A Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Romans 8:26-27
You may have heard of the Templeton Foundation. It was started by John Templeton, who was famous in the world of finance for being a contrarian investor. He was also a faithful Presbyterian layman. He gave a lot of money to Princeton Seminary. The unfortunate thing is that he thought he knew enough about religion to write books and set up a Foundation, giving a prize every year for religion that was larger than a Nobel Prize. His Foundation once funded a multi-year study on prayer. Does it work? Is it effective? They had a control group that was not prayed for and a group that was. It was a totally mistaken project for several reasons. First, sometimes the answer to prayer is “No.” Second, how could you be sure that in the control group that was not prayed for someone didn’t sneak in prayers anyway from loved ones or friends? They couldn’t know for sure. Was the prayer the right prayer? Of course, a lot of people get well anyway. After two to three years the results of the study was that it was inconclusive.