Sermon, by Pastor Joel
February 16, 2025
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26
The context of this sermon is
100% written by a human
In 1998, a Harvard cardiologist named Herb Benson came up with what was billed as the largest experiment ever to settle this evergreen question once and for all: does prayer really work? It was called the “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer.”
In casual language, it was known as the “Great Prayer Experiment,” and Dr. Benson’s idea was to test the power of prayer with 1,800 heart patients who had received bypass surgery. There would be three groups. One third of the patients would have no one pray for them. Two thirds of the group would receive prayers from Christian congregations—half of the patients in this group knew about the prayers, and the half in the other set did not.
The surgeries went ahead, and the researcher tracked which patients had complications. The study found that there was no difference in complications between those who received prayers and those who didn’t. But in a surprising twist, the patient group who knew about the prayers did experience a small but significant increase over than those who did not know. Researchers suggested this was because the patients expected the prayers to work and were perhaps less vigilant during their recovery.
But once Dr. Benson published his results, his study did not, in fact, settle the questions once and for all. The debate about whether praying for someone – and even yourself – can change outcomes continues to this day, with some studies showing positive effects and others showing none.
Why bring this study up, you might ask? Given the February we have had so far, with a long winter ahead, our economy under threat, the world being destabilized by a president careless with soundbites, and all the other problems we face, do we really need to resolve this particular one?
I guess it’s because prayer -and the power of it – has been on my mind. This morning, we hear “The Beatitudes,” those graceful and warm blessings spoken by Jesus, and perhaps we find ourselves in them. “The Beatitudes” are essentially a prayer, spoken by Jesus, as a promise that we will survive the pain we feel and come through, and that we will not be alone while we do it. We hear the same phrase in our first lesson – “Blessed are those,” we are told, “who trust in the Lord.” How do we deliberate and understand that trust? We contemplate and pray to God. And what is our gospel acclamation but a prayer of inquiry. We sing: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” This prayer is powerful in that we sing it in unity. We are asking the question, not to reveal an answer, but to reinforce the answer we already know.
Yet the question of whether we are heard bedevils all of us. We speak to God and wonder who is listening. We pray for the health and well-being of another and wonder if it will make any difference. We hear politicians say after a needless tragedy such as a school shooting, that their “prayers” are with the victims, and this seems so self-serving and pointless that we avoid talking about prayer much ourselves.
During my reading this week, I came across the famous essay by C.S. Lewis, written in 1959, nearly four decades before Dr. Benson’s experiment. It is called “The Efficacy of Prayer,” and it is the theologian’s answer to this question: Does prayer work?
One point that Lewis argues off the top is, what would we need to do to prove that prayer worked? Prayer is a request, a petition to God, he says, which means the option of granting it is voluntary and may or may not happen.
Lewis argued that even if all the patients in an experiment like Dr. Benson’s who received prayer had suffered no complication, that would not prove prayer, but magic: it would mean that certain humans were able to compel something to happen.
What’s more, he argued, once you are praying to prove something or to see what happens, you are in fact no longer praying. Can it still be prayer, he suggests, when you are hoping for some patients to heal and others not? Or if you say the words, hoping to win a kind of contest?
And if our prayers are answered, he then asked, what then? Are we to believe that some people are just more important to God than others because their prayers are answered, while other prayers are not? Are we to command God at our will? And why is prayer even the deciding factor? Why would the rain from the skies, the strength of our bodies, the sweat of our own labour – all derived from God – be as much responsible for our fine harvest as the prayer we spoke to make the grain grow?
And so prayer is not a machine. It is not magic. It is not advice offered to God. If our prayers are answered, Lewis is suggesting, it is not for us to ask why, or to think we have performed in such a way so pleasing to God as to be lifted above everyone else. A prayer is a request our human heart and mind forms; the mysteries of God and the universe surpass anything a single prayer can contain.
Lewis signs off then, which is somewhat disappointing, for he cuts short what must be the conclusion: what then, is the point of prayer? Why pray at all? And this is where I would come back to the beautiful language of “The Beatitudes” in which Jesus prays on behalf of us all that our pain and suffering will be relieved. It is a prayer of many layers. There is compassion in the words: a recognition that suffering is real, and that Jesus stands with us through it. There is promise and hope that we will recover. There is also clarification -- a processing of a wider idea: those words make clear that all people matter to God, and should therefore matter to us, and that we, who may be rich and laughing, should not judge the poor or the hungry, for someday we may be them and they us. Even then, we will be cared for. And the prayer lands with a clarifying of mission: If those who are hungry will be fed, as God’s people, should we not feed? If we believe that those who stand up for justice even if they fail, are valued by God, should we not take risks for justice?
I thought about the importance of prayer this week because I know many of you are struggling now with feelings of anger about the state of our continent and the world, and frustration, and perhaps, even as we diligently buy Canadian, that the world feels as if it is slipping backwards in time, and we feel weary to start five steps behind all over again,
But this, I believe, is exactly the time when prayer works. Not to heal every complication or magically solve every problem. But because prayer is a journey we take with God, on our own time, in our own words, to our own destination. Sometimes, at the end, we find truth, sometimes comfort, at other times resolve, perhaps an answer – maybe all of them. And maybe we have to go back again with more questions.
But hopefully, what prayer helps us do first is reach a place of compassion – where we clearly voice our pain and worries. We reach a place of empathy for ourselves and for others. By listening to the response that comes forward in that contemplative space, we have already found a promise: that we are strong enough to voice what is wrong, to send it out, and to look for an answer to return to us. And by thinking through what we have read in the newspaper, what we have heard from friends, what we have felt emotionally, we can begin to clarify what steps we need to take. This power of prayer that emerges out of a process of compassion, hope, and clarity, to take action in the world.
And is this not the definition of trust: that we gather all that we feel and think and know, and trust to begin a conversation with God, seeking compassion, hope, and clarity?
“Blessed are those who trust in God,” our lesson tells us this morning. “They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.”
When you feel unsettled this week, find your solid ground with prayer and reflection. In that quiet space, may we hear Jesus offering his blessings, along with his promise of presence. And may we then send out our roots to be a unifying, thoughtful and generous presence of our own.
Amen.
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