All Eyes on Jesus - Part 1

Today we begin to wrap up our mini-series on becoming a people of prayer with a series of posts that I have entitled “all eyes on Jesus.” I want to once again look at what scripture teaches us about a very practical problem that many of us in the church face – and what I know keeps many people from engaging in and participating in corporate prayer. As we get into this topic though let’s drop all pretence and masquerade and fess up to something we all know – praying in front of people can be one of the most terrifying experiences in the world for a Christian. Perhaps you pray like a seasoned pastor today but most of us can remember a time in our lives when we were self-conscious about praying in public and for some of us that fear has kept us away from being involved in corporate prayer even when we feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit that we should.

This is why I want to look at arguably the most famous and well-known passage on prayer in the whole Bible and see what Jesus’ simple and plain instructions and practice say to us today on this matter. In case you are just joining us now and are wondering were this is coming from, you should know that This is part 9 in an ongoing series entitled “Becoming a People of Prayer ”and you can Click here for a listing of previous posts in this series if you want to catch up on what you’ve missed.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.   “This, then, is how you should pray:    ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
   on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
   as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
   but deliver us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 6:5-15

The first thing that any preacher worth their salt will always tell you when looking at a text like this is the direction of the first four words – “and when you pray.” Before we go any further – this is a teaching given to a people who are already committed to prayer and are in need of guidance on how to grow their prayer lives. Let me be blunt and honest with you – if you are not already striving to cultivate a pattern of prayer then don’t let this text or this post overcomplicate things for you – Jesus wants you to pray. Period. He wants you to commune with him, to talk to him, to listen to him, to build a relationship with him through prayer.

Jesus doesn’t preface his teaching with the option of “if you pray” it’s assumed that his followers will be people of prayer – and so I’m going to proceed as if everyone reading this already has that first part down – I’m not delusional enough to actually believe that’s the case but if you find yourself thinking that you don’t even have a pattern of prayer to work on – then file this information away for a later time and get to work at cultivating a pattern of prayer period so that you can apply these important teachings of Jesus to it. Okay? Disclaimer understood? Let’s get into the meat of the text.

Before we go anywhere with mechanics or specifics did you first catch what seems to be the shocking (especially in light of the purpose of this series) implication of Jesus’ teaching here?

Wait! Didn’t Jesus just condemn the practice of corporate prayer?!?!

Yes! On the surface it looks like Jesus is telling his disciples that praying in public or praying corporately is a bad thing and that the practice of prayer should be a private event between you and God alone. Have you ever had someone tell you that before? Have you ever heard someone use that excuse for not attending a prayer meeting? For having a lousy attitude when it comes to corporate prayer in the church? A quick survey of the Internet reveals that there are a lot of people out there that actually believe that to be so.

Now you’re thinking to yourself – “Have I just wasted the last two weeks reading these blogs encouraging me to do something Jesus advocated against?”

(Hey a pastor can hope you’ve been faithfully reading along…)

Thankfully – it doesn’t even take a Greek scholar to go deeper into this passage, and to survey the rest of the New Testament to understand that that was not at all what Jesus was saying. Anyone with a half-decent English translation of the Bible can deduce this for themselves with a careful reading of the text but so often we see a passage like this and we latch onto it because we think it justifies our own discomfort with the practice of corporate prayer and we engage in the dangerous an destructive art of proof texting to make a few verses of scripture, taken out of context, dance to our own tune. In scholarly language we would call this eisegesis. Which is a big word that you may not have heard before that is the opposite of a big word that you likely have heard before – exegesis. Exegesis is the process of studying the text carefully and learning what its meaning is and to the best of or ability doing so with an objective and unbiased goal (post modern philosophers will argue that there is no such thing as an objective reading of the text which I would largely agree with, but it’s the intent that matters). Eisegesis on the other hand is going to the text with an overt agenda – “I don’t like to pray in public so I’m going to look in the Bible for something Jesus says to justify what I believe” And when you find a passage like this you read these words and slam your Bible shut and say – “See. I told you so!” and you don’t look any further to see what else Jesus wants to say on the topic.

Well I’m happy to confirm for you that proper exegesis of this text makes it clear that this IS NOT a condemnation of public or corporate prayer and now I’m going to explain to you why:

Firstly,  right after these instructions the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and his response is to teach them what we commonly call the Lord’s Prayer  - or more technically correct what some call the Disciple’s Prayer. It provides for many traditions in Christendom what would best be described as the normative pattern for prayer. Even if you’ve never opened a Bible before today – you likely already know the prayer – it’s that famous. But have you ever thought about where this prayer was supposed to be prayed? I think this is one of those times when society has not gotten the practice wrong because when do we most often recite this prayer? In public – together. That’s because right there in the pronouns of the prayer we can tell that – The prayer he teaches them is a communal prayer

“Our Father...Give us... forgive us... lead us... deliver us”

The writers of the Bible were not grammatical neophytes. They understood how to properly construct sentences and denote the difference between singular and plural pronouns. The fact that Jesus is quoted in this prayer as written gives us a good indication that he expected the disciples to be praying together – and that means (GASP!) in public; in front of other people. As terrifying as it sounds to some of us that means unless Jesus is into self-contradiction (which he’s not by the way) that the previous verses about praying alone in your closet CANNOT be read as a blanket condemnation of corporate prayer. What does it mean then?  We’ll get to that shortly but first let me give you a couple other positive reinforcements why corporate prayer is not only allowed by Jesus but encouraged.

Jesus teaches on the benefits of praying together in agreement

In what is another famous saying of Jesus he encourages the disciples to ask the Father for things in agreement – that is the essence of corporate prayer, to come before God in agreement through prayer. And lest someone take that text and try to twist it to be interpreted as you can be in agreement through private prayer (which I supposed you could be – I could tell you to all go home and pray by yourself for church growth, and we would be in agreement – actually that’s a good idea – you should totally do that) lest someone believe that was what he was saying he follows up with the next sentence setting the context for the instruction:

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven*. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

Matthew 18:19-20

Jesus wants us to gather together and pray in agreement. That sounds a lot to me like corporate prayer.

*As an aside to this passage – one of the questions that has come up in a few places during our preparation for the ASK ANYTHING series we will be launching in the fall is a question of the limits of Christ’s promise of doing anything we ask in agreement. Obviously our experience doesn’t bear out a literal rendering of that in the plain English. Stay tuned in about a month on this blog for a short examination of the context and purpose of that promise and how we should be reading an applying it in our prayer activity.

Lastly, The corporate prayer of the early church was validated by the presence of the Holy Spirit

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Acts 4:31

What happens repeatedly when the early church gathers together to pray? The Holy Spirit shows up and pours out power upon the gathered masses. Why would God do that if he didn’t approve of their methods? You see it’s pretty clearly demonstrated in Scripture both by teaching and by example that there is no prohibition against praying together as the people of God – moreover (and perhaps more importantly) there is plenty of encouragement to do so. So if we’ve debunked that myth/excuse for not praying corporately what then does Jesus want to teach us in our passage today and what encouragement is there for those of us who are still uncomfortable with the idea of praying in front of others?

In our next post we’ll aim to answer that very question.