The power of prayer

Clare L. Hickman

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale

July 3, 2022—Proper 9C

2 Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10:1-12,16-20 

 

          When things get tough, prayers start flying. When natural disasters strike, when unimaginable and tragic events occur, when loved ones are diagnosed with terrible illnesses … we start to pray.

          “You are in my prayers.” This phrase can convey something very deep. But it’s also come up against some push-back lately. In the face of a national tragedy, a politician’s statement about “thoughts and prayers” can come across as shallow: an expression of regret used in place of concrete action. And that’s a faithful concern, because our fault doesn’t just call on us to pray, but also to act in response to such situations. If something is actually our fault, after all, atonement requires that we work to repair the damage we have done. But even if the damage isn’t the result of our direct actions, we believe that Jesus appears to us in all the people who hurt: in the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, and the dying. And so we hear him ask us whether there is something we could DO to soothe, to heal, to assist, to prevent a reoccurrence.

          Prayers alone, with no attempt at further effort or sacrifice on the part of the one who prays, make a mockery of our faith.

          But still, the retort that “’Thoughts and prayers’ do nothing!” is also a shallow response. This reality was underlined by a resident of Uvalde, after the recent massacre, who clapped back at this idea, reminding us that telling a Hispanic Catholic community that prayers don’t do anything demeans their culture and their faith.

          Action is necessary, and prayer is empty if used as an excuse to avoid further action. But prayer itself DOES do something; it is a powerful force in this world. But it’s especially powerful, if we take the time to consider more deeply the ways in which we understand prayer.

          Sam Wells, the vicar of St. Martin in the Fields in London, invites us to consider that our prayers in the face of hardship can fall into three basic categories. The first of these he describes as Prayers of Resurrection. These are, to be honest, the sorts of prayers people often think is meant, when someone argues that prayer does something. Because these are the prayers that ask God to do something very specific: Heal me. Rescue me. Make this stop. They are prayers that name the situation, and then implore God to change the predictable outcome.

Our story from 2 Kings today is an excellent example of such prayers, and how complicated they actually get. It begins with an Israeli slave girl, taken as a spoil of war, who discovers that her foreign master, himself a powerful military commander, is a leper. Despite her situation, she desires to help him, so she tells him that there’s a prophet in Israel who could heal him.

We can imagine that Naaman might have felt any number of things in the face of this. Surely he was amazed. More than likely, he was skeptical. But clearly, he was also hopeful. Willing to try anything, he went to his king, who presumed that this healer must be close in to the circles of power. So he writes to the King of Israel, prompting some serious panic as to whether this is some kind of set up. Fortunately, the prophet himself hears of the request and sends word for Naaman to come to his house. This he does, but Elisha doesn’t even come out to meet him, instead sending him to wash himself in the Jordan River. Feeling slighted by this prophet (who doesn’t even reside at the court of the King!) and cheated of the dramatic healing miracle he thought he deserved, Naaman at first refuses, until he is once again aided by his servants, who dare to confront his expectations with the immortal words: Why are you refusing to do this simple thing? If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?

As it turns out, Naaman’s resurrection prayer is answered. But along the way, many things have to happen: the vulnerability of admitting his disease; the compassion of an enslaved girl; the upending of his expectations about where true power lies; and acceptance that his healing does not come about in the way he expected.

          Which is to say that the miracle of this story is about a lot more than simply a man who prayed that he might be healed from a disease, and he was healed from that disease. Healings in the Bible almost always tell a larger story about the causes and effects of suffering in this world. They invite us to look more carefully for God’s presence and power. And they ask us to develop a much more expansive understanding of prayer.

          So often, we think first of prayer in that resurrection way: asking, demanding, begging God to “Fix this!” Which is powerful stuff, keeping our hearts open to miracle and the unexpected workings of God … but there is so much more to prayer than that. As Wells describes it, the second major category of prayer is that of Incarnation, in which we simply ask God’s presence with us through whatever we are experiencing. In prayers like this, we place ourselves in God’s hands. We dare to admit that God’s presence will not necessarily prevent terrible things from happening to us. But in doing that, we also take hold of the assurance that bad things happening to us do not mean that God has abandoned us. God is still here: with us through illness and job loss, with us in heartbreak and homelessness and parenting crises. Here with us in all of this terrifyingly breakable world. With us through it all.

          Further through a crisis, perhaps, we might come to the third kind of prayer: that of transformation. Such a prayer looks toward the meaning that can come out of difficult experiences, expressing trust and hope that this time of pain might eventually make something new of us. That it might, for instance, deepen our compassion, heighten our awareness of the suffering of others, or bring us all closer to God and each other.

          That too is healing, even if it isn’t the end of the specific affliction or situation. Still, it is a healing that can come even in the case of unfixable things. Or long-term, chronic issues. And that … is not nothing.

          Because prayer connects us to the fulness of God’s redemptive action. Occasionally, it brings us right to the heart of the resurrection miracle. But it always, always carries the reality of the incarnation: of God’s presence with us. And it can unite us, not only to the wideness of God’s mercy and compassion, but to the transformation that comes from traveling the path through suffering and death to the new life that lies beyond.

          In the face of hardship in this world, prayer can be our partner. Prayer of Resurrection. Prayer of Incarnation. Prayer of Transformation. May they draw us closer to God and carry us into more faithful living. Amen.

 

Clare Hickman