Now that the Church Exam and the Ordination have come and gone, I reckon enough time has passed to put up the final presentation I did before the Vocations Committee (that clinched the deal, so to speak)
A solid book on the theme, though dating from 1973, is by Gunnar Wertelius, Oratio Continua.
Presentation for the Vocations Committee on Luther’s theology of prayer,
London, Monday 13th October 2014
For Martin Luther prayer was not optional. Prayer is the bedrock for Christian living, a life-link, not just a Christian’s spiritual life but life in general, down to the practical every-day things. Prayer opens up our restored relationship with God. And it is one of the marks of the Church (On the Councils and the Church, 1539).
Luther spent much time commenting on prayers: his lectures on the Psalms and the Magnificat (1521) to name but a few. Prayer as part of the exegesis process, prayer dependent on and interconnected with the Scriptures. He also wrote suggestions for Morning and Evening Prayers, liturgies for corporate worship, a Betbuchlein (1522), and A Simple Way to Pray (1535; based on the Catechism). Prayer was very important to Luther, it was a given, a natural element of life. As such he called for fervent, frequent and focused prayer (compare eg. the perseverance in Rom. 12:12).
First of all, Luther insisted that God Himself has commanded prayer in the Second Commandment and the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer; praying is not something one does when one feels like it or happens to have some spare time, prayer is ordered by God to honour His name and give Him glory. “Therefore, it is clearly suggested and concluded that it is our duty to love, praise and thank Him [for all things God gives us]”, Luther commented on the First Article of the Creed (Large Catechism). This means that if God commands our prayers, He is most certainly interested in them. This is comforting.
Secondly, Luther pointed out that God has attached a promise of acceptance to our prayers; our prayers matter and God wants to fulfil our petitions (even if it does not always seem like it). This is reassuring.
Thirdly, God expects our prayers and that is why He has given us the Lord’s Prayer –a text from Scripture to be prayed- the first and foremost prayer. Luther even put it to verse and music (after all, singing is praying twice). This is helpful.
In short, to Luther praying is simply nothing else than responding to God.
Prayer also underscores the correct relationship between God and His people, between the Creator and the created. Prayer lets God be God, and lets people be people. Letting God be God is crucial in Luther’s thinking to a correct understanding of the Commandments, the Creed and Prayer, that is why it comes first in the Catechisms. Everything flows from God being the sole God, being the Creator, and being our Father.
In the Large Catechism, a god is defined as “that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress” (on the First Commandment). According to the Small Catechism, in the introductory lines to the Lord’s Prayer, the words ‘our Father’ mean that we can “ask Him confidently with all assurance as dear children ask their dear father.”
For Luther prayer as such is clinging to God –our God- with our whole heart (oratio cordis), to turn to Him for everything and all the time, trusting Him completely. “All our shelter and protection rests in prayer alone”, Luther wrote (intro to the Lord’s Prayer, Large Catechism).
Nothing rejoices God more then when we turn to Him. Prayer makes us dependent on the Creator from which all things flow, upon the ‘good’ coming from ‘God’. And just like our justification, this abundant goodness is not something that we merit or can demand or are entitled to or may take for granted; it is undeserved and it is the same for all. Just like the need for forgiveness, the need for prayer equalises all human beings.
We owe our lives and our livelihoods to God; both life in the here and now, and life after the great divide. We could perhaps summarise it in Christ’s words: “... that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10b; the thief takes, God gives). Prayer makes us aware of these great gifts, prayer makes us aware of who God is and who we are, and what our relationship is supposed to be like; in prayer we encounter the Creator and ourselves (cognitio Dei et sui). And if we encounter our Creator and ourselves then also Creation and our neighbours as ourselves.
It is this realisation and reliance on God that makes for true worship. It is the prayer that puts God in His rightful place, centre stage, that is true prayer. The pagans too pray and worship (Luther gives the example of the seamen in the story of Jonah), but their prayer is not one of trust, it is not God-centred and if not God-centred then empty. The idols of their own making, of our own making, are not the same as the Creator of Gen. 1.
Prayer/reflection/meditation/wishful thinking... some people would prefer a less or non-religious term for it but it seems that prayer is a human trait; yet for Luther prayer is only really prayer when it earnestly and humbly –not just formally, mumbling- puts our relation to the Creator in a right perspective and balance.
Yet, it is not a distant, dismissive hierarchy; our place in Creation as created is valued, we are freely given our place in the bigger whole. God is the Creator and we the created, He the Master and we His servants; but His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Mt. 11:30). The urgency with which the Scriptures admonish us to repent, to believe, to pray underscores God’s fervent desire to see us restored in our rightful place within that wonderful Creation.
This is why the devil wants to interrupt and distort our relationship with the Creator, and this is why he wants to interrupt and distort our prayer-life. The devil is anti prayer.
In the Large Catechism Luther, for whom the devil was just as up close and personal as God, describes the devil as disturbing our daily bread and all practical necessities, as attacking life not just spiritual but existential (Fourth and Seventh Petition of the Lord’s Prayer). The devil -like the thief in John 10:10b- takes, God gives.
That is why we are -according to Luther- harassed with spiritual trials and worldly struggles (Anfechtung). Life is a life of Anfechtung; it is the same for all people.
It is not always clear to us, when misery and pain and death strike in our lives, but God is at work there (opus alienum). He stretches our faith in the troubles and uses the temptations from the devil towards change for the better as well, even if we do not always recognise God at work. To go through these dark places is intrinsically human.
For Luther, those Anfechtungen are meant to break us, to humble us to our knees in prayer, to make us realise we cannot do things by ourselves; it empties us and then we are open to God and God can create us anew; there opens up a space, a void for God to fill, for faith to trust. Prayer chooses God’s side, and as such Creation’s side, and therefore life’s side. It is a continuing creation and it requires a continuing prayer (oratio continua). When we think prayer is far away and seems difficult, that is when it is the closest to us (Not lehrt beten). We can find strength in this.
Now, for many people in the 21st century, Christians no exception, the devil is an odd concept; a being with hooves and a pitchfork, smelling of sulphur seems ludicrous, something fantastical. The idea of being the battleground between good and evil -a matter of fact for Luther- seems preposterous to many, because people in our day and age like to think themselves in charge of their lives and their decisions. And if we are influenced by external forces, then where is our individual responsibility, our individual choice? And yet, people see and experience much evil in the world and in their lives.
However, in a pastoral setting phrases like ‘the Lord works in mysterious/alien ways’ and ‘what does not kill you makes you stronger/builds you up’, while perhaps expressing a sturdy theology and definitely part of Luther’s view on the Anfechtung, seem complacent, hollow, insulting even; it is clumsy, patronising and for modern-day people unacceptable and even medieval.
Perhaps looking once again more closely at the theme of Creation might be helpful: if Creation means ordering a devastating chaos and filling the void with purpose, love and value, we might explain the devil as opposing this. Not only does the ‘opposer’ not contribute to Creation (non-creator), he also tries to undo it (un-creator).
But in this struggle -Luther stresses- we have a champion, Christ. He is our great High Priest bringing us in the presence of the Father. He is our Intercessor, our Mediator, not just pleading for us in a judicial way but empathising and sympathising with us as a whole person not just a court case.
He not only taught us how to pray, the actual words of the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:9-13), but He also prays and intercedes for us (Jn. 16:26), and we can approach the Father in prayer through Him (per Christum).
Moreover, we are part of His body (imagery from eg. Rom., Col., Eph...), so we pray in and alongside Him (in Christo). Because all are part of this Body it also implies that prayer is not our possession and it cannot be self-centred and self-serving; prayer is not just worshipping God, it is an important way of serving our neighbour.
And because of Christ, the Father listens to our petitions and grants them for Jesus’ sake (propter Christum).
Our prayers are intertwined, united and incorporated with Christ’s own prayers; human and divine together, like Christ’s own two natures (a Chalcedonian principle).
This great High Priest is here, not just as the one leading worship, but also praying for us and praying together with us; it is a ministry we are all called to perform for our neighbours. Christ fully sympathises with us (Hebr. 4:15), we are not left on our own, which is very good news indeed, because prayer can be daunting, a struggle, just as Christ struggled in prayer in Gethsemane (Mt. 26:39, Lk. 22:44). The mental image of someone putting their arm around you and kneeling together with you, and perhaps even praying out loud when your own words fail or we feel unworthy, is a very powerful one.
Christ, the praying Christ, pointing to His Creator-Father, also lets us share in His new creation (II Cor. 5:17); here again there is this very important –and Luther reiterates this- link between praying and creating.
Christ also prays the Father for His Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, literally the ‘Paraklete’, the Comforter (Jn. 14:16), the Promise of the Father (Acts 1:4).
This Spirit of prayer is –Luther points out- the same Spirit of Creation, the same Spirit of grace, the same Spirit active in the redemptive work of Christ (Zech. 12:10). It is a very Trinitarian theology.
People are able to pray and find the strength to pray because of the Holy Spirit; the Spirit teaches us truth, mercy, how to acknowledge our sins (usus legis spiritualis), and explains God’s Word. And through that Word –the Word through which the Spirit gives grace- the Spirit is linked to the human spirit. As with Christ, the Spirit lets people, us, share in the action and event of prayer and creation.
The work of the Spirit is continual, and therefore prayer is continual, as is Creation. Prayer as a creative act (again, as restoring us in the scheme of Creation); prayer also as an act of defiance if you will against the assaults of the devil, the un-creation.
In this way our prayers become bigger and richer than we could possibly imagine. This means that even when we are going through temptation or Anfechtung our prayer is acceptable to the Spirit; no prayer is wrong or too small, insufficient or incomplete. The sighing of the Spirit becomes our call to the Father, our cry to God (Rom. 8:26, Gal.4:6). Against the roar of the devil (I Peter 5:8) stands the Abba-call of the Holy Spirit.
When we think that we cannot possibly be heard because our prayer is so deep within us or so difficult to express, God hears it loud and clear. God listens much more attentively than we do; we matter to God, our place in His Creation matters and He is paying attention to our prayers, He paying attention to His Creation.
Perhaps we could end with this prayer that sums up some of what we have discussed here today:
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask: through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (For All The Saints IV, 337 – Opening Prayer, Tuesday of the week of Pentecost 10 – The Book of Common Prayer)