Purposeful Prayer

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1  NIV

To pray – “The purpose of prayer is not the same as the purpose of speech.  The purpose of speech is to inform; the purpose of prayer is to partake.”[1]  Heschel’s remark makes it seem as if we should expect dialogue in prayer.  “To partake”—that is, take part in, but this verb has at least three categories: “to partake of”—like eating or drinking something, “to partake in”—like joining some activity, and “to partake of”—like being characterized by some quality.  Which one does Heschel’s remark imply?

Well, in a spiritual sense we could say that praying means consuming the divine presence.  We often talk about being “filled” by the awareness of God (or if you’re of Pentecostal persuasion, being “filled with the Holy Spirit”).  That is the first category.  A little odd for those not in Holiness circles.  Then there’s “partake in,” that is, to join an activity.  This seems closer to Heschel’s view, although we must be careful not to imagine that this means dialogue.  We join God’s company, but that doesn’t require His reply.  The last “to partake of” could mean that the characteristics of spiritual existence somehow become ours, or we draw closer to them, in prayer.  Perhaps we need to consider the contrast Heschel suggests in order to grasp his insight.

Prayer isn’t about information transfer.  This is critical since so often we act as if it is about communicating information. We typically pray as if we need to inform God about our needs and desires.  But clearly He knows all of these before we open our mouths.  God does not require updates.  Why, then, are we so quick to try to inform God about our situation?  Is it because we have been taught that prayer is divine dialogue modelled on human conversation?  If prayer were dialogue, then just like human dialogue it would be essential to communicate information.  We are so used to this model, and so seduced by it, that we assume this is what prayer really is.  But Heschel helps us see something else.

Remember all those Hebrew words for prayer.  Asking, sighing, groaning, roaring, weeping, confessing, magnifying, reflecting, laughing, meditating, murmuring, singing, making music, merry-making, etc.  I suggested that the common thread was “being fully alive,” but now I think there might be something else involved here.  These are emotional expressions.  Yes, even “asking” can be saturated with emotion, as, for example, the rabbis assert that Hannah’s prayer (which is completely non-verbal) is the epitome of praying.  She asked with such intense emotion that she could not even utter a word.  We shouldn’t be surprised about this discovery.  The Hebraic worldview runs on emotional rails.  Hebrew theology is a theology of emotion.  It is precisely the opposite of Greek thinking.  In Greek thought, emotions—all emotions—are the enemy of reason.  The true Hellene leaves emotions aside in the pursuit of pure reason.  Prayer, then, must be about logic, and logic is about non-emotional communication.  This is why the transcendental God of Christian theology is impassible (that is, without emotion!).  This is also why Christian theology considers any hint that God might feel something as anthropomorphism.  God can’t feel because He is pure and holy reason!  Prayer to such a God is strictly sharing propositions.

Without realizing it, we’ve grown up in the Greco-Roman world of emotionless divinity.  God doesn’t feel!  That’s the role of the Queen of the Universe—Mary.  Our prayers to her can be filled with anguish or joy, but not the prayers to God.  He is too removed from the mundane world of human feelings to ever be touched by swaying feelings.  Or so we think (even if we never really thought about it).

Not so the Hebrew God YHVH!  He feels—everything!  And so we don’t communicate information to Him.  No, we partake in His feelings about living in the creation.  Real prayer feels what He feels.  Nothing more need be added.

Topical Index: prayer, emotion, transcendent, Mary, partake, Luke 11:1

[1] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 202.