Andrew Gibson:
Hi everybody. Welcome to day two of our Easter podcast series. This week, we are exploring Jesus’ final moments as he journeys towards his crucifixion, and how we can find our story within his story. On the Tuesday before his death, we watch as Jesus cleanses the temple and declares it to be a house of prayer. Let’s listen as CFC prayer coordinator Bronwen Kearney chats with the one and only Priscilla Reid.
Bronwen Kearney:
Hello everybody. My name is Bronwen, and I am prayer ministry coordinator. And I am joined by the wonderful Priscilla, and we are going to be having a conversation today around what it means to be a house of prayer.
Priscilla Reid:
So, let’s read in Matthew chapter 21, and we’re going to read from verse 12.
Priscilla Reid:
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It’s written,” he said to them, “my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did, and the children shouting in the temple courts “Hosanna to the son of David,” they were indignant. “You hear what these children are saying?” They asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus. “Have you never read from the lips of children and infants? You, Lord, have called forth your praise.” And he left them, and went out of the city to Bethany where he spent the night.
Bronwen Kearney:
So Priscilla, we do talk about a house of prayer within Christian circles quite a lot. But when you read that passage, what does it make you think of when you hear that term, and that phrase?
Priscilla Reid:
Well, I suppose for me, Bronwen, the whole concept of a house of prayer… You know you could immediately run to, “Okay CFC, we need to buck up our ideas about prayer. We need to start praying far more if we’re going to be called a house of prayer. We need to include prayer a lot more in everything that we do.” But the more I read this passage, the more I felt that being a house of prayer is more about heart than anything else. It’s about heart, and out of your heart flows the culture that you create. So, for me… Jesus threw these boys out of the temple, but he didn’t… And he said, “This is my father’s house. It should be a house of prayer.” But he didn’t immediately say, “Now, this is how you should pray.” It says, actually, what he immediately did was, the people who came in, he healed them. And then we have worship, inappropriate worship, according to the religious authorities, because it was boisterous. But it also came from children.
Priscilla Reid:
So, to me, I felt like it was a picture of how… It’s not that the Lord wants us to pick up sticks and beat ourselves up about not praying enough corporately as a church. But he’s saying, “Where’s your heart, guys?” Because these people, they were self-serving. They were out for their own ends. They were out for their own material ends. They were actually exploiting people. And to me, what Jesus was saying, that is exactly the opposite to what my father’s house should be about. And in the church, if it is our heart to… That we’re called to serve others, not to exploit them. If it’s our heart that we’re called to empower others, rather than to just serve ourselves. And if it is our heart to understand that life isn’t just about material things. They were buying and selling, making a profit. And basically, Jesus was saying, “This isn’t what our life together is all about.”
Priscilla Reid:
And for me too, prayer… And I think sometimes we forget this, it actually is about spiritual warfare. It isn’t just about the material. It isn’t just about what we can see right in front of us. It’s understanding that, as a church, we are facing spiritual battles, that we won’t make inroads for the kingdom of God unless we engage in that spiritual battle. But to me, the passion for that, or the desire for that, or the doing of that, can only flow out of our hearts where we see… Primarily we’re called to a relationship with God and to one another.
Bronwen Kearney:
Yeah. I love that when we think about spiritual warfare. It’s where it’s really great to be praying together, isn’t it? In that corporate place. Because there is a safety in that, but there also… What I love about some of those corporate prayer meetings is when you bounce off other people, off each other. And maybe you start on one theme, and someone picks up on it and runs with it. And then that develops into something else. And I think there is a really lovely, almost praying together as a family, within that relationship with God. And that’s what I love when we talk about prayer a lot in CFC, be in conversation with God. That, when we talk about being a corporate house of prayer, we’re coming to God as family together. My picture is almost like we’re around a family table, and we’re all having that joint conversation with God. And I think it’s always really lovely to remember that’s what it is. It’s us all coming together to talk to our father, and it flows out of that relationship that we have with him.
Priscilla Reid:
Absolutely. And I think that, when you think about that, it is. I personally think that I am an… I find it really, as you say, inspirational, to pray with others. It feeds something in me.
Bronwen Kearney:
It does. Yeah.
Priscilla Reid:
It helps me and empowers me, in a way. And I know that it has to flow out of our personal prayer life as well, but there is something about being together, and praying together, that has so much value. And I mean, the Bible is also full of promises related to that. When we come together, that when we’re one mind and one heart, that when we’re expressing our unity together, that God actually recognizes that, values that, and actually speaks a blessing over that. So, we can have an expectation that when we pray corporately, that some things are going to happen.
Bronwen Kearney:
And I love even when we look at the Lord’s prayer, like our model of prayer that Jesus gave us. It’s our father, it’s forgive us, it’s provide our daily bread. There’s something really powerful in that community, and in that corporate sense that we’re praying for each other as the same time as we are praying for ourselves when we pray it. Which I love that too.
Priscilla Reid:
I think that’s important as well, because I think sometimes we can view corporate prayer as like we’re all coming individually together, and we’re still all doing our little individual thing. But I think when you catch that there’s a different dynamic and corporate prayer than in our prayer individually, then that’s when it brings something fresh and new to the table. And then, it is about that thing of inclusion that we all get to be part of it.
Bronwen Kearney:
Yeah. And I love… When we go back… So, Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 56 about the house of prayer. And when we go back to that passage, it’s called a blessing for all nations. And it is that heart of inclusivity in that passage that… It’s like, “All will come to my Holy mountain,” which is where God’s presence is represented in the Bible. All will be acceptable, all can bring their sacrifices. And we are that all now. Through Jesus, we can all come.
Bronwen Kearney:
And I think we can really easily exclude ourselves when it comes to corporate prayer. We can think either I’m not enough of something, I’m not spiritual enough, I’m not eloquent enough. I haven’t been a Christian long enough, or I’m too much. I’m too this, I’m too young. And I love both these passages that show us that in is inclusive, that there were the little kids coming to praise. There were the lame, the people who couldn’t have come in to where Jesus was at the time, came right in and he met them where they were. And I love that sense.
Bronwen Kearney:
And I think, I know for me in my journey of prayer, I was that person who wouldn’t talk out loud in a prayer meeting. And you sit, if it was a circle, I used to just die. It’s like “Not me. Not me.” But, I think… So, I know that we exclude ourselves, but I love that God takes us on even a journey with that. So, I suppose, if there’s anybody listening who maybe feels, and has been excluding themselves, that you can get… Almost start small. Like if a big prayer meeting feels too much, get around people you feel really comfortable with, or really safe with, whether that’s a prayer triplet or connect group. And it can be one line. It doesn’t have to be anything. And you’re praying to your father who loves you. He wants to hear your voice. And everybody has something to offer. Everybody in the family has a unique voice that we all want to hear. They will bring something unique that we need to hear as a family as well. And I just… I love that sense of inclusivity within both these passages that we’re looking at today.
Priscilla Reid:
And I think that it’s so important that we keep on telling… Speaking that to each other, and encouraging each other with that. That your voice is important. Because you know, I do think we get a mindset at times that, “Well, the Lord will listen to them more than he would listen to me.” Even apart from, maybe, fear of actually opening your mind and saying something in front of each other. But we think, “Well, is God going to listen to me?” And yet, I just love the fact that there’s no wrong way to pray. There isn’t a bad prayer. You just come. And I love Richard Foster’s book on prayer, and he says, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.” Just bring who you are, and you can’t pray a bad prayer.
Bronwen Kearney:
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So, if we go back to the Isaiah 56 passage, there’s another verse in it which God says “I will give them joy in my house of prayer.” And just when I read that, I loved it. But there is something that can be so joyful about coming together in prayer, coming as you are. And I think it’s God will fill us. So I think, even today as people listen, God will… As we come to him in that place of prayer, whether together or whether in our personal prayer time, that God always knows what we need. He will fill us with what we need. If we need more joy today, we can ask for that joy. If we need peace today, we can ask for that peace. Whatever we need for today, we have God who wants us to come to him, invites us and longs for us to come, and will fill us with what we need, and fill us with joy.
Bronwen Kearney:
I guess that’s our prayer, Priscilla, isn’t it? For us and everybody listening today, that God will give all of you the joy in his house of prayer.
Andrew Gibson:
Thanks Bronwen and Priscilla for sharing. And Thanks everyone for listening. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. This time, I will be speaking to our CFC Worship Pastor, Ryan Griffith, about worship. If you’re listening to this during Easter week 2021, don’t forget this Friday night, each of our CFC sites will be holding their own special Good Friday service on Zoom. If you’d like more information, please email info@thisiscfc.com
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