When I was a student at university it was common to hear worship leaders say, “Just get in a cocoon with Jesus. Don’t worry about anyone else. It’s just you and Jesus – that’s all you need to worry about.” Over the years I have heard similar sentiments repeated many times from worship leaders and conference speakers, and I have become increasingly uncomfortable with this instruction. Nevertheless, the impact this way of approaching worship has had on the Church is reflected in the lyrics of most contemporary hymns. The use of the singular pronoun ‘I’ rather than the plural ‘we’ is overwhelming, and it reveals a deep and disturbing individualism in our worship and our faith.
Perhaps this is why prayer is such a difficult practice. In many ways our worship has been equated with music, and I have heard internationally respected worship leaders teach that it is the pastor’s job to pray, not the worship leader’s. Which may be why I seldom hear prayers of any depth or creativity in contemporary “non-liturgical” worship, if I hear prayers at all.
Nowhere is this truer than in the case of intercession. In many ways we have begun to treat worship as an escape from the world and its struggles, which means that intercession – which should draw our attention more clearly to the pain of our existence – has no place. The result is that we easily slip into a comfortable, self-indulgent worship practice which requires no connection with anyone else, and demands no awareness of the world or compassion for its suffering. But, an individualist, escapist, indulgent religion is not worship. It’s narcissism.
If we are to be healthy human beings, and true followers of Christ, the uncomfortable practice of intercession is an essential ingredient in our spirituality – not least because it reminds us that we are connected. Jesus knew this, which is why he taught that when two or three agree on anything they ask, it will be done for them (Matthew 18:19).
When we pray, we cannot help but be connected with those for whom we intercede – for the world in which we live, and its places of suffering and conflict and need. More than this, when we pray, we are connected with those with whom we intercede. It is impossible to pray for the world and its peoples effectively on our own. At the very least we need to be informed of what is going on through newspapers, blog posts or Twitter feeds – all of which requires us to be connected with others. In addition, if our prayers are to be effective, we need the different perspectives that can only be discovered in community. When I pray alone, I have only my ideas. But, when I join with others, I am forced to see things from a wider perspective – which can only make my prayer both more effective and more challenging. And, of course, if we are to pray well we must think of ourselves as potential answers to our own requests – and to do this, we need to be connected into a community that has resources and networks beyond our own little circles.
But, here’s the problem – and the glory, of all of this connectedness. It takes humility and courage to acknowledge our interdependence in this way. When I pray for others, I also implicitly acknowledge that I need them to pray for me. Which means that I have to acknowledge that I am not self-sufficient, but interdependent – that I need others, even as they need me. This can be frightening, but, if we are willing to risk it, we may just discover not just a new power in prayer, but a new engagement with life that changes us and invites us into a sense of belonging and a vibrancy of living that we had not imagined before.