You hear a lot about prayer these days and it brings a story to mind. There are several versions of this old tale drifting around in different cultures but they all have the same basic outline.

A certain farmer found himself harvesting a crop that exceeded his wildest expectations. After years of living on the edge of poverty, his ship finally had come in and he was on the road to prosperity at last.

As he was driving his bountiful produce to market in his rickety cart, he couldn’t help but enjoy his daydreams about how wonderful it would be to enjoy some luxury for a day or two. He was so absorbed in his happy reverie that he failed to pay attention to his driving. Sure enough, the wheels of his cart slipped off the road and stuck in a ditch. Just then, storm clouds began to crowd overhead and our farmer knew that a downpour would ruin his unsheltered produce. He laid the lash to the oxen and, strain as they might, they couldn’t get the cart back on the road.

He began to wail. “O God, please help me. Please get this wagon unstuck or I’ll be ruined. If this is punishment because I wasn’t grateful for your generous bounty, I’m sorry. Just get me out of this and I’ll be better next time, I promise. Just don’t leave me stranded here in this rain. Give strength to these stupid oxen so they can get me out. Don’t let my whole year’s work — my whole life’s work — go to waste like this. Please God, it just isn’t fair.”

Well, he went on like this as the clouds grew thicker. When he heard distant thunder, he whipped the oxen harder and prayed louder. He was near hysteria when the first drops of rain fell on his head. He was about to yield to despair when he heard a voice. “Look fella, I brought you this far I mean to help you, but your oxen aren’t strong enough by themselves. You got yourself in this mess and you’ll get out when you get your butt out of this wagon, put your shoulder to the wheel and push.”

There are a number of laudable morals rolling around in this ancient tale. Take your pick. But we’re on the subject of prayer. Some years ago, I attended a banquet in Washington, D.C. Mary and I were seated at the same table as the Ambassador from Rwanda and his wife. If any nation in our lifetime has experienced the full force of savage human catastrophe, it’s Rwanda.

After dinner, a well-meaning lady informed the ambassador that we here in America were praying for his troubled country. With an air of great reverence, he thanked her for the prayers. But, sadly he said, prayers now come too late for the hundreds of thousands who were brutally murdered and the ones suffering now. Prayers without brotherly love are comforting whispers that are hard to hear.

I spent a good deal of time thinking about what the ambassador said and the subject has come up a number of times since then. Obviously, with the disaster in Haiti dominating the news, we hear a lot about “our thoughts and prayers” being with them. But “thoughts and prayers” all by themselves are really not very helpful, are they?

The idea of brotherly love is only partially expressed in our prayers. To be fully alive, our brotherly love needs hands, arms and legs. It needs endurance for the long haul. It doesn’t spend itself in an explosion of prayers and quick dollars and then sit in the wagon waiting for the next disaster. Real brotherly love stays on the hunt for opportunities to help even after the cameras quit rolling. Real brotherly love doesn’t go overboard in loud displays of self-congratulation when all it’s done is behave in a way that’s called for by simple human decency.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking prayer here. I believe reverent, humble prayer can do wonders for our spiritual health. I’m just saying prayer is no substitute when you know in your heart there’s hard work to do. Prayer is no bandage to make us feel better when we know there’s something we could be doing that would amount to meaningful help. And let’s keep this in mind. Prayer for the victims of faraway disasters is no help to the ones suffering in our own neighborhoods.

I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.