Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century Chapter II

This is my second chapter of Spiritual Aerobics
For the 21st Century. It is entitled Dangerous Prayer.
This chapter contemplates the power, ethics and dangers
of prayer in the modern world.

Given the weakness and sin of humanity, Christians
once believed that prayer should center on personal
and social repentance. We recognized our constant
need for God's forgiveness and grace. The Episcopal
Church's Book of Common Prayer is a great example of
traditional prayer.

In today's popular TV religious culture, prayer is
portrayed as our source of personal power over
the world, and even over God.

Many people pray, "In Jesus' Name," asking
for prosperity, power, victory or revenge. They pray
as if the name of Jesus were a mystical spell, or a
magic word. What if we pray, in Jesus' name, and
ask for something totally sinful and wrong?
Such prayers are very dangerous. Spiritual Aerobics
shows us how God might answer these dangerous prayers.




SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY II

The Rev. Rod Reinhart

DANGEROUS PRAYER

When I was young and holy
The Church always taught me
To take my burdens to the Lord
And leave them there

The Church taught me to "let go and let God"
It taught me that "I was weak and
He was strong" and
"I'd be satisfied as long
As I walked, let me walk close to Thee."

They taught me to pray and not worry, just live in God's light
"Just have a little talk with Jesus and
Everything would be… ALL RIGHT"

But patience and faith are not popular
In this age of instant religious gratification
We no longer take our burdens to the Lord and leave them there

We storm Heaven with our demands
We send bucks to religious radio shows
We petition TV preachers
And all the saints in Glory
To release God's power in prayer
And make JESUS give us
Exactly what we want and right when we want it



America is caught in the
Arrogance of Prayer
We don't trust in God's patient power
To heal and help us.
We thrust our fist in God's face
Demanding a miracle
As is we were in control
And a few Biblical verses
Give us power over God

How many books and TV preachers teach us
That Prayer is our personal Power over the real world
How often do we pray
"Not THY will, but MY will be done"

The Church once taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves
To love our enemies and care for the sick and the poor
But are we taught today to trust in God
And lean not to our own understanding
Are we taught today to love mercy
Live justice and walk humbly before our God?

Humility is as out of style as the 1964 Thunderbird
Too many of us come to God today
In the cool assurance
Of our own perfection
And the cruel resurgence
Of our own prejudice

No longer do we earnestly repent
Of our own sins
Or live in love and charity with our neighbors
No longer do we make our humble confessions
Devoutly kneeling
To our almighty and loving God


All too many preachers today have taught us
That patience and love are signs of weakness
They tell we must expect a miracle
As soon as we send our money

We now expect God's wrath to fall on our enemies
When we wave around words like
"Tradition, Heresy, Righteousness and Morality"
We pile these words like stones
On the backs of people we do not like
Yet we refuse to carry them ourselves

The arrogance of phony prayer
Fills far too many temples today
Self-flagellation has become self-congratulation
As powerful leaders legislate repentance
for the sins of the world
And not the sins of themselves

I have grown old enough to see
Doctors run TV cameras through my heart
And felt the cat lick my whiskers when I'm sick
I have seen many painfully glorious
answers to prayer
And I know now that we must be
very careful with prayer
For God pays attention
Maybe too much attention
And God makes desperately
important decisions about us
With every prayer we even begin to breathe

For Christ's death and resurrection
Opened the doors of Heaven to our prayers
Jesus promised God would obey
Every prayer we pray in His name
But when we fail to pray with mercy and love
God alone knows what judgment we will receive

Prayer is not playing power games with God
It is not magic or wishing on a star
Prayer is not taking revenge against strangers
Or building our career on the people we crush

Real prayer is power by which God
Judges, changes, guides, and enlivens us
We must give ourselves totally to God
Or our prayer isn't really prayer at all

Prayer is our total concentration
Our ultimate consecration
Of utterly giving ourselves to God
Prayer is that moment of uncontrollable intensity
When God fills our mind, our emotions, our whole being
With incomprehensible presence and overwhelming power
And pours forth His own prayer through us
We plead with God from the flaming shadows of our soul
God explodes through us to move the stones of earth

Prayer becomes prayer when we cannot stop praying
When God becomes the flood raging over our barriers
Of fear and pain and reaches through our lives
To incarnate justice and redemption in the world

Prayer becomes prayer when we are engulfed in God
And God prays through our lives
Prayer becomes prayer
When we are transfigured, transcended
And transformed by the love of God
Prayer becomes prayer
When we are the prayer of God

And how many vast armies
Of visionaries, missionaries, and monks
Have raised their voices
To become the prayer of God?


The Archbishop of Canterbury
Back woods Pentecostal preachers
Priests offering Christ at mass
Tibetan monks on mountain paths
Gurus in crowded temples
Swamis, Imams, and Shamans
Ancient gypsies and medicine men
St. Teresa, St. Claire, St. John of the Cross
St. John the Divine
The Bal Shem Tov, the Seer of Lublin
Ghost Doctors of the Aborigines
Gnostics, mystics and agnostics
Kneeling or dancing
Singing in the void or weeping into silence
How many vast armies have prayed themselves out to God

With every ounce of consecration and joy
Every second of concentration and love
With profound repentance
Overwhelming gratitude
Endless longing and unhealable pain
How many vast and holy armies have prayed
That great spiritual prayer
That subsumes all prayer....

Oh God, save us from ourselves
Oh God, teach us how to love
Thy will be done, Oh Lord
And let our cry come unto Thee

And whose prayer does God hear
And how does He answer them?

Does God hear the prayer of the abortion doctor
Or the prayer of the abortion doctor's murderer?


Does God hear the prayer of the gay Christian
Struggling to live out his faith
Or does God hear the prayer of the gay bashing Christian
Looking for his next victim?

Does God hear the prayer of the concentration
camp prisoner trying to escape
Or the prayer of the concentration camp commander
Trying to cover up his crime?

Does God hear the prayer of the old woman
Seeking safety on the street
Or the drug-addicted mugger
Looking for his next fix?

Does God hear the prayer of the preacher
Calling down damnation
On the hustlers and hookers on the streets
Or the prayer of the local pastor
Trying to save young people
From a life of destruction?

Does God hear the prayer of the drunk
Looking for a drink
Or the prayer of the AA member
Trying to stay sober?

Does God hear the prayer of the man dying with AIDS
Or the politician trying to cut AIDS funding?

Does God hear the prayer of the Rabbi
Before he is killed by the Nazis
Or the prayer of Hitler before he kills himself?

Does God hear the prayer of the escaping slave
Or the prayer of the master hunting him down?

Does God hear the prayer of the mental patient
Crying out in the dark
Or the prayer of the governor trying to close
The mental hospitals?


Does God hear the prayer of the Crusaders
attacking Jerusalem
Or the prayer of the armies defending it?

Does God hear the prayer of the strikers
seeking fair wages
Or the prayer of the owners refusing
to give in to their demands

Does God hear the prayer of the beaten wife
Trying to defend herself
Or the prayer of the drunken husband
Gathering his strength
To slug her again?

Does God hear the prayer of Caiaphas and Pilate
As they condemn a man to death
Or does He hear the prayer of Christ
Forgiving them from the Cross?

Whose prayers does God hear?
He hears all our prayers
He knows us by our prayers
He judges us by our prayers
He hears the prayers
Of the righteous and the unrighteous
He answers our prayers in the world today
And in the world to come

God answers our prayers through the power
Of the Cross and the Resurrection
He answers the prayers of the
Repentant, the suffering, the faithful
And the merciful with reconciliation
In this world and redemption in the next

God answers the prayers of the
Unforgiving and the unforgiven
The murderer and the basher
The merciless and the hypocrite
With punishment in this world
And judgment in the next

God hears our prayers
He hears them all too well
He knows far beyond our knowing
Why we ask and what we're after
And some times, just because He is God,
He touches us
With underserved but overwhelming grace
Just because He loves us
and we need His love so much


God hears our prayer . . . born on the heartbeat
And summoned on the drum of our soul
We come to God with courage and love
Throwing off our cloak of hatred and fear
Coming to Him in full consecration
Clothed in the garment of redemption and love
In union with Christ, asking one thing
That God's will alone be done in our lives
As we enter fully the mystery of God
He will grant our request that His will be done
All will be well and our joy will be complete
For we shall be like Him and He will call us each by name
And all of us will be forgiven and redeemed
Filled with the Spirit . . . made one with Christ
United to God in holiness and peace

Rev. Rod Reinhart

Plymouth MI 1995
Chicago IL 2011