Matthew says Beware of practicing righteousness openly, when you pray go into your room and shut the door and pray in secret.
Different Matthew than the one in the picture. That’s my friend and co-worker Matthew in the Loading Dock at 2525 West End in Nashville. Right after I snapped this pic our boss walked around the corner. I called Dirk to ask him if he recalled the incident. I barely had the question out when he started howling. “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” he said in his distinct southern cadence.
Hasidic Jewish men, Amish men, and Mennonites can be confusing to the casual observer. Among their many distinctions is prayer. The Hasidic man is often portrayed at the ancient Western Wall (Hebrew; Kotel) in Jerusalem stuffing written prayers in the cracks between the stones. The first example of this unique prayer style was in the Book of Daniel. Written on the wall of a Baghdad palace during a huge party, God reverse prayed to a king by publicly denouncing him in Hebrew Handwriting.
The Amish are famous for, among many things, their baked goods. But before they eat them they “pray.” Not in the formal German dialect of Worship nor the informal Pennsylvania Dutch. They pray silently. At least the prayers I observed. Other times prayer is read in German
Mennonites are divided by prayer in a way you might never imagine. Those with Wednesday night Prayer Meetings at church are much less likely to use Pennsylvania Dutch. I know almost nothing about the Prayer Meeting experiences of my Mennonite peers because nobody makes a social visit to another congregation for prayer meeting. In fact we deliberately avoided plans that would put us in proximity of another congregation’s service and leapt with great relief at the chance to “miss” our own. These midweek services followed a routine so familiar we could have done it at 1.5X speed and not missed a thing except the latecomers who would have been baffled to enter at Closing Thoughts rather than The Topic by Brother.
Prayer Meeting was a time of collecting predictable prayer requests followed by splitting into small groups to pray or the much quicker choice of 2-3 men and a follow up preacher all praying in the main auditorium. Afterwards a layman would deliver a lesson on a topic either assigned or self chosen. They were forgettable with few exceptions. Nathan Weber once dramatically read an account of the Crucifixion from a medical point of view. It stretched way too long, most likely seemed interminable to his kids because a dad talking in church is always an eternity for his kids and because it was the first time they had arrived early enough to sit through Prayer Meeting from the beginning.
Mennonites base a lot of their practice on the Sermon on the Mount and prayer meeting is the first place they teach young men how to ignore it again. Being called on to pray is your first public speaking experience – fortunately with everyone’s eyes closed and your back to them. Many plain Mennonites turn and kneel face in the pew for prayer, not really a closet like Jesus instructed but better for the shy than the dreaded face to crowd “Topic.”
I’ve heard many Mennonites pray all over the USA and with few exceptions they have a separate prayer language just like a Jew or an Amish guy.
Mennonite men sound like Shakespeare when they pray.
The new owners tore the back half of the house down.
John & Jeannie 