Prayer - Where God likes it best

Here's the reflection that I shared this morning at St Andrew's Wickford:

Rickie Lee Jones is a singer-songwriter from the late 70s not known for writing about faith. However, her album, The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, is a collection of songs that were created through improvisations about the words of Jesus. A friend of hers, a photographer called Lee Cantelon, had published a collection of the words of Jesus. He had organised many of Jesus’ saying by their themes and published the result as a book called simply, The Words. Then, he began recording spoken words versions of selections from the book and asked Rickie Lee to read one of these selections to a musical accompaniment. Instead, she improvised a song to the music and then kept improvising – enough songs to fill this album, all of them improvisations inspired by the words of Jesus.

One of the songs is called ‘Where I like it best’ and is based on these words of Jesus that we have just heard from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6.1-18). Where God likes prayer best is in secret, instead of on show. Looking at the American Church from the outside – through watching TV evangelists – it seemed to Rickie Lee that much of the praying that went on was done for show and, as a form of emotional blackmail, to encourage people to give money to support the evangelist’s ministry. To her this seemed like the polar opposite of Jesus’ words and so she wrote the song. She says that this is the song that, in concert, seems to have the most powerful impact. “People get it, from the first bars of the song,” she says. “It makes me think that people are longing to pray, and are so damaged by their brush with religion. They want to look up and say, Hey! I'm down here, down here. They want to believe that their prayers are heard and have meaning."

This is my response to her song:

Listening to Rickie Lee sing on her latest CD,
improvising on the words of Jesus.
‘Where I like it best’ meditates on prayer,
the reaction from her fans – amazing!
People are longing to pray
but damaged by their brush with religion –
TV evangelists needing our money,
using their praying to influence our giving.
Praying for show – a big parade –
thinking God hears them louder
when they pray over and over
but Jesus said go
into your room
closing the door
and pray to your Father
in secret.

How do you pray in a world like this?
Rickie Lee sings
that you are the prayer –
the words you speak,
the dance you make,
the look in your eyes,
your hand on another’s cheek –
you are the Lord’s prayer.
You are the Lord’s prayer
when Jesus
looks through your eyes,
touches through your hands,
hears through your ears,
hurts through your heart.
“We have Christ among us,
speaking through each of us,
if we choose to listen.”
We have Christ,
his few words are enough
to last two thousand years.
In spite of distortion –
the big parade,
the endless repetition –
his words reverberate clearly
in the lives of Christians
who may not even know
they follow
the Nazarene.

Rickie Lee ends her song by saying that we are God’s prayer. That it is through our words and actions that God touches others and that our lives and prayers have meaning. We can be the words and actions of God in our world. We can be the Lord’s prayer building a better world and proclaiming freedom for captives. May that be our prayer and may our prayers not be for show but be for real. Amen.

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Rickie Lee Jones - Where I Like It Best.