Prayer: Some Thoughts from Luther's Small Catechism

A Recent Poll

According to a recently published Newsweek-poll (August 29 / September 5, 2005, Vol. CXLVI, No. 9/10, pp. 48-49), 40% of those interviewed (1,004 representatively selected Americans of any and no faiths) said that they “feel the strongest connection to God” when they “are praying alone.” 21% had the same feeling when they were out in nature or when they were in “a house of worship.” Only 6% felt closely connected to God when praying with others and, on the lowest level, merely 2% (= 20 individuals!) felt this connectedness when reading a sacred text.

Prayer thus meets the greatest need people feel religion should meet: “forge a personal relationship with God” – 39% of those participating in the poll indicated that as top priority, followed by “help you be a better person and live a moral life” (30%) and “find peace and happiness” (17%).

Not surprisingly, 64% of those interviewed indicated that prayer was their daily “religious or spiritual activity,” followed by meditation (29%). Only 20% read their holy scriptures daily (bible, koran, etc.), which is, considering its felt ineffectiveness, quite high.

Why do people pray? 27% pray to “seek God’s guidance;” 23% do so to “thank God;” 19% to “be close to God.” Only 13% pray to “help others,” followed by 9% who pray to “improve a person’s life.”

What do these data tell us about prayer? First of all, prayer is very popular among Christians and other “religious” and “spiritual” folks. But, then, we also see that the kind of prayer-life that most people are leading is not one that is shaped by the Small Catechism. According to this poll, prayer enjoys a status that Lutherans have traditionally ascribed to the sacraments or God’s Word. Maybe this is why 79% of those polled believe that a “good person” of any or no religion will go to heaven: The truth of God’s Word and faith in the true gospel are ultimately unimportant, if the most important thing in religion is that people do all sorts of spiritual exercises like prayer to get themselves closer to God. This is a form of pious works righteousness. The gospel and faith in Christ are unique to Christianity. The law -- including prayer, meditation, attending religious ceremonies, and reading holy books -- are not.

For example, if we ask ourselves: how are we connected to God? According to the Catechism, not by our coming to God in prayer but by God’s coming to us in his Word and sacraments. The good thing is that this connectedness is not dependent on our warm “feelings” that are here today and gone tomorrow. It happens objectively because God’s means of grace deliver Christ and all his saving gifts to us – always, whether we feel him or not. But knowing where to find God (not in our heart) will also enable us to “experience” him. If we do feel God in his Word, it will be basically in the form of his condemning law (Ten Commandments: pangs of conscience, anger, fear) and acquitting gospel (Creed: joy, relief, thankfulness). A foggy “closeness” to, or “relationship” with, God is not warranted by the Catechism. Our relationship to God is either one of wrath (under the law) or one of grace (under the gospel) – in both cases God is close at hand, certainly too close in the first case.

Another false notion connected with prayer: to learn about the future (“seek God’s guidance”). In prayer God will not tell us what car to buy or where to move or to what school to send our kids or what will happen next year. God’s hidden will remains hidden for us – and God’s hidden will encompasses everything that’s not revealed in the bible. Prayer is not the backdoor into God’s mind. The desire to peek into God’s hidden will comes from the distrust of the sinner in us; the saint in us believes and trusts that he’s always in God’s hands and that God’s biblical Word is really enough for us. (Besides, for the things of this world God has given us our “reason and senses”!) If we get “answers” to prayer for God’s guidance, we might just have been talking to ourselves – and true prayer is not pious soliloquy!

For spiritual people of today that’s probably too cheap: just open your bible and have God there tell you in plain language what his will is in law and gospel. We Lutheran have it easier yet: Just go to your Small Catechism and learn it all from this fine summary of biblical truth: the Ten Commandments and the Creed. “Can that be the real deal,” the sinner in us wonders? The Christian in us, however, believes and realizes: “Here’s more than enough for my whole life; I’ll never exhaust all these wonderful teachings of my almighty and all-merciful God. In the law, God shows me how to serve him and my neighbor daily; that sure will keep me busy all day long. And in the Gospel of Jesus Christ my heavenly Father shows me his very heart.”

Indeed, what greater knowledge on earth can there be? Must not all questions pertaining to this perishing world (health included) that often are so much our minds pale in comparison to “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” hidden in Christ (Col. 2)? One of the struggles of faith in this world is to abide by these limitations as good and wise: They focus us on him who really matters because he really saves us from eternal death: Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary.

The Catechism on Prayer I: The Ten Commandments

Now, the Small Catechism does talk about prayer and praises it very highly. We must never forget this and grow slack in praying just because others get prayer wrong. The first time prayer shows up is in the Second Commandment:

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

What does this mean? We should fear and love God, so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie or deceive by his name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

This teaches us at least three important things: First, prayer is not optional. Prayer is not some special service that we’re offering to God because we’re feeling so “spiritual” or “religious” right now. Prayer is, quite unromantically and simply, commanded by God. In this, it is not unlike the child’s obedience to his parents. Second, there are basically two kinds of prayer: petition (“call upon it in every trouble”) and thanksgiving (“praise and give thanks”); both can be offered for ourselves and for others.

Thirdly, Christians pray because we love God. This presupposes that we know God’s heart from the gospel of Jesus Christ (in the Creed) and that God has promised to hear our prayer in Jesus’ name. If we don’t know / believe the gospel and God’s promises concerning prayer, our prayer will be without confidence in God. Genuine prayer is therefore a fruit of faith.

This tells us also that God only hears the prayer of Christians, that is, of those who actually believe in Christ. He does not listen to the prayers of pagans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and false Christians, no matter how “close” they might feel to God in their prayers. They are praying, not to the one true God, but to an idol fabricated by their sinful hearts.

The Catechism on Prayer II: The Apostles’ Creed

The next time prayer shows up in the Small Catechism is perhaps easily overlooked: At the end of the First Article of the Creed on creation we read:

… for [all the bodily benefits my Father gives me richly and daily without any merit or worthiness in me] it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey him. This is most certainly true.

This confirms, first of all, what we said earlier about prayer as flowing from the gospel. God’s goodness in creation certainly is part of the gospel, albeit not its heart (Christ’s life and death for us is). Considering God’s fatherly goodness and mercy in creation, then, should move us daily to acknowledge these and “thank and praise” the Giver of all these. Thanking and praising, again, are not options for the super-religious, but the simple “duty” of every Christian, commanded, as it is, by God’s law. Prayer, furthermore, is part of the overall response of love that flows from the gospel: “thank and praise” stands right next to “serve and obey him.” We can’t play prayer off against, e.g., changing the diapers of a baby. God wants us to do both; both tables of the Ten Commandments, serving God and neighbor are the fruit of faith.

The Catechism on Prayer III: The Lord’s Prayer

The third appearance of prayer in the Small Catechism is, of course, Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, the third chief part of the Catechism. For Luther, the Lord’s Prayer is the prayer above all prayers because it is taught by the Lord Jesus himself. In the voice of God’s Son we hear our heavenly Father speak to us. Indeed, the Father himself “has commanded us to pray in this way and has promised to hear us.” The prayer that Jesus here teaches all his disciples gives us the third element that, along with God’s command and promise, should us make glad and confident in prayer: the very words and pattern we are to use at all times. God wants us to pray to him; he wants to hear us; and he wants us to pray to him “in this way,” because he wants us to pray “in all boldness and confidence.” In the end, it’s not our creativity that matters but God’s faithfulness to his promises. We can always rest assured on the latter; prayer will rise out of this blessed rest. Then we will pray as true children to our true Father: boldly and confidently, not daunted by our sin or God’s wrath over it, just “as dear children ask their dear father.”

The Lord’s Prayer briefly teaches us what we lack and need the most. This is not closeness to God or health, money, and longevity. It is, first of all, God’s holy name and word. God is not a God that’s just chummy but mute; our God is a God who speaks. This is how world and man were created; this is how Christ became man; this is how we are saved from all our sins and taught how to live a God-pleasing life: through God’s Word. Man does not live from bread alone, Jesus reminds us, but from every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Every Christian prays to be kept in this saving Word of God in faith and life. Every Christian also prays to be kept in God’s kingdom of grace and forgiveness by grace through faith in Christ – and this kingdom might reach those who live in strive against God. The Lord’s Prayer is, then, also the key missionary prayer of the church. And, at the end of the day, it is not our efforts that keep the church afloat, but it is God’s “good and gracious will” who “breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow his name or let his kingdom come” and who “strengthens and keeps us firm in his word and faith until we die.”

First after these basic needs of every Christian are met and we are thus preserved in the one true faith, we turn to other needs that at times seem to be so pressing and overwhelming to us: daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance from temptation and every evil. The Lord’s Prayer thus leads us to begin truly with the Lord and his will, not with us. We simply weave our petitions into the fabric of the Lord’s Prayer, and we will not go astray.

Interestingly also, Luther teaches us that our prayers don’t earn God’s attention. They’re not heard because prayer is so great and God desperately needs it to stay alive, as certain religions teach. God sustains us and gives everything by grace; he knows what we need before we even ask. Prayer is speaking to an all-knowing, all-wise God who has the power to do all things and who does not change.

Prayer does thereby not become useless. Think about little children asking their parents to do something for them – and thanking them after doing it. Every parent is pleased by this because there the child acknowledges that Dad and Mom are the ones who can and will help – and who have helped freely and graciously in the past. Parents usually know much better than the child what he/she needs and act accordingly. Children often complain and are thankless, because they “only” got what they really needed, not what they desperately wanted.

Our relationship to our Father in heaven is similar to this. This is why the Lord’s Prayer first of all teaches us, not God, something, namely, to realize God’s free gifts and to receive them with thanksgiving. This is true for every petition, even though Luther mentions it only in connection with the one concerning daily bread.

A final observation on the Lord’s Prayer: Praying alone is considered more spiritual than praying with others, according to the Newsweek-poll (40% to 6%). The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that, as members of Christ’s body, as children of the same heavenly Father, we never pray alone. By faith, we’re members of Christ’s body, the holy Church of all times and places, which is at prayer always – on earth and in heaven. This is why Jesus teaches us to say: Our Father …, not “My Father,” even though the singular also has its place in prayer, as the psalms show. Practically this means, individual prayer at home in the “closet” is thus no more God-pleasing, “spiritual,” or powerful than prayer with fellow Christians at church. We should do the one without despising the other, especially in “every trouble.”

The Catechism on Prayer IV: Daily Prayers

Prayer makes a final appearance in the second section of the Small Catechism on daily prayers. Considered rightly, Luther’s morning and evening prayers are nothing but applications of the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed to this particular “situation” or time of the day (this makes them also good patterns for our own prayers): Thanks are given for good things given; forgiveness and protection is asked from sin and every evil. Faith shines especially bright when we simply commend ourselves and all things into the wise and loving care of our heavenly Father: he must do what we can never accomplish – preserve it all according to his good and gracious will. We can leave the details to him.

These two little prayers also remind us that we are the battleground between God and the devil: God’s holy angel fights against the evil foe for every Christian soul. This should prevent us from living in a careless manner; but it should also prevent us from staring at the evil foe in bottomless fear. God’s angel will prevail.

The table prayers before and after the meal teach us: every morsel on our tables; every thread of clothing we wear is God’s undeserved gift to us. We should not start praying to God first when “big things” are at stake, while taking the little daily miracles for granted. The table therefore is part of the training ground for all of us, especially our children, so that they might be raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord. In this way, our “duty to thank and praise” God for all his bodily blessing we learned about in the First Article of the Creed becomes very concrete. It is not some grand, lofty idea we take off the dusty shelves on Christmas Eve or whenever else we might feel religious or in desperate need. Daily and richly Christians give thanks to God because richly and daily he provides us with all we need to support this body and life of ours which he himself created.

Table prayer helps us to remember: Even in the humble food and drink we consume, in the clothing we wear, we experience God’s goodness to us, his dear creatures. We don’t have to wait for some grand spiritual fireworks to know God loves us and is with us; in fact, such fireworks might be no more than pious fantasy or wishful thinking. Let us look to the simple things at hand to which God’s Word points us: the bread at home; and the word, the water, and the bread and wine at church – they all preach God’s presence and care with a loud and clear voice. Let us rejoice in God where he wants to be found and call upon him confidently, because he is not far from us for Christ’s sake.

Summary: Prayer in the Rhythm of the Week – from Sunday to Sunday, from the Altar to the Altar

As we’ve seen, prayer is a work enjoined by the law that needs faith in Christ to be good. That means, we need to hear Christ’s gospel to be forgiven our sins and to be strengthened in our faith. This faith is active in all sorts of works of love (service and suffering), chief among them is prayer.

In other words, Christian prayer takes place between going to church on one Sunday and returning to church on the next Sunday. It is not some free-wheeling spiritual quest or superstition. At church we not only hear the gospel and receive Christ’s body and blood. Here at church we also pray (Lord’s Prayer, collect, prayer of the church, etc.). These prayers provide us with models and patterns for our prayers at home. And they also provide us already with concrete content for our daily prayers during the week.

We can therefore say that our prayers flow from the altar and then back to the altar: It is God who gives us access to his throne of mercy in the Christ sacrificed on the altar of the cross; it is he who gives us the Spirit who cries in us: Abba, Father; and it is also he who gives us the very words of prayer. Out of the flame of faith kindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, our prayers then rise from God’s altar on earth to God’s mercy seat in heaven like the smoke of burning incense.