Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

Romans 8:26-27, Mark 7:31-35

How much does prayer depend on words? Since prayer is communication, it depends on words as much as any communication depends on words. The question, then, becomes whether we always need words to communicate.

I am thinking about the dedication I attended for a Vietnam Memorial Statue in Prescott, Arizona years ago. There were several speeches by some of the local veterans. A choir sang patriotic songs. Two local politicians gave moving speeches thanking those who had served. The dedication had lots of words. Yet, today, as I recall the events of that dedication, what stands out for me was something that involved no words at all. While the crowd paused in silence, a formation of jets flew overhead. We watched as one of the jets purposely began to smoke and then pulled out of formation. As the other jets continued in formation, the obvious lack of one plane made a very moving visual image. The silence became like a prayer.

Not having seen this before I mentioned it to our church secretary the next day. Her husband was a retired officer in the army. She immediately recognized what I was describing and told me it was called the "Missing Man Formation." Even before I knew the words, I understood visually what it symbolized. For all the men who were with us to dedicate that statue, there were others who never returned home. Words were not necessary to communicate this truth.

When Kathy and I were engaged, I already knew God was calling me into the ministry. My desire was to become a preacher as well as a pastor. I knew that good preaching would depend heavily on my using words. Thus, I disciplined myself to begin building a stronger vocabulary by intensively reading great literature and then looking up new words in the dictionary. I followed this by writing down the word and making it a point to include the new word in my conversation over the next week.

I remember learning the word "pulchritudinous." It means physically beautiful. I determined that the next time Kathy was home from college I would compliment her by calling her pulchritudinous. In the meantime I continued learning other words. When Kathy arrived about three weeks later, I did not hesitate to show off my growing vocabulary. I was sitting in the living room with her mom when Kathy entered and I said, "Kathy, you are so pusillanimous." Kathy's mom laughed at my attempt to use new words. Kathy asked, "What does that mean?" I told her to look it up in the dictionary. Kathy's mom asked if pusillanimous was really the word that I meant. I confidently assured her mom that I was using one of the new words I had learned. Kathy found pusillanimous in the dictionary and read the definition out loud, "Cowardly, lacking courage." She did not feel complimented.

I rushed to the dictionary and desperately began looking for the word I meant. I turned to her mom for help saying, "The word I am thinking of means physically beautiful and begins with pu." I eventually found pulchritudinous and tried to convince Kathy that this was what I had meant. Fortunately, my smile and eyes spoke louder than the word I had mistakenly used.

Through that humbling experience I learned that real communication does not rely solely on words. Kathy knew I loved her by the smile on my face and laughter in my eyes even though I had mixed up two words. If we think about it, we often communicate without words. So how many words does it take to communicate to God in prayer? Perhaps we have fallen into the mistaken idea that prayer is only about words. What would happen if we saw prayer as also non- verbal?

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, 'Ephphatha', that is, 'Be opened.' And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

- Mark 7:31-35

I learned in Alaska that native people are much better at non-verbal communication than non-native people tend to be. Natives are more comfortable with silence. They seem to be more in tune with body language. Thus, one of the popular native jokes was about a cowboy and Indian in the old west.

A cowboy was riding across the prairie when he came across a lone Indian lying with one ear to the ground. As the cowboy dismounted, the Indian looked up without moving a muscle of his face. Only his eyes rotated up toward the cowboy. The Indian spoke slowly. "Wagon.... Two horsesŠ. Man and woman in wagonŠ. Woman with blonde hairŠ." The cowboy was amazed. "You can tell all that by simply listening to the ground?" The Indian replied, "Ran over me two hours ago."

A great deal of communication occurs in non-verbal forms. Our actions speak louder than our words. Our facial expressions communicate how we are feeling in a situation. Our body language shows whether we are attentive or bored. Our emotions are often our most honest form of communication. It is ironic that the most important things we say are often said with few words. Love and hate seldom rely on words. Sorrow and anger come across non-verbally. The cry of our hearts does not require words. In fact, our hearts pray more than our mouths.

Years ago my mother was dying of cancer. It was in my dealing with her death that I began to realize how much I had associated prayer with words. I recall Mom's stroke and the doctor telling us that her lung cancer had spread into her brain. I struggled with how to pray for Mom. The day that stands out most clearly was when I was driving to a meeting in Phoenix and had planned to use the two uninterrupted hours in the car for prayer. I had determined to dedicate a significant portion of that time to praying for Mom. A strange thing happened. I said out loud, "Lord, I want to pray for Mom." Before I could say anything else, however, I began to cry. My throat tightened and I could not seem to go on with my prayer. I drove for a couple of miles trying to get myself under control so I could pray.

When I had finally dried my tears, I started over again. Out loud I said, "Lord, I want to pray for Mom." Again my voice stopped working as the tears ran down my cheeks. For the next several miles I wept and could not speak. I did not have the words. All I could seem to do was cry.

Perhaps a counselor would say that this was my beginning of grief and it was good. I was vaguely aware that I felt very sad at our coming loss. A portion of the tears were pure anger that Mom had smoked two packs a day and helped to bring this on herself through her unhealthy lifestyle. But the most curious part was that all of this seemed to be getting in the way of my praying. I wondered why I could not pray for someone I so desperately loved.

Some months later God helped me understand that experience more clearly. I was in a store where the manager knew I was a pastor. She asked if she could speak to me about a religious question. She explained that her husband had been in the hospital several times in recent months. She did not attend church, but considered herself a religious person in her own way. She explained that every time she started to pray, she simply found herself crying instead. She then asked me this question. "Bruce, why can't I pray?"

I was unsure what to say. I resonated with her experience because I had gone through the same kind of thing when my mom was dying. I had not yet come up with any answers to my own questions. Then she said, "My neighbor says that those tears were my prayers. She says that God understands my heart even if I can't say it in words. Is that possible? Could crying be a form of prayer in such situations?" My heart leaped within as the Holy Spirit immediately brought to my memory Romans 8, verse 26. "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26).

Paul's vocabulary is straight out of the courtroom. The word "intercedes" is a defense attorney's word in the ancient world. The image is that we are on trial and do not know how to answer the prosecutor's question so the Holy Spirit takes over our defense and puts into words what we could not express on our own. The Holy Spirit, knowing our hearts, takes our sighs and turns them into intercession.

Jesus demonstrated for us what that means. Mark 7 tells an account of a healing. The deaf man could hardly talk. After Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears and then touched the man's tongue, he then did two things. Jesus sighed loudly and then spoke one word, "Ephphatha!" This word is a command, "Be opened!" The man was healed.

Here is my question about this Bible story. When did Jesus pray? Was his command, "Ephphatha!," the prayer? Or was Jesus' loud sigh the prayer? I suspect they both were. The sigh was just as important a prayer as the spoken word. However, if we are not careful, we will tend to think that only the spoken word was the prayer.

When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, we read that he sweated in the midst of asking God to remove the cup of suffering. "Yet, not my will, but yours be done." Was Jesus' prayer simply the words, or the actual groaning and sweating?

She sits in my office and tells me that she is embarrassed to come back to church. Since her husband died, she can't sit in the sanctuary without crying. They worshipped together for over fifty years. They reared their children in the church. The church was so central to their lives; she never thought it would happen that she could feel uncomfortable in church. Yet, she is worried what others will think if they see her crying during the service. How do I counsel this widow?

I tell her that tears are appropriate in church. When we do not know what or how to pray, our tears become our prayers. She dabs her eyes and admits that she never thought of it that way. As she leaves the office I wonder if accepting her tears as prayers might be a step toward God healing of her aching heart.

I would not want to imply that weeping is the only form of deep, non-verbal prayer. Some non-verbal prayers are not about tears, but about joy. By now many of you know that Kathy and I bought a cabin up in Idyllwild. She has lived up there most of the summer and I have commuted to be with her two days a week. I love getting up in the early morning while she is still asleep and taking my coffee out onto the deck to read my Bible and pray. Often when she awakens I am still sitting on the deck just gazing up into the pine trees or listening to the creek. She brings her Bible and sits across the deck from me and we sometimes don't interrupt the each of just sitting there amazed at God'ssilence for several minutes goodness to bless us with this place and our love for the beauty of creation.

I sometimes write my prayers into my journal. Often I pray my prayers out loud while I am driving. Kathy and I pray together to not only bless our food and our family, but for shared concerns for our friends. But I think our favorite prayer time together is when neither of us says anything out loud. We gaze at God's creation and thinkŠ "God your creation is pulchritudinous."

How is your prayer life?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Do you feel comfortable communicating is ways other than by words?

When have you found yourself speechless?

What is the essence of a prayer?

When has been a poignant prayer moment for you?