Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
12Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
Once more: “I will do whatever you ask in my name… If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
Do you ever have a time when you’re reading the bible and something comes out and smacks you right in the forehead? This verse did that to me this week, gave me a mini-crisis of faith. As a person who uses prayer as the core of my faith, this is a shocking statement to consider. I don’t know about you but I’ve prayed in intercession for many things, I’ve asked Jesus for many things, I’ve asked him to intercede many times, I’ve asked him to bring very specific healing many, many times… and there were many times when the healing I asked for didn’t happen. This is a hard one for me, especially as a faith healer. I’ve always had this daydream that I could be a faith healer like Jesus was, that all I had to do was speak a word or give a touch and healing would happen on cue. Can we even imagine that? But in reality I know that healing comes NOT from me, only through me can healing come. But the kinds of healing I ask our Lord for do not always happen.
In seminary I had a classmate who had a sister in her forties that suffered from a very rare neurological disorder. Her sister began suffering debilitating seizures, so severe that she ended up in the hospital. Despite all that medical science knew, no cure for, or even reduction of her symptoms was possible. My classmate prayed fervently, frantically, faithfully… all she asked was that her sister’s end would come peacefully, not in a long, excruciating series of seizures that ended her life in physical agony. What she had asked Jesus for in his name did not happen, her prayer was not answered, and her sister’s last moments in this life were pure agony.
How do I square my seminary classmate’s experience of unanswered intercessory prayer with this verse from the Gospel of John? I could give many examples from my own life where prayers seemed to go unanswered and suffering seemed to have the final word. I’m sure you can come up with a few yourself.
I hear many excuses about why prayer doesn’t work sometimes, about why God doesn’t fulfill all prayers, not as we pray them anyway. I’ve even used a few myself. In fact, here’s a few of the most common ones I’ve used or heard.
One simple and quick answer may be that Jesus was simply and only referring to his disciples who were present during today’s scripture, and not to anyone else. The disciples received a unique and singular gift. The gift Jesus was referring to about answering all of the disciple’s prayers was not intended for us.
Here’s a popular one. God answers every prayer; sometimes the answer is “no”. Another version of that one is that God won’t always give you exactly what you pray for, but He will give you something you need. Add to that “God doesn’t grant every prayer right away; God works on His time. I’ve often tried to make peace with the variations on this one. I’ve often cautiously given similar advice to others. I’m not sure if I believe in this answer anymore, though. There’s no comfort in expecting one thing and being simply told “no”, or being told “I won’t give you that but there’s something for you behind door number 2.” God chooses to save some and destine others for destruction, all seemingly random. How is this “If in my name you ask for anything, I will do it”?
Here’s another popular one. Despite our prayers ultimately what happened was God’s will. That one seems popular in some circles. I dislike that one. I don’t dislike it because it may be the truth, I dislike it because the message of that reply feels too cold and ambivalent and far too harsh to be the God that knows me and loves me. I hate it because it means that God is the ultimate micromanager, actively choosing to kill children with cancer. I hate it because it means that God actively chooses to leave the vulnerable to be preyed upon by the selfish. I dislike it because it means that God is actively behind the death and destruction in every dangerous place in the world ravaged by war; God is responsible for the thousands of innocents that were killed by chemical weapons in Syria; God is responsible for every child soldier that kills and is killed in the Sudan; God is responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic; God is responsible for the entire accumulated suffering of the human race, despite all the constant prayers to end suffering. How is that “If in my name you ask for anything, I will do it”?
Then there’s the Godfather of all reasons why prayer doesn’t work – lack of faith. Prayers are only answered if you believe. This is the most insidious and self-destructive answer I’ve ever heard as to why God can give a blind eye to suffering – you don’t have enough faith. I’ve already told the story but it’s worth mentioning again. When I was a chaplain in seminary I entered a room and found a mother hours from dying of cervical cancer, her young daughter at her side, and three “Christians” who had somehow entered the room that were telling the daughter that her mother was dying because she didn’t fully believe in Jesus’ power to heal. I’ve never seen anything more horrific or abusive in my life. God will give a deaf ear to my prayers if I don’t have enough faith? How is this “If in my name you ask for anything, I will do it”? In that moment those three “Christians” would have burst into flames if Jesus really did give me anything I asked for in his name in prayer.
Hmmm. Maybe that’s part of it. Maybe the God who gives us free will does have a problem granting prayers that undermine the free will of others. That one I can understand. That one protects me, too. But what about the person trying to do me harm? Will God really not act, even in some small way, to grant my prayer for self-preservation in the face of someone seeking to take my life from me?
Maybe I just don’t know how to pray for God to intercede? How’s that for an answer to the question: Is Jesus breaking his promise when he chooses to ignore my prayers, or am I just doing it wrong?
This thought makes me think back to a conversation with a Rabbi who basically said to me, “You good Christian boys, do you think God is like Santa Clause? You just ask, and if you do so the right way God will give you whatever you ask for? Do you think that God dispenses healing like an ATM dispenses $20 bills?” None of us dared answer but I think all of us had been taught to answer “yes” to the ATM thing. We Christians have been taught from childhood that today’s scripture is true, that whatever we ask for in prayer will be granted. Have we been lied to by our theologians and our parish clergy and even our well-meaning parents? Hmmm.
When in doubt don’t panic, just calmly claim “Well, I guess it’s a mystery”. That’s the perfect response when you’ve thought yourself into a corner and can’t find your way back out. Why doesn’t God answer all prayers – I guess it’s just a mystery! Rationalizing helps: God knows what he’s doing, right, so I guess it’s just a mystery. The Dean of my seminary VTS called that a “theological cop-out”, very frowned upon, and guaranteed to toss in the trash any paper that tried to fall back on the “mystery” solution, so I can’t just do the “mystery” cop-out.
I hate to admit it but I just don’t know what’s going on here. Maybe this piece of scripture isn’t meant to be taken literally? Maybe I need to stop looking with my brain. Maybe I’m breaking my own rule about taking any one piece of scripture and focusing solely on it. I believe the bible is to be taken as a whole, not picked apart so that I can have single verses to toss like hand grenades at those who disagree with my understanding of what the lessons of scripture are.
So I’m falling back on the “maybe I’m doing intercessory prayer wrong” idea to see if I can’t find my way back out of the hole I’ve dug myself into. I can’t believe that Jesus lied when he said, several times and in several Gospels, that what I ask Him for in prayer I will in fact receive. So the answer must be “I’m doing this wrong.”
My mini-epiphany is that maybe this prayer thing really is about faith and NOT about logic, but not faith as in “I must have enough faith to work God’s ATM prayer machine”. Maybe successful prayer is about the kind of faith where ultimately I trust God that with every word I pray He always gives what is needed, not just anything that is wanted.
So maybe it’s not that I’m doing it wrong, it’s that I’m praying with my brain and I’m not praying with my faith. My faith reminds me how very many times I’ve prayed one particular prayer, and how every time I pray that prayer I especially hear the words “thy will be done”, and how every time I say those words I pray for the faith to believe and to accept that God knows what is needed better than me. When I pray the Lord’s Prayer using my faith alone, God’s will trumps everything I do, and by extension everything I pray for. Every time I pray the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to use, the same prayer Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, I set the ground rules for every other prayer I pray. The Lord’s Prayer may be more dangerous that I thought!
Do I hate that my every whim is not answered in prayer, despite the verse from John’s Gospel today? I do. I hate it. I hate that I don’t always receive exactly what I ask for, or don’t receive anything for sometimes years. Mostly I hate the reality that I don’t have control. But I can’t pray for God’s will to be done and then ask for anything I desire. Those two things are mutually exclusive. Just as Jesus prayed many times to the Father, “Thy will be done”, my faith tempers my desire with the reality that I’m not in charge and thank God I’m not. I would never want God’s job; all I can faithfully do is pray, “Lord if it be possible please let this cup pass from my or someone else’s hands, but if not please sustain us with your grace in whatever is to come.” That really hurts to say sometimes.
The Good News today is that God’s will is not about killing children with cancer, or about killing mothers on Mother’s Day. God’s will is about the coming of God’s Kingdom. On earth there are two realities: suffering and ultimately physical death. On earth suffering is caused simply by existing. In God’s Kingdom on Earth suffering still exists, yes, but how we respond to suffering can and should be forever changed, and the tools God gives us to temper suffering have never been more powerful.
The Good News today is that God does not desire our suffering, rather God stands with us in our suffering and will do many good works in the shadow of our suffering. For better or worse suffering opens a door for God to enter in. And when He does our Lord offers life preservers that DO sustain us during our times of suffering: mercy, strength, courage, wisdom, grace, peace, love, hope and faith.
The Good News today is that that God does NOT judge prayer as a test of our faith. Faithful prayer is not believing that God will give you whatever you ask for, faithful prayer is trusting that God will always grant what is needed instead of just what is wanted. Jesus’ statement about prayer that threw me for such a loop must also be taken, like everything else in the bible, in light of the fact that God is not bound by us or to us. God is who God is, God will be and do what God will be and do. Despite our egos from time to time, we are not God and we are not ultimately in charge. But God does respond to this kind of faith, even faith as tiny as a dandelion seed, and in every prayer, intercessory or other, God will ALWAYS give us the good gifts of his Kingdom whenever we ask: mercy, strength, courage, wisdom, grace, peace, love, and faith; more than enough to face today and every day. And I can live with that.