“The Power Of Prayer”
Text:
Acts 1:6-14
© May 4, 2008 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton
United Presbyterian Church.
One
day a minister was visiting in the home of one of his members, an older woman
who happened to be a widow. And as they
were sitting there in the living room drinking tea, the minister noticed that
the woman had a parakeet in a birdcage over in the corner. So the minister asked if the bird was able to
speak. But when the minister asked that
question, the woman suddenly turned red, and hesitated for a few moments,
before finally telling him that the bird’s name was Polly, and yes, the bird
did speak. So the minister went over and
as soon as he spoke to the bird, right away the bird squawked in perfectly
clear English: “Whoopie,
I’m a party girl!” The old woman, of
course, was mortified. But over and over
again the bird kept squawking the same thing:
“Whoopie, I’m a party girl!”
So
the widow apologized to the minister for her bird’s behavior. But the minister said that he thought it
would be best if he took the bird home with him and taught it some manners. He said, “I have two parakeets who are
perfect gentlemen. In fact, they spend
all their time praying, day and night.
And I think they could teach your Polly a thing or two.” So the woman agreed and the minister took her
bird home with him.
When
the minister got home, he noticed that his birds were deep in prayer, with
their heads bowed and their eyes shut.
But as soon as the minister set Polly down, she began to squawk: “Whoopie, I’m a
party girl!” When that happened one of
the minister’s parakeets stirred a bit, opened one of his eyes a little, then
nudged the other bird and said, “Ralph!
Ralph! Wake up! Our prayers have been answered.”
What
are we praying for? Have our prayers
been answered? In essence, those are the
kinds of questions that we’re being invited to ask ourselves as we read this
passage in the Bible, this passage in the Bible commonly known as the Ascension
of Jesus.
In
fact, this past Thursday, May 1, was Ascension Day. How did you celebrate Ascension Day? Did you throw a party? Did you have some cake? Do you get a lot of Ascension Day cards in
the mail? Probably not.
On
the one hand, we say that we believe in the Ascension. After all, right there in the Apostles’
Creed, we say that we believe that on the third day Jesus rose again from the
dead, and that he ascended into heaven, and sitteth
on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to
judge the quick and the dead. But on the
other hand, if we’re honest, we have to admit that we’re not quite sure what to
do with this story. We’re not quite sure
what to make of this story.
Six
weeks ago today we celebrated Easter. Six
weeks ago today we celebrated the way that God raised Jesus from the dead. But as the stories in the New Testament show
us, Easter wasn’t the end. No, for a
period of forty days after Easter Jesus kept appearing time and time again to
his disciples and to other believers, showing them that he was most definitely
alive.
And
then, as this story that we listened to today in the book of Acts tells us, at
the end of those forty days, Jesus walked with his disciples to a hill that was
a short distance outside of Jerusalem, a hill known as the Mount of Olives, and
as the disciples were standing there suddenly Jesus was mysteriously lifted up
in a cloud and taken into heaven.
But
before Jesus left the disciples, he told them that he wasn’t abandoning them. Instead, he made this promise. He said, “You will receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in
And
so when Jesus left them and ascended up into heaven, what did the disciples do
next? The book of Acts says they
waited. They waited for Jesus’ promise
to be fulfilled. They waited for that
power from the Holy Spirit to come to them.
But they waited for that power not just by sitting around looking at
their watches. No, they waited for that
power by praying for it.
As
the Ascension story shows us, right now Jesus is no longer with us here on
earth. Instead, for the time being,
Jesus is physically removed from us, physically separated from us, in
heaven. But even though, for the time
being, there is that distance between us and Jesus, Jesus still wants to reign
in our lives and in the world. Even
though, for the time being, there is that distance between us and Jesus, Jesus
wants to give us power, power to change this world to the way that God wants it
to be. And the way that we can tap into
that power, the way that we can receive that power is through prayer – through
earnest, constant prayer.
If
I asked you to raise your hand if you prayed sometime during the past week, I
imagine that everyone – or nearly everyone – would put their hand up. But when we pray, what are we praying
for? I wonder if many of our prayers
aren’t like the prayer that a little girl prayed one day. At school that day her class had had a test
on all the state capitals. But later on,
when she realized that she had made a mistake, she prayed as fervently as she
could, “Dear Lord, please let
We
might laugh, but isn’t that oftentimes what we do with our prayers? When we pray, in one way or another, don’t we
oftentimes say to God, “This is the way I
want things to be. So God, please
arrange things so that that’s what happens”?
But
is that the way that prayer is supposed to be?
Or should prayer be something more like this: “Dear God, how do you want things to be in our lives and in the world? Dear God, give us a vision of the way that you want things to be, and give us the
power to be a part of what you want to have happen.”
You
have to wonder: what would happen if we,
and others like us, prayed like that?
What would happen if we, and others like us, committed ourselves
wholeheartedly to saying, “God, you have a vision for the way you want this
world to be. Use us, O God – give us the
power – to change our communities and to change the world to the way that you
want it to be.”
We
might be tempted to think, though, what can we do? We’re so relatively few in number, and the
problems in our communities and in our world are so many! But what we need to remember is that at
first, after Jesus ascended into heaven, there were only about 120 believers,
not that many more people than we have gathered here today. But as those 120 believers committed
themselves to praying, committed themselves to praying for God to send them the
power to transform the world, in time amazing and wonderful things started to
happen.
After
all, those who dedicate themselves to doing evil realize the power that a few
committed people can have on the world.
What was it – only about 19 terrorist hijackers who dedicated themselves
to doing evil on September 11, 2001 – and look at what kind of an impact they
have had on the United States and on the whole world. Or someone recently pointed out that if Osama
bin Laden was able to convince even just 1/10 of 1% of the American population
to join his cause, he would have more than 300,000 soldiers of terror. [2] Imagine what that would do to our
nation. Imagine what that would do to
our world.
Well,
if a relatively few number of people who dedicate themselves to doing evil can
bring about so much pain and suffering and fear, what would happen if even a
relatively few number of people were willing to dedicate themselves – heart,
mind, and soul – to doing good? What
would happen if even a relatively few number of people were willing to dedicate
themselves – heart, mind, and soul – to praying, to praying for God to give
them the power to change this world, to change this world to the way that God
wants it to be?
What
are you praying for? Are we praying for
God to give us power? Are we praying for
God to give us the power to do the kinds of things in our lives that God wants
us to be doing? Are we praying for God
to give our church the power to make a difference in this world? As we look to God, may that be our
prayer. Because if we do that, if we
sincerely and earnestly pray for God to fill us with his power, there’s no
telling what’s just waiting to happen.