For fourteen months now, I have been longing to talk about prayer, really talk about it. I heard something in church, when I first started attending a confessional Lutheran church, that truly disturbed me. What I have heard since and what I have experienced confuses me. But that conversation has been put off time and time again. And so I wait.
While I have waited, I have wondered more, grown more confused, and sometimes questioned if I even know a single thing that is true and right about prayer.
A while ago, someone pointed out Hebrews 7:25 to me: Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. Christ is always praying for us, for me! That was new to me, welcome news, and something I cling to rather tightly, a promise I dare to believe. And Pastor F pointed out that Christ is our "yes and amen," as found in 2 Corinthians 1:20: For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. Remember how he prayed Psalm 51 with me during confession?
Create in me a clean heart, O God (yes and amen)
and renew a right spirit within me. (yes and amen)
Cast me not away from your presence, (yes and amen)
and take not your Holy Spirit from me. (yes and amen)
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, (yes and amen)
and uphold me with your free Spirit. (yes and amen)
Since that night with him, I have never been able to read this portion of the Psalter, to pray it, without hearing him repeat "yes and amen" in the stead of Christ after every line. Heady stuff. Sobering. Exulting. I have a list of things I cherish more than life itself. That night, this lesson, is near the top of the list.
So, perhaps I know two things about prayer. SIGH.
As I recorded earlier, my confusion over prayer grew exponentially during Lent, for so many sermons seemed to make it a work...and a work at which we fail. But, I protest, this is the ONE thing I happen to think I don't fail at because how can you fail at talking to God???? Kleinig's section on prayer in Grace Upon Grace was just fodder for that fire. SIGH. [Note: Lest you think I discount the worth of that book, Kleinig's lessoning on how our Christian life is actually a life of reception is on my list.]
I shall not try to write out the turmoil in my heart where prayer is concerned, for it will only frustrate me further, but I shall add to my observations that I have stockpiled here in my online journal.
A while ago, I was talking with a younger woman who asked me what I wanted in a husband. [Yes, I burst out with a great big guffaw of disbelief at her question for the husband ship has most certainly sailed for me.]
During the conversation, it came out that she would be rather open to an arranged marriage and had even approached the idea with her father, I think in an off-hand manner. I get the impression he didn't want to touch her love life with a 10-foot pole. What father would these days? Yet she is serious. I, for my part, was a bit dumb-founded that I am not alone in that opinion. I oft have told others they are free to find me a husband. I am rather certain they thinks I am joking. I am not. Arranged marriages have survived for thousands of years and they were not all bad. If two confessional Lutherans were open to it, open to sharing a life in Christ, would that be such a bad thing if someone who knew them both put them together?
Ah, but I digress.
Do you know what her number one requirement for a husband is? Guess. Nope, not a face to rival a Greek god. Not a love of football. Not a willingness to do dishes. Her number one requirement is that he would pray with her.
A husband who will pray with his wife!
Her parents do not pray together. Her father is pastor and her parents do not pray together. When she mentioned that little fact, you could have blown me over with a feather. An undershepherd doesn't pray with his bride? Ever?
This is not, by the way, the first time I have heard of a Christian husband and wife who do not pray together. Nor is it the first hearing this amongst my new Lutheran brothers and sisters. Actually, praying together, whether married or not, just doesn't really seem to be all that popular outside the Bible belt. Definitely not praying aloud together. Certainly not spontaneous prayer. That just bloody boggles my mind!
[Maybe that is why I adore Pizza Man and his Lovely Bride so very much! It is not because they actually like me and enjoy my company (that still boggles my mind given my utter failure to be social, to be a human being these days), but that they will read the Living Word with me, sing hymns with me, and at least "do" liturgy with me, such as Responsive Prayer 2.]
In some ways, I have learned it is rude, intrusive even, to ask a Lutheran brother or sister to pray with you. Will you pray for me? Is translated: Will you pray for me some time later, when you are praying in private? Even with pastors, I have learned you most often have to add "now" to the question. Will you pray for me now? But even that does not always seem to be welcome amongst undershepherds I have met.
When I was teaching at a Christian college north of the Mason Dixon line, who's motto is Christ preeminent, I discovered a long-standing dissension between two departments: elementary education and secondary education. A grand canyon of a chasm really. Woe to anyone from one department who ever got caught having lunch with someone from the other! When I learned of this difficulty, I suggested we have joint faculty meetings to open the lines of communication, to let each department gain greater insight to the needs of the other. "That will never work. You'll understand when you've been here long enough." My next suggestion was that we at least start praying together. "That will never work. You'll understand when you've been here long enough." Apparently, Christ preeminent includes feuds and does not include prayer. Words cannot express my sorrow upon learning this "truth."
My heart was filled with sorrow for that woman's parents. And for her. She never saw her parents pray together. I didn't ask, but I am assuming she never prayed with them together either. Maybe I am wrong about that. Maybe, as parents, they prayed together, but just not husband and wife. Still, in her voice, I heard this naked longing for the fellowship of prayer.
"If a man cannot pray with me, does not want to pray with me, I won't marry him. Period."
I had quipped that any man I married had to love the Book of Concord. But then, listening to her, I changed my mind, because I could easily woo him to that given time. I agree with her. Above all else, if a man does not want to pray with a woman or a woman does not want to pray with a man, they should not marry. For how, pray tell me, can they be one flesh in Christ if they share not that which brings them to Christ?
But maybe I am completely and absolutely wrong. After all, my grandparents always slept in separate beds. Antique twin beds. Now, the birds and the bees tell me that at least twice they consummated their marriage, but they did not share a bed. Perhaps it is possible for a man and a woman to be husband and wife, to be one flesh in Christ, and never approach their high priest together...apart from when they sit side by side on the Lord's Day when all are united together in prayer.
I have thought that growing up in a confessional Lutheran home must be the most wonderful thing on earth. Oh, to share my faith, to share the Living Word, our confessions, and prayer, with my family! I have thought being in a Christian marriage, even knowing relationships are hard, would be truly amazing. Oh, to share my faith, to share the Living Word, our confessions, and prayer, with another! Now, as with prayer, I am no longer sure about either of those things.
Being in a Lutheran family, be it as a child or a spouse, does not guarantee the fellowship of the Living Word, the fellowship of our confessions, the fellowship of prayer. Even being a pastor's daughter, this woman did not have a copy of the Book of Concord, though she is sure her father has one somewhere.
[She owns one now! I must say, another great discouragement of mine has been discovering how many confessional Lutherans, even pastors, do not actually read the confessions, are not even sure of what they say aside from things they might have learned in church over the years, much less own a copy. Given that both parishes in which I have been a part do not have a single class or bible study on the Confessions (one did have a monthly read aloud but not systematic instruction), given that a third parish failed to garner more than a single participant for a class on one section of the Book of Concord, and given that I have heard several Lutherans tell me they were catechized and confirmed without studying the Book of Concord or even the Small Catechism, I guess this is just par for the course. DEEP, TROUBLED SIGH]
As if my hopes have not been dashed enough lately, another person told me about an upcoming dinner with Lutheran pastors. I was green with envy, visions of long conversations filled with the Living Word and our confessions. When I mentioned as much, I learned that actually they were not very confessional, so no such thing would be taking place.
I guess, once again, I have failed to recognize and to appreciate the riches I have in my life, the feast I have been given in knowing Brother Goose, Pastor F, and my two parish pastors, and in the "pages" of the confessional Lutheran pastors whose blogs are linked up to the left. I truly am an ungrateful wretch, a Gospel-greedy, ungrateful wretch.
Hence, also,
He is able to save
forever
those who draw near to God
through Him,
since He always lives
to make intercession
for them.
For as many as may be
the promises of God,
in Him they are yes;
wherefore also by Him
is our Amen
to the glory of God
through us.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
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