by John G. Mason
This article was published just before the 1996 Sydney Synod which considered several controversial issues, including the proposed adoption of A Prayer Book for Australia and the ordination of women to the priesthood.
Must Christians pray? We might agree that prayer can change things, but should we pray? And if so, why don't we pray more consistently than we often do?
Christians believe in a God who has committed himself to us. Because he is sovereign, he has the capacity to act. It makes sense that we pray to him. What's more, the nature of the relationship that he calls us into through Jesus Christ demands that we do.
Synod this year faces critical decisions: whether to adopt A Prayer Book for Australia (APBA); whether to ordain women to the priesthood; whom to elect to various committees and councils. Are members of Synod, are churches, praying about these matters? And if people are praying, what are they praying - "Let my team win Lord", "Let my agenda be adopted", or "Lord, your will be done"?
Moses provides a model for our prayer as he pleaded with God for Israel when they had failed to heed the advice of Joshua and Caleb.
Israel's future had looked bleak as they had stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai. They had slapped God about the face, flirting with idols the very moment he was commanding, "You shall not worship a graven image..." Israel justly deserved his condemnation.
Their future looked even bleaker when their faith in God's promise failed, and they refused to march against the Canaanites.
It must have been very tempting for Moses to have let God destroy the people and to start again with him. But instead of pursuing an opportunity for his own greatness, he chose to serve this rabble by praying for them. His prayer is set out in Deuteronomy 9:26ff. He doesn't make excuses for Israel. Rather he appeals to the strength and the character of God.
The heart of his prayer is in v.29. He appeals to the reality of God's unchangeable, possessive, persistent love. "But they are your people and your inheritance", he says. "You brought them out from slavery by your great strength and by your outstretched arm". We can feel the force of those second person pronouns.
There's something extraordinary about this prayer. In human terms, the fate of the nation hinges on this exchange between Moses and God. It seems impossible that the prayer of any man or any woman could possibly have such momentous significance. For, at the end of the day, it was not Israel's military strength, nor the people's intrinsic goodness, that was the vital factor. It was the prayer of one man who pleaded for the mercy of a gracious, merciful, and loving God. It was a courageous, dignified appeal to God, based on his understanding of what God is like.
Prayer to a Merciful God
Here is a model for our prayer. Our appeal to God must be that he will act towards us with mercy. So when we come to Synod, we need to pray that God will act mercifully towards us in the decisions we make and in our relationships with one another.
God places us in human institutions. He expects us to work in them: to debate and to make decisions. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with supporting particular candidates or advocating particular points of view (provided they do not conflict with Scripture). However, it is all too easy for us to let our debating skills, our political muscle, or our past successes displace God.
Henry Martyn was a Christian missionary in India. A brilliant scholar, he translated the New Testament into Hindustani and Persian, the Psalms into Persian and the Book of Common Prayer into Hindustani. He also prepared a translation of the New Testament into Arabic. On his way back from Persia he died suddenly at the age of thirty-one. Towards the end of his brief life he was heard to say,
"I have spent too much of my life in public ministry and too little in private communion with God".
If we find excuses not to pray, then an excuse is what it is, for there is no higher priority. There is no way in which we express the priority of God's claim upon our lives more than when we make time to pray.
Instead of bustling to and fro in the busy-ness of life, instead of simply pursuing our own agenda, confident in our own abilities, we all need to find a private spot each day and spend time with the Lord whom we can call "Father". For Christians must pray.
John G. Mason, October 1996
John G. Mason wrote this when he was Rector of St. Clement's Mosman, in Sydney. He is currently ministering in the USA.
(Copyright John Mason and ACL News)
Anglican Church League, www.acl.asn.au