Recently, the Supreme Court issued a ruling regarding a coach’s decision to pray — quite publicly and visibly — at the 50-yard line during a high school football game.
The United States has been debating “prayer in schools” for as long as I’ve been alive. My own view is pretty well-known and can be summed up with the following joke: “So long as there are tests, there will always be prayer in school.”
Today, friends, let’s remind ourselves what prayer is and is not. Prayer should be a *breath* that flows forth from us, a conversation with God that we are always having, in all places and times. It doesn’t have to be flowery, or showy or ostentatious.
Once upon a time, when Jesus was praying, he told his Disciples this:
“Be careful that you don’t practice your religion in front of people to draw their attention …
“When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners so that people will see them …
“But when you pray, go to your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is present in that secret place …
“When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. Don’t be like them. …”
(Matthew, Chapter 6)
Jesus wants to reframe our view of prayer, away from the *form* of prayer, and back to the *practice* of it.
I pray all the time. I just don’t dramatically fall to my knees in highly public places to do it.
I pray “Be with me,” every time I step into the pulpit to preach.
I pray, “Thank you, God,” every time I see a sunset at White Rock Lake.
I pray, “Give us courage,” every time I’m entering the door of a hospital room.
I pray, “Oh, thank you …” every time I hear a song that moves me.
The point is: I never once fall to my knee, in front of hundreds of people, making a flowery show of my prayer.
I just do it. And, according to Jesus, so should you.
Prayer was never, for one moment, “illegal” in our schools. What was frowned upon (until last week) were ostentatious and showy prayers led by public-school staff.
We do not need, as a nation, coaches and teachers in public schools, teaching our children how to pray. This is an idea that is not very well thought through.
What form of prayer will teachers and coaches use? Ones they learned in their particular church? Do you know how many denominations there are?
Christians who applaud this ruling fail to understand the can of worms that it’s opened. They assume that their prayers, from their churches, would be just fine, so what’s the problem?
Jesus calls us to “pray in secret,” not because prayer is shameful, but because prayer is not performative. Prayer is relationship. Praying on the 50-yard-line — with hundreds of spectators looking on — cannot help but be performative.
Jesus says that performative prayers — prayed “so that people will see them” — are hypocritical.
Instead, He calls us to an ongoing, ever-present relationship with God; not to show off our fancy, theological linguistic vocabulary. In fact, Jesus says that some prayers are just “a flood of empty words.” Boom.
So, look, I’m not a legal scholar. I can’t tell you about what the law should be, although I trust from what I’ve just written that you can tell my view. But I do know what Jesus says we Christians should do for a prayer life.
And I know that it has nothing to do with publicly praying on a football field.
