Richard Mouw: A prayer in Beijing
During a recent visit to Beijing, I was invited to a luncheon meeting with a senior official in the Chinese government. We met in his private dining room, with four members of his staff present.
We began by exchanging pleasantries, and recalling previous times when we had been together. The senior official speaks almost no English, so one of his staff members served as a translator for both of us. When the first course of our meal was set on the table, the official said something to the translator. She turned to me and said, “Minister ___ would like you to pray for the meal.” We all bowed our heads and, after the opening sentences of my prayer, I paused. After a moment, she whispered to me: “No need to translate the prayer.”
My first thought was that the people present—all members of the Communist party—simply did not care what I said in my prayer. But as I thought about it later, I decided that they actually had some good theological instincts.
There is a story told about a time when President Lyndon Johnson asked Bill Moyers, his press secretary who was also an ordained Baptist minister, to offer a prayer at a White House dinner. Johnson and Moyers were seated at opposite ends of a long table, and a few sentences into the prayer, the president interrupted: “I can’t hear you, Bill!” Moyers’ response: “I’m not talking to you, Mr. President!”
Moyers had his theology of prayer straight. And my guess is that my Chinese translator had the same theological point in mind.While I was probably the only person at that table who believed that there is a God who was actually listening to my prayer, I’m glad that they asked me to pray in that context. For one thing, it was nice to offer a “political” prayer where no one was disturbed about the fact that I prayed in Jesus’ name. Even more, it was good to be reminded that not even a government compound in Beijing is out of bounds for acknowledging that every gift that we receive—including the sharing of food with Chinese officials—comes from the hand of a gracious God.
Richard Mouw is president of Fuller Theological Seminary.
For whom?
Rich this is great. Calvin, as you know, places great emphasis on teaching while you pray. I remember pressing against this with David Steinmetz, who maintained it would be better to pray with human listeners in mind than what we get now: 'oh Lord, do not much of anything, blah blah blah.' I took his point, but still think we need to remind ourselves as pray-ers and our hearers that we're not the first audience.
Prayer and sharing
Rich: I love the post but I have a question, perhaps more about manners than about theology. I laughed well at your story because I had a friend who is LBJ's nephew. He starts each meal with bowing his head for a silent prayer that he would just pray for himself, even if there are others at the table who are Christians and are bowing their heads too in blessing for the meal. After a few years I asked him about the practice, given that I was at the table and there was never a shared blessing - just his silent prayer, and we all do whatever we wished during that time. His comment was Moyers'response - I'm not praying for you I'm praying to God.
But here's my question: when is prayer to be shared, and when is it to be private? I always felt like there was an oddity about this practice where several Christians are at a table and one prays by himself, the others kind of fending for themselves. And yet, the essence of the matter may be that prayer is between you and God (Matt. 6:6 - Where Jesus says pray in your closet -and he says that right before he says 'and here's a good example of how to pray'...which is the Lords Prayer, ostensibly to be said from a closet, not communally), and that these group blessings are really not the point. I still hold some confusion about the line between communal and personal prayer, despite the excellence of the above analysis.
The Closet "Our"
Allegra, your comment about the Lord's prayer being prayed in a closet brings up an interesting dilemma for me. If its a private prayer, why does it begin with the plural "our"? Certainly it could be that Jesus intended us to pray privately but remember that we're praying to the communal Father, but doesn't this also beg to prayed communally where we're all saying "Our Father" together?
And what of Paul's exhortations to the Corinthians about one intelligible word being better than many unintelligible words spoken in tongues? Doesn't this suggest that prayer also has a communal nature and isn't just a private prayer language?
Even with all that, I deeply appreciated Richard's anecdote. There is something very refreshing about it. The question is whether those he was with said "amen" (I agree) at the end of the prayer or not!
prayer
It's great to share the stuff on a prayer in Beijing.
Post new comment