Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Growing up, my family rarely went to church. I think that was because my mother was raised Catholic, and my father grew up in a Methodist home. I think they just didn’t know how to resolve that difference. As a result, I had very little in the way of religious education. For reasons I cannot explain, I was still very interested in the Bible, and I prayed a lot. But because I didn’t have much of an idea about how to be a Christian, I also didn’t know how to pray. So, my prayers consisted mostly of me pleading to God for this or that. And my pleas were generally pretty selfish. I recall a prayer I sent up a number of times when I was in the eighth grade—that a cute boy who sat near me in the marching band would take notice of me.
In today’s text from Matthew, we are called by Jesus to think carefully and critically about how we pray. Of course, there are lots of ways to pray. And I have to confess that over my lifetime, I have prayed in a lot of ways I’m pretty sure God did not appreciate—like when I sent up a long list of selfish pleas or when, in a church meeting, I used a prayer to make some point to all those gathered. In both cases, prayer was all about me telling God what I needed or what others needed to do when, instead, it might have been about me listening to and for God.
In this season of Lent, I’m trying something new. Instead of trying to figure out what I ought to be praying or how I ought to be praying, I’m listening. Sometimes I just sit in silence for a while. Sometimes I follow the practice of Lectio Devina. The other day when I was doing that my eyes fell upon the phrase, “Keep my Sabbath” from Romans 12. As someone who worries way too much about whether I am getting enough done in a given day, I was floored. Enough, God seemed to be saying. Stop. Take a day to be in my presence. How my life might be changed just by listening to that little three-word phrase.
And then, of course, there is the Lord’s prayer. Praying the “Our Father” is also a way of listening. What does Jesus want us to hear in the prayer he calls us to pray? Hallow God’s name. Pray that God’s kingdom come—here and now. Pray that not ours but God’s will be done. Forgive. Know our transgressions. Know we are forgiven.
In the Lenten season, I am realizing that I have too often worked too hard in prayer. I have too often imagined that I was running it. I was in charge. Now, I think maybe prayer has the best chance of transforming me if I let God do the work instead. And listen.
Amen.
- Sue Trollinger