A Homily given by Fr. Ben Jones; Curate,
St. George’s Anglican Church, Raleigh, NC;
on The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; A.D. 2009.
“In His Name”
+ In the name of God the Father, and of God the Son,and of God the Holy Ghost, Amen.
St. luke 18:14. “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
In last weeks Gospel we heard Jesus exclaim, “It is written: my house is the house of prayer.”1 In our Gospel lesson this morning we are taken right to the heart of prayer. The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican teaches us “humility in prayer”. Jesus uses a very cleaver and at the same time, a dangerous tactic to cause His audience to rethink the status quo and also to realize that their relationship with God cannot be determined by their own sense of merit.
In order to understand the differences in the two prayers that are being offered in the temple, let’s consider three questions. “What is prayer”? “Why do we pray”? And lastly, “What is the purpose or the end of prayer”?
What is prayer? Prayer is described as the “ascent of the soul” to God, that link which connects us to God. In the first verse of Psalm XXV, (one of the Penitential Psalms), David cries to God for the forgiveness of his sins. “Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”2 David is showing us by this “adoration” of his Lord, he is not simply lifting up his eyes or hands in prayer, but actively in the true spirit of prayer, he is lifting up his soul. This prayer shows the directing of our communications to God.
We move vertically, we ascend to God with this relationship and communication, not horizontally, or on our own level. Let’s consider a necessary component of the lifting up of our souls to God.
Prayer does not occur without the recognition of, and the acknowledgment of our dependence on God. In dependence on God, we come to Him “poor in spirit”. The first Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.3 The Greek for the word poor, (མྲཀླཟླཔྱབྲགྲཏན is more appropriately translated as “beggar”. This describes how our dependence on God and the hope in His grace should be exhibited. Those that come to God “poor in spirit” are those who have been “humbled” by the grace of God, in their dependence upon Him and their acknowledgment of sins committed. By coming to God in a patronizing way, telling God our needs in a complaining spirit violates this essential condition of prayer. We “MUST” come to God, lifting up our souls in dependence upon Him. Without this dependence, our prayer is simply not a prayer, it is a demand.
Why do we pray? Let’s do something we have always been told not to do. Answer a question with a question. [What were you thinking we were going to do???] To whom do we pray? By knowing where we direct our prayers, we will better understand why we pray. There is only one answer to the question of whom we pray unceasing; God. Again, we exhibit adoration to the one who can answer our prayers. By this adoration we are acknowledging His omniscience, that God hears all prayers, as well as acknowledging His omnipotence, God’s ability to grant all prayer. The act of prayer itself relays our hope to God in that He is the one who hears and answers our prayers. Hope is that link between our faith and love; that faith in and our love for God. We now understand that in true prayer all three theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, or charity, are exercised.
“FAITH” is the foundation of our prayers. “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”4 Jesus stated the importance of exercising faith through prayer. Jesus is encouraging us to pray, the principal duty of a Christian, and through our prayers, we are encouraged to have faith and to receive His grace. Our “HOPE” is that ladder by which faith ascends to that unfailing, unending love; God. The mention of a ladder may bring to remembrance Jacob’s dream.
“And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”5 In the context of prayer, we see this ladder as the path of communication. We ascend, lifting up our prayers to God, and God descends to us with His grace. “LOVE” is that cord, that tie that not only binds us to God, but draws us ever so closer and closer to God and His Kingdom, that New Jerusalem. “And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”6 This is why we pray. We pray with unending “FAITH”, exercising the virtue of “HOPE” to be in the presence of this unfailing, unending “LOVE”, in whom has been in existence from before the beginning, to now, and for ever. What does all of this mean for us?
All of this brings us to the answer of our third question, what is the purpose or the end of prayer? Many answers have been given to this question. Yet there is only one adequate answer; “To fulfill the will of God”. Through the teachings of scripture on what is the purpose of prayer, we find two results of prayer. The first result to be noted is that we obtain those things from God which we need for our true life here on earth, and in addition, what God wills to give us if we ask Him rightly in prayer. The second result to be noted is the conforming of our wills to His Divine Will. Both of these results bring us to the purpose or the end of prayer; the fulfillment of the Divine Will.
We can understand this fulfillment of the Divine Will of God by understanding why God created man. God created man in His own image. God breathed into man the breath of life. Man now became a living soul, a living being. We are distinguished from the animal kingdom by being created in the image of God. So, for those who place their trust in the belief of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, there is no fulfillment of the Divine Will. We did not evolve from the animal kingdom. We are created by God, in God’s image. Thus, we are a very special creation of God. God created man in His own image to worship Him, to continually lift up our will through prayer, to His will. Prayer takes away the distractions and restores us to growing closer and closer to the will of God.
Remember the Pharisee and the Publican praying in the temple?? Can you identify the humble spirit praying? The Pharisee is praying to make his appearance to man, while the Publican is praying his request to God. God sees with what disposition and means we come to Him. The Pharisee was wholly intent upon himself. He had nothing in his eye but self, his own praise, and certainly did not seek God’s glory. There is not one word of prayer in all that he said. He went up to the temple to pray, however he was so full of himself and his own goodness that he had need of nothing from or at the hand of God, not even the favour or the grace of God, which it seems, he did not think worth asking. The Pharisee exhibited no “love your neighbour as yourself”. He despised others. “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.”7 There could not be any more vivid evidence in scripture, not only of the lack of humility and charity, but of blatant pride and self-righteousness. How about the Publican??
The Publican’s prayer was the complete opposite of the Pharisee’s prayer. The Publican was full of humility and repentance for his sins, and most of all, his desire towards God. He lifted up his heart to God in the heavens, in holy desire, through humiliation proving his dependence on God and acknowledging his sins. His ultimate goal in prayer should be our ultimate goal in prayer, to fulfill the will of God. The answer to our third question, what is the purpose of prayer, will define our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is all that really matters in the end. That right relationship with God begins, is perpetuated, and is sustained by prayer.
Let’s take a quick look at the parts of prayer in order to keep our prayer lives in check. A simple acronym can help with this “prayer tune up”! ACTS. The letter “A” stands for the acknowledgment of or the adoration of God. All prayer must be addressed to God, the first person of the Trinity. By addressing God we are acknowledging Him through an act of faith in the manifestation of Him to be an Almighty, Everlasting, and a Merciful Lord. The letter “C” stands for confession. We confess our sins to God by following the example of the Publican. “God be merciful to me a sinner.”8 The letter “T” stands for thanksgiving. We give thanks to all that God has done and will do for us. The letter “S” stands for supplication or the petition which concerns our individual needs. We can at this point and should pray for others through intercessory prayer.
In the “Parochial Intercessions and Announcements” section of the bulletin there is a comment on “Intercessory Prayer” which reminds us of its importance. “Intercessory prayer can penetrate the hearts of those we cannot open, shield those we cannot guard, teach where we cannot speak, and comfort where our hearts have no power to soothe. Prayer, with its unseen hand, can enter where we may not.”9 Then we do something very special to conclude our prayer. “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”10 All that we do in our private and our corporate prayer life, we ask, “IN HIS NAME”. And we conclude, AMEN.
Let us pray.
Almighty God,
the fountain of all wisdom,
who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking;
We beseech thee to have compassion upon our infirmities;
and those things which for our unworthiness we dare not,
and for our blindness we cannot ask,
vouchsafe to give us,
for the worthiness of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN.
+
“AND NOW UNTO GOD THE FATHER,
GOD THE SON, AND GOD THE HOLY GHOST;
BE ASCRIBED ALL MIGHT,
MAJESTY, POWER, AND DOMINION,
MOST JUSTLY DUE THIS DAY,
BOTH NOW, AND FOREVER,
WORLD WITHOUT END,
AMEN.”
1 The Gospel according to St. Luke 19:46a.
2 The Psalms 25:1.
3 The Gospel according to St. Matthew 5:3.
4 The Gospel according to St. Matthew 21:22.
5 The Book of Genesis 28:12.
6 The Revelation of St. John the Divine 21:1-3.
7 The Gospel according to St. Luke 18:11.
8 The Gospel according to St. Luke 18:13.
9 All Saints Convent, Catonsville, MD.
10The Gospel according to St. John 14:13-14.