Do Not Babble
(Tuesday, March 11)
Have you heard the term, “talk-a-holic”? Maybe you know someone who likes to talk all the time, or maybe you are such a person. A “talk-a-holic” usually comes up short on listening skills.
Today Jesus talks about spiritual “talk-a-holics” (Matthew 6:7-15).
“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them.”
Pagans prayed! Sometimes we think of pagans as godless people who never bothered doing “religious” things like praying. They did pray, maybe more than we do. They did take God seriously. Their style was to bombard God with many words, hoping they could wear him down, and he would grant their wishes reluctantly. Pagans put much effort and time into praying, but their prayers didn’t work. Jesus warned his disciples against such a style of prayer. This kind of “prayer” is a one-way street in which the person praying does all the talking and God just sits back with his arms folded. When a person “babbles like the pagans,” they imagine God to be someone who really doesn’t want to take care of their needs.
Jesus continued:
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
God is not some kind of reluctant, tight-fisted monarch sitting on a far-off cloud. He is a tender-hearted, loving Father who is attentive to his children, as a mother is to her little ones. He does not hold back blessings; rather he is eager to meet the needs of each of his children. A child doesn’t have to spell out her needs to her mother or beg her mother for breakfast. In fact, it is usually the mother who sits the child down and tells them to eat. The pagans concept of God was a distorted one.
Jesus then instructed them on how to pray.
“This is how you are to pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
They were to address God as their loving Father, who, though he was on a higher plane than they were, was near them. How could they talk to him he was sitting on a distant cloud? Their first request is that he be honored. It was more about him, not them.
In the second part of the prayer, Jesus said to pray:
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses…”
There is much written on what this means. “Daily bread” is considered as the spiritual food that we cannot grow or prepare for ourselves. In short, it is Jesus, the Bread of Life. Our greatest need in life is to receive Jesus into our hearts; he alone can satisfy us. One of the things that disturbs me in this prayer is that it is given as a command rather than a request. We’d think it would read like, “Will you give me my daily bread, please?” God wants to feed us Jesus even more than we want to receive him. In fact, most people are more concerned about their ordinary food than they are about what God knows is best for them. Our prayer is not said in a demanding tone, but in the confident expectation of a child who knows that its mother will never let them down.
During Lent, it is important that we take more time than usual for prayer. Even if we are “talk-a-holics” by nature, we must restrain ourselves in prayer. Spiritual experts tell us that prayer is not only a two-way conversation, but one in which God does most of the talking. Though prayer may begin with us talking, as prayer time elapses, it is important that we do the listening. What God has to say to us is much more important than what we have to say to him.
For most of us, prayer is something we are not very good at. Listening is an art that few people seem to have.
God has so much to say to us. Are we willing to set aside regular times in our schedule to spend time alone with him?
