Does Prayer Work for "Real"?

Besides expecting or hoping for supernatural healing or miracles,* is there reason to pray, or to ask for prayers?

[*Esp. for my Christian friends, please note: I am not denying that prayers can be answered by supernatural miracles. I have had one, maybe two, personal experiences that seemed like clear, divine, and personal interventions as a result of praying. Also, as a pastor, people have shared many stories of miraculous experiences that seem to defy normal explanations. On the other hand, I have also experienced and witnessed the many times and circumstances in which prayers were not answered the way I or others wanted or that seemed best to us. While I have thoughts about the nature and purpose of sporadic and seemingly unfair interventions, for the sake of this reflection, I am mainly discussing the more common, natural and powerful impact that prayers and praying people can have on individuals, causes, and crises.]

I think of a woman in a congregation. Call her "Wilma." Wilma is aging, with slowly progressing cancer, among other challenges. She contributes to the congregation by being present every week that she can. That congregation is a primary source of warm human interaction with people who greet her by name, ask how she's doing this week, and who listen, including her pastor. These are the few people in her life that still give her a hug, hold her hand, and pray with her.

Do I believe that those prayers are going cure Wilma bodily or mentally? That’s not my first thought or intention or reason to pray with her. The prayers probably help to some degree, as meditation and other kinds of human interaction do. But they are a part of the whole activity of physical and verbal prayers that allow her to feel human connection and worth something, not just to me, or even to the congregation. All this lets her feel a part of an even wider society, world, and as a woman of faith, connected to a more compassionate God.

It is not 'health' by medical standards, but it allows her to feel healing and restoration on social and emotional levels. Without this, or something much like it, I'm not sure where and whether Wilma would 'be.' I recall a dying man for whom several of us prayed by setting him in the middle and putting our hands on him. He later claimed that he was ‘healed’, not in body--he died of the cancer--but in being at peace with his progressing disease and death. He wasn’t talking about believing that he was going to heaven. He had already believed that. Instead, he felt restored to society, re-connected to people (and to his God) in a way that he didn’t before. He was still dying, but felt “whole” because he was able to accept the disease, symptoms, and death as a part of the whole and natural course of his life.

On the communal level, our prayers with and for Wilma help us verbalize, localize and direct our interest in her. That tells Wilma she is noticed, and encourages the rest of us to notice, be empathetic, and to act with kindness for her, and hopefully for others like her.

For me, prayer is not "incantation"; it is not spell-casting. It is communication, which on the outset may seem useless ...and it would be, if not paired or followed with tangible and effective actions, actions often inspired by the verbal prayer which initiated interest, and began to direct individual and communal action.  

Even quiet, individual prayer is a way of committing myself to some need or person. If X asks me and all her Facebook friends to pray for her, and some/many of us tell her 'okay', or at least that we send our 'best thoughts', we may be boosting her courage and confidence, which may or may not affect her actions, reception to, and final outcome of treatment. In the process, though, she has heard that she 'matters' in a heartfelt way to some, and that even distant 'friends' seem to care. She may even--and will someday--die, but hopefully she can live or die knowing that she’s a significant part of society, that she matters, is noticed and will be missed.

When I commit and follow through on saying a prayer for her, I don't personally think I'm convincing God to care for and take action any more than he might. I am simply including myself in the conversation, and probably more. By agreeing to do something as seemingly small as a prayer, and then verbally carrying it out, I have created a contractual  interest within myself, a connection, which will hopefully lead me and/or other 'praying-friends' to check up on her. As we do, we likely nudge each other and others, creating a network of social support, and potentially--if needed--ideas, or even more tangible help...physical prayers.

In a more subtle but globally powerful and immeasurable way, praying and meditating people are quietly shaping the way they behave (beit for good or bad). Add all this up in larger social systems and it becomes impossible to determine how prayer initiates and motivates certain responses, behaviors and resources. Since many people praying can initiate and lead to social movement, leaders and politicians will encourage it.

Finally, back to Wilma. It may seem at first glance that she doesn't contribute much, except that, nearly every week, when we make our communal prayers, she adds her own 30-second prayer. Recently, it touched on the Ebola crisis. She prayed for the sick and survivors, for responders, and health care workers, that they would all feel the strength and receive the support of many people.

We also had a flyer in our bulletin and a verbal announcement for how people could direct funds through our denominational relief agencies, and that all funds designated for the Ebola crisis would be so used. These agencies provide professionals, volunteers, supplies, health care and other immediate needs, as well as ongoing care after the public attention has waned.

Could people have provided the same support without Wilma's prayer? Sure. However, I guarantee, her prayer drew more attention, helped direct sympathy and then likely doubled the giving from my single church. Add similar prayers and action in thousands more congregations and homes, eventually millions of additional dollars are going toward medical and emotional care, containment, and follow-up.

Perhaps on rare occasions God acts unilaterally, but even in the supernatural activities described by biblical stories, there is human participation and agency. Prayer as communication helps include, initiate, unify and direct interest and resources. We simply believe that there is a living presence/power that inspires, links, and uses the results.

“Faith” is a relationship with God. We call it faith active in love, ('love' meaning acts of compassion). And we say that 'faith [a relationship with God] without works [of compassion] is dead.' Having faith is meaningless/dead/fake if that faith just sits there expecting no one else but God to do something. Faith, like any relationship, includes personal responsibility and action. The proof or measurement of faith or prayer is not located in the results or cures, but even moreso in the compassionate people, activities, and care that it inspires.

I don't want to brush aside that some Christians see all this as pointless, unless it includes overt evangelism, leads to conversions, and thereby souls in heaven.  Others, however, see any compassionate action, resources, and social care as a valuable ends in and of themselves. “You will always have the hungry, so feed them.”

That might seem chicken or uncommitted, if you constantly feel that someone's soul is in jeopardy because of your omission to drive them to conversion. However, I trust God's love, patience, and grace for the person or people more than I fear his wrath against evil. If we can be patient, loving and compassionate toward people who disagree or differ from us, we can trust God to do even more for them, now and in the course of human history, and to be better at love and compassion. There are times and places for overt evangelism, but it seems insincere, qualified and manipulative to impose it on people when they are especially vulnerable. A manipulated conversion is motivated by self-concern and preservation, not outward faith, not trust, and therefore: not real.

The long-term benefits and fruits of prayerful ministry that focuses on unqualified compassion is more effectual, moral, and lasting when compared to the harm done by some proselytizing groups. I realize that not all Christians and other religions, would agree.

Finally, as suggested above, I don't think the point of prayer is necessarily a resulting cure, but the care that it communicates, initiates and sets in action. In the supernatural miracle, if the point was actually the "cure," it should have a permanent and perhaps universal impact. The Bible says that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but I suspect that later Lazarus died ...again. For a believer, the individual miracle provides a 'sign' and hope that there is a power and future beyond, something even more miraculous and permanent.

More immediate, that hope along with our prayers can motivate and organize us to be agents of care now, sometimes striving for cures and more permanent solutions. I frequently tell my congregation, “God did not make us just to save us.” We are here for purpose. Primary purposes include the care of people, discovery, and careful stewardship of creation. People of faith believe that God is working through us, because we are often amazed by the force and unexpected impact of our combined efforts. Moreover, I believe prayerful compassionate responses to situations and tragedies in the present life can shape whomever we are becoming, and definitely impacts humanity now, and the future.

So, I believe prayer “works” especially when it leads to and includes compassionate human action.