In December, the Rev. Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, a historically black church which worships 4500 in every week, announced to his congregation that he was stepping away from his ministry for a season because he feels far from God, tired in his soul and needed to recuperate mentally and physically. He will return to his church and the pulpit on Easter Sunday, but is taking the time in between to try and rest and recuperate and reconnect with God. He said that early in his ministry he was asked by an older woman in the congregation why he worked seven days a week, something endemic to clergy, and he replied “The devil doesn’t take a day off.” To which she said, ‘Why is the devil your role model?’ Jesus models that we need to rest.” But, he didn’t listen to her advice, and he said that now he is tired in his soul “and a nap aint gonna’ fix it.”
Today we begin a new worship series entitled Traveling the Prayer Paths of Jesus, based on a book of the same name by John Indermark, in which we will look at the way that Jesus prayed in order to learn about ways, or things we should be doing in our own prayer lives. Now I guess I should start by saying that if we want to look at the nature of prayer, or what we should say, that when Jesus is asked about prayer, he gives us what we know of as the Lord’s Prayer, but that’s a different message for a different time. Because while what we say can be important, much of what we see about Jesus’ prayer life is where he is praying and why. And even the Lord’s Prayer itself comes from a specific place, as Jesus has gone off to pray and then when he is done, the disciples ask him to teach them about praying. It is that reality that we want to focus on today, because Jesus often goes off to be by himself, or sometimes with a small group of others, in order to pray.
So I should make clear that this is not about taking Sabbath, as important as that is. Jesus took Sabbath, but he also took time specifically to be by himself in prayer, separately from his practice of Sabbath. This practice begins early in his ministry as Jesus goes out into the wilderness for forty days, which we know as the story of the temptation, but where we also see Jesus engaged in prayer. But when Jesus hears that John the Baptist has been beheaded, what does he do? He goes out to be by himself to pray. After he’s been inundated by crowds and is doing a lot of work, what does Jesus do? He goes out to be by himself in prayer. And as we hear in the story today, after he has done a healing, often he goes off to be by himself in prayer. We hear in the story of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood that he knows that she has touched the hem of his robe and been healed because he feels power going out of himself, and so it appears that a large part of his prayer life is about taking the time not just to rest and recover, but it’s also about reconnecting with God. That when he is overwhelmed in his life, when he is threatened with becoming spiritually dry, that he goes out to reconnect with God in prayer. Because prayer is not about asking God for things, but about being in conversation with God, in dialogue with God.
Now one of the things that I find interesting is that we have many of Jesus’ prayers given to us, and we’re going to hear several of them, but we don’t have any of his prayers in solitude given. Instead, we are just simply told that he goes out to a deserted place, or a certain place, or the wilderness, or a quiet place or the mountains in order to pray. But, he does more than just pray. Because prayer is a conversation, we also know that Jesus is spending large amounts of time not talking, but listening. It is after he has gone off to be in prayer by himself that he chooses the 12 disciples from amongst those who had been following him. That means that the disciples, all 12 of them, are answered prayers. And he asks the disciples who people say that he is, after he has gone off to pray by himself. Although really the disciples are nearby and he calls to them to ask them that question. So presumably the question comes as a part of listening, or something prompted by the prayers that he is praying. And so if we are going to be following Jesus in prayer, of praying like Jesus prays, then one of the first things we have to learn how to do is to go off by ourselves to be in prayer.
It’s not enough to gather in worship to pray, or to hear me or someone else pray, or even to pray together, as important as those ways of prayer can be. But, we also have to be following Jesus’ example, walking his path of prayer, and going off to pray by ourselves, and not just for a short time, but taking time, sometimes large amounts of time, to talk with God and to listen to God. And if you say you don’t have the time, that you’re too busy to do it, that’s the very point. Jesus went off when he was overwhelmed and overspent and overtaxed. Anytime he was over, he knew he had to take the time in order to reconnect. Martin Luther said that he would spend two hours in prayer every morning in order to get ready for the day, and if he had an especially business day then he would spend the first three hours in prayer. John Wesley too would spend hours a day in prayer. In fact if you study just about anyone that we think is or was deeply spiritual, I can assure you that prayer, and prayer by themselves, plays a large part of their spiritual lives and their spiritual journey. It is the way they not only connect with God, but it is also the way that they get reconnected with God and have their spiritual batteries recharged. And more importantly, they are not ashamed to admit that they need the time and the space to be able to do it.
We have somehow come to believe that having a full schedule is a sign of importance and status, that if we have to schedule our day in ten minute increments because we are so busy that that must mean we are successful. But it doesn’t, and without taking the time to recharge and reconnect not only will our physical bodies eventually suffer, but our spiritual life will also suffer. As the woman told Rev. Wesley, we are called to model our lives after Jesus, we are called to model our spiritual lives after Jesus, and Jesus took rests. He went off to deserted places, or went off by himself in order to pray and reconnect with God and reconnect with his own spiritual life, and he calls for us to do the same.
One of my friends posted this week: “Don’t worry about giving up something for Lent. Just pray. That’s the point of fasting and abstinence anyway: prayer. For years I gave up something for no particular reason. Now I do whatever leads me to prayer.” Prayer is the first of the membership vows, even before attendance, because it is the most important of them, because it drives everything else we do in our spiritual lives. And the best exemplar of how we are to pray is Jesus himself, and his prayer life, and indeed his ministry, was grounded and focused and began in prayer. His ministry didn’t lead to his going off to pray, his going off to pray led to his ministry. Let me say that again. His ministry didn’t lead to his going off to pray. His going off to pray led to his ministry. It was in going off to be in prayer that Jesus began his ministry, made important decisions, dealt with grief, cared for his soul, centered himself and reconnected with God, dealt with the pressures of his ministry, taught the disciples, and as we will see it is also how he prepared for the cross.
One of the passages we hear on Ash Wednesday to help prepare us for our Lenten journey is Jesus saying not to pray on the street corners, like the hypocrites do because they want people to see them praying, but instead to go into your room and shut the door and pray to God in secret, and it was a practice that he lived out consistently in his own life. If you are reading the gospels for Lent, and if not I would encourage you to, pay attention, especially in Mark and Luke, how often Jesus is going off to pray by himself. And, as we learn from Christ and follow Christ, I would encourage you to do the same. You don’t have to start with hours in prayer. But take some time, go off to a quiet place, and talk to God, and just as importantly, take time to listen to God. And when we do that then we are beginning to travel the prayer paths of Jesus. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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