Michael Leunig was a cartoonist for the newspaper The Melbourne Age, one of the most popular papers in Australia’s biggest city. At some point, I’m not sure when, he decided to post a poem instead of a cartoon in his allotted space. The poems were popular. And from poems he moved to prayers. Likewise popular. As Martin Wroe says, poetry and prayer are often falling into each other’s arms.

Some of Leunig’s prayers weren’t addressed to God, but some were. And one can imagine the negative response to that G word amongst some of Melbourne’s secular readership.

Leunig’s reply – and a reply that I think should taught in every theological college and be framed above every minister’s desk – is (in part) as follows:

“The word (God) is yours or mine to make of it and hold or discard it as we will…"God" as a sort of shorthand password, an inconclusive folk word, a signpost, a catalyst, a spark, a stepping stone, a simple makeshift handle ... A simple robust word used lightly and loosely or as devoutly and deeply as we might feel – a bridge, and a way to break free from this material world for a moment or two, a day or two... or for what's left of a lifetime.”

“God” is potentially a word that escapes (or should escape) the precision of definition. A word that points towards unknownness, mystery. And importantly a word that says our language, our systems, our leaders, our religions, and our governments don’t control everything. “God” is hopefully something that can’t be processed, packaged, mass-produced, and sold as a solution. Though frequently it is.

This morning I want to talk about the prayed word, that is the public and audible prayers we use. This phrase, the prayed word, is leveraged off the more common phrase, particularly in Protestant circles, of the preached Word. The Word(capital W) has a history, referring to the Greek ‘logos’ in the prologue to John’s Gospel - “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). And it’s not talking about the Word as language, or the Bible, but rather a Stoic and Hellenistic philosophical construct best translated, in brief, as ‘divine spark’. John’s Gospel then goes to equate that divine spark with Jesus.

So, in using the phrase the prayed word, I’m leaning into the pun, suggesting to you that public and audible prayers, at their best, are those that ignite or nurture a spark within us. Some prayers might be like a comforting, familiar stone that has resided in our pocket for decades that we massage, and it, in turn, somehow massages us. Some prayers are like walking up a mountain, striking our eye with beauty, and quickening our skin with a change in temperature. Some prayers make us pause. Some make us ponder. Some touch our heart.

And some insult our sensibilities, including our intelligence, and revolt us. If you’ve grown up in a conservative church, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Sometimes the prayed word can do the very opposite of igniting or nurturing a spark within. It can be like a wet blanket smoothing the sparkle in our soul.

I want to briefly look at the first of two prayers (our readings) that were written by those connected to the Iona Community. As I’ve mentioned before, this Community is remarkable in its willingness to engage with liturgical innovation.

The prayer by Martin Wroe is from his book Julian of Norwich’s Teabag: Poems and Prayers from Morning to Night, and is written as a grace before meals, what we commonly call ‘grace’. In short, grace is a prayer of thanks. And not just for the food. But all the gifts/graces in our lives. Though it’s a prayer, due to rumbly tummies, that should always be short.

As an aside, I would suggest that today in Aotearoa, grace is the most frequently prayed word, and the most common prayed word in the secular sphere, and we should endeavour to lean into that cultural change by creating new and memorable graces.

You might notice a few things about Martin’s “For what we receive”. Firstly, it’s a non-theistic prayer. He doesn’t use the “God” word. For like Leunig, a prayer doesn’t necessarily need a vocative, indeed it’s absence can be evocative.

Some progressive writers, given the fraught upbringing of so many within conservative religious confines, argue that using the “God” word, or pseudonyms like “Father” or “Lord”, are so powerful their echoes interfere with our hearing anything else in the prayer.

Secondly, the rhetorical devices. You will note the short lines and the rhyming, and the structure (like the four elements: water, air, fire, and earth). Which appeal to our ear. Which help with memorization. And the building to a rhetorical climax – namely: ‘be thankful,’ ‘be aware,’ ‘each day a gift’, ‘each breath a prayer.’

And lastly, the last two lines, ‘how each day is a gift, and each breath a prayer’, is that which moves the prayer from a list of things for which we are thankful for (the elements, the food, the company, the place, what we share) into an encouragement for us to grow in awareness that gifts/grace are all around us, and secondly, that every breath we make is a connection with the divine which is in all and through all.

So, this is a grace that is profoundly theological.

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One of Michael Leunig’s prayers goes like this:

God give us rain when we expect sun.

Give us music when we expect trouble.

Give us tears when we expect breakfast.

Give us dreams when we expect a storm.

Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.

God play with us, turn us sideways and around.

Notice again the rhetorical devices, first and last line beginning with “God”, and the anaphora of each line between beginning with ‘give us.’ (Anaphora is very common in liturgical prayers). He also uses the antithesis of ‘rain’ and ‘sun’ in the first line, but then plays with us. When in the next line we expect ‘music’ to be paired with its antithesis ‘silence’ or ‘speech’, Leunig has the word ‘trouble’. And so, he continues line by line with unexpected antithetical pairings until we reach the last line, the rhetorical climax. There all is revealed. As Leunig has been playing with us, so does God. Our expectations are turned sideways and around.

Which is a theological thesis that some people find deeply disturbing. Isn’t God the same yesterday, today, and forever? In other words, predictable? And if predictable, then offering certainty. And for many predictably and certainty offer a comfort. Whereas if God is a God of play, unexpectedness, and uncertainty, then what on earth can we rely on?

So, this is a prayed word that might make us smile (‘a stray dog’?) but is designed to make us think and question.

In our readings I included a prayer God of the Tides by Jan Such Pickard, who lives on the Isle of Mull (one of Western Isles of Scotland), close to Iona.

The key rhetorical device of this prayer is one pervasive metaphor: likening God to the tides (and to the ocean), and then likening our lives to the tides. Unlike Leunig’s God give us rain, the tides/ocean offer a metaphor of predictability and constancy (a ‘faithful rhythm’). Unlike Leunig encouraging us to welcome the unexpected, Pickard is encouraging us to be constant in our(alliterating) courage and caring, both in our (antithetical) times of fullness and emptiness.

The rhetorical climax of this prayer is simply saying that the ebb and flow of life, it’s rhythms, are all part of a love that is as vast and unknown as the ocean. So, a love close and known but also vast and unknown. Like God.

The last prayed word I want to look at this morning is commonly called the Lord’s Prayer. Many a preached Word has addressed this text. The Jesus seminar, which I talked about a couple of weeks back, sees much resonance between the prayer and what we can reliably know of Jesus. Like the address of ‘Abba’ for God (an intimate naming). Like the four petitions: May your Way (your imperial rule)come. May we have enough bread for today (not stockpiled for the future). May our debts (monetary debts which were the plight of the oppressed) be forgiven. May we not be subjected to test after test (hardship after hardship).

In the editorial processes that brought each gospel together these petitions were amalgamated into one prayer with Matthew, and particularly Luke, adding some of their own flourishes. Interestingly scholars well-versed in Greek point out the many rhetorical devices used by Matthew and Luke, devices that were then lost when translated accurately into English.

The first Anglican Prayerbook was written and compiled in 1549. The translation of the Lord’s Prayer it gave has remarkedly changed little for centuries. The crescendo (For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and Glory) was added before the 1928 Prayerbook was published, and some spellings were changed as spellings do.

What I’m referring to is the ‘which art in heaven’ version of the Lord’s Prayer that used ‘trespasses’ rather than the 1970s innovation of ‘sins.’ (As an aside, I’m a fan of ‘trespasses’ – I like the idea of wrongdoing being something one does towards another (a trespass), rather than the idea of wrongdoing including something that you could think or do that would harm no other).

This translation of the Lord’s Prayer (‘Our Father which art in heaven, etc) today though, like with much of the 1611 King James Bible, is not known for the accuracy of its translation. Our second reading gives an accurate translation of both gospels’ renditions.

What the old translation of the Lord’s prayer does give us is a prayer that is easy to remember because it is pleasing to the ear. What we have in this Lord’s Prayer is a whole host of rhetorical devices in English. Like rhyme: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done”. Like antithesis: “On earth, as it is in heaven”. Like a tricolon (rhythmic triad): “For thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory.” Etc.

My point is that we need to honour writers of the English Lord’s Prayer for creating a prayed word that has been learnt by heart by millions of people and endured for centuries. My point is not that we should enshrine it (frame it on the wall) or necessarily teach our children and grandchildren it.

My point is that we need to write prayers – like Wroe, Leunig, and Pickard have done – that encapsulate something of how we understand “God” and the spiritual life today. And my point is not that these new prayers be lengthy, wordy, and endowed with theological accuracy but rather, using rhetorical devices that appeal to the ear and heart, create new prayers that can be memorized and publicly offered to ignite and nurture the divine spark within and amongst us.

The prayed word can be something that resonates with our experience and imagination, and then excites and empowers us.

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