In the Name of Jesus
Maybe you have heard this one before:
Today is the big game in sportsball. (Or sportspuck if you like hockey.) We really want our team to win. So we pray to God for our team.
And then someone asks:
“Well, what if their fans are praying for their team?”
How does God decide who wins? Is it the number of people? The fervency of prayer? How loud? How long the prayer goes?
Let’s go to God in prayer and see what happens.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
We live in a time when people are praying for destruction of enemies “in Jesus’ name.” Sometimes they’re even working from a prayer adapted from scripture – by Quentin Tarantino and spoken by Samuel L. Jackson.
We’re praying for our team to win, and the stakes are higher than a trophy. They are literally life and death. That seems like a good time to pray.
But what about the other side. Are they praying too?
Is it their God versus our God? Iranian Muslims call their God “Khuda.” So do Iranian Christians. In Arabic, Muslims and Christians call their God “Allah.”
In World War II, the Germans had most of the churches controlled by the government. They were praying to the Christian God, and to Jesus. So were most of the Allies.
To go back a bit farther, Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying this about the Civil War:
“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
So maybe, when we pray for God to be on our side, competing for God’s attention, maybe we’ve got it wrong.
Most of us have worked for someone at some point. And in many occupations, employees are given some level of agency to act on behalf of the employer.
For example: if one is planting flowers for a landscaping company, they have some agency to plant the flowers. If they plant them poorly, the customer doesn’t come knock on the door of the person who planted them.
Or at least they shouldn’t. People do strange things these days.
The customer goes back to the landscaping business to complain and have it put right. Then the employee is accountable to the landscaping business.
If a salesperson sells you a car at a particular price, you can hold the dealership to that agreement. The salesperson has agency to make the deal on behalf of the dealership.
In both cases, the employee is acting in the name of the employer. But agency is rarely total. If the person planting flowers sold you the landscaping company’s truck, that would probably be outside of the agency given by the landscaping company.
The same is true when someone from a company contracts for work to be done. A manger at Safeway can probably contract someone to fix a roof leak. They would be doing it in the name of Safeway.
They probably can’t contract someone to tear down the store, though. They can’t do that in the name of Safeway, because Safeway doesn’t want that done.
That gets back to Lincoln:
“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
It’s not a question of whether Safeway is on the manager’s side. The manager’s concern is to be on Safeway’s side.
So in our Gospel reading, when Jesus says
13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
John 14:13-14, NRSVue
I don’t think Jesus is telling us
“If you add ‘In Jesus’ name’ to the end of any prayer, I will do it.”
We don’t have that kind of agency.
What we have is acting in ways that Jesus taught:
- To love one another.
- To do for others the way we would want them to do for us.
Sometimes those teachings lead to complicated questions:
- “If I don’t like something done to me, but my neighbor likes it done to them, how do I apply the golden rule?”
- “If I love both of my neighbors, but they are fighting with each other, how do I choose sides?”
We see it in wars like the one where some people wanted to keep human beings as property, and the question was whether to allow that to continue.
We see it in wars like the one where some people wanted to kill people of certain groups, and the question was whether to allow that to continue.
It’s hard to love some people, especially those who harm others.
Perhaps in war the best we can pray for is a just and speedy end to the war, with the fewest casualties and the least damage.
And perhaps in sportsball – and sportspuck – games, we can pray for a fair game with few if any injuries on either side.
Maybe, when we invoke Jesus’ name, we should make sure it’s something Jesus would want.
Our reading from Acts has Stephen being stoned to death. And just before he died, instead of calling for vengeance against those who attacked him, he prayed
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Acts 7:60b, NRSVue
Stephen had just testified to the council of the temple about the persecution of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and David, concluding with
51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.
52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?
They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One,
and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.
53 You are the ones who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”
Acts 7:51-53
And for that, he was stoned to death. And yet, in his final words, he asked Jesus for mercy for those who killed him.
The words “In Jesus’ Name” are not some magic stamp we can use to get our way. They are words to remind us that we are acting as agents of Jesus.
When we invoke the name of Jesus when we act cruelly or selfishly, Christianity – and Jesus himself – look cruel and selfish.
When we invoke the name of Jesus when we act lovingly and generously, Christianity – and Jesus himself – look loving and generous.
So my challenge for us this week is to remember that even when we don’t say “in Jesus’ name,” we are acting in Jesus’ name.
Remember that what we say and do reflects on the faith we claim.
Let us not only pray, but also live
In Jesus’ name
Amen.
Let’s sing NCH 282 Every Time I Feel the Spirit
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
#prayer #rivalry #sports #war
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