Readings in St. Johns Gospel by William Temple

Appendix to Chapter 16, The Lords’ Teaching on Prayer

o It is a fundamental principal of Christianity that God is perfect love and wisdom. He does not need us to tell Him what we want and need. He knows what is good for us better than we ourselves. “....for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” [Romans 8:26]. That is, God’s Spirit is actually praying for us for those things for which we never can find words. And it is always Gods’ will to give us what we require. Christ tells us “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask.” St. Chrysostom asks the obvious question; “If He know, one may say, what we have need of, wherefore must we pray?” His answer; “Not to instruct Him, but prevail with Him; to be made intimate with Him by continuance in supplication; to be humbled; to be reminded of thy sins.”

o Prayer is the lifting up of our hearts to God. The Sursum Corda - “Lift up your hearts” with the response “We lift them up unto the Lord” is found at the beginning of the communion prayer in every known liturgy. In private and public prayer, as in the sacraments - a form of prayer, there must be a lifting up of the heart to God; we must worship in spirit and in truth. Christ said “God is spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” [John 4:24] The ordinary rule of prayer is that it should be addressed to the Father. The effect is to put us in the right attitude towards God.

o William Temple now goes on to postulate three requirements in prayer.

(1) We trust to God for all blessing.

(2) We should persevere in prayer in spite of disappointment.

(3) Our wills should be identified with the will of God.

o The first requirement in prayer is that we trust to God for all blessing. God demands that as we pray we shall believe that He will hear and answer. Prayer is not intended to snatch from God what He is reluctant to grant; It is to call forth from Him gifts that He is more anxious to give than we are to receive. Recall the Collect for the 12^th Sunday after trinity: “Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve...” Two sayings of Christ will serve to illustrate our need for confidence in God in prayer. “.....What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” [Mark 4:24]; “And all things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive.” [Matthew 21:22]. Why should we be told to ask seek and knock when He knows what we need before we ask? The Lord requires us to ask not that our wish be made known to Him, but that by prayer we may be made fit to receive the blessing He prepares to bestow. “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you; for everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” [Matthew 7:7,8] [Luke 11:9,10]

o The second requirement is that we should persevere in prayer in spite of disappointment. The duty of perseverance in prayer is illustrated for us in the parable of the Unjust Judge [Luke 18:1-8] and the parable of the Importunate Friend [Luke 11:5-10]. Temple also illustrates our Lords’ teaching about perseverance in two other parables in which the comparison fails. In these he says the Lord illustrates Gods’ dealing with us by reference to human actions which are not admirable. These are the parable of the Unjust Steward [Luke 16:1-9] and the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard [Matthew 20:1-16]. The first parable says that when we persevere in sin we will, in the end wind up with the sinners or as the parable puts it, “...make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” “...and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” Gods’ challenge to us is to seek the reason why God may delay and then grant our request.

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o The first requirement entails a perfect confidence in God. But our confidence is not perfect and God is not trying to test it but to deepen our perseverance. Our faith, almost of necessity, which takes the form of confidence that God will do what we ask, is faith in our own judgement as much as faith in God. We are not to pray for anything except that which we believe to be the will of God and that belief is fallible. The purpose in God’s delay may be to detach our faith in Him from all trust in our own judgement. So we are asked to persevere in prayer in order to deepen our faith in God.

o With our faith in God’s promise to give us what we ask strengthened by the perseverance of our prayers, we are led to the third and deepest requirement - that our will should be identified with the will of God. William Temple illustrates the condition that must be satisfied to meet this requirement through three sayings of Christ.

(1) Ask in my name: The first verse is from John 14:13,14: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it” When we ask in the name of Christ, we pray as his representatives. As His representatives we pray with His authority for such things as he himself would bestow. To pray in Christ’s name means we approach the Father as a member of Christ’s body - the spiritual church. And the motive of the Son in granting our prayers, which are made in His name and according to his will, is that the “Father may be glorified in the Son.”

(2) Abide in me: This is taken from John 15:4,7. Asking in Christ’s name is equivalent to this next saying of Christ. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.” “If ye abide in me , and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you” To abide in Christ is to become identified with Him. We pray in His name and according to His will. We acknowledge Him to be the source of our blessing so we are bound more closely to Him. How can this condition be fulfilled? Only if we abide in Him and His words in us. This mutual indwelling is accomplished through the words of Christ and His teachings. Here we have a test of our prayer life. If we really abide in Him we shall not only desire that His will be done, but we will recognize what it is.

(3) He will give it in my name: This saying is from John 16:23,24. “Verily, Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it to you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name: ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” (Note that the revised version places the words ‘in my name ‘ after ‘he will give o\it to you.’) Temple says that this is a new principal of prayer - prayer that is offered and granted ‘in my name’ - in the name of Christ. The principal first stated in John 14:13 (above) and John 15:16 - That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you” - is added to in the opening verse by connecting ‘in my name’ to the grant as well as the petition. In John 14:26 - “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, ....” we are told that the Father sends the Spirit in the name of his Son. The Son is our mediator through whom our prayers ascend to the Father and through whom the Fathers love descends upon us. This is a new experience of worship that is offered to us. “Until now ye did not pray anything in my name; pray and ye will receive, that your joy may be fulfilled.” When the conditions have been met, our joy will be filled.

o When the condition mentioned above - ask in Christ’s name - abide in Him - then our wills are identified with the will of God. The essential act of prayer is the bending of our will to the will of God. In the book The Christian Doctrine of Prayer we find a similar conclusion. In James 4:3 “Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.... .” Christ’s promise to us is if we ask anything according to God’s will, it will be granted. Prayer is not to change Gods purpose but to accomplish the Devine purpose: not to bend his will to ours, but to raise our will to Gods. Its idea is not to snatch from God what he is reluctant to give but of calling forth from him blessings which he is more desirous to give than we are to receive. He has made our humble asking to be the condition of our receiving.

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o The proper outline of a Christian prayer is - do in me, with me, and through me what you want. The pattern of prayer is based on the Lord’s prayer [Matthew 6:9].

o When we come into the Fathers presence, we should be filled with reverence to him. What we want most of all is to reverence God. “Hallowed be thy name” or Holy be thy name. Our first statement is an act of reverence and praise.

o Our next desire is that everyone should know and obey him. “Thy kingdom come” Then his whole purpose of love - love the Lord our God and love our neighbor - may be carried out.

o “Thy will be done”: Only after seeking his will can we then turn to ourselves If we abide in him and he in us then we are identified with him and his will is our will.

o And when do turn to ourselves it is to ask those things “that are requisite and necessary as well for the body as for the soul” - things necessary to free us to serve God. Freedom from want, forgiveness of sins and freedom from evil situations which may tempt us. And deliver us when some evil has a grip on us from which we cannot free ourselves. And we ask all of these things not so we can be happy but because we are concerned with Gods kingdom and power and glory.

o William Temple ends this study of the Lord’s teaching on prayer with the thought that the essence of prayer is to seek how we may share in Christ’s sacrifice. It finds its fullest expression in the service of Holy Communion - in the thanksgiving immediately following the invocation - where we “offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee;”.

LTS August 2000

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