Praying Constantly – March 13, 2022, the Second Sunday in Lent
Psalm 63:1-4, Luke 11:1-13
March 13, 2022
In my Bible, the heading for our passage for today says, “Persistence in prayer.” And the question for today is, are we? Are we persistent in prayer? Maybe you remember the words of Paul, when he “exhorted” the Thessalonians to “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances…” That’s First Thessalonians 5:16-18. That’s where the title for this sermon comes from.
And by the way, each of those first two things is a separate verse! “Rejoice always.” “Pray constantly.” We know that the shortest verse in the Bible is “Jesus wept,” right? That’s from the story of the Raising of Lazarus. But I was surprised to find out that it’s not the only 2-word verse. It just the shortest because it has the least number of letters!
So anyway… do we do those things? Do we “rejoice always?” And, as we’re thinking about today, do we “pray constantly?” That’s a pretty big challenge, isn’t it? Paul didn’t say pray “a lot.” He said pray “constantly.” In other words, “Pray all the time.” Do we do that? I know I don’t! And I suspect you don’t, either.
So, did Paul really mean that? Are we to pray “without ceasing,” as one translation says? Or was he just using hyperbole? Was he exaggerating to make the point – the point being that we need to pray a lot more? Think about it.
This is Lent. This is that time when we look at our life of faith and see where we may have fallen short, and where we might need to improve. And I think this is a good one. If we’re honest with ourselves, I think we would all agree that we don’t pray enough.
In our scripture passage for today, we have Jesus teaching his disciples about prayer. And I hope you recognized here some references to the Sermon on the Mount. For example, he starts by giving them a shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer. And there are others. And then, in our passage, he goes into this paragraph entitled “persistence in prayer.” (And by the way that’s the editor’s title. Luke didn’t write it that way!)
I love how Jesus presents this! He tells this little parable about the man who asks his neighbor – persistently – to come to the door. And I hope you see that there’s a sense of humor in this. Because I believe Jesus had a great sense of humor! He has this neighbor saying, essentially, “I’d better get up and give this guy what he’s asking for, or he’s never going to go away!” That was Jesus’ way of illustrating his point about persistence.
But it’s more than that. There’s an earnestness to prayer that’s part of that persistence. This not just “keep praying,” but “keep asking” – sincerely! Keep telling God what’s on your heart. And that leads up to Jesus giving them these wonderful words, “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it will be opened unto you.”
We know those words, don’t we? And they’re wonderful words! However, I would caution you. We say that God answers all prayers. And I believe he does. But(!) that doesn’t mean he always answers in the way we want him to! “God answers prayer,” doesn’t mean God will give us anything we ask for. Jesus isn’t adding persistence to that formula, saying that “If you ask God enough, he’ll give you whatever you ask for.” What he is doing is giving them a picture of the relationship we have with God in prayer. He’s saying it’s a two-way, ongoing dialogue.
That ongoing dialogue is part of “praying constantly.” That’s what Paul was saying. That’s what he’s saying about our relationship with God. And so was Jesus And there are results of that constant, persistent prayer. Jesus concludes, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” That means when we pray we receive something, we find something, and something will be opened to us. But it’s not necessarily what we’re asking, seeking, and knocking about.
Now, that’s a stumbling block for some. They ask, “Then why should I pray?” “Why should I ask if I don’t always get what I ask for.” Because you know, “You can’t always get what you want!” as Mick Jagger sang in, what year? 1969! So, the feeling of some is, why bother?
Well, think about that. Is that the purpose of prayer? Is it just about getting what we want – no matter how noble “what we want” might be? Because a lot of the things we ask for in prayer are good! I’ve been praying a lot for peace in Ukraine. And that would be a good thing. But is getting what we want the purpose of prayer? Or is it about our relationship with God? If you ask someone to do something or to give you something, and they are unable to do so for some reason, does that mean you don’t talk to that person again? Does that mean you don’t have a relationship with them? Does that mean you don’t bother? I would hope not. I would hope your relationship with them would still be good.
Isn’t it the same with God? “Praying constantly” is about the relationship. Part of prayer is you and God working things out together – like two friends would. And that involves the two of you talking together, and maybe making changes in whatever is in question. And it also involves coming to a greater understanding about it! And I think that’s a big part of prayer! Sometimes when I pray about something, I say, “God, help me to understand this better.” Or sometimes I say, “Help me to know what to think.”
I love movie “Shadowlands,” which is about the life of C. S. Lewis. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it! It’s one of my favorite movies ever! At one point in the movie, Lewis’s wife Joy is suffering from bone cancer, but for a time it went into remission. And his friend Christopher says to him, “I know how hard you’ve been praying! And now God is answering your prayers.” And Lewis replies, and I love this! He says, “That’s not why I pray. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. Prayer doesn’t change God. It changes me.”
I love that line. “Prayer doesn’t change God. It changes me.” And yes, I believe that God does change his mind. He does work with us through the whole process of prayer. There is give and take in prayer. But I love that thought about it, that prayer changes us! That’s actually something that Soren Kierkegaard said years before, which I’m sure influenced Lewis! “Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who prays.”
That’s the thought I want to leave with you today. That’s the part of prayer I want you to think about this Lenten season. If we pray constantly, does it change us? And I hope that’s a rhetorical question! I hope you know that it does! And I hope you’ll think about that as you think about “praying constantly” this Lenten season.
As you do so, I’ll close with some of Paul’s thoughts about this. These are his words to the Corinthians. This is the part where he tells them – and us – about how we are changed in our Christian lives. And constant prayer is part of that. After telling them many things, in many chapters, about how to be God’s people, he writes this. “And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to the next.” (II Corinthians 3:18)
And so, rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.Prayer
Eternal God, we know that we don’t pray enough. And we resist the changes you try to make in us. We say, “your will be done,” but it’s hard to set aside the desire for our own will. Help us this Lenten season to feel your spirit working within us, that we would have the strength we need to follow our Lord, Jesus Christ. For we pray in his name and for the sake of his kingdom, Amen.