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Let’s get dirty and honest about our often voyeuristic relationship with the divine — and how prayer can profoundly disrupt and enrich our everyday lives. Explore the curious phenomena of spiritual fascination from a safe distance and the transformative power of genuine engagement with the divine through prayer.
Rev. Ryan Dunn uses relatable analogies, like our fascination with Shark Week, to elucidate our modern spiritual postures. We look into the biblical narrative of Exodus 20 to showcase how prayer can align us with God’s love and calls us into action. This episode also addresses the common queries about the efficacy of prayer in times of crisis and the oft-repeated phrase “thoughts and prayers.”
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This episode posted on January 8, 2025.
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:01]:
This is Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Everyday.
My name is Ryan Dunn, and I really wonder if, at times, I really want to have the spiritual interfere with my everyday… if I’m just being honest.
I’d like to see the the Divine in action on the daily. But the Divine can be a bit disruptive to the normative order of things. So actually have Divine experiences every day might get a little bit uncomfortable.
But, tis the new year. Tis the season for trying new things, adopting new habits and getting a bit uncomfortable.
So in this abridged, New Years edition of Compass, we’re going to address the utility of prayer and how prayer can actually kind of mess up our lives and disrupt our everyday experiences with holy moments.
There are a lot of things we like to look at which we don't necessarily long to experience ourselves. Ever watch surgery TV? Ever gawked at a car accident? My wife spends a couple evenings a week watching dermatology procedures on YouTube–these are like, videos of boils getting lanced and such. She finds peace in that… but I doubt she wants to actually be there either getting lanced or doing the lancing.
How about Shark Week? That's a fascinating phenomenon, isn't it? The Discovery Channel has annually dedicated a week of programming to sharks for over 30 years. It's amazing this has lasted so long. Our culture has a strange fascination with sharks. They intrigue and inspire us. We long to witness more of them. We want to know more. We're curious. Even still, the vast majority of us would never get in the water with a shark. The fear that a shark might get a hold of us and really mess us up keeps us wary of shark-inhabited waters.
In Exodus 20, the Hebrews are doing their shark week. By Exodus 20, the Hebrews have seen God in action. They witnessed the plagues in Egypt. They had experienced God's special care for them as they fled their pursuing Egyptian captors. God had delivered them to freedom from slavery. By Exodus 20, they were convinced God had some power. They wanted to see and know more. But there was no way they were about to jump into the proverbial waters with that Being. God looked fascinating, but God could also really mess you up if God got a hold of you. Did you see what he did to Pharaoh? God will mess you up. So when they saw a cloud descend to earth before them and they had discerned that it was surely the presence of the Divine, they decided to keep a safe, observable distance. Instead of going to meet God, they sent Moses. "Moses, you go. We'll watch from back here."
It's been a long time since we witnessed the Divine as a cloud of smoke, thunder, and lightning. Today, we call God "Father" and "friend". These are comfortable names for a being that still makes us incredibly uncomfortable (it's a bit like calling a shark "Smiley" or "Ol' Blue"). The New Testament gives us a new side of God. There we encounter a God who is clear about being concerned primarily with love--and that makes us feel pretty good. But we still remember that getting in the water with God can mess us up.
I'm reminded of our point of view concerning the Divine every time I attend a worship service where the most prized seats are those situated the farthest to the back. We're still a little wary of getting chomped by God. We want to see some signs of God's presence, but we'd really like to observe them from the back of the room with a healthy amount of space between ourselves and the action up front (without realizing that the action is everywhere). We're willing to watch what's going on... but we're pretty wary about actually getting in there.
I don't mean to suggest that our pew position makes us any more or less likely to get "messed up" by God. But, our posture (or position) in relationship to the Almighty does make us more or less likely to have an encounter with the Divine. If our posture is wary and distant, we may find it tough for God to reach us. If our posture is eager and open... then LOOK OUT.
The question is: are we accepting of being Hebrews who are willing to watch the show from afar, or are we willing to take the posture of Moses and jump into the water?
How bad can getting "messed up" by the Creator actually be? Have we not seen in the witness of the New Testament that when we get "messed" by God, it's a lovely mess? Given the next opportunity to jump into the water with the Divine, what might our posture be?
I think it begins in prayer…
Somewhere in the holy ether, a sleeping god is aroused by the voice of an anguished woman. He slowly settles his focus onto her words. She is making plea on behalf of a sick child. God thinks, I might have missed that. I'm glad she brought that to my attention.
God questions, what should I do about this sick child?
God listens further. The woman asks for healing for the child.
Well, I had been inclined to take the child, god thinks. But this woman speaks so earnestly. She has swayed me. I will intervene and bring healing to the child.
Such a story seems a little preposterous. The assumptions that God was either unaware of the sick child or unwilling to do anything about it make God either irrelevant or uncaring--assumptions that don't gel with any other assumptions we make regarding a higher power (God). To admit that there is a god is to admit that there is a being who knows all and is involved. Does the omnipresent God who is surrounding the child and living within the child know that the child is sick? Yes. Does the God who gives life to all and calls creation a child wish goodness for this particular child? Yes.
Did the woman's prayer alert God to something God might have missed or sway God's mind into a particular response? Unlikely.
So what's the point? Why pray? Why offer up our hopes and longings to a divine being? After all, we are neither alerting God to some new situation nor effectually changing the mind of the Divine. Are we?
Let's take the recent rash of terrorist attacks, disasters and mass shootings. Is there a point in praying for the families and communities of those affected? Will God deliver peace and reconciliation to those grieving because people on the other side of the country asked God to?
Yes and no.
Yes, because when I tell you that I'm praying for you in your pain and grief, I am saying many things. Firstly, I am saying that I acknowledge you--I recognize you are in pain and unsettled. You are not completely alone nor ignored in your pain. I see you and recognize you. I, in part, share in your pain. Secondly, I am saying that I have good hopes for you. I want to see you well. I want to see you whole again. I am asking for you to be well.
And that leads to the "no" side of our question. Will God deliver reconciliation in response to my prayer for you? Not if I'm not willing to help bring about the requested reconciliation. I think that is the point of the headlines and Facebook statuses that say “Thoughts and Prayers aren’t enough” when it comes to things like gun violence. They are suggesting that leaders prayers don't matter because those particular leaders are unwilling to take the proposed steps to reduce gun violence. The prayers won't work because the people are unwilling to be a part of the solution. So, if I have already decided that I will have nothing more to do with you or the solution to your situation, then my prayers for you are worthless.
It's unlikely that our prayers alert or sway God. What our prayers do is align us. Prayer draws us into the heart of God. Prayer involves the pray-er.
God's heart is love, for God is love (1 John 4:16). When we pray for someone else, we are aligning ourselves in love. We are expressing a longing to see goodness come around somebody--and we are opening ourselves up to the possibility that we might be involved in the answer to prayer. Prayer can be a creative endeavor, in that it helps us to imagine how prayer might be answered and how we might be a part of it. Prayer calls us into awareness and action. That's the uniting presence of the Divine.
Do I think the families of the victims appreciate hearing that we are praying for them? I do. Our admissions to prayer can have the same affect as a get-well card from a friend. There is healing in that. There is love in that. There is God in that.
Will God fix the grief and the systems that create the grief? Only when we are willing to respond and, in part, be the answer we hope for in our prayers.
I can’t teach you how to pray. Some might suggest that Jesus already did that when Jesus offered his Disciples the Lord’s Prayer. That is probably the best model for prayer. But I won’t teach you how to pray to because it’s such a creative and personal endeavor that the best way to figure out how to pray is to do it.
We have done some Compass episodes on prayer. We did some breath prayer way back in episode 40. Episode 61 leads you through a practice called welcoming prayer. If you want to get really disruptive, you might want to explore Rage Prayers in episode 142 with Elizabeth Riley.
New episodes of Compass come out every other Wednesday.
My name is Ryan Dunn. Compass is a production of United Methodist Communications. Big thanks to the whole team who make this possible.
I’ll chat at you again soon. In the meantime, enjoy your New Year season, and peace to you!
