1 Samuel 1:9-11; Luke 22:39-46
June 11, 2023
- Exploring Prayer of Petition
There is an expression in golf – you drive for show but putt for dough. Then, there are the rest of us who flail clubs around. I subscribe to the “monkeys writing Shakespeare” golf theory: if you swing the club enough times, eventually you will hit a good shot. Golfing legend, Bobby Locke, however, came up with the actual quote about driving and putting. He was known for his putting, and the idea is pretty simple: everyone likes the big, impressive drives that make for beautiful picture-worthy shots, but that stroke at the tee box counts just as much as that 3-foot putt on the scorecard. While the big and impressive is big and impressive, it is actually the smaller and simpler and more mundane that tends to count. Or in another way of thinking, I feel pretty confident saying that you have had some great meals in your life, big and impressive and showy meals, but what sustains you, what carries you and nurtures you, what is essential to your life is the simpler and more normal food of everyday life.
Last week in our series on prayer, we took a look at what can seem the grandest and most uplifting of prayer, the prayer of praise and adoration to God. That kind of prayer is like standing up on the mountaintop of life and opening your heart in joy before God. Those times are heaven bent and wonderful and necessary for sharing in God’s glory, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that today we find the most important, the most helpful, and the most valuable kind of prayer – the prayer of petition, …the prayer for help.
Having said that, I need to admit that all of the kinds of prayer are connected, and none of them are really meant to be separated. You can flow from one to another with just a change of thought, and I bet you weave together elements from all the ways of praying in your own prayer. We often start out praying with praise and glory. Jesus does the same in his example prayer: Our Father who is in heaven; holy is your name. But the reason most of us pray is because we are in need, and boy, do we have a lot of need. We think of prayer most often as prayer of petition.
The two passages today are important prayers of petition. I love the prayer of Hannah who is begging God for the ability to have a child. Sadly, her worth as a woman and wife culturally back then was tied to her ability to have children, and even though her husband Elkanah did not feel that way at all, she still desperately wanted to have a child. She wanted one so badly that she seems to negotiate with God: I do not even need to keep the child for myself but will dedicate him to the Lord and for the Lord’s service. Of course, that child who does come is the prophet, priest, and judge Samuel. He is a huge character in Israel in the years leading up to the kings, and he was fiercely loyal to God. This prayer points us in that direction. This kind of prayer with this kind of passion makes sense to lead us to this kind of zealous servant of the Lord that we have in Samuel. You can hear the emotion in Hannah’s voice. She is going at the prayer so intensely that Eli the Priest assumes that she is intoxicated. I have always found that detail to be interesting for how it shows how much her heart is in this prayer, so much so that her words are not clear but are running this way and that.
Our other example of prayer of petition today is even more passionate and even more intense, if possible. We have Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives just before his arrest and execution. It is the last evening of his life. This hill overlooks the Temple and feels close enough to Jerusalem to reach out and touch it. There Jesus is pouring out his heart in anguish. His words are short and simple, according to Luke. What is recorded is not some long prayer like others we will see, but Luke gives us the detail we need to appreciate Jesus’ state of mind. He is so racked with the enormity of what he is about to do that he asks God the Father for ANY other way to do this. He is sweating in some way that it looks like he is bleeding (whatever that means), but it is clearly far from normal. What is laid out for Jesus is the worst possible road for him. He knows that, but this is also the greatest statement of love that God can give us, and Jesus knows that, too, so he agrees with whatever the Father wants, but it is the opposite, opposite, opposite of easy.
Since prayer is the lifeblood of the children of God, we must live for prayer and pray to live. We have no life without prayer. When was the last time you prayed for God’s help, for God to assist with something in your life? Hopefully, it is not right now asking God for help getting through this sermon, but it could be right now in light of the tragedy of this week. That horrible violence that marred Huguenot’s graduation last week is something that should have made its way into our prayers. At some point, we will wake up as a nation and see our children in the faces of those who are senselessly murdered in gun violence. It hurts us all to see life destroyed. We were ourselves personally troubled by this tragedy. I know many of you are wrestling right now in the throes of illness and injury. You are struggling mightily in such a way that calling for God’s help is crucial. We have losses, disappointments, hurts, brokenness such that if you turn around too quickly, you will bump into some additional need for help. Some might have historically said that you leave your troubles at the door when you come to church. Here is God-time when you can devote all of your attention to the worship of God, but I say bring all of your troubles. This is where we hold these things out for God’s grace. We need God’s help.
In fact, if I could change the name of the church, I would. I would propose that we change the name to Farmville Presbyterian Hospital. This is a place where people come who are looking for help. We cannot give every kind of help, but this is not a place for people who already have it all together or who already have things figured out or who already have their needs met. On the airplane, if the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling, you are supposed to put yours on first before assisting others. I get that, but here we are trying to help each other as we muddle along. We grow together; we help together; we hurt together; and we pray together.
Our prayers do not all have to be in tragedy or suffering, however. We may just need a change. In fact, that is really what this kind of praying is all about. The way things are is not what we need. We need better; we need God’s help to find a future. Something is pressing us in ways that cause us concern or worry. Things can easily be threatening and worth raising for God’s help.
If you have ever looked for change yourself, I hope you noticed that it was not easy. No one looks for change unless it is needed. Even needed change is hard to accept. When I was diagnosed as diabetic, the natural, obvious, and needed response was to change my diet. Anyone who has been in that situation knows how hard that is. That is a great opportunity, however, to pray for God’s help. This prayer when we need God’s righteous help or change is where the rubber meets the road. This prayer is a statement of faith that God can help and wants to help and will help. Prayers of petition demand greater faith and God walking with us into greater faith. As we enter times of distress and crisis and change with prayer for help, we keep our hearts open to finding that help in God. That help might not look like the help we want or think we need. I am mindful of the many, many Jews who were feverously praying to God to be delivered from the Nazis in the holocaust, and it just didn’t happen. God was not going to undo the free-will of the Nazis, but God did work for change and help through those who were willing to step in to help or even to fight. Anne and I are working through the HBO series Band of Brothers and that group of paratroopers who marched where many of us would have feared to go for the sake of something bigger than themselves. Thank you, Easy Company and the many others who sacrificed for needed change.
Even the Call to Worship today is a prayer of petition from David praying to God to save a baby’s life, the baby being born from his affair with Bathsheba. God’s help came in David learning how to repent for the evil he unleashed on that family. Yes, our prayer of confession is also this very same kind of prayer. We need help for the wrongs we have done. We need God’s grace and forgiveness and the ability to grow back together as God’s children from the brokenness we have done.
Pray with me…
God of the Ages who hears us, hear us now as we turn our flailing lives to your strong help. There are so many things that trouble us and cause us to pause and keep us up at night. So many of us or our loved ones are facing challenges that could easily be life or death. There are decisions to be made and paths to be prepared, but we struggle to see the straight and narrow. We need to know that you are with us in all of this. Help us, Lord God, and give us your strength, your healing, your confidence, your wholeness, your patience, and your wisdom. Give us your Spirit to face whatever it is that gives us reason to pray. Show us your faithfulness and your steadfast love. In your holy name, we pray. Amen.
What’s one thing that God has done to help you? What’s one way that you have received God’s goodness? What is one way that you still need to know God’s good help? THAT’S your prayer! That’s your petition! You are there. Just tell God the depths of your hurting or worried heart. There you go. Prayer is our life, our breath, and our heart. Thank you for praying with me today to the glory of God. Amen.