Via Sacra

This past Sunday we launched into the New Year with a series entitled via sacra (sacred road). To begin our series, and our annual days of prayer, we took time to consider how the psalms teach us to pray.

When we think of prayer, we think most commonly of an exercise in words. But in what way are the words of our prayers to function? Last week, we considered three different “languages” that we speak.

The first is the language of intimacy. Even before we are able to articulate our first words, we communicate a lot about ourselves. There are squeals of delight, the cries of anguish, and the happy sounds of contentment; all of this is rather an unfiltered and immediate revelation of our souls. In the language of intimacy we are being a real person, exposing what is in us. Intimacy is the language of children and lovers, and pray-ers.

We grow into the language of information. Every thing is named, every idea has a corresponding word. Our developing language categorizes and explains the world and helps us connect to the reality that is there. Information is the language of facts, education, and our day-to-day business. It is vital to be sure – but, to speak only this language may not reveal the real person who speaks. Is this prayer, informing God of what he doesn’t know?

And then there is the language of motivation. As we develop language we discover not only what to say but how to say it; we find that the way words are put together matter, that we can shape outcomes by the tone, force, and inflection of our words. So we learn to use language to get what we want, to motivate and to sell, to manipulate and to intimidate. We find that language is a force. Is this prayer? Trying to motivate God?

The language of the Psalm belongs to the first category of language – intimacy – and that is why we tend to pray as poorly as we do. Our most practiced languages are information and motivation. We often resort to informing God as if he simply did not know what was going on, or motivating God as if he were reluctant. But what we find in the psalms is the language of intimacy, of deep personal-ness. And staying with these psalms over time, paying attention to the way they function, their tone of voice, their intimate way of addressing God, trains us again to speak in the language of intimacy. We learn to be children again, not childish, but dependent and open, wondering and receptive. We learn to be lovers of God.

Our via sacra series continues this Sunday with a message entitled “Saying Yes and Saying No”. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob