The Prayer Before the Sermon by Arthur G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 5, 1911

The Prayer Before the Sermon

By Arthur G. Daniells

THERE has recently come from the press a book entitled, “The Pastor-Preacher,” by Bishop William A. Quayle, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. As the title indicates, this book is a word to ministers, and it contains many helpful suggestions. The following is taken from a chapter with the above heading:—

“If called on to say which was of the greater consequence, the sermon or the prayer which precedes the sermon, a thoughtful minister would find himself in a quandary; both are so gravely important and so holily important. The prayer is the preacher’s special approach to God, and the sermon his special approach to man; but his prayer is an approach to God for the men and women to whom the sermon is addressed, and with a view to whom, with prayers and sometimes with anguish, he framed his utterance; so that the two, prayer and sermon, focus on the congregation. The public prayer is not the preacher’s prayer, a personal devotion, although all the devoutness of his life urges its hallowed way through the outrush of his prayer; but what is intended is that the prayer is not a personal prayer, not the preacher’s own, but is a priestly prayer—the prayer of Moses for the congregation, or to urge the thought reverently to the highest levels possible for devotion to climb,—to the prayer of Jesus at the supper-time on the last sad night he tarried under

these stars of ours a Man with men. What a hallowed exercise of priestly faculty has the preacher in his prayer before the sermon!”

“The pastor says, devoutly, ‘Let us pray,’ which should be no mere form of words, but should, as it does, express the direct purpose of the holy hour. He is to lead the congregation in prayer. Here his shepherdhood comes into the sunlight of the pasture where the sheep are led by the Good Shepherd. To lead in prayer! He who is pastor of the flock is to lead this flock in thought and heart and contrition out to God, the brave Shepherd, the Bishop of their souls. To take a congregation out to meet God — that is what public prayer at a pastor’s lips and heart is. Who shall ascend into this hill of the Lord’s?—Plainly only those who have clean hands and a pure heart. Here, if ever, a minister is crushed by his load of holy care and his own incompetency to do the mighty thing he is set to do, crushed to cry, ‘Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ He must be snow-white who leads a congregation in prayer. There they are; and there he is, and—‘I, even I, must lead them in prayer. I must beckon them out to God by going before them; and a stranger will they not follow, a stranger to God will they not follow.’”

“Without argument it will be seen that there is no room in this holy exploit for self-thought. A preacher at prayer with his congregation must lose all thought of himself as an item in the petition he is to raise, save as he calls from a sheer sense of weakness in the presence of the preaching and the pastoring task, a cry for help, ‘Help, O Lord, great help!’ But of himself, his phrase, his personality, he must leave no hint. To obtrude a pastor’s self into a pastor’s prayer is sacrilege. ‘He goeth before them’—he is a voice. Whose voice?—Why, truly, their voice.”

“His words are not his words, but theirs; and the tears wetting his face are not his, but theirs. He is theirs. His voice is to wear a borrowed wonder and a borrowed eloquence. Pity the preacher who does not know how to pray in public, for therein would he have cast himself off from his real priesthood, the intercession for his people, who are more truly the people of God than they are the people of him.”

“He is not praying to the congregation; but his prayer is not a voice of private devotion. He has that. He loves that. Prayer is his native air who walks with God; but now, privacy is passed; publicity, holy publicity, is come. He is a public functionary, God’s and man’s. ‘Let us pray’—and then the push outward toward God, the leadership of men and women and children toward the God and Father of us all. Great hour, and very holy!”

“The prayer should not be too lengthy. What tires, diverts. The sense of the passing of time should not intrude on this quest, called prayer; and if a preacher goes on and on and still on, the people will grow tired. It is useless to say they ought not to grow tired; for they will. I once heard Wayland Hoyt pray, and it was so brief that he had scarcely begun ere he concluded, yet it was the hush of God on all our hearts; and our souls responded, ‘Amen.’ Nor can we forget how the world-prayer taught humanity by the Christ is so brief the little children can say it ere they fall asleep, however tired they may be.”

“The end of prayer is not the naming of all objects on the landscape of life, though many seem to think it is. Their public prayers are an inventory of objects. They think they may slight some cause as omission might slight some church society. They do scant courtesy to God in such views of his grace and willingness to help. Prayer is not more the art of including than the art of omission. To leave out many things and name some things which shall be meet supplication for that hour — that is the wise preacher’s prayer. He will reduce the topics of his supplication so the hearers whose ears are greeted by his prayer in their behalf may not be impressed, ‘Can there be anything the preacher has not mentioned?’ To cease to pray, then, is quite as important as to begin to pray. He must have in his own soul the lift of spirit, else he can not lead them in prayer.”

A. G. DANIELLS.