This past Monday was what our church and several others call City Wide Prayer. It is when people from a handful of churches get together and pray corporately for the cities of Reno and Sparks. I really enjoy these meetings, but I will be honest. There always seems to be, without fail, something I notice that will amaze me.

This time I noticed something, and I am not quite sure what to think about it, but I will tell you what my gut reaction is. I saw a man, from my church, who brought in a cloth. This cloth looked somewhat like something that a Jewish Rabbi would wear. It was white, long, and had stripes and tassels on it. As he began to pray he took the cloth and placed it over his head, and he placed his hands in the front of it so it wouldn’t touch his face, and so that he would still have room to pray.

I remember my Pastor once talking about how when Jesus talks about prayer in Matthew chapter 6 he brings up this same exact situation. To be more exact it is actually Matthew 6:6:

6But when you pray,(A) go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.(B) And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

You see, some people will say that you are supposed to go into your prayer closet, and that is what Jesus was talking about. I will be honest. I don’t know if that is what he meant. It sounds to me like he was saying go pray in private, but it isn’t too specific into where or how. But what I found to be interesting is that this man must have felt so strongly that Jesus was saying that we must go and pray in our prayer closet that he went and found out how the Jews would enter into there own prayer closets. I found this on the internet which talks a little bit about what the “shawl” was for:

In biblical times, Jewish men wore this garment called a TALITH, TALIS, TALIT or PRAYER SHAWL all the time — not just at prayer. TALITH contains two Hebrew words; TAL meaning tent and ITH meaning little. Thus, you have LITTLE TENT. Each man had his own little tent…

Six million Jews could not fit into the tent of meeting that was set up in the Old Testament. Therefore, what was given to them was their own private sanctuary where they could meet with God. Each man had one! His Prayer Shawl or Talis. They would pull it up over their head, forming a tent, where they would begin to chant and sing their Hebrew songs, and call upon Elohim, Yaweh, Adonai. It was intimate, private, and set apart from anyone else — enabling them to totally focus upon God. This was their prayer closet! (http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-8/Prayer_Shawls_2.htm)

Why did this man feel that he had to imitate Jewish traditions to be biblical? I will be honest. I see this as very Pharisaical. By this man doing this and not one other person, I felt that he was trying to make a point, he was trying to say that he had the right way. And you know what is funny about right ways? There is usually only one. So that means that if he was right in doing that, then we were wrong by not, and that is not something that I believe. I believe that we pray correctly. We don’t need our prayer closet. We need the Holy Spirit! That is how we communicate and enter into the presence of God, not by some shammy or shall, or whatever you wanna call it.

I’m sorry I didn’t mean to start ranting… But what do you think? Is it okay for people to feel that if they do things a certain way they will have more favor with God? Or is this even accurate? Is there another place in the Bible where it talks about this? Help me out!!!