Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138; Luke 11:1-13; Colossians 2:8-19
You may have shared with your neighbours a time when turning to prayer was easy. I suspect at least some of those times may have been when life suddenly became very difficult for you, or someone you loved. Your immediate reaction may have been a mixture of: ‘God, why did this have to happen? What have we done to deserve this?' and ‘God, I'll be good if you make it go away!'
Some of you will know Colin Anderson's wife Jacqui. More of you may not, and that will probably be because for a few years now Jacqui's health has not been good, and she has not been able to come to church very often. I asked her once when I was visiting what her experience of prayer was. Her story - which I have permission from Jacqui to use - is very honest about the way she used to pray, and how, as a result of what has happened to her, that has changed. Let's hear it in her own words.
‘I have come to realise that I used to be a bargain pray-er. When things happened in my life which were not nice; if the children was late home, or in family illness, I would pray to God to help me. "Please, God: let everything be ok, let the badness go away - I will read the Bible, go to church, anything - but let the problem be solved." The problems were solved; the children got home safe: the prayer and the promises I made were forgotten. I did thank God but till the next emergency happened, or unless I went to church, if I am being honest, I didn't pray; not at all.'
I suspect this is not only Jacqui's experience. We often think of prayer, maybe unconsciously, as a means of getting our own way: of bargaining with God. We will be decent people living good lives; in return God will make sure things go well for us. But of course, it doesn't always work out that way, as Abraham discovers in our second reading. Just to fill in a bit of background, you may be wondering what on earth the people of Sodom and Gomorrah can have done for their cities to be under threat of destruction.
At this point of the story, they had a terrible reputation, both for sleaze and for inhospitality, but God isn't going by hearsay and wants to pay an unexpected inspection visit via angels to see whether things really are that bad. If they are, Sodom and Gomorrah are for the chop. But first God checks things out with Abraham. And Abraham, feeling protective about the city where his nephew Lot and Lot's family have settled, starts bargaining. There may well be good people among Lot's neighbours; so he starts high. If there are fifty good people, will God spare the city? After all, otherwise the good and the bad would die together, and that would do nothing for God's reputation as a just judge. God agrees. And once God has agreed in principle, Abraham can whittle the number of good people in the whole city right down to ten. Surely, counting Lot's family and servants, there will be ten good people in the city. Surely, God will spare it.
But Jacqui's story, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, and maybe like some of our own, indicates that prayer is something different from such bargaining.
‘I was rushed into the Hallamshire Hospital,' she says, ‘with a suspected Brain Tumour. Once again my Bargain Prayer went into action. "No, God, you cannot do this to me! Please help me!" As I lay in bed waiting for the scan I started to bargain with God again: "Let it be a big mistake; let it be something else: anything but not a Tumour."' And indeed, a CAT scan showed that Jacqui had no tumour. Her bargaining seemed to have worked. Until the test results came back. ‘I visited the consultant at the Hallamshire,' Jacqui says. ‘I was quite calm, looking forward to going on holiday in a few days, no worries. When the consultant told me it was MS I just stared into my husband Colin's face. I didn't want to believe it. I felt that my future had been taken away. I was so angry with myself, and everybody. I felt let down by God: how could he do this to me?
I was not a bad person; I did everything in the right way; I wanted to be the perfect daughter, wife, mother, friend; I didn't hurt people; I gave to charities - so why had God given me this? Why was my so-called perfect life now ruined?'
Lot may have asked himself a similar question, as with his wife and daughters he fled the city of Sodom where all their neighbours and property had gone up in smoke. After all, he was one of God's people, not those wicked Sodomites.
When God's angels had been in danger of rape, had he not pushed his own daughters out of doors, imploring the mob to have their way with them, but to spare his guests? Was he not the pattern of virtue?
We will have our own ideas about just how deserving Lot was. Indeed, when bad things happen, we may be able to dredge up out of our past reasons why God may want to punish us. That perpetuates the idea that prayer is a bargain between us and God, a bargain broken if we are bad, withdrawing God's protection from us. Yet Jacqui's experience goes against that. ‘I started to write all my feelings down,' she says, ‘and it was quite an angry essay. I always asked God, "Why me?" It came as a bolt out of nowhere, when it came to me: "Why Not You?" The fear left me about my illness quite soon after I began to realise that I was not being punished for not returning my side of the bargain when I used to pray to God.' So how does Jacqui pray now?
‘I thank him for each day for me feeling peace and being calm. I pray to him about the different situations in the world. No more bargaining prayer: I am not afraid of God, which I think I had been.' I think Jacqui's right about fear being behind much of our prayer and our worship: fear that unless we do everything right, we will be part of the burning city, not, like Lot, saved from destruction. And we're not alone. People in the church at Colossai were afraid that unless they did all the right Jewish things - circumcision, obeying the food laws, observing all the festivals - they could not make that bargain with God that would ensure their acceptance. Paul had to remind them that it was their trust in the risen Jesus, not anything they had done or failed to do, that proved God's forgiveness, God's acceptance was real, and was for them.
We are all at different points on life's journey, with our own prayers to offer, our own burdens to share with Jesus. But if we change our picture of God from a judge ready to condemn to a father ready to forgive, if we persist in building that relationship through prayer, we can offer the Psalmist's thanks: ‘On the day I called, you answered me: you increased my strength of soul.' For this, not bargaining in vain for a trouble-free life, is true prayer.