Prayer and Action

Lent is a season of prayer.  Perhaps that is why I have tended to view Lent as getting in the way of what I’m doing.  That, of course, is the whole idea of Lent.
 

I am admittedly no expert in prayer.  I’m afraid I have generally been one of those people who considers himself too busy doing to spend time praying.  I have come to find, though, that the two are not quite as distinct as I have sometimes thought.
 

Many years ago I learned something important about prayer from someone who was actually good at it.  It completely changed the way I thought about prayer, and it has shaped my practice of prayer ever since.  The most powerful intercessory prayer, he said, is to be willing to trade places with the one being prayed for.
 

Now, I pray for people all the time.  I have very rarely prayed, maybe two or three times, each involving my family, with the willingness, should God allow it, to trade places with the person I’m praying for.  Surely God is no less concerned with my prayers even when they lack the fullness of intercessory intention on my part.  The reason for that, I believe, is that whether or not I am willing to trade places with the subject of my intercessions, God has demonstrated in Christ that God is.  As always, Christ perfects our prayers in himself.  That is reliable.  I can only imitate it.
 

Still, what I have learned is that my prayer must be always connected with my action.  On rare occasion, I mean my prayers sincerely enough to trade places.  Most other times, I may not be quite that fervent, but I cannot pray with sincerity unless I am at least willing for God to use me as part of the answer to my prayers.  The sincerity of prayer has everything to do with the willingness to act on it.
 

When we pray for the sick, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with whether we are willing to care for the sick, to visit them, to wait on them.  When we pray for justice and peace in the world, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with whether we vote accordingly.  When we pray for the creation, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with how we are stewards of it.  When we pray for the poor and the hungry, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with whether we ourselves stand ready to clothe and shelter and feed those who need it.  When we pray in thanksgiving, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with what we are willing to share.
 

The primary Christian prayer, of course, is the Eucharist.  We pray our great thanksgiving in common remembering the ultimate act of love made on our behalf in Christ.  But once again, our prayers do not stand apart from our acting on our prayers.  The Eucharist is, of course, also known as the Mass.  Mass is derived from the Latin word for dismissal.  Referring to the Eucharist as the Mass connects our prayer and our action.  Our giving thanks is not to be limited to the ritual we observe inside the church building.  It is to be taken out into the world as we are dismissed to go and serve.  In fact, in this understanding, the whole focus of prayer is action.  Just as the faithful have received the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, with the dismissal the faithful become the body and blood of Christ in the world, Christ who came not to be served but to serve and to give his live a ransom for many.
 

Prayer and action go together.  Prayer is a way of acting just as much as acting is a way of praying.  One, it seems to me, necessarily leads to the other.      

Peace,

+Stacy

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