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Romans 8:26-39
A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
I recently received a brochure advertising a Lutheran retreat on prayer. The brochure says the retreat will include prayers for many things, for peace in the Middle East, for the renewal of the church, and the like. There’s something good here. They even appeal to our Lutheran heritage and say: “We realize in evangelism it is the Holy Spirit who calls and gathers us so we will begin with calling on the Holy Spirit to make this happen.”
But then at the end of the brochure there’s a description of what prayer is. It says it’s a two-fold process of talking and listening. We bring everything to God by talking to him, and we are to listen and to know what he’s answered by looking in Scripture, by talking with others, and it says sometimes God’s answer comes even through the thoughts and dreams that he gives us.
Is that what prayer is? Talking to God and then listening for his answer and finding it in thoughts and dreams, conversations with others, and Scripture verses?
This is why the Romans text for today is so important because it says there: “We do not know how to pray as we ought but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
It’s like having a conversation with a toddler. Compared to God, our prayers are the babbling of toddlers, but the Holy Spirit takes our prayers, our babbling, and translates them so that it is proper prayer before God. That’s what prayer is.
Then how does it work?
We remember what Luther says about praying the Lord’s Prayer. Regarding the petition, “Thy kingdom come,” he writes: “God’s kingdom comes without our prayer, but we pray that it may come among us.”
And: “Thy will be done.” God’s will is done without our prayer, but we ask that it be done by us.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” He gives daily bread to the good and evil without our prayer, but we pray also that he would make us aware of his gifts and receive them with thanksgiving.
So that’s what prayer is about. That’s also found in Matthew 6.
Then in the next chapter, Matthew 7:7 says: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened for you.” And then comes the explanation: “What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks you for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
That’s what it’s about. We come with our babbling, and say we do not know how to pray right. But the Holy Spirit translates it, and we’re given good things.
There’s one difficulty with this analogy. The trouble with earthly parents is it can go wrong and sometimes does, but we know how much more does our heavenly Father give us what we need. That doesn’t mean that he does evil, but rather he gives the perfect gift.
How do we know this? It’s not because we listen or that we’re “good listeners.” Remember Paul’s warning in 2 Corinthians 11:14: “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
So, we can’t say: “Well, I prayed and the Lord gave me the answer.” I know because I feel that way. Or because of that conversation, or that dream I had. That would be the sin of presumption, presuming our ways are God’s ways.
The problem is people understand prayer to be twisting God’s arm. If I just do it right, do enough of it, or if I can turn up the voltage by getting a prayer chain to pray for this, then I can make God do what I know is right.
We remember what Luther wrote late in his life about praying to the saints. He said that people pray to the saints because they think they’re going to get something from the saints. They bother the saints because they think they can manipulate them. And then he adds: “When physical and spiritual benefit and help are no longer expected, then the saints will be left in peace, both in the grave and in heaven, for no one will long remember, esteem, or honor them … when there is no expectation of return.” (Smalcald 2,3:28; BC Tappert, 297).
And that’s what happened. As soon as it was no longer said that praying to the saints is a way of twisting God’s arm, the practice died out.
What is prayer?
Prayer is not a matter of talking and listening to God. It’s more like a sacrament. Prayer is not a sacrament, but like a sacrament.
There is no definition in the Bible for what a sacrament is, and so we’ve had three ways of trying to define what a sacrament is. It is said there is a command and a promise from Christ. Therefore, we have sacraments. The difficulty with that is that it doesn’t really solve the question because in John 13, we have a command and a promise to wash each other’s feet. If that were satisfactory, we would do that, and to be sure, in some places foot washing is done in that sacramental sense.
The second way of defining a sacrament comes from Saint Augustine who said a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace, which means there is some type of gift being given. But that doesn’t sort it out very well.
The third way that’s been used is to say that the church decides. Down through the centuries it’s been said that there are two sacraments, then three, and finally in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council the Roman Catholic Church decided on seven sacraments. Some people have said there are twelve sacraments and others have even said twenty.
What then do we say? We Lutherans said that there are three sacraments: Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and absolution (Apology to the Augsburg Confession 13). Absolution is what we use at the beginning of every service. It’s a command and a promise. We are commanded to confess our sins. The promise is they are forgiven.
What about prayer? Prayer is not comparable to the analogy of talking to God and then listening because then we fall into the trap of thinking: I can judge God.
Rather prayer is built on the analogy of a sacrament because it is a command and a promise. The command is: Bring everything to the Lord in prayer. All our troubles, our sorrows, our concerns, whatever. In that famous preface to the Lord’s Prayer in the Large Catechism, Luther says: Prayer is really like the eleventh commandment: Pray. We are to pray, all the time.
And then comes the promise. That’s the other half of it as it says in Mattew 7:11: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
And there’s Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” Can you imagine!
And also, Matthew 18:20: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
We have then the command which is to bring everything to God in prayer and the promise that the Lord does everything for us.
How can this be?
Remember what the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are like.
In Baptism we bring this person forward and we use some water. It doesn’t matter if we use a tiny little bit or a whole lake, it’s still common, ordinary water.
Or the Lord’s Supper we use a little bit of bread, a tiny cup of wine, but the Lord there brings to you and me everything we need for life now and forever.
The same is true with prayer. We come with our babbling. We don’t know how to pray right. We say all kinds of things. He wants us to pray. And then he uses our words and the Holy Spirit turns them into the right words and God gives us all good things.
It is therefore possible to say as it does in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: We are to “pray without ceasing.” We pray at regular times but also what we’re really doing is living in the absolute confidence that the Lord who gave his only Son for us surely is giving us all good things as well, and we can live in that complete trust and confidence. Amen