Bowling Green Covenant Church

“And then, when you pray, don’t be like the play-actors. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at street-corners so that people may see them at it. Believe me, they have had all the reward they are going to get. But whey you pray, go into your own room, shut your door and pray to your Father privately. Your Father who sees all private things will reward you.”—Matthew 6.5-6 [J.B. Phillips, The NT in Modern English]

In his book, Biblical Preaching, Haddon Robinson warned preachers to avoid sermons spoken in a stained-glass voice. Such sermons may be scholarly accurate, impeccably organized and flawlessly delivered, but they are “dead and powerless because they ignore the life-wrenching problems and questions of our hearers.”[1]

The same can be said of inauthentic prayers spoken in a stained-glass voice. According to Jesus such prayers may impress the hearer, but they fail miserably to gain a hearing from God the Father. Prayers prayed simply to gain attention from the public are “dead and powerless” not only because they “ignore the life-wrenching problems and questions” of those who hear, but because they lack any true substance. The reward comes not by means of answered prayer, but by means of whatever fleeting rush of fame that comes upon the one offering prayer.

Stained-glass prayers, like stained-glass sermons, are stuffed with “code language never heard in the marketplace.”[2] But they sound good. They sound impressive. The lips are full, but the heart is empty and the head is pre-occupied with thoughts distant from being set on heavenly things. Stained-glass prayers are prayed by men and women fascinated more about being seated at the best table than about being seated in heavenly places with the risen Christ.

We’ve all prayed stained-glass prayers. Hopefully, we have grown-up enough in our relationship with Jesus to know that He takes greater delight in prayers spoken in a broken-glass voice than prayers spoken with perfect grammar and syntax. Lest we forget, it was the simple prayer of the tax collector, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18.13), that Jesus said enabled the man to go home justified. Authentic prayer aims to impress God not the public.

Jesus is not ruling out all public prayer. He is ruling out public prayer aimed more at gaining the public’s ear and approval more about the hearing and approval of God the Father. The reward of having God hear and answer is far more lasting and satisfactory than anything the public can offer. Public approval is lighter than a breath. The reward of God is full of weight and eternal.

The essential aim of prayer is to seek communion with God. By exhorting us to private prayer Jesus would have us sift our motives for going to God out in prayer. Authentic prayer seeks the applause of God not the public. Authentic prayer is motivated by the desire to our joy in God. Authentic prayer is “authentic” because it is the overflow of an authentic relationship with God the Father through a faith-relationship with God the Son brought about by the life-giving work of God the Holy Spirit.

You think about that.

MM