Primary Scripture: Romans 8:26–27
Supporting Scriptures: Matthew 6:7–13; Mark 14:32–36; Psalm 22:1–5; 1 Kings 19:11–12; James 5:13–16
“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit itself intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” — Romans 8:26
Introduction: The Prayer That Wasn’t Answered
Almost everyone who has prayed seriously eventually encounters a terrible problem:
Sometimes prayer doesn’t work.
At least, it doesn’t work the way we were told it would.
Someone prays for healing.
The cancer progresses.
Parents pray for their child.
The child dies.
A congregation prays for peace.
The bombs continue falling.
Someone begs God for employment and remains unemployed.
Someone prays for an abusive marriage to change, and tomorrow morning the abuse begins again.
And then someone says:
“You just need more faith.”
No.
That answer has wounded enough people.
Jesus himself prayed in Gethsemane:
“Abba, Father… remove this cup from me.”
The cup was not removed.
Christianity therefore has at the center of its story something we don’t discuss nearly enough:
Jesus knew unanswered prayer.
Perhaps the problem isn’t that we have failed at prayer.
Perhaps we have misunderstood what prayer is.
I. The Cosmic Vending Machine
Many of us inherited what we might call vending-machine theology.
Insert prayer.
Select miracle.
Press the faith button.
Receive blessing.
If nothing comes out, we are told perhaps we didn’t insert enough faith.
But there is an obvious theological problem.
If God regularly intervenes in response to prayer, we must explain why intervention appears so inconsistent.
One person’s tumor disappears.
Another person’s does not.
One person survives an accident.
Another dies.
If we say God chose to save one but not the other, we have created an enormous moral problem.
Was one person loved more?
Did one family pray harder?
Did God simply decide not to intervene?
These questions become especially unbearable when suffering involves children, genocide, famine, or natural disasters.
The Book of Job already rejects simplistic explanations of suffering.
Job’s friends repeatedly try to explain why Job suffers.
They produce neat religious answers.
God eventually rebukes them.
Sometimes theology needs the humility to say:
I don’t know.
II. Jesus Warned Against Magical Prayer
Interestingly, Jesus himself seems suspicious of prayer as magical manipulation.
In Matthew 6 he says:
“When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases… for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.”
Then Jesus gives the disciples a remarkably simple prayer.
Our Father.
Your kingdom come.
Give us bread.
Forgive us.
Help us forgive.
Deliver us from evil.
Notice how much of the Lord’s Prayer concerns transformation rather than information.
Jesus does not give God the morning news report.
Prayer places us within a vision:
bread,
forgiveness,
deliverance,
kingdom,
community.
Perhaps prayer is not primarily about changing God’s mind.
Perhaps prayer changes our participation in the world.
III. Kierkegaard: Prayer Changes the One Who Prays
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote:
“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”
That sentence deserves to sit with us for a moment.
Prayer may not be a lever controlling heaven.
Prayer may be a practice that changes us.
When I pray for hungry people long enough, eventually prayer asks me:
Why aren’t you feeding somebody?
When I pray for peace, prayer asks:
Where are you practicing reconciliation?
When I pray for justice, prayer asks:
What injustice are you willing to confront?
When I pray for lonely people, prayer asks:
Whom have you called lately?
Suddenly prayer becomes dangerous.
Because prayer stops being:
“God, fix the world.”
And begins becoming:
“God, make me available to the healing of the world.”
IV. Caputo: Prayer as Response to the Call
John D. Caputo’s radical theology gives us another way of thinking about prayer.
For Caputo, God is not primarily a supernatural sovereign controlling history from outside.
The name of God contains an event.
A call.
A promise.
An insistence.
God insists.
But God does not coerce.
Justice calls.
Mercy calls.
Hospitality calls.
Love calls.
But these things need bodies.
Hands.
Feet.
Communities.
Movements.
People willing to say yes.
Prayer therefore might be understood as listening for what insists upon us in the name of God.
Instead of asking only:
“God, what will you do?”
prayer asks:
“What is love asking of me?”
That changes everything.
V. Process Theology: God Works With the World
Process theology offers another important possibility.
Drawing upon philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, process thinkers reject the picture of divine power as absolute unilateral control.
God does not manipulate creation like puppets.
God works with creation.
Whitehead famously described God as:
“the fellow-sufferer who understands.”
That may be one of the most beautiful descriptions of God ever written.
God is not the distant emperor watching suffering from a celestial balcony.
God is the fellow sufferer.
The companion.
The presence within suffering calling toward the next possibility.
Process theology often speaks about divine power as persuasive rather than coercive.
God lures creation toward greater beauty, relationship, justice, creativity, and life.
God does not force.
God invites.
That sounds remarkably like Jesus.
Jesus rarely says:
“I will force you.”
He says:
“Follow me.”
An invitation.
A call.
VI. Elijah and the Sound of Silence
Consider Elijah in 1 Kings 19.
Elijah expects God.
A mighty wind comes.
But God is not in the wind.
An earthquake comes.
God is not in the earthquake.
Fire comes.
God is not in the fire.
Then comes what the King James Version beautifully calls:
“a still small voice.”
Other translations describe it as sheer silence or a sound of thin silence.
What an extraordinary image.
Perhaps we keep looking for God in spectacular interventions.
Thunder.
Miracles.
Supernatural disruptions.
But perhaps God is encountered in something quieter:
the invitation toward compassion,
the discomfort that accompanies injustice,
the courage arising inside frightened people,
the stubborn hope that refuses to die.
The still small voice.
The call.
The insistence.
VII. Jesus in Gethsemane
Now return to Jesus.
He enters Gethsemane knowing danger is approaching.
He falls to the ground.
He prays.
“Remove this cup from me.”
Nothing happens.
No angelic army destroys Rome.
No supernatural escape route opens.
The soldiers arrive.
Jesus is arrested.
From the perspective of vending-machine theology, Jesus’ prayer failed.
But something deeper occurs.
Jesus continues:
“Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
This does not necessarily mean God wanted Jesus tortured.
That interpretation can turn God into the architect of violence.
Perhaps instead Jesus is surrendering himself to the path of love despite its cost.
He will not become Caesar to defeat Caesar.
He will not answer violence with violence.
He will remain faithful to the Kingdom he proclaimed.
Even when empire kills him.
Prayer does not remove Jesus from reality.
Prayer gives Jesus courage to enter reality faithfully.
VIII. Prayer After Auschwitz
The Holocaust permanently changed modern theology.
After Auschwitz, theologians could no longer speak casually about divine providence.
Where was God?
Some theologians answered by reconsidering what divine power means.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from Nazi imprisonment, made the startling observation that humanity must learn to live before God as though there were no convenient supernatural rescue.
He pointed toward a God revealed not through worldly domination but through suffering love.
The cross becomes central again.
Christianity does not proclaim:
“God prevents suffering.”
Clearly suffering exists.
Christianity dares instead to proclaim:
God is found among the crucified.
God is with those who suffer.
And wherever people resist crucifixion—
wherever they rescue, shelter, feed, protect, heal, protest, comfort, or accompany—
the event of God happens again.
IX. What About Miracles?
Does this mean we must stop praying for healing?
No.
Pray boldly.
Hope wildly.
Ask shamelessly.
Human beings need hope.
And reality remains mysterious enough that humility should prevent us from pretending we understand everything.
But prayer must never become a mechanism for blaming suffering people.
If healing comes, rejoice.
If healing does not come, do not say:
“You didn’t have enough faith.”
Instead say:
“I am staying with you.”
Perhaps sometimes that sentence is itself an answered prayer.
X. Prayer Across Religious Boundaries
Religious pluralism can also deepen our understanding of prayer.
A Buddhist sits silently.
A Muslim bows toward Mecca.
A Jew prays the Shema.
A Hindu chants a mantra.
A Pagan stands beneath the moon.
A Christian receives Eucharist.
A humanist sits quietly beside a dying friend.
These practices are not identical.
Their theological meanings differ profoundly.
But perhaps beneath them we can recognize a shared human movement:
attention.
Humility.
Wonder.
Compassion.
Longing.
Surrender.
Presence.
Perhaps prayer is bigger than religious vocabulary.
Maybe sometimes an atheist sitting silently beside a grieving person is praying without using the word God.
Because love has become attentive.
And perhaps attention is one of prayer’s deepest forms.
XI. When Words Disappear
Paul writes:
“We do not know what we ought to pray for.”
Thank God somebody finally admitted it.
Sometimes we don’t know.
Sometimes prayer isn’t eloquent.
Sometimes prayer is:
“Help.”
Sometimes:
“Why?”
Sometimes:
“Please.”
Sometimes prayer is crying.
Sometimes prayer is anger.
Sometimes prayer is sitting silently.
Sometimes prayer is breathing.
Sometimes prayer is holding someone’s hand.
Sometimes there are no words whatsoever.
Paul says the Spirit intercedes with:
“sighs too deep for words.”
Perhaps silence is not failed prayer.
Perhaps silence is prayer stripped of performance.
XII. From Prayer to Participation
Imagine if every prayer contained an implied question.
We pray:
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
And prayer answers:
Who needs bread?
We pray:
“Forgive us our trespasses.”
And prayer asks:
Whom must you forgive?
We pray:
“Deliver us from evil.”
And prayer asks:
What evil are you resisting?
We pray:
“Thy kingdom come.”
And prayer asks:
What are you doing to make the Kingdom visible?
Suddenly the Lord’s Prayer becomes revolutionary.
Prayer is no longer escape from the world.
Prayer sends us deeper into it.
Conclusion: Perhaps We Are Part of the Answer
Maybe we have spent too much time asking why God doesn’t answer prayer.
Perhaps sometimes God is asking why we don’t answer prayer.
Someone prays for companionship.
Perhaps you are part of the answer.
Someone prays for food.
Perhaps your table is part of the answer.
Someone prays for justice.
Perhaps your courage is part of the answer.
Someone prays to know they are loved.
Perhaps your embrace is part of the answer.
Someone prays for peace.
Perhaps your refusal to hate is part of the answer.
Someone prays for a fuller life.
Perhaps our communities are being called to help create it.
This does not mean everything depends upon us.
It means we participate.
God insists.
Creation responds.
Love calls.
We answer.
Prayer therefore becomes less:
“God, come down here and fix everything.”
And more:
“Sacred Mystery, make me available to what love is trying to do.”
Make me attentive.
Make me courageous.
Make me gentle.
Make me difficult for injustice to tolerate.
Make my table longer.
Make my heart wider.
Make my hands useful.
Make my life an answer to somebody else’s prayer.
And when there are no answers—
when suffering remains,
when certainty disappears,
when heaven seems silent—
teach me to remain.
Because perhaps the Holy is present precisely there:
in the staying,
in the listening,
in the tears,
in the resistance,
in the bread being shared,
in the hand refusing to let go.
The still small voice continues.
Justice insists.
Mercy insists.
Hope insists.
Love insists.
And perhaps prayer begins when we become quiet enough to hear the call—
and brave enough to answer.
Amen.
Leave a Reply