SOMEONE IS TALKING in a steady stream of words. They’re going on and on, but the words don’t seem to be going anywhere in particular. This can happen sometimes with people who are so-called “verbal processors”; they need to talk things through out loud to come to a conclusion. There’s nothing wrong with that. People are different. Some think about things internally before giving an opinion; some speak externally to discover what their opinion is.

But depending on the context, it can tax the patience of their conversation partners. They want an answer, a decision, not more musings that seem to circle endlessly in the air. At some point, in frustration, they may think or say out loud, “Okay, okay. Can you please land the plane?”

Does that sound familiar to you? If so, then ponder this: can something similar be said of the way we sometimes pray out loud in the company of others?

IN MATTHEW 6, Jesus continues to teach his hearers about the kind of righteousness appropriate to God’s kingdom. In chapter 5, the emphasis was on the superficial ways people can appear to follow the Law of Moses through their behavior, but not be transformed in their heart and motivations. In chapter 6, as we’ve seen, Jesus turns to the matter of why one engages in acts of piety. It’s one thing to give money to the poor out of true compassion; it’s another to have the act and even the intention contaminated by the desire to be admired by others for your generosity. If you want to purify the act of selfish motives and be rewarded by God, Jesus teaches, do it in secret. Today, he might have said: Don’t publicize it; don’t prepare a press release; don’t turn it into a photo-op; don’t post it to social media.

He then turns to the matter of prayer, telling his audience not to pray in public places as the Pharisees do. They want to be seen and admired for their supposedly superior spirituality. Don’t do that, Jesus insists; pray to God in secret instead. Again, Jesus is not forbidding the behavior of public prayer but teaching a way of ridding it of the selfish motives that too often contaminate it. He makes a similar point in the words that follow:

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matt 6:7-8, NIV)

The word translated as “babbling” is used only this one time in the New Testament. In fact, this seems to be the only place anyone can find it anywhere. Matthew may have made up a word to translate whatever Jesus actually said into Greek. Scholars suggest that it may be an instance of onomatopoeia — a word that takes its meaning from a sound. Think, for example, of words like “meow” and “moo”; the words themselves both name and mimic the sounds made by cats and cows. Or if you like, here’s my favorite example in Greek: the Greek word for the verb “to spit” is…wait for it…ptuo, like the sound of someone spitting.

Matthew’s word, then, may suggest someone speaking gibberish, as if going bata-bata-bata-bata. In English, we’d say, Blah blah blah. Thus, the New International Version translates Jesus as saying, “Don’t keep on babbling.” In the New Revised Standard, it’s “don’t heap up empty phrases”; in the Common English Bible, it’s “don’t pour out a flood of empty words.” All of these do a better job of capturing Jesus’ meaning than the traditional King James, in which Jesus forbids “vain repetitions.” Repetition in prayer is not a problem in itself; we can see it throughout the Psalms. But vain or empty repetition, the piling up of meaningless words, is not true prayer. That’s what unbelievers do, Jesus suggests. They act as if longer prayers are better prayers, or prayers that are more likely to get answered. Don’t let it be that way with you.

And why? Because we need to pray in a way that recognizes who God is. When we go before our heavenly Father, it’s not to inform him of things he doesn’t know. He already knows what we need before we ask for it; he knows everything about us, even better than we know ourselves. As the psalmist said:

You have searched me, LORD,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, LORD, know it completely. (Ps 139:1-4)

Not only does God know what we need and what’s in our hearts (1 Sam 16:7), but as Jesus will make clear at the end of Matthew 6, God cares about what we need.

What’s the alternative, then, to empty prayer or religious babbling? As we’ll see next, Jesus teaches his disciples what to pray instead:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one. (vss. 9-13)

We’ll spend some time unpacking this most famous and familiar of prayers. In the meantime, it’s worth asking ourselves what we should learn from Jesus’ teaching about prayer.

I’ll make it personal. As I’ve said before, in the various roles I play, I’m regularly expected to pray in public; I was even asked once to give a generic prayer of dedication at the ceremonial opening of a newly built wing of our local hospital. In that setting, I carefully scripted the prayer in advance. In other settings, my prayers are far more spontaneous.

But frankly, the Pharisaic temptation is always there, lurking in the background. Anybody who’s ever struggled with impostor syndrome knows the feeling: that sense of self-consciousness, the concern that our words don’t sound spiritual enough or aren’t good enough. We try to focus on God, but our minds start to wander, distracted by our self-concern. And before we know it, we find ourselves circling the spiritual airport and unsure how to land the plane.

Again, let me be clear. Jesus himself prayed in public and with the intention of influencing the people who were listening, even as he spoke directly to his Father. That’s not the problem. And I truly believe the Lord has compassion for our weaknesses and frailties, the nagging anxieties we may have about how others see us.

At the very least, however, we can start with this. First, we should be mindful of when we’re praying, at least in part, with a need to impress others, and let that need become a matter of prayerful reflection when we’re alone with God. And second, we can remind ourselves, over and over, that there is no need for us to impress God.

We don’t pray to inform or impress God; we pray to open our heart to the one who already knows our heart. And in that knowledge, hopefully, there is freedom.