Prayer, Some Reflections

“Teach us to pray, asks one of Jesus disciples (Luke 11:1-13), as John taught his disciples to pray.”  Since the dawn of consciousness human beings of all faiths, and perhaps even people with no faith, have thought about prayer, talked about prayer, tried to pray and given up on prayer.  At times many of us believe our prayers have been answered and at other times feel that our prayers never “make it out of the room.” 

I want to reflect on a few questions about prayer in hopes that it will help someone (if only myself) as they struggle with some of these same questions.  What is Prayer? How does prayer work? Does prayer work? What is the difference between prayer and magic? Does God change the natural order of things to answer our prayers? 

Certainly this is not an exhaustive list of questions about prayer but will hopefully spur you to conversations and reflections about this ubiquitous area of human life 

We begin by looking at Jesus’ response to the disciple’s request in Luke 11.  Luke’s version of this prayer is shorter and more direct than the corresponding version found in the Gospel of Matthew and therefore likely closer to the original.  In Luke we find five petitions rather than the seven found in Matthew.  They seem to me to be short, sweet and to the point: 

·         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 

First Jesus tells the disciples (and hopefully us, by extension) to recognize God’s holiness and therefore the holiness of all that is.  Then we ask that God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven (my reflection).  Next we ask for what we need today:  Just today, not tomorrow, or next week, but today.  Food for today, work for today, relationships for today.  Remember what happened when the children of Israel tried to gather enough Manna for two days?  Yes, the manna turned into worms. Ugh. 

Then we ask to be forgiven of our sins, because we have already forgiven those who have hurt us (maybe?)  And last but not least we ask God to protect us from the trials and tribulations of this life, to be with us when they come and to help pick us up when we fall. 

This is the beginning of prayer: To whom do we pray; for what do we pray; how do we use what we receive; will prayer help God heal our divisions and give us a chance to start anew; be with us, guide us and protect us. 

This is a good foundation for prayer, and it is followed by a parable encouraging persistence.

“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.” 

This persistence is vital and I believe also binds us together with others in our prayer, strengthening our relationships with one another and with God (not unlike being bound together by the Holy Eucharist.  But,  Luke 11 then takes us into dangerous waters.  Prayers of petition!  Are we beginning to ask God to perform magic tricks, to re-arrange the natural order or setting ourselves up for failure when our prayers do not appear to be answered.  How does this affect our faith or the faith of others who have heard and been taught the following lesson from Luke 11. 

"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. 

I continue my reflections on prayer based on Luke 11: 1-13 and I invite your reflection and response as well.  I believe that this form of the Lord’s prayer invites us to praise God, ask for what we need, participate in the living out of God’s Kingdom.   I believe the key to prayer is this: risk openness to others as God in Christ risked openness to us and for us. 

We bind ourselves to one another in praying for their needs and asking them to pray for ours.  We risk “failure:” why did my loved one die, we all prayed?  Why did someone less worthy get the job instead of me? What we gain through prayer is trust, persistence, and faith.  We learn to trust others because we believe we can trust God.  Persistence helps us to learn how to pray and being bound together with others in prayer gives us the courage to pray, NO MATTER WHAT!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Justice, Mercy and Non-Violence

Justice, Mercy and Non-Violence 

In the eighth century BCE, the Judean Prophet, Amos, inspired by God, did his best to communicate the importance of justice and mercy to the leaders of the nation of Israel.  Amos described people who cheat their customers and overcharge the poor, in order to enhance their own wealth.  And he describes how God feels about this and what God plans to do. 

Amos 8:1-12: . . . . The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day," says the Lord GOD; the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!  Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat. . . . .On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day. The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.  

Amos condemns the wealthy for taking advantage of the poor and for breaking the customs of the land.  The rich, it seems, even plan to sweep the scattered wheat off the floor and sell it rather than leaving it for the poor to gather.  To put this in perspective, this is not unlike congress passing the huge farm bill and gutting it of the food stamp provision which would help feed those who lost their jobs in the recession of 2008, among others.  The farm bill has not gone to conference yet, nor has it been signed by the president but it does give us some idea of how the poor in Israel in Amos’ day and the poor in our day are often treated in similar ways. 

Around 1500, Martin Luther continues Amos’ concern for the poor when he proclaims that “those who can steal and rob openly are safe and free, unpunished by anyone while the petty sneak thieves who have committed one offense must bear disgrace and punishment to make the others look respectable and honorable.” Luther just might be referring to public officials and religious leaders of his time. 

Yes, our world is different from the Eighth Century BCE world of Amos, and even from the 16^th century world of Martin Luther, but if we listen closely we can hear echoes of theirs in our own.  In Amos’ day we saw dishonest balances as well as the discontinuation of customs which made food available for the poor.  In our day we see money lent to people who the lenders know cannot pay it back, we see “pay day loans” that can put people in permanent debt, and we see bundled mortgages which make it impossible to extract one’s own mortgage from its entanglement with many others and almost brought down the world economy. 

We as Christians are called to an activism that encourages healthy business practices and discourages dishonesty, builds community and affirms individual strengths and talents and their use for the building up of the community, the nation and the world.   

As we use our talents in community, Christian Activism calls some to contemplation and learning and others to action.  Some of us are called to teach and listen, others to protest the actions of the church or state, some are called to follow the rules, others, like those who worked for civil rights or for the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church, or for rights for homosexual people are called to break them.  Some are called to support the Status Quo and others are called to question it with all our might. 

 I believe Amos is calling for a divine sense of fairness and kindness that perseveres even when the historical moment is one that’s poor in mercy because we who minister in the name of Jesus cease to hear the prophetic call.   

Everyone belongs and no one needs to be scapegoated or excluded.  Evil and Illusion need only to be named and exposed truthfully, and they die in exposure to the light (Richard Rohr). 

Being God’s Person, being part of the kingdom of God is not easy. It requires us to look not only at our own good, but at the good of others, to look not only at the actions of others but at our own actions.  We must stay in relationship with one another and with God in order to make the right decisions, in order to know what is required of us and to have the supportive community in order to carry out what God asks of us. 

By re-reading the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount we will see again the importance of non-violence and simplicity in life taught and lived by Jesus.  And to remember that God reminds us through the Prophet, Micah, that “what is required of us is to do justice, to love Mercy and to walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Reflections on George Zimmerman, Trevon Martin and How America Might Become A Less Violent Nation.

Some Reflections on George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin and How America Might Become

A Less Violent Nation. 

Based on Luke’s Version of “The Good Samaritan Story,” Luke 10: 25-37 

“A lawyer asked Jesus, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  Jesus answered, ‘what is in the law?’  He answered, ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and should and strength; and your neighbor as yourself.’  Jesus said, ‘you have answered rightly. Do this and you will live.’” 

The lawyer (wishing to justify himself) then asked, “who is my neighbor.”  At this point Jesus told a story which most of us have heard over and over.  What caught the attention of Jesus’ hearers was the surprising twist on who helped the man out, the foreigner, the Samaritan, the one who should not have helped, the other.  Then Jesus asked, “which one was a neighbor to this man?  To which the man responded, “the one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus replied, “go and do likewise.” 

As I turned on my computer on Sunday morning to review my sermon for Sunday, the first thing I saw was the news that George Zimmerman had been found Not Guilty of the murder of seventeen year old Trevon Martin.  The irony of this news in light of the Gospel of the day was palpable as the whole issue of what did or did not happen comes back to the lawyer’s question, “who is my neighbor.”  Now I know that the goal in a court of law is not to establish neighborliness, but to prove guilt or innocence “beyond a reasonable doubt.”  I believe, however that it may well be useful for us to look at this situation, this human tragedy, regardless of what actually happened in light of this powerful story. 

There can be no love of God that does not express itself in the love of one’s neighbor. James the brother of Jesus, makes it more clear in his letter when he simply says that “if you say you love God who you cannot see and don’t love your neighbor who you can see then you are a liar.”  Jesus’ message to the lawyer in this story and to us is “we have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so and so is our neighbor or not, we must get into action and behave like we are a neighbor to him or her. 

Perhaps this parable will help those of us who have differing opinions about the outcome of the trial, those of us who were not in the courtroom, those of us want to be safe as well as provide an environment where the other is safe as well, to make better decisions about how we can be neighbor to those around us.  The fact that there are demonstrations and that they are for the most part peaceful gives me hope that our system gives us a way to deal with important issues in a constructive way.   

I also have hope that as we strive to be neighbors that we will have constructive conversations about race in this country, about guns in this country and about violence in this country.  I believe all these issues are present in this situation, pushed down under the surface, but present none the less.   I also believe that these important issues are just under the surface in some form or fashion in most of our lives and communities. 

Above all I believe that this whole situation is a human tragedy that did not and should not have happened.  I believe that having a gun as Zimmerman did may have made him bolder than who should have been, and may well have been the reason he confronted Martin rather than allowing the police to handle the situation after he called it in.  I believe that Martin could have pulled the hood down from over his head and not tempted fate.  I believe that it is time we as a society find ways to settle our differences in peaceful ways. This will be a challenge for us as a nation.  All we have to do is look at Washington to see that our nation’s leaders need some work on how to live and function together in a healthy way.  All we need to do is look at the founding days of our nation and note the way we were built, not only on the freedom of religion and on laws, but on violence against the people who were here when many of our ancestors and founders arrived on our shores.  And we can look at the violence perpetrated on the slaves and indentured servants who were brought here from Africa and from Europe to do the difficult work of carving a nation out of the wilderness. 

We cannot go back and change our history and make the conquering of our land any different than it was.  But, we can acknowledge our past, that we were not always the good guys, that we did not always make decisions based on our faith, but on our interests.  If we acknowledge the violence, cruelty and deception of the building of our nation, we may well be able to understand better why violence still exists today, why it will destroy us if we do not make some changes and we will be able to become the nation that we see glimpses of when we are at our best, we can truly become “. . . .one nation, under God, with Liberty and Justice for All.”