July 29, 2007

by The Rev. Constance Jones

Gen.18:20-33; Col. 2:6-15, Ps. 138; Lk. 11:1-13

A few weeks ago in the middle of a nice productive meeting
someone said flat out, “I’ve been a Christian all my life,
and I’ve discovered I don’t know how to pray.
I think I need to learn how to do it.”
There was a moment of dead silence and another person said,
“I have this sense that when I pray
stuff is just rattling around inside my own head.”
A few days later
I was sitting in the Emergency Room at Riverside Hospital with a parishioner,
because of course that’s what you do in the ER,
you sit, for hours and hours while they find out what’s wrong.
And I was a bit surprised when an emergency room doc,
after listening with a stethoscope, and poking here and there,
and going down the list of tests that would be done,
said “Would it be all right if I said a prayer with you all?”
Then she proceeded to do it, asking quite specifically for healing,
and for God to be present for each person in the room.

Today’s lessons from Scripture are all about prayer –
Abraham dickering with God
about how many righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah it would take
for God to spare the cities.
Jesus teaching his disciples when they ask him how to pray.
But really, the Bible is loaded with people who pray, who are in dialogue with God. Hundreds of them, named and unnamed.
And here we are today,
praying for healing, forgiveness, peace,
and a few dozen other very specific things,
including that the Lord God personally become present in bread and wine.

When it comes to praying, believers may suspect
they do it too little or don’t do it right.
Non-believers may scoff at prayer –
How can you imagine the God you think created the universe
is interested in, and will do something about,
the pain in your lower back?
But even they pray, I bet, at 3 a.m.,
whispering into the dark a “please” that comes from the depth of their soul,
to the God they don’t believe in.
Please let this baby sleep so I can sleep.
Please take away the pain.
Please stop the killing so my child will be safe.
Please make heaven a real place for my beloved who died.

I think praying is something we can’t NOT do.
I think we are hard-wired to pray.
And when are souls are bared
and our most profound need lies defenseless in our hands,
I’m convinced there’s literally no wrong way to pray,
because God’s Spirit makes the prayer perfect on our lips.
We might feel foolish, or as naked as a baby bird in its nest,
but we lift everything and put it in God’s outstretched hands.

I’m quite sure that regular prayer with other Christians in church –
common prayer – is good,
and so is disciplined private daily prayer.
But you can pray in the car or in yoga position or while gardening.
You can do it alone or in a crowd,
and certainly you can do it without words.
You can pray when you don’t know you are doing it,
and I know I sometimes pray in my sleep.

Now, is prayer all about just making ourselves feel better,
getting alpha waves or something, a little psychological self-help?
Research shows you get over heart attacks faster if you pray.

Well, let the researchers do their studies.
Let them try to photograph the presence of God.
We’ll just do it, and when we pray
that very God who made the universe is as near as our own breath,
though sometimes we know it only in retrospect.
I’m convinced that when Jesus says
“For everyone who knocks, the door will be opened”
it means not just that every prayer is heard,
but that every prayer opens a channel to the pure unfiltered love
that God has for us.

Well, though, what if you asked for your friend to be cured, and she died?
What if you asked for a promotion and got a pink slip, what’s with that?

Yes, prayer often begins with a petition.
But beware, as psychologist Ann Ulanov puts it,
because when you pray, you touch something hot.¹
The result of prayer is always deeper, broader, and other than we expect.
We open the door a crack,
get drawn into the life of God,
and we are changed forever.

A person who prays discovers new energy, patience, or constancy.
A person with a hot temper grows slow to anger.
A chronic complainer develops the habit of kindness.
Someone with a chronic illness finds gratitude their daily gift.

Prayer deepens our interconnectedness,
our sensitivity to suffering and ability to bear it.
We begin by praying for ourselves and those we love,
and end up praying for strangers we read about in the paper.
Pretty soon, we end up praying for people we thought we despised, and meaning it.

Prayer changes how we see the world.
We are alert to ambiguity and the multi-layeredness of reality,
and we have a keener eye for the holy in everyday things.
But also, a sharper ear for the “wrong notes” of unholiness and deceit.²
Prayer converts our self-understanding,
because in prayer denial and deceit become impossible.
A man may start to pray for patience in dealing with somebody hateful,
but finds himself praying for the person.
Soon he is confessing what he hates in himself,
and is overwhelmed to find God knows it all already,
forgives him, and loves him beyond measure.
A simple prayer of petition bears unexpected and holy fruit.

Prayer does not remake the world so that it’s what we want it to be.
Prayer often does not result in a feeling of closeness to God.
Life remains difficult and at times full of sorrow and loneliness.

But in prayer we are drawn into another world
that’s also within this world,
a place of abundance,
where Love tenderly says Yes to all creation,
where every syllable of desire is heard, every tear wiped away,
and every heart invited into the living God,
who is always near.
We can’t explain it, we can’t control it,
but everything in the world now is connected and has meaning,
all the world’s outcomes, even the ones we were afraid of,
can be trusted to the God who loves us.
We can’t possess it,
but every now and then we catch a scented whiff of it,
and that is enough.
We are still ourselves – more ourselves than ever, in fact,
yet through the small hole of our own lives
we have been pulled into the life of God,
the wellspring of Love that never runs dry.

For people of Grace Church
we’ll have a few Sunday morning sessions in September
to try different and maybe unfamiliar styles of prayer.
But in the meantime, we’ll just continue doing it,
giving thanks for the mercy of God,
who says Yes when we turn and lift our hands in a Godward direction.

As usual, a psalm gives us the words -- today’s psalm:

O Lord,
When I called, you answered me;
You increased my strength within me.
I will bow down toward your holy temple
and praise your Name,
because of your love and faithfulness; (Ps. 138:4, 2)
Amen.

_____________

Back to the index of Connie's Sermons