Sermon: “How does prayer work?”
Sunday, February 24th, 2008This is the second in a sermon series on “Faithful Questions.” This sermon addresses the topic of prayer and takes Psalm 42 and Luke 11:1-13 as its primary texts. It was to have been originally preached on Feb 17th, but was delayed a week due to cancellation of worship because of a winter storm.
Imagine if you will what it would be like to try to live the Bible as literally as possible for one whole year. I personally think it would be pretty challenging.
The good news is you don’t have to try it for yourself to find out what it would be like because one fellow has already done it. His name is A.J. Jacobs, and he’s a writer for Esquire magazine. He writes about his year in a new book called, “The Year of Living Biblically.”
There is a somewhat humorous scene from the book where Jacobs figures out the most commonly mentioned punishment in the Hebrew Bible is stoning. He also discovers this loophole: the bible doesn’t say what size the stones have to be.
Hoping to find someone to stone, Jacobs – who lives in NY City - heads out to Central Park dressed up in his biblical garb; a white robe, tassels, and a staff, and he also brings along a handful of small white pebbles.
