James 24:7

We all prepare before we pray.  Some of us give more thought to prayer prep than others of us.  Some set aside a particular time and place for prayer.  Some of us play some music to help us transition from the madness to the moment.  Others of us engage particular rituals.

Just about all of us assume some posture: we bow our heads, we close our eyes, and we fold our hands just before we pray.  We often step aside from life to pray.  We close our eyes to shut out the distractions.  We turn our hearts inward or upward behind drawn blinds.  

That’s all well and good.  There’s not a thing wrong with any of it.  Jesus himself often went off by himself to pray.  I am sure that sometimes he closed his eyes and others he kept them wide open.  He also taught a prayer prep practice that many, if not most, of us neglect. 

In his book, Missional Rennaisance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, Reggie McNeal advocates a practice called “Prayer-Scaping.”  Prayer-Scaping does not look like prayer.  It entails no drawing apart, no drawing of the blinds, no withdrawing from the hubbub.  Prayer-Scaping involves getting into a very public place- a mall, a restaurant, a bookstore, a park- and asking of God one simple thing:

“Lord, help me see what you see.”

He tells the story of a church staff who decided to go to a public place that was close to them, pray that prayer and then listen to God for one hour as he instructed them on how to really see.  After a time what was once a forest of anonymous faces became trees with particular bark, leaves, and fruit.  Where they once saw…well…nothing, they now saw worry, anxiety, brokenness and yes, joy and laughter. (Not everyone that Christians call “lost” feel “lost”)   Where they once saw a “mass” of humanity, they now saw people in all their richness.

They also saw a lot of folks who would no more enter a church building than walk on the moon.

The exercise was so powerful for them that they actually sent the whole congregation out (on Sunday no less!) to do the same thing.   “Go to a public place close by and pray: ‘Lord, help me see what you see.’  That one exercise revolutionized the congregation into becoming a force for positive community transformation in the name of Jesus. 

Jesus said:  “The works my Father does are the works I do.”  While that is a very thick word repeated in different ways in the Gospel of John, I think it is safe to say that it at least means that Jesus saw (and sees)  people just as God saw (and sees) people.   God sees us.  God sees you.  God sees me.  Our unique identities are not lost in this dumbed-down, homogenized and  franchised world!

If God sees people just as they are (and without the judge’s scorecard!) then for us to pray appropriately we need to see people too…just as they are, without judgment, without condemnation.  Just see them.

When we do that another of Jesus’ words will crack open like an egg, a word that specifically addresses preparation for prayer.  “Lift up your eyes and look! “  (I’ll stop the quote there.  That’s a plenty.)  Before you pray, lift up your eyes and look.  Think about that.  Why would Jesus tell his disciples to lift up their eyes?

I suspect he told them that because, like most of us, they had their eyes cast down just enough to see themselves.  I believe he is calling them out of their self-absorbing downward gaze to the whole world of folks before them.   “Lift up your eyes!”  What do you see?  The anonymous mass or people in various conditions of being people?

Why did he tell them to look?  Well, I guess because he noticed that they weren’t.   As Yogi Berra quipped: “You can see a lot just by looking…”  “Look!”  Not with judgment.  Not with the comparative eye.  Not on the surfaces.  If anything, try to read the surfaces as expressions of the depths.

 If each person’s dress, posture, expression, hair style, ornaments, and pace were works of art, what message would the artist be conveying?  Joy? Rebellion? Fatigue? Hopelessness?

We can retreat in prayer.  We can close our eyes.  We can go to the inward chamber.  That’s all well and good.

But every now and then we really should go out into the light of day, pray for the eyes of God and just look before we pray.