When We Pray

The recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld a coach’s right to pray in the middle of a football field after a game caught my attention. A number of my friends rejoiced over the decision as a victory for the Christian faith in an increasingly secular nation. Other church friends were concerned that the court’s judgement did nothing to advance religion in America but only further alienated people of faith from those on the sidelines of faith. 

Photo: NPR

The erosion of church life in America over the last quarter of a century or so seems to be accelerating. Polls reveal that Americans are going to church less and Judeo/Christian values no longer undergird American culture. It is no surprise that people claiming no church affiliation have become the fastest growing segment in America. 

As a person who spent his career working in the church these statistics concern and sadden me. I can certainly understand why some people of faith feel the need to be more demonstrative in expressing their religious convictions. The world at times seems to be moving in a direction contrary to everything we hold dear, and we desperately yearn to recover values that we perceive have been lost.

To that end, many religious people view the coach walking to the middle of the field after the game and kneeling down to pray as a clarion call for America to return to God. I can’t help but believe his action was an attempt to bear witness to his faith, to remind Christians to walk the talk, so to speak, and I applaud his courage.

I, too, think that Christians need to be more demonstrative when it comes to matters of faith. Christians should live and act in such a way that others can see the light of God in them. For far too long people of faith have hidden their light under a basket and the world has remained in darkness. I believe that the coach praying on the field was his way of shining a light into the cultural void. Without any reason to believe otherwise, the coach’s motive was in all probability well-intentioned. 

What I question, however, is not his intent or passion but his wisdom and biblical understanding. 

Let me explain. If his objective was to bear witness to faith, to provide a glimpse of what it means to be a Christian, was walking to the center of a football field after a game to pray the best way to do that? Or did most people view the coach as a curiosity, a spectacle, more than a witness. I’m not saying that what the coach did was wrong, only that the coach, whatever his intentions, brought more attention to himself than God. While Christian people may have applauded his actions, people outside the church were probably puzzled and wondered what he was doing or why he was doing it. Many of these people may have seen his actions as self-serving, something akin to grandstanding. His action may have unintentionally moved people further away from faith.

The Jesus model of bearing witness serves as a contrast to the coach. He expressed his faith by building bridges of understanding with those who struggled to believe. He found common ground with tax-collectors, prostitutes and others outside the religious establishment. He ate in the homes of sinful people, he drank wine with the ostracized and reaffirmed God’s love for those who had been rejected by the synagogue. Jesus was not interested in making a point, but in meeting a need. If we want to be more demonstrative in expressing our faith, which I think we should, following the example of Jesus would be a good place to start.

Then, too, I think the coach would have benefited by speaking to his pastor about the theology of prayer. In the first century there were religious zealots who prayed on street corners and anywhere they could draw a crowd. Jesus had rather strong words about that kind of faith expression. Jesus taught his disciples to pray in private places, secret places, places where they would not draw attention to themselves. He warns them not to pray as the hypocrites do—visibly in the synagogues and on street corners where they could be seen by others—but to enter into the closet where no one could see (Matt. 6:5-6). In other words, prayer was not to be used as a public display of piety. 

Prayer is between the one who prays and God. Of all the sacred spiritual disciplines a believer practices, nothing is more intimate, more holy, than prayer. The focus of prayer is God alone. In prayer we realign our wills with God’s and seek to do his will. Kneeling in the middle of a field after a football game, in full view of spectators as they leave the stands, trivializes the holy meeting with God. Prayer is not a show or form of entertainment that attracts either the praise or ridicule of others. Prayer is communion with the Holy.

When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane the night before his crucifixion, he only took three of his twelve disciples, and even these three were left behind in the garden when he went alone to talk to his Father. A crowd was the last thing Jesus wanted during these sacred moments with God. Some acts of worship do not require an audience. 

There are, of course, times when public prayer is appropriate. When we come together as a community of faith, we pray. These moments of public prayer are intended as communal acts of supplication or praise when the one voicing the prayer speaks on behalf of the congregation. The congregational prayer is not intended as a witness to faith to unbelievers but rather serves as an act of worship to those who believe. 

So how do we bear witness to our faith? What can we do to show people that God lives in us? There are countless ways. 

During the pandemic, when people struggled to pay rent or buy food, churches all across the country offered financial help and supplied groceries and other material goods to desperate families. Churches also became vaccination sites where millions of people were able to get inoculations.  In recent years some innovative churches have constructed “tiny homes” on their property where the homeless can stay rent free while they get their lives back in order. 

These demonstrative ways of bearing witness to faith build bridges of love between the religious and non-religious communities. They do not call attention to individuals but are collective efforts that help those outside faith see God at work. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others so that when others see those good deeds, they will glorify God” (Matt. 5:16).

In our highly secularized world if we want to bear witness to our faith then we will share our food with the hungry, give clothes to the poor, water to the thirsty, care for the neglected and forgotten (Matt. 25). In other words, we will reach out in tangible acts of love to others, not symbolic gestures that draw attention to ourselves.