Praying in Sighs

1 Kings 3:5-13

Romans 8:26-39

We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit prays for us with sighs too deep for words. God is for us, and there’s nothing that can separate us from this love, not even our inability to pray. Pause from reading this and sit quietly for one minute, listening for the Spirit’s prayer on our behalf. Sighs of exhaustion, contentment, or boredom are all welcome. If your mind wanders—which it will—simply put a name to the thought that is passing through, and then gently return to the present moment, listening again for the Spirit. For example, you might say to yourself, “I’m thinking about food,” and then gently say to yourself, “return to the present moment.” Do this now.

“We do not know how to pray as we ought, so the Spirit prays for us.” Thanks be to God for that. I would guess that many people feel they don’t know how to pray as they ought. Perhaps we don’t pray as often as we’d like, or we find ourselves saying bad words about our enemies instead of good words. Or maybe we just find that despite our best efforts and intentions, we are still captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.

But we need to pray, and we can take comfort in the Spirit who helps us in our weakness. When we can’t, the Spirit can. When we won’t, the Spirit will.

Our prayer of quiet listening earlier was a Solomon prayer. Solomon knew about this need for prayer. He knew God would help him in his weakness, and would give him an understanding mind to discern between good and evil. We typically hear leaders boast about their abilities rather than their weaknesses. We typically hear about their unquestionable judgment, rather than their need for discernment between good and evil. If we only vote for them, so the message goes, we will surely see a new day dawn.

But God praises Solomon for his humility; he doesn’t ask for riches, a long life, or his enemies’ lives. Solomon even resists asking for a gerrymandered political district to ensure continued election. It’s as though Solomon has a friendship through time with Paul the Apostle. He knows that he cannot pray as he ought, and he also knows that the Spirit will pray on his behalf so that he can discern between good and evil.

When we pray the Solomon prayer of silence and stillness, we are more likely to overhear the Spirit’s gentle urgings, her sighs too deep for words, directing us toward what is good. When the world’s leaders pray the Solomon prayer, there will be less suffering for everyone. Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal put the sentiment this way four centuries ago: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

We desperately need leaders and citizens who know how to discern between good and evil. As the world heats up—both literally and figuratively—we need to remember how to pray.

Solomon asks for prayer-help from the Spirit so that he can govern Israel. He says, “Although I am only a child, I am in the midst of your people; give me an understanding mind to discern between good and evil so that I may govern your people.” What if all the world’s leaders prayed in this way?

Paul assures us that the Spirit will intercede for us, that God is for us. But this is no guarantee we will discern rightly. Many evil things have been done under the disguise of good.  As Paul says, “I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil is close at hand” (Romans 7:21).

We discern good from evil better not only when we ask for help, and when we sit quietly to listen, but also when we know who Paul was talking to. He writes, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No… for I am convinced that nothing in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul is writing to those who are experiencing these various sufferings. He is not writing to the Roman authorities. He is not writing to the powerful, but to the powerless.

He is writing for people who can’t afford lobbyists, for people who work three minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, for people who fear for their own safety when entering a public restroom that actually corresponds with their own gender identity. When we consider the reality of social privilege while reading the Bible, we are better able to discern good from evil.

But unfortunately, Paul’s words—particularly the words “God is for us”—have sadly been used as a justification by the powerful, instead of as a reassurance for the powerless, and this is problematic because it keeps us from our best discernment, and leads to great violence.

One example of how Paul’s words “God is for us” have been misappropriated is from the Kountze High School cheerleaders just outside of Houston. The cheerleaders made signs a few years ago for the football team to run through at the beginning of the Friday night game; one of the signs read, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” I doubt Paul had high school football in mind when he wrote to the Romans 2,000 years ago. Likewise, there were most certainly Christians on both sides of the gridiron those nights in east Texas. No, God is not a fan of the Kountze Lions, specifically. To claim that God is for us over and against others is one of the first steps toward genocide. And while it might seem like a long way between high school football and genocide, the distance may not be as far as we’d like to think.

For example, another misuse of Paul’s message is a bumper sticker I’ve seen that says, “God bless our troops; especially our snipers.” The problem with this bumper sticker is similar to the football banner from Kountze HS. It’s not that God does not desire peace and justice throughout the land; the problem is that the “us” is simply too small. Paul the Apostle was not from the United States, nor was Jesus a military leader. The way of Jesus undermines violence; it does not promote it. Heaven has no standing military.

Another, more horrendous misunderstanding of Paul’s claim that “God is for us” is the Pequot War of 1636-38 in present day Connecticut, nearly 150 years before the United States was the United States. To put it simply, English settler-colonists wanted land that was already occupied. The Pequot tribe was all but wiped out in the ensuing war, and the Pequot tribe had already quit fighting when the following scene took place. William Bradford wrote this account in his “History of Plymouth Plantation:”

Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie (emphasis added, from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States).

Where was the discernment on behalf of the Pequot? Where was the discernment on behalf of those experiencing hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and the sword? Where was the discernment on behalf of the immigrants who were suffocated to death in the back of a smuggling truck in San Antonio last week?

Until we admit (as Solomon did) that we are but children, until we admit that victory over our enemies isn’t the highest prize, until we admit that we don’t always know the difference between good and evil, we will continue to lead God’s people astray. Until we realize (as Paul realized) that we “don’t know how to pray as we ought,” we will continue to commit genocide and win football games in the name of God.

But when we pray together in silence, when we listen for the Spirit’s intercession, when we humble ourselves enough to ask for an understanding mind to discern between good and evil, we learn again the good news that God is for us. When we pray, despite not knowing how, we see again that the Spirit intercedes for us, and the “us” is everybody, and nothing can separate "the everybody” from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.