We come to what Archbishop Rowan Williams describes as the
fourth aspect of resurrection good news -- Jesus’s resurrection carries good
news about prayer. This is another
tricky one, because it challenges what many might assume. The common assumption about prayer is that we
are petitioning heaven. We ask God for
things, sometimes urgently. In some
quarters it is assumed, or hoped, that the more people praying, or the more fervently
they pray, or the more often, the more potent is the prayer and the likelihood
that it will be “answered”. That is exactly the religious, I would say
superstitious carry-on of the priests of Baal, ridiculed and condemned by
Elijah the prophet in the 9th century BC, some 3000 years ago.[1]
In his resurrected life Jesus invites us to be where he is. Prayer is being where Jesus is. Where
I am, there you may be also.[2] They are familiar words, usually heard at
funeral services. But this in John’s
Gospel is the teaching of early Christians, not conducting funerals but
experiencing the risen Jesus with them now, present reality – and that is the
whole of prayer. Rowan Williams puts it
this way: …we are being introduced into a
new world, the place where Jesus is.
Prayer is most deeply allowing God to happen in us, the Spirit bringing
Christ alive in us, being in the place where Christ is real, with the Spirit
coming into us to bring Christ alive in our own hearts. Prayer, in Christian understanding, is
possible because Jesus is risen. Whatever
the form of our prayer – and it may indeed be petition and intercession, it may
be confession and repentance, it may be the great prayer of praise in the
Eucharist, it may be Mozart’s Ave Verum
– whatever sort of prayer it is, it is that we are present where Jesus is
present. Our hearts are paying
attention. We are not asking for
anything, but we are saying Yes to love and mercy, justice and peace, deeply
and abidingly.
So, some of our teachers like to say, we can think of prayer
as joining the risen Christ in his eternal prayer to the Father, in the
Spirit – a prayer, even a song we might say, or a dance, of the peace and unity
of all creation.[3] It is not that we are choosing our
prayer, so much that we are joining with the risen Christ in his eternal prayer
for creation. He is praying in us,
as we are still, silent, consenting. We are suspending our own concerns,
writes Rowan Williams, our words and
fussiness, and we are letting God be in us.
Prayer leads you to
see new paths and to hear new melodies in the air. Prayer is the breath of your
life which gives you the freedom to go and to stay where you wish and to find
the many signs which point out the way to a new land. Praying is not simply
some necessary compartment in the daily schedule of a Christian or a source of
support in a time or need, nor is it restricted to Sunday mornings or
mealtimes. Praying is living.
[1] I
Kings 18:20ff
[2]
John 14:1-7
[3] I
think this prayer is deeply reflected in chapters 14-17 of John’s Gospel.
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