How Do We Understand God's Answer to Our Prayers
I have worked as a parish priest for over two decades and one question remains constant- “Does God really hear my prayers?” People will ask this question over and over again, and when I reassure them that yes, God does in fact hear their prayers, they will ask me when and how God answers. The best response to these deep and profound questions lies in the words of Jesus himself. When trying to describe our relationship with God, Jesus spoke in parables. These parables were his attempt to explain what is unexplainable, to fathom the unfathomable, to reduce eternal truths so that they can be fed to temporal minds. These parables are simple and yet profound, accessible and yet rich and deep and bottomless.
One parable in particular addresses the way that God answers prayer better than any other explanation I have ever heard. Here are the words of Jesus as he tells this parable…
“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Mark 4:26-28
Let go of the particular translation that we are so familiar with: the Kingdom of God. That translation is outdated and does not mean much to the average American. It brings up associations with The Magic Kingdom or the Royal Family in England, neither of which has anything to do with what Jesus was talking about. The term Basileia in Ancient Greek means the realm of God, the presence of God, the rule of God. Basically, Jesus is trying to tell us what it's like to be in relationship with God, to live in God’s domain. When you enter into a relationship with God, it's like planting seeds.
When we pray, we plant a seed in the mind of God and in our lives. Just as we cannot see a seed under the ground, so we often cannot tell if God has heard us at all. But from the minute that we utter a prayer, that seed is sown, and it is growing and changing. From the moment we utter a prayer that prayer is beginning to be answered.
But the God of the Universe, who formed the stars and established the seas, does not act like a fast-food drive-through or a vending machine. God’s answers can last years, decades, millennia...God is eternal and God’s answers will be known in their fullness only in God’s time.
Jesus acknowledges that once the seed starts to sprout and you can see something coming out of the ground, it is nothing like the fullness of what you planted. The seed for wheat starts as a small green shoot, then there is a stalk, then a head on the stalk and, only after it is fully developed, does the grain of wheat become what it is intended to be. Once the grain is fully itself, the farmer recognizes it immediately and takes it for the harvest.
So it is with our prayers. First, we ask, then often we see nothing, then maybe something is observed but it is nothing like what we asked for. Then, over time, that answer keeps changing and developing until, in the fullness of time, our prayer is answered more fully and completely than ever we could have imagined.
There is a book written about my great uncle, Hiram Bingham IV. He was the diplomatic attache to France right before World War II. Uncle Harry, as I knew him, became alarmed by how the Jews were being treated in Germany, and he saw the anti-Semitism as it spread in France. He appealed to the US Government to issue visas to Jews to get them off the European continent but the US would not hear of it. They were still trying to negotiate with Hitler. So Uncle Harry began to issue visas illegally. He managed to get over one thousand Jews to the United States before the government discovered what he had done. He was fired and sent home to Connecticut in disgrace.
By the time I knew Uncle Harry, he was old and a bit senile. He and his wife Rose had had eleven children and Harry was prone to painting landscapes in his bathroom. Rose drank too much and would come and visit my family just to talk. She never said it, but I could imagine that she had asked God for her husband to be recognized for his courage, but the US Government remained silent and Uncle Harry died of old age in obscurity.
It was years after his death that Harry’s eleven children and their children and even his great-grandchildren were invited to the White House. Uncle Harry was given a medal of honor posthumously. Aunt Rose’s prayer was finally heard and I imagine she smiled down from heaven. The recognition that he received was so much broader and wider after his death as Harry had had so many offspring, many of whom had no idea what he had done.
When you pray, don't ever think for a moment that God does not hear you. God hears every word just like God counts the hairs on your head. But prayer is like planting seeds and you cannot rush the Holy One, nor can you always understand what God is doing. But you can be assured that no prayer is ever lost or goes unanswered. The answer may be unrecognizable at times but one day, you will see that answer and understand its fullness, even if you are watching from heaven.
So never stop praying to God for things that may seem impossible to you: for reconciliation among people who cant see past their differences, for an end to war and the pollution of our planet, for things that seem impossible to achieve. Ask and ask and ask again. Plant those seeds and understand that the Maker of all things has a plan much greater than anything that we can understand or fathom.
Amen.
Sermon given at All Saints Episcopal Church, Linville, North Carolina
Sunday, June 13, 2021