So, what if we prayed like we really believe it? I was asked about prayer the other day, how it works...and how it doesn't. And I got to thinking and remembering.

When I was first ordained, I was in the Emergency Room at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, sitting with a friend who had just been in a fender bender.

When I was leaving, the whole place went nuts. I was in my collar, and a nurse asked me if I could stick around. They were waiting for a shooting victim to come in, and it was pretty bad. Seems that there was a family: a father and mother, and a daughter and her boyfriend. And it seems like the family's form of recreation was Crystal Meth. And it seems like the daughter was tweaking and freaked out and shot her mother dead on the spot and seriously wounded her boyfriend. The ambulances were on their way. So I waited.

When they came busting through the doors, I followed the folks with the boyfriend into one of the rooms where they began to work on him. I said a prayer for the medical team and for the boyfriend. But the handwriting was on the wall. The boyfriend had already died.

Well, it was up to me to walk to the other end of the emergency ward to tell the daughter and her father. As I got there, I could hear the father, who a nurse said was named Peanut, yelling at the daughter, “Pray! Pray harder, and he'll live! Pray harder, and he'll live!” And the daughter was wailing, “Daddy! Stop! Daddy, Stop!” So, I went in, grabbed Peanut by the arm, and told him that we were going outside so he could have a smoke and a cup of coffee.

Outside, Peanut was freaking out, chain smoking and telling me that the boyfriend died because the daughter wasn't a good Christian. If she'd just prayed harder! I just kept saying, “Peanut, dude, it doesn't work that way. It's not magic.”

But somewhere in the back of my mind, a troubling thought was building: how exactly does it work? We are told to go before the Lord with our needs, so why did I somehow feel that Peanut was missing the mark?

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus is telling the disciples that the temple will be brought to rubble and that the future of the world will be one with wars and rumors of wars.

And the disciples look at the temple they love, think of it in ruins, and you can almost hear the same thought running through all their brains: How can we fix this?

And Jesus gently prods them: Fix this? You can't fix this. This is your kingdom. This is the way of this world now and always will be. And Jesus will go on to tell them of other things that will happen to them. And he will even try to tell them that things will work out because this kingdom will be replaced with God's kingdom. But you can almost see them standing there, still looking at the temple, stuck there, wondering how they can keep it from crumbling.

How can we fix this?

And my question is, how do we pray about things in our lives, if Jesus is being so glum about the world? Why do we even bother?

How can we pray for things to get better when they don't seem to be getting better? We look at a world that seems to be exploding around us, and we hope that we can keep safe from all of that. But we know in our heart of hearts that, eventually, we will get pulled in. And maybe we will need to get pulled in if we want to save what is our commonality as a nation and a civilization. But Jesus seems to be saying that it will always be this way. And how do we pray in the face of all that?

How do we not despair?

Here today we find ourselves standing next to someone who is in deep, deep despair. In our reading from Samuel, Hannah is at the end of her rope. She lived in a society where a woman's main job was to produce children. And this the one thing she could not do. And she despaired.

He husband said again and again that he loved her more than anything, but all she could feel was her barrenness. And all she could see was her rival mocking her, making her doubt her worth, making her doubt even her humanity. And it just seemed that the world, Hannah's world, would never get any better.

And it was in this despair that she prays. She says, “O Lord, I am sad, I am bereft, I am empty. I have nowhere to turn but to you. And if you give me a son, I will do all these things for you.”

And when I think of this I wonder how she is so very much different than Peanut. I wonder why her list of needs breaks my heart, but Peanut's seemed to rub me the wrong way.

And I think it's this, I hope it's this: it's not the list...it's the reason...it's the reason behind the list.

We all have needs, and we naturally turn to God with those needs. But somehow, we as believers so often pray to avoid the consequences of our actions. Peanut wasn't really asking his daughter to pray harder for the boyfriend to live. Peanut wanted God to make things not so messed up in his life. He wanted God to fix the bad decisions the family had made. Peanut was wanting these events never to have happened in the first place. And that's making God into a magic trick.

How often we fall into this habit:

O, Lord, please help me not get a ticket, even thought I was going 60 through a school zone. O, Lord, I stayed up all night partying and didn't study, please don't let me fail this test.

We all do this.

But Hannah was different. O, Lord, I am really sad, and here's how I think my life would be better, I won't deny that. But mainly, I just wanted you to know that I'm really sad, and I just wanted to talk to you about that.

And that, I think, is the difference between Hannah and the disciples. The disciples mainly want the magic trick. Hannah mainly wants just to be in God's presence, to try to glimpse God's will.

The disciples don't always listen, but eventually it will sink in, maybe long after Jesus is dead, but it will sink in: He told us something [they will remember], he showed us something. It's not the list...it's the reason. Give us this day our daily bread, yes. But ultimately, THY kingdom come, THY will be done. And let us be part of THAT.

That's how we should pray. Whether we have a list of needs, whether we are praying for someone else, whether we just want to hear a divine word, we enter into prayer by just putting all of that in the presence of God. Laying all of that before God and lightening our souls of the burden. Saying, “Look, here it all is. It's a pile of problem and praises, of hurts and happinesses, of sins and sincerity. But it's my offering to you.” And let God take all of that that is you into God's presence. And let God send you back out into the world, a bit more whole that you were before. A bit more able to listen to what God might have to say. A bit more willing to do what God asks you to do.

Praying is hard. But it's part of what we are to do, regardless of our needs. And we are to do this in days that seem no different than what Jesus described to the disciples. So, in these times of war and rumors of war, of turmoil and confusion, of politics and craziness, let us pray. Let us bring all those concerns us before the Lord. And let us bring all of the things we're thankful for before the Lord. And listen for God's response, not looking for magic, but for union with God. In the midst of all the sadness in the world, let us pray, and let us listen.

In the words of Saint Francis:

"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life."

Amen.