“Don’t Just Pray, Do Something”
Midweek Lenten Service –
John 6:1-15; 1 Timothy 2:1-6; Isaiah 56:5-7
In our gospel reading from John tonight, you need to look and listen hard for the prayer. Like those small towns in the middle of nowhere – you know, “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.”
But there is prayer in the John’s telling of the feeding of the multitude. And the fact that it is easy to miss is a subtle but powerful illustration of this Sermon’s title, “Don’t Just Pray, Do Something.”
It’s an example of prayer as part of the action, part of life. Such prayer come as preparation for action, as when a farmer prays for favorable weather before planting a crop. It might come after an action, in the form of thanksgiving or in the form of question or lament when things go wrong.
Jesus’ prayer in this story is incarnational. It is prayer in the flesh. Prayer as part of the daily existence of Jesus. Prayer that is simply part of feeding people. Yet also prayer as holy and miraculous.
Now after all this build-up you may be searching your memories trying to remember where was this prayer that is so important: Well, here it is, verse 11: “Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.”
You notice that we don’t even here the words of the prayer as such. John tells us simply that Jesus gave thanks. The rest of the verse – the majority of it, actually – describes Jesus taking and distributing the loaves and fishes. But those two words – given thanks – is the prayer of Jesus to his Father in Heaven. In this case the result was miraculous, but it was still just plain old bread and fish. It was still seated on the ground eating a meal together. But in feeding of the hungry, prayer is present, it becomes the means by which our relationship to God is made active.
Without the food, without the thankfulness, without the crowd, without the action of giving and eating, the prayer loses its meaning. Prayer is people talking to God about their life, about how they feel and understand God to living that life with them, it is a response to God actions.
But prayer is more. A life lived in relationship to God – no matter how broken – is itself a prayer. Tonight in our liturgy we sing the words of the psalmist, “Let my prayer rise up like incense before you, the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.” The very lifting up of one’s hands, whether in work, play, or worship becomes prayer – no words are necessary.
Back in the 1600s a Catholic brother in a French monastery wrote about how God’s grace can turn the smallest, most mundane and boring actions of our daily routine can become prayer.
Brother Lawrence called this Practicing the Presence. By that he meant that as we go about our daily life, we practice being aware of God’s constant presence with us. And so, as Brother Lawrence washed dishes in and cleaned the kitchen, for that was his job, whether by a word of scripture or a the song of a warbler outside his door, he took note of God’s presence. And each sweep of his broom, became a response, an act of obedience, a prayer to that same God who was with him.
And over time, that awareness becomes second-nature, almost an unconscious awareness, so that Brother Lawrence discovered that he was living the entire day in the presence.
What that meant for his life was total transformation. Everything he said or did was in response to God’s gracious presence. The lowliest, toughest chores became prayer. And so, it became possible to find joy and satisfaction in the most menial work, the most challenging situations.
Isn’t that what Jesus’ simple prayer of saying “Thank” You his Father in Heaven was about? Transforming a simple, routine, everyday act involving the simplest, everyday food, and the simplest, salt-of-the-earth kind of people into a miracle of care for the hungry and a sign of the
This is the kind of down-to-earth praying that Luther talked about when spoke of prayer as one of the fruits of repentence. It is especially important to remember during the season of Lent, during this time of reflection and repentence, that if our prayers are to be honest and true, they must begin in our sinfulness offered up to God in repentence. But more than that they must begin in who we are, who God created us to be. And that means our prayers must also bring before God the love and the joy and the sweat and the toil that mark our lives.
For God does not want just our thoughts. He wants our hearts, too. He desires the whole person, created and known by name and in the life we live. Just as it is the acts, the events of God’s incarnate life as Jesus of Nazareth that save us – his birth ministry, suffering, death and resurrection, those events we have remembering since Adevent. So it is the events and acts of our life – the good, the bad, and the ugly – that God desires from us.
The incarnational character of prayer is present not only in our lives but in our deaths. I could help but think how prominent prayer was on September 11th. We know about Todd Beamer’s praying the Lord’s Prayer before storming the cockpit of Flight 93. And who could forget Father Mychal Judge killed by falling debris at the World Trade center as he knelt in prayer giving last rights to a fallen firefighter.
And again and again as I went through my file of stories on 9-11, I was struck by the widespread presence of prayer on that awful day. One story in particular caught my eye; I didn’t even remember reading it before.
Phillip Yancey, who is the presenter on current adult bible study, was in
He saw the debris. He watched the jumpers and dodged around on the street when it looked like one was coming down in his direction. He watched the second plane hit in the biggest ball of fire he had ever seen. He saw the people pouring out of the buildings onto the streets. On the sidewalk near his car he saw a woman in her late 50s or so, doubled over, unable to move. He went over and held her hand and began to pray with her. As he prayed, she was hit by piece of computer equipment from one of the towers and died instantly.
Hold that image for a minute of this New Yawk cabbie, an average Joe with a wife and two kids at home
· Is it in whatever words that cabbie was speaking?
· Is it in the two hands clasped, one in the other?
· Is it in the physical presence of the cabbie on the sidewalk?
· Is it in the dying of the woman?
· Is it in the cabbie’s wife and two children across the river praying for the cabbie?
If you answered “all of the above,” you got the message of this sermon. Prayer has a way of getting into every corner of our lives – when we let it. Because for people of faith, praying becomes as necessary – and as easy – as breathing.
The same Jesus who gave thanks in our gospel tonight, went to the Cross. And there, “crying with a loud voice he said, “ ‘Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.’ Having said that he breathed his last.” In Luke’s gospel, Jesus dies in prayer, offering up his Spirit as a sacrifice for you.
Let us pray:
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