Petitionary and Intercessory Prayer: Forming the Communion of Saints

The following questions were raised on a listserve by someone looking for answers there and in other places; she is someone struggling with basic and very significant questions of faith. The ones given below deserve some attention, mainly because petitionary and intercessory prayer are difficult for most of us, and because looking at them can be instructive on prayer in general.

[[Most of my prayers are either "me" prayers (God, help me out here, or What a gorgeous morning--way to go), or "formula" prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, etc). And for the most part, all of my prayers occur in solitude or in the context of liturgy at church. Outside of those types and locations of prayer, I'm uncomfortable, self-conscious, even skeptical. . .When others ask me to pray for them, I do, and occasionally I'll pray for others without being asked, but I have trouble with it. First off, I don't understand intercessory prayer, how it works. Will God only help someone if he's asked to in prayer? If I don't pray for someone, will God say, in effect, Well, no one is praying for Fred, so I guess he's on his own?

And if I do pray for someone, what exactly am I supposed to be asking God for? And what about prayers that are ignored? You can tell me that in that last case, the prayer wasn't ignored, that the answer was "no", but if the answer is no, then the prayer was pretty much useless, at least in terms of outcome for the person prayed for. What if I pray that so-and-so is healed, but that isn't what God thinks is best? And if I simply pray that God's will be done in someone's life, it seems to me a pointless prayer. Isn't God's will going to be done in that person's life regardless of what I pray? . . .Can someone give me their take on intercessory prayer, and how it works? ]]

Pretty common questions aren't they? I think we need to look at the role of asking questions and what happens there in order to understand intercessory prayer. Also, we need to look at the meaning of the admonition that "whatever we ask in Christ's name" will be done for us. After that, it make sense to look at some of the standard objections raised about intercessory prayer, whether raised above or in other places.

What does it mean to ask for something? A look at the Questions we are and pose:

So, first, what does it mean to ask someone for something? what happens in the asking? Is there more than the simple transaction of information involved and why is it especially important in prayer? Again and again I have written in this blog that human beings are relational in nature. God speaks and we ourselves and all we embody are the response. We look for and need this Word to bring us to this point of response. In other terms we ourselves are the question and God is the answer. We are incomplete without him just as a question is incomplete without a response, and especially an adequate response which demonstrates the meaning of the question as it answers it. (Have you ever had a teacher or professor who took a question of yours and answered it in a way which made you realize the question was far more profound than you thought it was? This is what I mean here. God does this with our lives drawing out the depths of meaning embodied there bringing them to articulation.)

Of course, it is also possible to receive an answer which convinces one of her stupidity and worthlessness, an inadequate answer which takes advantage of one's vulnerability, an answer which demeans and denigrates and points more to the failure of the teacher than to the student's own capacities. Still, questions are gateways to transcendence, and a good teacher (or a good parent, for instance) will answer them in a way which unlocks many of the hidden meanings or facets they contain or imply. She or he will unmask the real depths of the question and demonstrate its capacity for mediating mystery in all of its various depths. In so doing she will also affirm the capacity for meaning and transcendence which is the questioner herself.

Questions imply vulnerability and an openness to transcendence then. They are acts in which we risk ourselves and our further growth. They are the way in which we move beyond where we stand at the moment. (Two examples point up this capacity: first consider a time when you didn't know enough to even ask a question; you may have felt helpless, confused, and stuck --- and rightly so. Questions are the normal way we move into the future. Secondly, consider the little child whose questions are incessant. S/he is experiencing a veritable explosion of transcendence and growth, and questions are the means to this.) Further, questions are the way in which we open ourselves not simply to more information, but to the possibility of being heard where we are deficient and taken seriously as human beings. They are the way in which we reveal our own deepest and unmet needs, inadequacies, limitations and aloneness.

When we ask questions on behalf of someone we care about, we join our own faith and vulnerability to their's and on their behalf. We make sure that they are not alone in their neediness, and further, that our own faith and vulnerability can be of service to them giving them a place to stand which might not be available to them otherwise. In particular they acquire a conscious place in our own relationship with God (that is WE consciously include them in this relationship) which therefore changes our own relationships with God and the other. If they know of our prayer then their own relationship with God may also be changed. When we ask questions of God, particularly when we lay our truest needs before him we bring ourselves and give at least tacit permission for him to be the reply we need in what ever way he perceives is required and wills to be.

It is interesting to me that questions imply both knowledge and ignorance. We must know enough to ask the question, but at the same time we must require more information or knowledge in a way which makes a question necessary. In other words knowledge makes a question possible, but ignorance or lack makes a question necessary; questions are always rooted in both. Being and non being, sufficiency and need, immanence and transcendence, all of these make up the ambiguous reality we know as questions. They make us up as well. Is it any wonder theologians reflect on the human being as a question? Learning to honestly pose the questions we are (and in fact, to pose aspects of the questions others are) is an important part of all prayer.

Praying in the Name of Jesus: What does and doesn't this mean?

A number of months ago I told a story about a young girl who had attended an Evangelical summer camp. Included in the out takes were justaposed two tremendously ironic images. The first was of the camp director pontificating about the evils of Harry Potter, magic and especially the notion of spells and incantations. The second one was of a young girl who had just been taught to ask for anything at all in the name of Jesus, being assured that she would receive that. The girl was bowling and had just thrown a rather hopeless ball that was heading for the gutter rather than the pins. So, she began jumping up and down yelling, "In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, GO STRAIGHT!!!" In other words, this young girl was giving a perfect example of INCANTATION; she was doing as taught, but what she had been taught was not invocation as Scripture asks and empowers us to undertake; it was not faith but magic. In short it was a way of making void the Word of the Lord, and had nothing to do with authentic prayer.

How often do we tack the formula "we ask this in the name of Jesus (etc)" onto the end of our prayers as the magic key which will be sure we are heard? Because this tends to be a formulaic addition to all our prayers (and for Catholics, something which precedes all of our prayers as well) we might forget the deeper reality it points to. We might forget what it actually means. Name and person in Jesus' day, culture, and language are identical realities; the Jews did not have a concept of person per se, but they did have that of Name. To pray in the name of God is to pray in the person and power of God. It is to undertake prayer under the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit. It is to pray as Christ prayed and to become in our prayer part of who Christ was and is yet. What is imperative to remember here then is what Christ was about: his entire life was meant to implicate God into every facet and dimension of human life so that nothing separated his creation from him and would be brought to fulfillment/perfection in him. Our own prayer is ALWAYS meant to be a participation in this process, a participation in this BEING of Christ, this INCARNATION of God.

Thus, when we are told that whatever we pray for in the Name of Jesus will be granted, it qualifies our prayers quite a bit. While it may narrow what we ask for (we will not likely pray for a million dollars, or the newest electronic toy if we pray in the power and presence of Christ), it also challenges (and empowers) us to pray as Christ prayed and opens an entire world of prayer to us that would not be opened if our prayer remained self-centered and undertaken on our own power. The same narrowing and broadening happens when we realize that God himself is the answer to EVERY prayer, and that is especially true of every prayer undertaken in Jesus' name. The things we ask for are always secondary to the gift of God's own self: healing ALWAYS comes with the presence of God, even if it is not the specific form of healing we seek. Completion, security, consolation, joy, peace ALWAYS come with the presence of God, nor do they come to us without God's presence. Thus, it is not that God gives us these things apart from himself. It is that he gives us himself and we mark that gift by looking at these signs of that presence.

By the way, I suspect that some prayers "fail" because they are petitions for certain things but NOT for God himself. I can imagine some prayers asking for healing, or well-being, or security, or consolation from grief, etc, but at least implicitly the person is NOT asking for God himself. I can imagine the entire prayer (if the person was completely honest) sounding like: "God give me freedom from pain, but please don't give me yourself; I am not looking for that! I'm not ready for that!!" Ordinarily we don't express the negative portions of our petitions, but I think we ought to; they reveal another part of our hearts that we often ignore or deny. In any case, such prayers are simply not sufficiently open, nor are they sufficiently humble or generous, and yet, they still can be the work of the Holy Spirit and shine a light into the dark parts of our hearts thus serving to open us to the answer we really require --- God himself.

Back to the Questions Asked

So, with this background, how would I answer the questions posed regarding intercessory prayer? The first ones were: [[First off, I don't understand intercessory prayer, how it works. Will God only help someone if he's asked to in prayer? If I don't pray for someone, will God say, in effect, Well, no one is praying for Fred, so I guess he's on his own? ]]

And the answer to these is no, God is working constantly to bring his creation to fulfillment and completion. He does not WAIT for our prayer to start working. He does not leave us alone even in the depths of our sin. Our prayer, to the extent it is genuine, is a result of his working not only around us, but in our very hearts. Our prayers are indications of openness, of vulnerability and need; they are signs of love, whether of others, ourselves, life, or God and his Kingdom. And, as noted above, they may also be signs of what we are actually closed to. In all these things they remain the work of the Holy Spirit shaping and empowering us.

The second group of questions went as follows: [[And if I do pray for someone, what exactly am I supposed to be asking God for? And what about prayers that are ignored? You can tell me that in that last case, the prayer wasn't ignored, that the answer was "no", but if the answer is no, then the prayer was pretty much useless, at least in terms of outcome for the person prayed for. What if I pray that so-and-so is healed, but that isn't what God thinks is best? And if I simply pray that God's will be done in someone's life, it seems to me a pointless prayer. Isn't God's will going to be done in that person's life regardless of what I pray?]]

I guess my best answer to these is first, we pray for the person themselves, not for this or that thing, but for THEM. Then, yes, we pray for their needs, both those we are aware of and those we are not, but again, only as a piece of praying for THEM, for the persons they are called to be. Finally, we pray that God might do what he wills to do. We pray that God might REALLY be God, THEIR GOD and our own. (In saying this I mean that we ask that God be powerfully and effectively present in our lives in ways which allow his will to be Father, Creator and Redeemer to be fulfilled.) In all these things we admit that we do not know what is best for the person, nor do we know God's will (except generally that he wills to love them and be present to them in a communion which will give eternal life and bring creation to completion). We trust that our petitions are important for the risk, vulnerability, and love they indicate even if they are completely off-base in what they specifically request. We trust that even then they help bring about the Communion of Saints; even then they join us and God to others and ourselves in new and deepening ways; even then they help in the completion of Christ's mission, and this is true even when they seem not to have been answered.

In fact, God's will may NOT be done in a person's life without us and our prayer. It is not automatic. Partly that is because our prayer, love, and communion is PART of what God wills for them. He wills that we love others in this way, and that each of us are enfolded in a web of prayer grounded in and inspired by him. But partly it is because neither can God simply force himself on us or those we love. Openings must be granted to him and this is precisely what intercessory and petitionary prayers do even while they are also empowered by the Holy Spirit. When I try to understand petitionary and intercessory prayer myself I know, for instance, that in participating in the prayer chain in my parish, while I certainly pray all the specific requests that come to me and am overjoyed when someone is healed, etc, I am often more impressed with the community that is formed with each and every act of sharing, vulnerability, concern, love, risk, and support. Someone's pain may not be relieved in the way they or I and others hoped or conceived, but their place in the Communion of Saints has deepened, and the parish community as such becomes more the Reign of God here on earth --- just as it should be. Specific petitions are not unimportant, of course, but they are an essential part of a larger picture and pattern which must always be borne in mind.

Well, this is pretty long and still probably inadequate. I hope some aspects of it are helpful though to those trying to understand petitionary or intecessory prayer.