Answers To Our Prayers
#3 in “PRAXIS: Disciplines of Faith and Action”
1 Timothy 2.8-15
Dr. D. William McIvor
September 21, 2003
Presbyterian Church in Sudbury

 Introduction to the Morning Lesson

We have been talking about our Christian praxis, that is, bringing our faith and action together in a disciplined way. Two weeks ago we talked about attitudes: God calls us to be an attitude-up people amidst an attitude-down world. Last week we talked about money. Our financial and spiritual lives are not separate realms. God calls us to fight the good fight of faith and bring our money-lives and spiritual-lives together. Today we’re going to talk about our praxis of prayer.

A preacher despairs a bit when talking about prayer. Were I to spend a year preaching about it and you a year in prayer meetings, we would have only begun to climb the mountain of prayer. Nonetheless, as the saying goes, beginning is half done and I suppose even a beginning of a beginning is still a good thing. So let’s turn to the text and it’s not a particularly easy text. Paul or whoever wrote 1 Timothy says we should pray — we already know that — and argues for our praying in what will sound to our ears a rather strange way. Let’s read it in 1 Timothy 2.

1 Timothy 2.8-15 (NRSV)

I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

ONE: The challenge of prayer

In my two points today I want to talk about the challenge of prayer and the comfort of prayer. First the challenge. The challenge of prayer is that we must constantly seek to come before our Heavenly Father as God’s children. This sounds so simple but it’s not.

The text begins with a word to both men and women about how they should pray. It says that men should pray, “lifting holy hands.” We don’t practice that form of prayer much these days, at least most churches don’t. But in the ancient world raising one’s hands toward heaven was the normal posture of prayer. Being Jewish, Christian, or pagan did not matter; everyone followed the same form. The custom of prayer was to raise your hands to God. The point, however, is less our physical posture than our spiritual posture. Do we in prayer reach out as a child to our Heavenly Father?

That’s why the writer quickly adds a word to men. Men must pray without anger or argument. The writer knows that anger and quarreling often dominate the male character. I know this is perhaps my own worst trait. What makes me regret things the most are my own flashes of anger. What a consuming passion anger is. We consume ourselves in anger and are unable then to come before God as children because we are turned in on ourselves. Men especially need beware their anger if they are to pray.

Then the writer says that women should … should what? That’s the big question. The New Revised Standard Version puts it that women should “dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing.” Now we seem to be talking about clothing but we were talking about prayer. What happened? What happened is that the writer left out a verb, expecting us to supply it. Common enough in writing and speaking. In fact, I just did it. What I meant was, “It is common enough in writing and speaking.” You supplied the missing verb in your own minds.

Too often over the centuries, however, we have been supplying the wrong verb or no verb to this text which has caused all kinds of mischief in fussing about women’s apparel. A simple reading requires us to supply only the verb that is to the point and the point is prayer. The writer said he desires men “to pray” with certain requirements. He also desires women “to pray” (this is the verb we should supply) and gives some guidelines for women. Women are to pray, dressing themselves modestly.

If men need worry about anger often present in the male character, women need worry about coming to worship without ostentation. Why? Remember the historical context. In the first century women were often slaves and even those who were free had little if any legal standing. Married women were the property of their husbands to be done with as men pleased. Some pagan societies even permitted girl babies to be left out to die because they weren’t considered valuable. All a woman had was her physical appearance. The more alluring or attractive she was, the better off she would be.

Into this kind of world came the freedom of life in Christ. In Christ both women and men found a new and wonderful freedom. Jesus Christ overcame all that separates human beings. Paul told the Galatians that in Christ there was neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female for all are united in the Lord.

But Christian freedom brought trouble to the early church, especially freedom for women. It was such a contrast to the prevailing culture that it brought on a chorus of gossip and accusation. So rightly or wrongly, the early church imposed limits on the freedom of women. To pray rightly and not bring suspicion on the church required Christian women to separate themselves from the way women acted in the society around them.

Therein is the challenge of prayer. The issues in our culture may be somewhat different. But to pray rightly both men and women must transcend our culture and transcend our character and come before our Heavenly Father as dependent children of God.

The writer Richard Foster tells a story that one day a friend of his was walking through a shopping mall with his two-year-old son. The child was in a particularly cantankerous mood, fussing and fuming. The frustrated father tried everything to quiet his son, but nothing seemed to help. The child simply would not obey. Finally the father picked up his son and, holding him close to his chest, began singing an impromptu love song.

None of the words rhymed. He sang off key. And yet, as best he could, this father began sharing his heart. “I love you,” he sang. “I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me happy. I like the way you laugh.” On they went from one store to the next. Quietly the father continued singing and making up words that did not rhyme. The child relaxed and became still, listening to this strange and wonderful song.

Finally, they finished shopping and went to the car. As the father opened the door and prepared to buckle his son into the car seat, the child said simply, “Sing it to me again, Daddy! Sing it to me again!”[1]

Friends, this is more than a cute story. It’s a parable about the challenge of prayer. Prayer is always coming to our Heavenly Father like a child wanting to hear God sing his love song over us again and again. But our culture and our character often keep us from being so childlike. The challenge of prayer is to know and act like who we really are: God’s beloved children.

TWO: The comfort of prayer

Beyond the challenge of prayer, there is also a comfort of prayer and that’s my second point today. Let’s consider what the comfort of prayer looks like.

In the last three verses of the text a very interesting argument is made, the logic of which goes like this.

            1. Adam was made first, then Eve.

  (implied) 2. Therefore, Adam is superior.

            3. Adam was not deceived; Eve was deceived and became sinful (and women are that way).

  (implied) 4. Therefore, men are superior.

            5. Women will still be saved.

            6. Salvation comes to women by having children.

            7. Faith, love, holiness, and modesty are also necessary.

We may not like this argument very much. I know the women don’t like it and I don’t know of any church that teaches salvation by childbirth! Maybe there are some sects or cults that do but I don’t know about them. But whether we like the logic or not we must still understand what is being said. For on the basis of this argument the writer insists that women not teach in the church. (Where would we be if we didn’t have women teachers?) The argument is that the order of creation shows that women are inferior to men and that which is inferior cannot have authority over that which is superior. That would be unnatural.

This was a common way of thinking in both Jewish and Roman society and early Christians accepted it simply as “the way things are.” In a context where everyone believed men were superior to women, we should not be surprised that scripture was heard in a way that supported the prevailing viewpoint. When slavery was accepted as normal, scripture was heard to say that slavery was morally acceptable. So in that time, when the creation stories were read, male superiority was the message heard.

We like to think we are different than those ancient peoples but a lot of folk still believe that men are superior to women. I still remember being quite shocked at what Merrie’s grandmother said to me after the birth of our second child twenty-five years ago. She said, “you must really be fulfilled now as a father because you have a son.” Now I didn’t say anything to her except that I loved both my daughter and son. Granny was a dear saint and a very loving person. But I was shocked at what she said. I was shocked at her suggestion that I would be more fulfilled as the father of a son than as the father of a daughter. If both my kids were female or both male, I would be just as happy as a father. I do not believe that a parent’s fulfillment has anything to do with the gender of our children. But the attitude that it does make a difference is deeply ingrained.

So how do we sort this out today? We need to revisit the creation order argument again and remember that Genesis has two creation stories, one in chapter one and another in chapter two. We need to let Genesis 1 help us interpret the meaning of Genesis 2. Now Genesis 2 does tell about Adam and Eve and Adam was created first and Eve sinned first. On the basis of that the ancients (and many moderns!) interpret the Bible to mean certain things.

But Genesis 2 is not all the Bible has to say about creation order. To get the full picture we must look at Genesis 1[2] and there we discover that on the sixth day of creation, as the crown of creation, humanity is made by God in God’s own image. It says, “So God created humankind in his image” and then repeats for effect, “in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Humanity is made by God, male and female together, in the image of God.

So notice this. The image of God is many things and it is more than our sexuality but it is not less than our sexuality. We are created together, male and female, in the image of God. And here’s the point. I’ve called this sermon “Answers To Our Prayers.” What are the best answers to our prayers? Well, we pray for many things: parking spaces when we’re in a hurry, healing when we’re sick, peace when we are burdened by trouble, guidance when we’re lost, money when we lack it. We pray for this, that, and the other thing. We pray, pray, pray. And we should.

But the answer to our prayers is really none of these things except they be a sign of something else. That something else is the presence of God. What we really need is God. If God is real and with us, then we need nothing else. So the creation order tells us that God is here. God is in us. God is in our maleness and femaleness. Whatever more the image of God means it does not mean less than God being with us in the very basis of our human nature and that is the best answer to prayer we could ever have. God is with us and that is prayer’s comfort.

That was really the message that won so many in the ancient world for Christ. Christ’s message put an end to fear and fatalism and despair. His message said the world belonged to God and to no one else. So nothing need control us in this life. We can overcome our limitations for God has the first word and last word and that word is “I am with you.” Christ overcomes not with weapons, but with hope. Christ wins believers with the message from creation that God is with the human family and with the message of resurrection that God had not left the human family. Christian faith frees men and women from fears and superstitions and from the limits of culture and character.

That’s what we still need to hear today and prayer’s comfort is the assurance that God is with us. If you believe that you are trapped the way you are, or that your life is over at middle age or any other age, or that you’ve been dealt a bad hand in this life and must play it with a handicap, or that you can’t get out of the rut that you are presently in, then you need to know the comfort of prayer: God is with you and will never let you go.

Conclusion

For weeks eight-year old Frank looked forward to a particular Saturday because his father had promised to take him fishing if the weather was suitable. There hadn’t been rain for days and as Saturday approached, Frank was more excited than every about fishing. But when Saturday morning dawned, it was raining hard and probably would all day.

Frank wandered around the house, peering out the windows and grumbling more than a little. “Seems like the Lord would know that it would have been better to have the rain yesterday than today,” he complained.

His father tried to explain to Frank how badly the rain was needed, how it would make the flowers grow, and bring much needed moisture to the farmer’s crops. But Frank was adamant. “It just isn’t right,” he said over and over.

Then about three o’clock, the rain stopped. Still time for some fishing, and quickly the gear was loaded and they were off to the lake. Whether it was the rain or some other reason, the fish were really biting and father and son soon returned with many fine fish.

At supper, when some of the fish were ready, Frank’s mom asked him so say grace. Frank did and concluded his prayer by saying, “And Lord, if I sounded grumpy earlier today it was because I couldn’t see far enough ahead.”[3]

That’s really the problem we all have. We can’t see far enough ahead. But the answer to our prayers is that God is with us. And so the song we sang earlier describes well our praxis, our faith and action, of prayer:

On bended knee with needy hearts we come and pray.
Lord, listen to your children.
With willing hearts and open arms we come and pray.
Lord, listen to your children.
With simple words of heartfelt thanks, we come.
Believing in your promises, we come.
On bended knee with needy hearts we come and pray.
Lord, listen to your children, listen to your children.[4]

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