A Theology of Petitionary Prayer

Part 5, Praying in Two Times

What I have suggested over the last few posts is that when we invite people into the experience of petitionary prayer we need to alert them to the time in which we are making our petitions. 

We don't typically do this. Instead, we try, rather, to speculate about the mechanics of petitionary prayer or penetrate the mysteries of divine providence. We wonder: How does petitionary prayer work? Is God a "magic domino," inserting himself and intervening in life? We also speculate about why God seems to answer some petitions and not others. 

And in ruminating over these questions we become lost in a fog of speculation. 

My suggestion in this series has been that we step away from pondering the mechanics of petitionary prayer to attend to its season. Our season of petition, as the theologians say, is "between the times," between the resurrection of Jesus and his Second Coming. During this season, death and evil have not yet been defeated. Consequently, petitionary prayer during this season is an inherently desolating experience. During this season, petitions against death and evil go "unanswered," not because God's providence is capricious or because we have some screwy views about God and causality. Our prayers against death and evil go "unanswered" because of the season of our petitioning.

Let me repeat this for clarity: Our prayers go "unanswered" not because of God's capricious decision-making, God choosing to answer some prayers and not others. Our prayers go "unanswered" because of the season of our petitioning. The issue isn't mechanics or providence. The issue concerns the time.

For, as we've discussed, our prayers against death and evil have been answered. Death, our final enemy, will be defeated and Christ will come to reign over the powers of evil. We pray with the hope of Revelation 21:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

God has answered all our prayers against death and evil.

The theological word we grab here is proleptic, which describes how future realities reach back to us in the present time. Our prayers against death and evil are answered proleptically. And we ofter our petitions proleptically. 

Given our current desolations--where our petitions are experienced as "unanswered"--and proleptic promise--where our petitions have received an eschatological answer--I've described the experience of petitionary prayer as a mixture of lament and hope. Borrowing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I like to think of time in terms of the penultimate and the ultimate. The time before the last things, the penultimate, and the time of ultimate, final things. A theology of petitionary prayer draws attention to both times.

Specifically, prayers against death and evil during the penultimate, petitions offered before the last things,  will be haunted by desolation and lament. This is not to say that God does not act, often in surprising and miraculous ways. It is simply the observation that, in the penultimate, people still die and suffer and that prayers offered in the penultimate will not receive a full or final answer. As I said, everyone dies. In the penultimate, if you count the wins and losses between your prayers and death, death will always get the final Win. And until Christ defeats the powers of evil, the nations will continue to rage. The innocent will continue to suffer and die. Here in the penultimate we live in a time of war and rumors of wars. To offer up petitions in the penultimate, therefore, is to step into the experience of lament.

And yet, we also pray in anticipation of ultimate hope. We petition proleptically. When the last things are realized there will be no more death, no more weeping, crying or pain. God will wipe away every tear.

In short, a theology of petitionary prayer describes how we pray against death and evil "in two times." We pray with one foot in the penultimate and one foot in the ultimate. We pray in both lament and hope.   

Now, the reason I think all this is important is that I think a lot of our problems with petitionary prayer come from failing to pray "in two times." We tend to pray in only one time or the other. 

For example, among charismatic and prosperity gospel churches there is a triumphalistic over-confidence about prayers offered here in the penultimate. These optimistic expectations are unseasonal and untimely. Consequently, this failure to attend to the desolations that accompany prayers in the penultimate creates pastoral problems when people feel their passionate prayers go "unanswered." The shock, say, when a loved one dies unexpectedly or prematurely. Instead of death being viewed as our normal experience in the penultimate, loss is interpreted as either a failure of prayer or God's lack of care. 

On the other hand, among disenchanted, progressive Christian types, where eschatological hope has weakened or evaporated, where we no longer believe in heaven, petitions offered here in the penultimate are only ever experienced as futile and pointless. "Prayer doesn't work," we conclude. Living only here in the penultimate our prayers against death and evil are experienced wholly as failure. Prayer is completely reduced to lament. We grieve, but we grieve as those without hope. Prayer eventually becomes raging at an empty, mute, and indifferent sky.

Here, then, is why we need a theology of petitionary prayer that teaches us to pray against death and evil in "two times."