Praying with Jesus
Prayer Is Listening
St. Paul’s United Church, Dundas
January 8, 2017
When Jesus had also been baptized and was praying …
A few months ago we went to visit Uncle Neil over in St. Catharines. He had had a stroke and with mobility issues
was not able to return to his home. A place was found for him in the Ina Grafton Gage Home (which happens to be a
United Church home). We went over in the first few days of his arrival. We went to encourage him and to satisfy our
own hearts. We had a great visit and then when we said we were leaving Uncle Neil reached out his hands and said,
“Let’s pray together.” So we did. He began the prayer giving thanks for his new home, for our visit and for others too.
We continued it praying for him in the new home.
A funny thing about prayer, it moves us to a new realm or a different realm. Somehow with our hands joined together
we were momentarily in a different time and different space. Our space and time were transcended and we were
together in an eternal embrace. This transcendence is not escape from reality, but a deeper plunging into the reality
allowing us to be living in a different now, what theologian Paul Tillich years ago called the eternal now.
In this Season of Epiphany these two months of January and February, we in a worship series called Praying with
Jesus. We are going to look at some of the words Jesus uttered in his own prayers. We are going to look at some of
his teaching about prayer. We are going to look at the descriptions of times when he prayed.
Today we have Luke’s description of a time Jesus prayed. It is the first record of Jesus praying in Luke’s Gospel and it
happened after his baptism. Luke describes an experience of prayer. His description has some good lessons for us in
our own prayer lives.
The picture on the front cover of the bulletin captures some of this really quite well.
Notice Jesus’ face. His eyes are closed. His mouth is shut. The flow of the painting shows they are all caught up in a
different time and different space. We are in a different plane. Heaven is open to earth and it is all about relationship.
What I want us to note today is that Luke’s first description of Jesus praying depicts Jesus as silent, listening. There is
an opening between Heaven and Earth and there is movement from Heaven to Earth and from Earth to Heaven. The
Holy Spirit descends but Spirit becomes body and so descends as dove. Heaven’s voice vibrates the eardrums of the
earthly Jesus.
This moment of prayer is shown as an exchange, a movement. The Greek word used for prayer here and elsewhere in
the New Testament is proseuchomai. Broken into its two syllables it is pros like our word or prefix “pro” and
euchomai. In Greek the word euchomai itself can mean wish or desire or prayer. When the prefix pros is added it
underscores the idea of movement and of exchange. There is movement in the desire expecting an exchange. There is
giving and receiving, speaking and listening, a facing and waiting.
The teaching for us from this first reference to Jesus praying in Luke’s Gospel is that prayer is first and foremost about
openness and exchange. Prayer is entry into the reality of a new realm that enfolds time and space. And it is, from the
human side, first and foremost about listening. Prayer is listening. It involves waiting in openness.
A Catholic priest, Desmond O’Driscoll, tells the story of working with a Chinese woman named Jing Ying in Taiwan
who was becoming a Christian. They talked about prayer. He asked her, “Do you ever pray?” She replied, “Every
day.” He asked her, “How do you pray?” She said, “To tell you how I pray, I have to tell you about my mother.”
“I was from a poor family and when I was just a little girl, three and four years old, I had only two dresses. When one
was soiled my mother would take it off of me to wash and she would put the other dress on me. But in between taking
the one off and putting the other on, she would ask me to stand in front of her. To me, being so young, it seemed the
standing was a very long time. One day I asked her why she had me stand so long while she just looked at me. My
mother replied, ‘Oh, Jing Ying, I ask you to stand in front of me for a little while because I love looking at you. You
are so beautiful.’”
Jing Ying said, “My prayer is like that. I stand in front of God, just myself, and I wait.”
Fr. O’Driscoll asked her, “Once you heard your mother’s answer, how did you feel?”
“Oh, once I knew what my mother was doing, I felt great, so loved, so happy. It made me feel more loving of myself,
more confident, more positive. And it made me love my mother all the more too. Sometimes I would stand, though,
and feel regret if I knew that sometime that day I had disappointed my mother. So often my standing there with her
looking at me just made me want to love her more and bring her more joy.”
Jing Ying concluded, “So you see, my prayer life is the same. I hear God saying, ‘Jing Ying, I love looking at you.
You are so beautiful to me.’”
When all the people were baptized and Jesus had also been baptized and was praying, the heavens opened and the
Spirit descended bodily on him and voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, my Beloved; with you I am well
pleased.”
As we enter these weeks thinking about prayer, let us remember we are entering a big space and a special time. Let us
remember that the starting place is listening. Our own baptisms join us to Christ Jesus so when we read the story of his
baptism and his prayer, we stand in his place. The opening of heaven, the descending of the Spirit, the words
addressed to him are all for us. Those words are for us. “You are my Son, my Daughter; with you I am well pleased.”
Where to begin your prayers this week? Begin remembering this story. Begin knowing God is looking at you.
Begin listening, waiting and listening.
Rev. Rick Spies, Luke 3: 21-22
Picture by David Zelenka, 2005