Prayer is not Magic

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

I recalled an enquirer in the RCIA sharing how she received her first lesson in prayer; it was quite the unfortunate experience, I must say. Her friend, a Catholic, had given her some advice on prayer – “take some holy water collected from the Shrine of St Anne’s and sprinkle them on the four tyres of your car, then buy the number of the car registration plate and you will be assured of a jackpot.” I heard something similar at a coffee shop once. Two men at a neighbouring table were talking about their gambling exploits in Genting Highlands. The Christian turned to the other and said that his secret for winning was praying in tongues. “When I pray in tongues as the dice is rolled, I win BIG!” I know both these stories may seem like extreme examples and most of you good folks would obviously find them ridiculously hilarious. But the truth of the matter is that we often treat prayer too much like it is magic even when our method seems reasonable.

Prayer is the foundation of our Christian life. No question about this. However, some carry this to an extreme and jump to the conclusion that prayer is something of a magic wand, that if we do prayer with the right words, in the right manner, with the right phrases, and in the right posture, God is obligated to answer. The idea seems to be that we have the capacity to coerce God into doing for us whatever it is we want Him to do, and that we can either strike a deal with Him or convince Him to change His mind. But the truth is that prayer is not magic. Magic seeks to assert control over others, our environment, our lives and even God. Prayer, on the other hand, is allowing God to take charge. Prayer is submitting ourselves to His control.

But sometimes, the stories in scripture seem to actually support the view that prayer works like magic. In Genesis, we see Abraham bartering with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, beating down the price like a typical Asian customer in the market place, a little more each time until Abraham gets God down to just ten people. You may say that since the outcome seems to be a foregone conclusion, was it worth the effort? Would it have mattered at all? Well, it did at least for a few. This back and forth arguing between Abraham and God finally saved Lot’s family. It does appear that God had changed His mind. But is this really a correct interpretation of the story? Since God knows the outcome of every decision we make and every prayer we pray, then maybe it’s not so much that God’s mind was changed, but rather that God knew what He wanted to do in the end. He just wanted to get Abraham into the act. It is not God’s Providence and Mercy that was being tested but Abraham’s tenacity in supplicating for his kin and even strangers.

But we see a very different sort of prayer in the gospel. St Luke presents our Lord as a man of prayer. Luke's Jesus is a strikingly prayerful figure, never afraid to make known to His Father His deepest desires: He does not hide from the Father his fear of his coming death, praying so hard for the cup to pass him by that he sweats blood, even as he submits to the will of God. On countless occasions, His ministry and teaching are interspersed with prayer.

And, it is no surprise that having observed this frequent activity of the Lord, His disciples are moved to want to pray like Him. So, the Lord takes the opportunity not only to teach them a prayer, but also to teach them the way to pray: persistently. To pray persistently is to pray like Jesus. So, the Lord’s prayer to the Father does not detract from, but rather reinforces, His unity with the Father. And so it is with us. The unity the Son has by nature with the Father, we share by adoption as we follow the example of Christ. That is why He begins by this simple and intimate address, “Abba”. In teaching us to address God as “Father” or “Abba”, we are to be in conscious union with the Lord Jesus. God is not a divine vending machine that dispenses goodies whenever we hit the right button or a foggy old man that constantly needs to be reminded or a trader that you can strike a deal with or offer a bribe. Nor is He a terrifying despotic or whimsical God that needs to be appeased with blood sacrifices and other horrific practices observed by the pagans, but a loving Father who knows how to give His children what is good.

So, the Lord invites us to pray for concrete things, the things we need, the things we judge to be good for us. But this still raises the big question: if God knows everything that will happen, why do we pray? If God can solve every problem, bring justice to the oppressed, heal the sick, save the sinner, give us what we need without being told, why should we pray? What good does prayer actually do? Well, the answer lies in our Catholic understanding of justification. The grace of God does not exclude human cooperation. In fact, it is God’s will that we should participate in His grand work of redemption and salvation. St Thomas Aquinas tells us that God wills to bring about things in answer to our prayers. God gives us the dignity of being able to share in His work of providence by our own actions, in praying for things to come about, so that we can acquire confidence in God and recognise Him as the origin of what is good for us.

Faith tells us that God does answer all our prayers. However, the consequence of what faith tells us must be true, is perhaps even more difficult for us to understand and accept. We must believe that God does answer all our prayers, but the reality must then be that the answer is so often ‘no’, no to the particular thing that we asked for. God does bring about good things in answer to our prayers, but what that good might be, is often very different from any expectation and understanding we might already have. If we ask, it is given to us; if we seek, it is found; and if we knock, the door is opened, but what is given and found, is not what we might have expected.

Often mistaken for a blank signed cheque, the last set of sayings, “Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find …” is actually an invitation from the Lord to persist in prayer. Never give up praying, even when it seems that we are not getting what we are asking for. We may not have the wisdom to know what is good for us. But we are still invited to ask, to search and to knock with our eyes fixed not on the object of our request, but on God our Father. God is immensely wise and God will certainly give us what we need. He will lead us to find what it is we are really seeking. He will open for us the door that leads to life. And finally, our asking, our searching and that ‘open door’ would lead us to the greatest gift He wishes to offer us, the Holy Spirit. We should pray whilst remembering that we are bit players in a much, much larger story. God is weaving a beautiful tapestry in this universe and every blessing or tragedy from God is meant to bring every thread of His work together in perfect harmony.

Ultimately, prayer is affirming our belief that God is Sovereign and that He calls the shots - His Kingdom come, not ours. Yes, prayer is not magic. We can't control or manipulate God; and that isn't why Christians pray. Praying is not about making God more aligned to our human thinking and ways, but about us aligning our thoughts, words and actions to His, becoming part of the friendship of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. We pray not so that we can twist God’s arm, but so that we may rest the whole of our lives, our tragedies, our petty desires and our hopes for ourselves and others, upon the mercy of God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we come more and more to grow within His friendship, and know the wonder and the intimacy of the friendship of the Holy Trinity, who is always at work to draw us from our sin and our sadness, so that we may burn forever, in the leaping flames of the love of God.