Teach us to Pray

Sermon for July 28, 2019Proper 12C – RCL Track 1 

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

The request of the unnamed disciples that Jesus “teach us to pray” is probably one that we have asked ourselves.  We wonder what is the proper way to pray.  We wonder if prayer “works”.  We worry that we are not skilled in the art of prayer and therefore we will not be heard by God.  We even can worry about the proper body language for prayer.  Do I sit, knell or stand?  When is the best time for prayer? What does God want?  Are prayers that have come down to us from great theologians better then free form impromptu prayers?  When should we pray prayers of thanksgiving?  Prayers of praise? Prayers if lamentations?  Prayers of intercession?  Prayers of repentance?  Is there a magic ratio of these types of prayers?

There are probably as many types of prayer as there are people.  I could easily turn this sermon into a menu of types of prayer – breath prayers, contemplative prayer, centering prayer, arrow prayers, walking prayers – just to name a few.  There are numerous books on spiritual practices that will give you ways to pray. 

The answers to all of these questions is that it really doesn’t matter.  What  matters is that we find what works for us.  I have attempted versions of centering prayer and was convinced – based on the instructions of the leaders that I was always doing it wrong – until I read a book called “Spirituality for Extroverts: and Tips for Those Who Love Them” by Nancy Reeves that gave me permission to not beat myself up if by extrovert brain could not stop thinking of a thousand things during centering prayer – the book gave me permission to realize that my extrovert brain is not really going to be cleared in centering prayers and no matter how many times I use my centering phrase it just doesn’t happen – and that is ok. 

What matters is that we do pray.  What matters is that we open our hearts to God.  When we open our hearts words don’t really matter.  When we open our hearts, we become vulnerable – we become open to the Holy Spirit.  There is really no right or wrong way to pray.

It is also important to realize that the way we pray says something about our theology.  It says something about who we believe God is and how God relates to us.  Matt Skinner, a preacher from Luther Seminary that I follow said “This is what makes prayer -- in any kind of a context, whether private or public -- so powerful: to pray is to articulate a theology.

In other words, everything about a prayer reveals something about what the pray-er thinks God is like. Is God merciful? Forgetful? Too busy? Ready to order the entire universe to make you happy? Already way ahead of you? Our prayers will reveal it.”^[1]

If we believe in the God of Love that our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry preaches about it will be reflective in our prayers.  If you approach God as one who desires nothing more than that we help bring God’s love to earth it will be reflected in our prayers.  The God of love that will not give us a snake instead of a fish, the God of love that will not give us a scorpion when we need an egg.  That God is the one who asks us to be God’s’ agents in this world.  That God is the one that we open our hearts to when we pray. 

On the other hand if we believe in an angry, vengeful God then we will approach our prayers not with an open heart but with a heart filled with dread.  We will worry that we will make God angry.  We will worry that we will find the God that told Hosea to marry a whore.  We will worry that God will say to us like the prophet Hosea promised that God is not our God.  We have to remember when we read the prophets that they are calls for a people to return to God’s grace.  They are meant to be upsetting because they were meant to get a people’s attention who had strayed from the God of love to worship idols of gold. To worship idols of power.  To worship idols of privilege.

Yet even in this call of the prophet Hosea we hear the promise of a loving God, “Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God."  Even in God’s lamentation over a people who have abandoned God’s love there is a promise.

…………….

The prayer that Jesus teaches is not really that radical.  The form of the prayer was likely familiar to his Jewish followers.  It follows the form of the ancient prayer the Qaddish.

Heightened and hallowed be his great name
in the world he created according to his will.
And may he establish his kingdom in your life and in your days
and in the life of all the house of Israel,
very soon and in the coming season.
--And you say: Amen!
Blessed, praised and glorified, raised, lifted up and revered, exalted and lauded be the name of him who is Holy, blessed be He!
Although he is high above all blessings, hymns, praise and solace
uttered in (this) world.
--And you say: Amen!
May our prayers and the supplications of all Israel
be accepted by their Father, who is in heaven (abuhon di bishemmaya).
--And you say: Amen!
May there be abundant peace from Heaven
and life for us and all Israel.
--And you say: Amen!
May he who makes peace in the heights make peace for us and all Israel!
--And you say: Amen!^[2]

Jesus is, in many ways, telling the disciple that he already knows how to pray.  Jesus provided a format that was familiar.  Jesus made a statement of his theology.  Matt Skinner said. “[Jesus} prayer, along with the short parable and aphorisms that follow in Luke 11:5-13, presents us with a sketch of how to imagine who God is and how God operates. Jesus speaks confident declarations:

God hears.
God provides.
God forgives.
God protects.
God expects us to be generous to one another.

Those are all theological statements. They all come from Jesus, who is teaching all of us, whether you are the most gifted preacher alive or the most wounded and fainthearted of saints.”^[3]

The parable and the aphorisms that follow can also cause problems.  Some folk have read them and turned them into a Gospel that is called the “prosperity Gospel”.  We hear people say that if you want that private plane you just have to bombard God with prayers to get the plane – and you need to enlist others to pray for that plane to come to you (preferably with gifts of money to help you purchase the plane). 

They can also lead to doubts.  Doubts about our relationship with God and doubts about if God is even listening.  When we read that if we ask God will give we wonder why God has not given.  I asked that my cancer would go away – and it looks like it did – although not by some miraculous intervention of God but by the God given skills of my surgeon – and his robot.  When bad things happen to those that we pray for we wonder why.  Why if God will give us anything we ask does this stuff happen. 

Dr. Charles Reeb, senior pastor of John’s Creek Methodist church said, “we have the hope that one day Christ will come in glory and all of our questions will be answered and all of the great mysteries will be solved and all of our confusion will turn into clarity. So get your list of questions ready for that day. I know I've got mine. And the question at the top of my list will be, "Why did bad things happen to good people?"…You know what Mother Teresa said? She said, "When I die, God will have a lot of answering to do." And Billy Graham once said, "When I die and go to heaven, I will spend the first 100 years just asking God questions." We can look forward to doing the same thing.”^[4]

My theology, and my prayers to God, are out of a belief that God is Love.  Period.  That we, as people of God are called to help bring about God’s kingdom, God’s dream of Love, to our world.  We are to help work to bring about a people that can bring about a place where good rules and evil is deposed.  Prayer – in all of its forms – helps center me into that attitude of love of God and love of neighbor.  Prayer opens me to the gift of the holy spirit – because Jesus in this lesson did not promise us the gift of a private Jet, or the gift of that phantom 5 Rolls Royce that I want, listen again to what he promised “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  Jesus promised that in prayer God will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The gift that will drive us out our selves, the gift that will drive us to explore ways that we can help initiate a world that responds in Love instead of Hate, to bring to fruition a world where we take care of the environment, take care of those who are hungry or thirsty, provide shelter to those that are in need, visit the sick and those in prison.

We are called in this place to offer our prayers to God.  We are called to open ourselves to the gift of the Holy Spirit to inflame our hearts in ways that will bring about God’s dream.  To use our resources to help build a place of Love and Peace – a place of God’s Shalom on this corner of 15^th and J streets.  When we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit we may find ourselves on a wild ride – a ride that will call us to do a new thing, a ride that will call us to be God’s agents of change, God’s agents of Love, in this hurting and hurt filled world.

---

^[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5367

^[2] http://virtualreligion.net/iho/prayer.html#qaddish

^[3] ibid

^[4] http://day1.org/955-i_wonder_why_bad_things_happen_to_good_people

The Reign of God has come near - indeed in is here!

Sermon for July 7, 2019Pentecost 4C Proper 9 – RCL

2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, `Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.'

"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The readings today have a theme of healing – healing by unlikely people.  One theme that stuck out to me was ‘who do we consider to be people of God?’  In the reading from Second Kings there are assumptions made about who had the power to cure the soldier’s leprosy.  Not only who but how!  It was assumed by the king of Samaria first, that there ought to be someone in his kingdom that could heal his commander, and second, if the power exists in Israel then it must rest with the king. 

I think we all too often have similar thoughts – in today’s hyper nationalistic world the assumption is that the power to do the right thing, the power to heal, must rest in our location.  As our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry reminded the clergy last we we are not talking about red vs blue states, or the US vs Russia.  I am talking about the rise of nationalistic talk all over the world lately.  The rise of leaders who talk about the importance of keeping their nations pure ,so that by some spoken or unspoken purity code, all will be well with their people. 

The other assumption is that Naaman expects that he will only be healed by a physical interaction with the prophet.  He wanted the prophet to come out and wave his hands over him!  He can’t imagine that God could work in any other way.  That God works through unexpected people in ways that we can’t begin to predict.  For Naaman it is a servant – one who probably was risking a lot to talk to the commander – that told him about the prophet and also a servant that challenged him to try the “simple” way of washing in the river to be healed. 

If we look around us I bet we will see the same kinds of things going on.  There are the same assumptions about who is in, who has power, and who we should turn to to “heal” what is ailing us and our world. And yet I see people with no power – at least in the eyes of society, working to help people, working to help provide healing.  I have seen people who do not have a home reach out to others to provide healing.  I see it in the ministry that happens in our parking lot and in the church and parish hall during the week.  A place where people look out for each other, a place where we feed people, a place where we invite those who feel society has separated into “the other” into places of healing.  Invited into places of sanctuary. 

Look around it is happening all around us...

Sister Libby – when she retired from Loaves and Fishes was not content to sit around so she started Mercy Peddlers – to go out and visit folk where they are.  Their website says that the mission of: “ Mercy Pedalers are bicyclers and tricyclers reaching out to men and women experiencing homelessness on the streets. It is a ministry of presence and action based on the “Works of Mercy” and emphasizing “Welcoming the Stranger”.”^[1]  A group of people making a difference by proclaiming the kingdom of god – not necessarily with words but with actions. 

Today’s gospel lesson is one that gives me hope.  Hope because Jesus does not send one person out to proclaim God’s kingdom.  Jesus does not send one person out to heal people and cast out demons.  Jesus sends out 70 – and he sends them in pairs.  Seventy people can seem like a lot of people being sent out – especially when we otherwise tend to hear about the twelve apostles in the Gospel lessons. David Lose, a preacher I follow, pointed out that 70 can either seem like a lot or too few.  He pointed out that 70 is about the size these days of the average mainline congregation – a size where many people are worrying that they are in decline and dying – but Jesus found that number was a good size to proclaim the reign of God. 

The Gospel lesson provides a lot that we could use in our ministry.  It instructs us that ministry is frequently best done in community.  Not that a one on one encounter can’t provide healing and proclaim God’s near presence – but that it certainly helps us all to have someone to work with.  Because sometimes – despite our best efforts our works, our being, will be rejected by those we are trying to help.  That our work in proclaiming God’s healing presence will be rejected by those we think of with secular power.  And especially during those times it is good to have someone else with us – someone we can talk to; someone with whom we can examine our actions and see if we need to change our approach – or someone to simply offer us an understanding ear to hear our stories.

Another helpful thing in today’s reading is the promise that Jesus instructs the 70 to declare to people.  Jesus instructs the 70 to declare that “The kingdom of God has come near to you”.  Most of the time when I read this passage I hear the part about offering peace to the households and staying where that peace is received.  The part about sticking around and not searching for the best lodgings in town but to stay with the first house that welcomes you.  And conversely if you are not welcomed to shake the dust off your sandals as you leave the town.  An act that could be seen as condemning those who did not provide welcome. 

A story that sets up in our minds that some were included, and some were excluded.  There are those that welcomed Jesus’ advance party, those preparing the towns for Jesus to came through on his way to Jerusalem, and those that rejected the advance party.  Those who obviously are going to be welcomed by God and those who will not be welcomed because they rejected God’s advance team  made through some unlikely people – people who were following an itinerate Rabbi – people that were likely not from the best of society. Considering all the complaints we read in the Gospels about Jesus eating with the outcasts and sinners the 70 probably where not considered socially the best of that society. 

But this week another part of this story jumped out to me – And that is the promise that Jesus instructed the 70 to proclaim to those they encounter.  The promise that the Reign of God had come near.  Look at it again.  That promise is not to be offered only to those who accepted the peace that flowed through these unlikely proclaimers of God’s peace and healing.  It was to be proclaimed to those who reject it as well.  When I have read this in the past I heard – in my minds ear – differing ways of the promise being offered. 

To the group that accepted the peace – to the group that allowed the healing of God to come into their towns I heard in my mind a sincere promise.  And I admit I always add to the promise – I hear “Rejoice!  You have accepted God and you have felt his healing presence!  The reign of God has indeed come near to this place.” 

Conversely To the group that did not welcome the 70.  To the towns where they are shaking the dust off their feet I usually hear something else!  I hear in my mind “You fools!  You have rejected God.  You have rejected the nearness of the reign of God.  Pity be to you! You have rejected the nearness of God”  A warning rather than a promise.

But what if we don’t interject our own responses into the promise.  What if we read it truly as a promise to both those who accept and those who rejected the 70.  A promise that in both cases the Kingdom of God has come near.  That God’s presence is near – indeed is here.  And we are not responsible for being the gatekeepers of God’s love.  We are called – like the 70 to go out and offer God’s peace, God’s Love to a world that may or may not accept it – that doesn’t make it any less near! 

David Lose said, “the phrase “the kingdom of God has come near” is, ultimately a promise. Yes, it may call us to account. Yes, it may invite us to look more critically at how we treat others. But ultimately, it is the promise that, in God’s kingdom, identity is not something earned or asserted or fought over or claimed and gained at someone else’s loss. Rather, identity is something conferred as a gift, as we discover that we are – each of us and each person we encounter – God’s beloved children.

In God’s kingdom, it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you have done. It doesn’t matter what nationality or race or gender or occupation or sexuality or age you are. It doesn’t matter where you were born or what economic status or influence you may have (or not have). These designations may be important to us, even at times useful on a day to day basis. But they just don’t matter all that much to God. So while all these descriptors and any others we can think of may describe us accurately, even at times helpfully or importantly to us, yet they do not define us. What defines us is how God sees us, as we discover who we are by remembering whose we are: God’s beloved child. And that, … is always good news.”^[2]

Our call as followers of Jesus has not changed much in over 2000 years.  And if we really look around at today’s followers of Jesus we will still see a mix of people that some in society would accept as leaders and others would draw a line and consider outcasts.  All of Jesus followers are called to offer God’s shalom, God’s healing to a world greatly in need of healing.  We are not called to draw lines that separate people from God’s love.  To separate those who we see as worthy.  We are called to keep drawing the circle bigger.  To offer our world an example of healing,  To offer it even if it is rejected.  And to hear the promise that even in rejections God’s healing, loving presence has come near – indeed has come here.

---

^[1] https://mercypedalers.com/about/about-mercy-pedalers/

^[2] http://www.davidlose.net/2019/07/pentecost-4-c-good-news-or-bad/