Prayer Targets

            Little Johnny had been having a bad day. He got himself in trouble when he refused to share his toys, and then got into even worse trouble when he threw a temper tantrum at lunch. His mother sent him to his room for a time out and to think about his awful behavior.

          When he finally came out, he seemed a little calmer. He told his mother that he had thought over what had happened that day and then had spent some time praying about it. 

          Mom was pleased to hear this. “That was a good thing to do, Johnny,” she said. “If you tell God you’re sorry for what you’ve done, God will forgive you. And when you ask God to help you control your temper and be a better boy, God will help you do that.”

          “Oh, I didn’t ask God for any of that,” said Johnny. “I asked him to make you better at putting up with me.”

          That story comes to mind when I think of a prayer service I attended in town a couple of weeks ago. It was the week of the national day of prayer and I was invited to attend by the host pastor, who stressed that this was to be a time for Christians of all faiths to come together to pray for our community and nation. I’m all for that, so I went.

          I was the only Lutheran there, which didn’t surprise me. I was more surprised that I was asked to lead a small group in prayer during parts of the service. Mindful that this was an open invitation to Christians of all denominations, I began the prayer in my small group with thanks for the diverse gifts that God has shared with people, and invited the group to focus for the evening on just that which unites us—faith in Jesus and the message of love in the Gospel news.

          Interfaith prayer can be a tricky thing. Several members of the group were distressed by what I had said. In their prayers they stressed how important it was that we all adhere in every way to the true understanding of religion, which coincidentally happened to be theirs. They prayed for others to see the light, to forsake their misguided ways and thoughts and become true Christians. Somehow the evening got turned from us praying for the community, to them praying for people like me.

They were sincere people fiercely dedicated to serving God, and they were saying all this in the most loving way. They were offering what we would call an intercessory prayer—a prayer on behalf of another person. Normally, we think that being prayed for is a good thing. But I felt like Johnny’s mother; a little stunned that I had become the target of prayer. I can’t say that I appreciated being prayed for that night.

 

 

 

 

It made me think about intercessory prayer. About this practice of saying prayers on behalf of others.

 

I thought about it even more when I read about the results of a study showing that prayers offered on behalf of people who had no connection to the prayer and did not know they were being prayed for had no measurable impact at all. So far I haven’t noticed that the prayers offered on my behalf at that prayer service have had any effect. Knock on wood. So what are intercessory prayers? Do they have any effect, any purpose? Are they just wishful thinking?

 

The Gospel reading for the day is one that is unfamiliar to most of us. But it is a fascinating reading because of how it deals with intercessory prayer. Jesus actually says an intercessory prayer on behalf of his disciples, and on behalf of us. That’s a fascinating concept, Jesus praying for us. Usually prayers are going the other direction. Jesus praying for us—how does that work?

 

We ought to pay close attention to this, because whenever Jesus prays, he is teaching us how to pray. We are very much aware of this with the Lord’s Prayer. He offered a sample of a prayer, and his followers paid such close attention to it that the church has made it the cornerstone prayer of our existence. We often introduce it as the prayer that our Lord taught us to pray.

 

The Lord’s prayer is both an individual and corporate prayer. A prayer on behalf of ourselves, either as individuals or as a group. It is not an intercessory prayer. It is a prayer between us and God. This is how we have been taught to pray when we pray for ourselves.

 

The prayer in John 17 is different. It is a prayer offered by Jesus on behalf of other people—an  intercessory prayer. It seems to me that if we want to know how to pray an intercessory prayer, we ought to take a close look at this one. Like the Lord’s prayer, it is a prayer that our Lord taught us. This is how we should do a prayer for other people.

 

            Jesus asks three things for those who follow him:

 

The first is protection. Father, protect them by the power of your name. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.

 

It’s an interesting kind of protection Jesus prays for. When we ask for protection, we usually think of protection from the world, from the misfortunes and tragedies and hardships of life. We look for God to step down and save us from impending disaster or difficult problems or even inconvenience.

 

 

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, he says. Not that you give them special treatment or put them above others. My prayer is that the power of God will protect you from the falling into evil. From falling away from a right relationship with God. Touch them with your spirit so that they do not get coerced by all the things that pull them away from God.

 

The second thing he prays for his followers is for God to “sanctify them in the truth; your word is  truth.” In other words, he asks that they may be set apart by the knowledge of truth revealed by Christ.

 

The third petition is for unity. May they be brought to complete unity. My prayer is that they may be as one.

 

If we do not pay careful attention to what Jesus said, we can take this example and end up with a prayer just like Johnny’s or like the ones in the prayer service.

 

If we define evil as anything that WE disagree with, it is easy to pray those kinds of prayers.

If we define truth as OUR truth, it is easy to pray those kinds of prayers.

If we define unity as everyone conforming to OUR view, it is easy to pray the kind of prayers that irritate and divide and tear down.

 

But to do so is to fall into exactly the sort of evil that Jesus is praying that God protect us from in his prayer. Jesus prays for God to work within us to protect us from becoming the type of person who casts dishonor on the name of God, from being the kind of person who violates the supreme commandment to love. If you don’t think that’s what Jesus was driving at in this prayer, read verse 26.

There, at the conclusion of the prayer, Jesus explains the purpose of intercessory prayer, of praying for others:

I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. 

Prayer is making God’s love known.

 

Jesus’ prayer does not say, “Sanctify them in my truth, that they may fall in line with my will, which I will describe as truth. He says to God, Sanctify them in the truth of YOUR word.. If Jesus can express humility and give the glory to God, we might want to consider doing the same. What we express in Christianity is not our truth, we don’t have a corner on it. We walk along the paths the God shows us, as best we can see them. Others do the same. It is a humbler prayer we are asked to make: sanctify them in your truth.

 

Jesus’ prayer calls for unity, not for exclusivity. Some Christian churches use such calls for unity in the Bible to argue that we all have to be in complete agreement on all matters of doctrine and policy because Jesus demanded unity. And of course, if we’re going to be unified it will have to be under my doctrine and policy.

 

 

 

 

But what is the unity to which Jesus calls us? Verse 23: May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

            There, he’s said it twice to make sure we don’t miss it. The purpose of intercessory prayer is to make known to the world the fact the God loves them. This prayer that our Lord taught us to pray teaches us that when we pray for others, we are to pray for:

           

Protection: For the presence of God to be with others. For this presence to be a source of strength and healing in a broken world.  When God is present, strength and healing will come. Not always in the form that we want or expect, for God does not take us out of the world. But it will come. We pray for those in need of the presence of God.

Truth:  We pray that they come to know you and your love on an ever greater level, and that knowing the truth about this love will make a difference in their lives.

Unity: That they may experience the bonds of sharing and compassion and good will that we all share, because God first loved us.

 

At the beginning of the sermon, I cited a study that showed intercessory prayer had no effect on those prayed for, who didn’t know they had been prayed for. I take such studies with a grain of salt. Yet it is not surprising; in fact, it’s what you would expect to happen based on Jesus’ example of intercessory prayer:

 

Praying for others is not about sending up anonymous requests to a heavenly clearing house to be processed and then filled. Praying for others is not to be a cheap substitute for action, a farming out of all our problems to God, the professional problem solver, whom we then expect to deal with them so we don’t have to be bothered with them.  

 

According to Jesus’ example, intercessory prayer is a way of making God known to others so that the love God has for us may be in them. If a person does not know they are being prayed for, they aren’t being made aware of the love that God has for them. The prayer does not fully do what it is intended to do.

 

It was more than 40 years ago that I experienced the power of intercessory prayer. I was in the hospital to have my tonsils out. Back then, visiting hours were restricted much more than today. My parents couldn’t be there much. I spent the night before surgery alone, sleepless, scared to death.

 

 

 

 

Next morning, in walks Pastor Andy. A grizzled, gruff old warrior of a pastor. I can’t say I really knew the guy, but I knew who he was. He walked into the room, sat down next to me and said a prayer. I remember crying all the way through it, from start to finish.

 

I was in desperate need of protection because at that moment I was lost in the world. In his prayer, he brought me God’s presence.

I needed to know the overriding truth that God knew who I was, that God loved me and cared for me. His prayer brought me that truth.

I needed to feel unity, that there were many people who cared about me. He knew my name and let me know that I wasn’t alone.

 

Pastor Andy didn’t solve my problems. When he left, I was still stuck in a hospital. I still had bad tonsils. I still had to have surgery. It really hurt for quite a while afterwards.

 

But in his prayer, this gruff, intimidating old guy made Christ known to me so that the love of God might be in me. More than 40 years later, I can remember that moment in great detail; I can still feel its effects. When we do it the way Jesus taught, intercessory prayer is a powerful, powerful thing.