I'm going through a little prayer crisis. Why do people pray? Some innate desire to communicate beyond ourselves? Some sense that God is listening? Jesus prays. All of the great spiritual leaders have prayed in some form or another. But Jesus is a paradox. Is he human, divine, both? We pray the Lord's prayer every Sunday and hardly think about the implications of such a prayer uttered by the one we call Lord, savior, Son of GOD,and GOD incarnate. Jesus prays. Isn't that weird? Does he have to talk to GOD, if he is God? if he knows what God knows, why does he pray at all? Does he not know the divine response to every human utterance? Maybe this God isn'lt like that. maybe this God is a bit more limited. It makes me wonder something. If prayer is an authentic conversation between God and people, why don't more people claim to have heard God speak? Somedays I feel plugged in and other days completely disconnected. Somedays I doubt that prayer is heard or is effective at all. Other days I need to pray, I need it, like food. I long to hear the voice of God in prayer. I offer meal time and bed time prayers. I am called upon to pray with and for others all the time. I am supposed to be a man who prays. And yet I feel as if prayer is diminished. I want to pray, but don't. I sometimes feel like I don't really know how to pray. I'd love to go hike a mountain and simply pay attention to my own breathing, the the air, the birds, the ground beneath my feel, the plant life. Maybe I need to go away, to retreat in order to pray.
Today's verse of the day on the sidebar intrigues me the most. Jesus prayed to GOD on the mountain, all night. If Jesus is GOD, why does he pray? Why does he spend the entire night in prayer? Why does he go up on the mountain to do so? Why does Jesus pray in solitude? Does GOD pray? What then is prayer?
Christology tells us that Jesus' divinity does not detract from his full humanity. Therefore, under the Pauline Christology of kenosis or self-emptying identity, Jesus is empty of his divine powers. So maybe he is not plugged into the divinity computer so as to be the recipient of the backlog of prayers to which GOD must attend. Think "Bruce Almighty", a movie in which GOD attributes Bruce with his divine powers, including his power to receive prayers.
Does kenosis mean that Jesus must pray in order to maintain a relationship with the GOD? What does it mean then that GOD is somehow divided into persons? Does Jesus' prayer life reflect a social trinitarianism, like a kind of holy community? A oneness that is expressed in the language of prayer.
If we pray like Jesus prays, what do we learn about ourselves? About GOD? Do we need to pray to live? And what about people who never pray at all? I want to become a more prayerful person because I sense that there is a gift that I am not getting.
