Prayer in the modern world

Prayer in the modern world

I had a high school teacher, teaching religion, who once told a room full of 11th grade boys in a Catholic school, “God is not a genie.” He said it with firmness and finality. It may seem like a strange statement; but at that time we are discussing prayer and why we prayed to God. Although this happened more than half a lifetime ago (for me at least) the words still ring clearly in my ears.
Recently, I was listening to another conversation on prayer. It covered, among other things, the qualities or elements of prayer. One particular thought remained from this conversation: prayer means there is a listener, an audience, so to speak, to receive the prayer. Another way of looking at it is, the one who prays, must be apart or separated from the one receiving the prayer.
In this same conversation, an intriguing question arose: “Did humanity always pray?” Of course, being good, God-fearing folk, we all readily agreed that from the very depths of time, humanity (or our ancestors) prayed – probably as fervently, if not more, than we did. Then a challenge was laid on the table: humanity did not always pray. This was such a stunning thought that we could actually not imagine it at all.
Historically speaking, one could actually imagine a primitive community of early human beings, living with great dependency on their surroundings. Whether they were hunters, gatherers, early farmers, they were clearly dependent on the world around them. So dependent were they, that they experienced their existence, literally, as part of that same environment. True there appear artifacts that such people, as they grew into more established communities, did make what appear as offerings to beings larger then themselves. But is this prayer? If we all lived in the same dormitory, and one of us received a parcel of goodies from parents, would we not naturally share it and everyone would thank the bearer of such a treat. In much the same way, perhaps, early humanity experienced the world and each other. If we were so addicted to these goodies, we would not ask our roommate for more, because we know he hasn’t got more. What we do is hope that his parents would send more. And there you have it. Those of us more desperate for the goodies will actually pray that the parents of our generous roommate would send more goodies. The roommate is present, to him we give thanks; the parents, the true source of the treat are not present, to them we pray.
If we can all imagine this scenario in a historical context, then an obvious question will arise: man had to learn to pray. And when does this happen? At least in the Bible, most of us are familiar with one of the bluntest requests humanity ever posed to a higher, spiritual being: Teach us to pray. Clearly, prayer was transforming. A growing sense of apartness, aloneness was arising in humanity of the time. Jesus Christ, as we all know, obliged: “Our Father….” Here was this spiritual being incarnate putting Himself at humanity’s level and joining humanity in addressing God. One may argue about translation and all that but one cannot deny that one possible way of looking at these two majestic words is that Christ spoke as one with humanity. Yes, in a sense, He too was apart, He was not in His kingdom. But these two words also stir in one’s deepest being a sense of warmth that is almost indescribable: I, too, am part of God, through the deed of His Son. In a certain sense, not only did Christ bring Himself to humanity’s level, but He also raises humanity’s level to be in touch with God, even if just the hem of His robe.
The pressures of modern living have made humanity pray like it has never prayed before. We pray for just about everything, from world peace to my parents not finding out that I have been sleeping with my girlfriend. We pray for success at work, to win games (or not to lose them) to pass exams, to heal the sick, to save the dying, to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Modern humanity could produce probably the largest catalog of prayers in existence. God must be terribly busy then. In the movie Bruce Almighty, Bruce, who has the opportunity to be God while God goes on vacation, is confronted by a deluge of e-mail of nothing but prayers. Exasperated, he simply chooses to grant all the prayers. Needless to say, chaos and mayhem follow. And yet, while just a movie meant to entertain us, this episode touched on a significant aspect of why we pray: when God grants our prayer, who becomes responsible for the consequences? In the movie, it was clear: God does.
The story of the Lord’s prayer, and the episode in Bruce Almighty highlights two interesting aspects of prayer that I think humanity needs to awaken to: first, when we pray, we bridge a void between us and our God; second, we need to recognize our responsibilities when we pray. Do we pray for our desires (praying for world peace could very well be a desire) or do we pray because we feel responsible for our deeds. The former will always be gratifying when granted and frustrating when not; the later will awaken within our innermost self that spark planted by Christ.
I suppose there can be many ways to say why we pray. We can even say that we accept the responsibility of the consequences of our prayers. And we must ask ourselves, honestly, whether we see God as a genie, a patron, a “God-father”, there to grant us wishes, or we see God as this wonderful being who grants all our prayers, in a myriad of wonderful, and often misunderstood ways, because He loving teaches us to be responsible. The onslaught of modern living should be enough of a gift to remind us of Christ within who has taught us truly how to pray.