Sermon 2019.09.01
Prayer Together
(Psalm 118:1-4,22-29; updated from sermon 2014.10.05 MUMC)

1. More than words.  Prayer is one of the basic needs of all Christians. Our faith is about a relationship with Jesus Christ, and prayer is about that relationship. Prayer is not just a way to get stuff we want – prayer is about getting connected to God.

That means that prayer is more than words. We don’t have to come up with fancy prayers to impress God. Prayer can be about living our lives for God, so that everything we do well is done for God. Prayer can be about being honest with God, even when we are angry or upset. Prayer can be about being silent with God, just being comforted by God’s presence. Sometimes we need to be by ourselves with God.

2. Hey God!  BUT… other times we pray together. Why? Well, some folks definitely feel like God hears us better when more of us pray together. Maybe it’s like cheerleaders at a football game – the louder we shout, the better our team does.

Let’s try it! Repeat after me: Hey God! (Hey God!) Hear our prayer! (Hear our prayer!)
We can adapt the Packers prayer: Go, God, Go! Go, God, Go! (Go, God, go! Go, God, go!)

We can see evidence in scripture that God hears the prayers of many people: when Jonah preaches repentance to Nineveh, the city repents in dust and ashes – king, people, and even the cows. God hears their mournful wails and relents (much to Jonah’s dismay!). (Jonah 3:6-10)

We see evidence in our community of the effectiveness of group prayer: cancer survivors walk among us, buoyed up on the fervent prayers of our church, the prayer group, the Stephen Ministers, and many individuals.

But then again… we prayed just as hard for others who didn’t make it. Our church prayed, and our prayer group prayed, the Stephen Ministers prayed, others prayed. I don’t think these tragedies happened for lack of prayer.

3. Where two or three...  Maybe we are asking the wrong question when we ask, “Does God hear us better when we pray together?” There is no simple answer to that question. We can’t control God, no matter how many of us pray together. God will do what God will do, and somehow we have to trust it will be good. 

So maybe a better question would be, “Do we hear God better when we pray together?” Sometimes that’s the case. Certainly, Jesus promised, “Where two or three of you are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20).

Sometimes, as the old saying goes, we need “God with skin on.” We need to feel the comforting presence of someone sitting with us, and praying with us. Sometimes God works through the people around us. We feel the comfort of Christ in a hand we are holding. We hear the voice of God in the words of another’s prayer. Through the Holy Spirit, sometimes the words God says to us are placed in the mouths of those praying with us.

Sometimes, we pray together because it helps to knit us into the church universal, the body of Christ. Left to our own devices, we fight and squabble, or we pray selfishly for our own good. But the more of us that pray together, the less of us can be fighting. Praying together changes us, forms us, re-forms us into the people of God we are supposed to be.

4. Comforted by prayer.  There are many ways we do this – many prayers that we share together. We have some groups at church especially for praying together: the Tuesday morning staff prayer meeting, the Thursday “Teach Us to Pray” group, the folks who get the prayer lists at home, Barbara Martin-Stanley’s prayer line, the Stephen Ministers who text or email particularly urgent prayers. 

We have some ways of praying together at church, too. The prayers of the people are our joint work of prayer every Sunday morning. For some folks, this is their favorite time of worship. Other folks don’t look forward to our community prayers. They are too shy to share their own prayers. Or they are embarrassed to hear what others are praying about.

(Quick joke: a new lady went to church to pray. One after another, people lifted up their troubles – a heart problem, a kidney problem, irritable bowels. When she went home she told her husband, “I thought it was a prayer service, but it turned out to be an organ recital!”)

Praying together shouldn’t be just another way to air out our laundry list of complaints. We should also celebrate our joys and remember God’s faithfulness – as did the people of Israel in Psalm 118, “God’s faithful love endures forever!”

When we pray together in the prayers of the people, we weep with those who share sorrows, we rejoice with those who share joys. We all lift our hearts and voices to God, comforted that Christ is among us, comforted that we are among Christ’s people, confident that God does answer our prayers in the right time and the right way.

5. Shaped by prayer.  Another reason that praying together in church is important: it helps us to say the things we can’t say ourselves. We aren’t often good at confessing our sins and repenting, for instance. But in our shared prayer of confession, we admit together, “We have not done God’s will. We have not been an obedient church.”

Some of the prayers that we share in community shape us deeply. The Lord’s Prayer, for instance – a model prayer that helps us to say what needs to be said: 

God above – you love us like a proud parent! You are holy and awesome! 
Your heavenly kingdom is also a reality in this world – especially when we obey your will. 
Give us enough for today – enough bread, enough money, enough patience, enough love. 
Forgive us – we’re trying hard to forgive others. 
Save us from trials and temptations – protect us from evil. 
You can do this, because you are glorious and all things belong to you forever! 
Amen.

Many times we say this prayer and others on auto-pilot, scarcely thinking about or hearing what we pray. But in a crisis, these community prayers are the ones that come back to our lips. As we lay pinned beneath a wrecked car, as we sit speechless next to a hospital bed, as we walk lonely and confused in an Alzheimer’s ward… it is these shared community prayers that come back to us. And then we feel them deeply!

6. Community in prayer.  Psalm 118 that we heard today is one of these prayers of community. You can hear the leader calling, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!” And you can hear the community responding, “God’s faithful love endures forever!” (118:1,29).

This psalm is part of the Egyptian cycle of psalms in 113-118 that remember how God led the people of Israel safely out of Egypt. There is a strong chance that Jesus led the disciples in this hymn during Passover… what we know as the last supper.

Certainly, this community prayer anticipates the Messiah and continues to shape us. The words of this prayer echo through scripture and through our shared liturgy…
 
•	“Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (118:26) – Israel shouted this as Jesus rode into Jerusalem. We echo it often in worship and in communion.
•	“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (118:22) – that’s Jesus!
•	“This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (118:24)
•	“You are my God, and I will praise you!” (118:28)

Communion is a powerful form of shared prayer. It echoes so many words that shape us – 
Communal, as we share in the body and blood of Christ, as we share in the church… 
Communication, as we talk to God, as God talks to us, as we talk to each other…
Community, as we join together with the church around the world & across the ages… 

The church of Christ comes in many forms, but we are united in community by what we share: faith in Christ, comfort in prayer. 

- Amen.