Pray Shamelessly

Dr. Brené Brown at TED 2012

© Seth Olson 2019

July 28, 2019—The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 12 (Gospel Reflection Track)
Genesis 18:20-32Psalm 138Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)Luke 11:1-13

“Lord, teach us to pray.” This request (in today's Gospel) from one disciple appears simple enough. Jesus what do we say when we want to talk to God? In response, Jesus offered his followers the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer. We often recite these comfortable words—and when we do we are literally following what Jesus said to do. We cannot do much better than that, can we?

Hammering this home, we in the Episcopal Church have taken Jesus at his word so closely—when it comes to praying the “Our Father”—that every time we gather together we say the Lord’s Prayer. Whether it’s at Holy Eucharist or Holy Baptism; during the sacramental rites of confirmation, ordination, holy matrimony, reconciliation of a penitent, or unction; whether it is part of the Daily Office or a devotion for individuals and families, every time we participate in Prayer Book liturgy—the spiritual work that binds us together—we pray in the way that Jesus taught us. So, that’s it, right? We have prayer figured out. Just stick to the script Jesus gave us. Maybe…

When the one in today’s Gospel lesson asked Jesus to teach the disciples to pray what was that inquiry really about? Was this a request about what to pray or was it about how to pray? While the importance of what Jesus offered is critical enough that we speak it every time we gather, the significance of how Jesus taught his followers to pray was even more profound.

Particularly in Luke’s telling of the Gospel, we often observe Jesus going off to pray. Right at the start of today’s story Jesus was praying. He prayed in the morning. He prayed through the night. He prayed on the eve of his death. He prayed constantly. Something we are called to do in our own lives. If his example were not enough Jesus also gave us a parable about how to pray in today’s lesson.

Fresh on the heels of teaching his disciples our most familiar prayer, Jesus invited his students into a creative exercise. I, in turn, invite you into this practice of imagining, as you seek to understand how to pray as Jesus modeled and taught.

Suppose you have a friend who is your neighbor. And, you go to your friendly neighbor to ask for some bread in the wee hours between dusk and dawn. You are doing this because you have another friend who has come to you and you have nothing to give this visiting friend to eat. Well, at first your friendly neighbor is hesitant. The neighbor has been cuddled up in bed for a while and even has children snoozing in the bed too. And just because you are this person’s friend and neighbor that’s not enough. The warmth and comfort of the bed keeps your neighbor from responding. However, as Jesus explained, “Even though [this neighbor] will not get up and give [you] anything because he is [your] friend, at least because of [your] persistence he will get up and give [you] whatever [you] need.” If this story is about how to pray, we can see that Jesus is telling us to pray persistently. It’s as clear as day, right there in the text. Jesus said prayer is about being persistent—except that’s not what he originally said.

Persistence is half-way right, but if we walk away thinking that the morale of the story is to pray persistently we will not be even half-way right. The point is not everything will turn out how you want it to turn out if you pray all the time. Jesus is not telling us that God is waiting to give us something good when we pray consistently enough. That’s just not who God is. This makes sense when we take a closer look at the word we translate as “persistent.”

The original word here is more closely related to our word shamelessness. It might be self-evident, but shamelessness means without disgrace, disrepute, or shame. How does this change the meaning of this parable? Well, let’s put the story into a contemporary setting to find out.

Suppose you knock on your neighbors door at 2 o’clock in the morning pleading for some bread because your best friends have just arrived from out of town. You don’t have anything to offer them or their family. Publix is long since closed. And, you don’t really want to go to the Green Springs Walmart Neighborhood Market, so you knock on your neighbor’s door. Your neighbor might not respond because of your friendship, but they will if you are not only persistent but also shameless in your knocking and yelling. The next day I bet your neighbor might even call you shameless. I can even hear them asking, “HAVE YOU NO SHAME?” Truthfully, that’s the point of this parable on prayer. When questioned, “Have you no shame?” in the presence of God we are to wholeheartedly respond “YES, I HAVE NO SHAME!” Maybe this sounds crazy to you, but bear with me for a moment.

What Jesus was trying to tell his disciples is that when they prayed they were to lay everything completely bare without disgrace. In doing so, they were relying upon themselves, but asking God for whatever they truly needed. This is how we are called to pray as well. Now, maybe a little clarification about shame might be helpful.

Noted author, storyteller, and researcher Dr. Brené Brown in her TED talk entitled “Listening to Shame” explained that shame prevents us from innovation, creativity, and positive change. Things that often come from prayer if you ask me. Shame is “I’m sorry. I am a mistake.” [1] As opposed to guilt, which is “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” “Shame is the gremlin who says, ‘Uh, uh. You're not good enough. You never finished that MBA. Your wife left you… I know those things that happened to you growing up. I know you don't think that you're pretty, smart, talented or powerful enough. I know your dad never paid attention, even when you made CFO.”[2] Dr. Brown even says that shame is different for women and men.

“For women, shame is, do it all, do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat.” For men, shame is don’t be seen as weak. It’s “I’d rather die on my white horse than for others to see me fall off it.”[3] So, this is shame and it is something that prevents us from not only innovation, creativity, and positive change, it also keeps us from one another, and it can keep us from God.

So, Christ Jesus through today’s parable tells us the posture with which we are to pray is without shame. But, how do we do this? How do we overcome the gremlin?

In Holy Baptism, God calls us beloved children—we are sealed as Christ’s own forever. In Holy Eucharist, we are what we eat—we are the Body of Christ as we consume the Body of Christ. Even after experiencing these transformative services of worship regularly, I don’t always get it. I hear my own self-talk and it’s not “I’m a beloved member of the Body of Christ.” It’s more like, “I’ll be good when I…” or “I wish I hadn’t done that stupid thing, I’m such a bad (husband/father/friend/son/brother/etc.).” This sort of communication within ourselves reinforces shame—so what’s the antidote for shame?

Well, Dr. Brown says that it is empathy. Secrecy, silence, and judgment help shame to grow, but empathy destroys it. We see a glimmer of this in today’s parable.[4] The neighbor finally address his friend’s needs seeing the dilemma of the knocking neighbor. Even more clearly we see Abraham’s shameless empathy in our Old Testament lesson.

Throughout this lesson Abraham empathizes with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Leave alone for now the destruction of these cities. Instead focus on the prayerful actions of Father Abraham. When he sees the possibility of a righteous one struggling in a desolate city he cannot help but vulnerably lay bare his desire before God. God, don’t destroy these cities if people there are living in right relationship with you. According to Genesis this was not the case, but the what of the prayer isn’t as important as the how here. How are we to pray? Like Abraham: vulnerably, shamelessly, empathetically (if that's even a word).

Of course, this is difficult. We often think our prayers have to be pretty, that we have to have some perfect prayer routine that we stick with forever, or that God will only listen to us if we act the right way. But, this is not the case. God hears all our needs before we offer up any prayer. And, in today’s lesson Jesus provides the important instructive that we are to pray shamelessly. We are to pray without shame because God is a non-shaming entity. God wants our entire selves—even the broken, messy bits.

I’ll leave you with some inspiring words from President Theodore Roosevelt that inspired Dr. Brown. To me this is a beneficial way of envisioning our lives—prayer lives and otherwise: “It is not the critic who counts. It is not the [one] who sits and points out how the doer of deeds could have done things better and how [that one] falls and stumbles. The credit goes to the [person] in the arena whose face is marred with dust and blood and sweat. But when [that one is] in the arena, at best, [winning], and at worst, [losing], but when [that one] fails, when [that one] loses, [that one] does so daring greatly.”[5]

How are we to pray? May we dare greatly, shamelessly speaking with God who sees us completely and does not shame us, but loves us unconditionally, and calls us to reach out to others with empathy.

---

[1] Brené Brown, “Listening to Shame.” TED Talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en [published March 2012; accessed July 24, 2019].

[2] Brown, “Listening to Shame.”

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

The Answers Are Getting Harder: Shamelessness in Prayer

Album art from Blues Traveler's fourth album Four.

The first CD I ever purchased on my own was the 1994 Blues Traveler record Four. I loved that album, and still listen to it regularly. While the singles “Hook” and “Runaround” garnered much of the attention, I devoured (and nearly memorized) all the tracks of the hour long recording. As I have been preparing for preaching this week, I found myself mysteriously singing the second song from Four, a track entitled “Stand” (You are going to want to listen to it before continuing... do so here).

For the first two verses and refrains of the song, the lead singer John Popper makes a series of declarative statements, which lead to the theme that sometimes in life it’s a long way to fall. These statements are almost universal beliefs that we as humans hold subconsciously—beliefs like talk and tragedy are cheap, wounds heal in time, and decisions we make come back to us in one way or another. Right before the two-minute mark of the song though something shifts. Popper begins an intense harmonica rift that gives way to a calmer and more transcendent sounding harmony from the rest of the band. It’s at this point in the song when I realize why my subconscious spit out this tune during this particular week.

As the harmonized vocals return, the band sings, “The answers are getting harder.” This feels like the most accurate depiction of our current state of complicated existence in this polarized world of have’s and have not’s. Sure this song is turning 25 years-old this September, but the words that John Popper wrote for Blues Traveler’s fourth album remain as true as they were in the mid-1990’s. The answers are getting harder. And, the band repeats this statement three times before adding another belief in the background, “If an answer comes to those who pray.” What could this possibly mean?

Taken together these statements read, “The answers are getting harder if an answer comes to those who pray.” To me this means that even in our practice of conversing with God as we grow the answers become more complicated. Perhaps this is a belief that Popper discovered as he matured in his life as a musician and a man. The real power and a true connection to this Sunday’s Gospel lesson from Luke 11 comes in what happens next in the song.

At the 3:45 mark the tempo increases and Popper sings:
“The answers are getting harder and harder
And there ain’t no way to bargain or to barter
But if you’ve got the angst or you got the ardor
You might faint from the fight but you’re gonna find it
For every challenge could have paradise behind it
And if you accept what you have lost and you stand tall
You might just get it back and you can get it all
So now you know why it’s a long way to fall
Yeah cause it’s a long way to fall.”

While it’s not explicit if Blues Traveler is referring to the act of praying and receiving answers, the implication is clear: persistence in prayer and in life will carry you through challenge, loss, and even falls. Taken in concert with this Sunday’s Gospel lesson this song pushes my own understanding of Jesus’ response to how one ought to pray.

In Luke 11:1-13 Jesus uttered the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer, but he also offered up a teaching about our posture during prayer. No, I’m not talking about standing or kneeling, I am referring to the vigor and persistence with which we pray. In Luke 11:6-8 we hear Jesus describe a persevering neighbor knocking on his friend’s door in the middle of the night. The man inside does not want to give this pesky neighbor any bread for he’s already in bed with his kids asleep. Still he does get up and give into the request because of the friend’s persistent knocking—not because of their preexisting relationship. Some take this to mean that we are to persevere in our prayer and life—and I agree—however, there’s more here, and it relates to what Popper sang about in “Stand.”

A more honest translation of the word we quote as “persistence” in Luke 11:8 is actually “shamelessness” or “importunity” or “un-modesty.” The knocking neighbor has no shame in asking, which is a very different thing than being persistent. In truth this unlocks a completely different way of viewing God. God’s not waiting on us to be persistent in our prayer life before God grants our requests. Rather, we are to have no shame in asking boldly for what we want, laying our entire lives for God to view, and pushing onward for our will, as we allow it to fall in line with God’s own will.

This shamelessness insight dovetails nicely into what Popper sang. As the answers to our prayers and in our world become harder and harder, there’s no way to bargain or to barter with God for a reply. Instead as we express our anxiety and passion to God we are to without modesty share our entire existence with Him/Her/Them. As we bear our entire souls to God we might faint from the fight (see: Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32), but as we persevere we discover heaven on earth right within/beyond our challenges. Accepting the losses of life, instead of denying their existence, allows us to stand within our truest selves and like Job we get back not what we had but something even greater. So, while we pray that God lead us not into temptation, the truth is that God guiding us through the evils of this life leads us into a promised land. This paradise is so fathomless that it exceeds our imagination. Even now as we pray shamelessly to God, nakedly laying out our entire selves open to the one who knows us entirely, we dwell in the intersection of heaven and earth with the one who creates, feeds, forgives, sustains, and loves us completely.

So, when you pray stand tall as you boldly lay bare your whole self to God. It is not about the words you utter, but the posture of shamelessness you invoke. For God will never shame you (see: Old Testament lesson from Sunday Genesis 18:20-32)—so ask emphatically for what you want. And while God may not answer precisely how you desire, know that beyond and even within the challenges of life God is bringing heaven to earth, as God’s will is always done. Stand, stand and walk with God.