manual to improve our lives, but this parable warns about how one\u2019s piety and spiritual practices can actually get in the way of your receiving what God would give, because one is in danger of thinking that the regular exercise of such practices entitles one to something, entitles one to make a claim on God, and so they become a means to a self-seeking end, rather than a means of growing in one\u2019s relationship and dependency on God and his grace. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Think on these things.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 For reasons not clear to me, Protestant Christians, whom I spend the most time with, seem to have some very funky notions about prayer, that are not well grounded in the Bible, or for that matter the early Jewish practice of prayer.\u00a0 And some of them are based in a very bad exegesis of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
[1]<\/a> Johnson, Luke,\u00a0 <\/span>p. 274.\n
[1]<\/a> Johnson, Luke, <\/span>\u00a0pp.268-69.\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"