“Lord, teach us to pray…,” the disciples asked (Luke 11:1). Being with Jesus all the time, they were witnesses to his prayer life and habit. It became clear to them that there was a link between Jesus’ commitment to prayer and his extra-ordinary ministry. There is no better teacher than Jesus Christ himself. Hence, just like the disciples, let Jesus teach us how to pray.
Moving back to Matthew’s account in chapter 6, it is interesting that Jesus made some prefatory remarks before teaching them how to pray. Jesus begins with a negative comparison.
5"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” -Matthew 6:5 (ESV)
There is no doubt that these hypocrites were the Pharisees who were the religious leaders in the Jewish society at the time of Jesus. They were the religious fundamentalists in those days focusing on strict observance of the Jewish laws, ceremonies, and traditions. Jesus denounced them as being hypocrites because they often made a public display of their moral living, good deeds, and piousness while neglecting the heart or motives of the actions. It was a fake form of godliness, phony, and fraudulent.
The disciples were living in this cultural and religious environment. They were familiar with the religious system and probably accepted it without much thought. No surprise then that when they followed Jesus, it turned their worldview upside down. He was completely different! His prayer life was opposite to that of the Pharisees. It was something that they had never seen before. He would pray alone. He would pray all night. By witnessing how Jesus prayed, they realized their own ignorance, misconceptions, and lack of knowledge about prayer.
How about us today? Are we also hypocrites? As a leader, I fall at times into this kind of practice. When asked to publicly pray, I try to show my piety by composing and saying aloud great, religious sounding statements that elicit “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” from those who hear me. I measure the effectiveness of my prayer based on the number and intensity of responses I get! After all I am the leader and must be “leader-ly” when I pray – not like those immature, bumbling prayers from those who are terrified to pray in public. In prayer meetings, we sometimes use loudness and cries as the barometer of prayer effectiveness. The more shouting and crying going on, the better we feel!
I don’t know how much of it is fake and how much of it is sincere repentance and coming from real burdens that drive people into desperation and cry out to God for help like David’s prayers in the Psalms. Take heed of Jesus’ warning in Matthew 6:5. Prayer is not a show where we are the stars.
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