A House of Prayer

After the Savior’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.” He explained His actions this way, “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:12-13). The only time that the phrase “house of prayer” shows up in the Old Testament, at least in the King James version, is in this passage: “Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7). So He may have been referring to these words of Isaiah who declared that the temple should be “an house of prayer for all people.” In this dispensation the Lord again said that the temple should be a “house of prayer”: “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:119). These were repeated in the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, a building that indeed became a house of prayer. The Lord also suggested that our worship on Sundays should likewise be in a house of prayer: “And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:9). I wonder what would happen if we used that language in our Latter-day Saint culture; instead of talking about “going to Church” on Sunday we could speak of “going to the house of prayer.” It would be a reminder to us that a major purpose on Sunday is to pray and worship together—it is not to buy and sell or focus on worldly things like the moneychangers of old.

               As the executive secretary in my ward, I am responsible to ask people to say the opening and closing prayers in sacrament meeting. I asked a couple about a week ago to say the prayers yesterday, but then one of them could no longer do it and let me know yesterday afternoon. I had to ask five other people to finally find someone who would be there and was willing to pray. Of course, I did not give up because, well, we have to have an opening prayer. I’m sure at some point I would have just assigned myself, and I never would have just decided that we wouldn’t say an opening prayer. And yet, as I consider that, I realize that there are times when I give up in a sense in my own home and we don’t pray like we should. Sometimes it seems too hard to get all of the children into the same room with some modicum of reverence so we can pray. Like the scattered flocks of the Lamanites, it seems like we need a miracle worker like Ammon to come and gather them all to the same place! But if I wouldn’t give up for sacrament meeting, surely I shouldn’t give up on family prayer. Though perhaps that is not how the scriptures use the term, surely the Lord wants our individual homes to also be a “house of prayer,” and that starts with praying as a family. Though I don’t think our home is a “den of thieves,” sometimes it does feel like a “den of animals”! It is instructive that when the Savior visited the Nephites at the temple, He spent much of His time praying among them. And He also gave them this instruction: “Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed” (3 Nephi 18:21). It may take as much effort as it took Him to overthrow the tables of the moneychangers, but His actions in Jerusalem at the start of that final week should remind us that it is worth the effort to make our homes into houses of prayer.