The Reading: James 5: 13-16
Are any of you in trouble? Then pray. Are any of you in good spirits? Then sing a hymn of praise. Are any of you sick? Then call for the elders of the church, and have them pray over those who are sick and anoint them with oil in the name of Christ. And this prayer offered in faith will make them well, and Christ will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. So confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayers of the just are powerful and effective.
THE GOSPEL: Matthew 6: 5-13
“And when you pray, don’t behave like the hypocrites; they love to pray standing up in the synagogues and on street corners for people to see them. The truth is, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go to your room, shut the door, and pray to God who is in that secret place, and your Abba God—who sees all that is done in secret—will reward you. And when you pray don’t babble like the Gentiles. They think God will hear them if they use a lot of words. Don’t imitate them. Your God knows what you need before you ask it. This is how you are to pray:
‘Abba God in heaven, hallowed be your name! May your reign come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and give us today the bread of Tomorrow. And forgive us our debts, as we hereby forgive those who are indebted to us. Don’t put us to the test, but free us from evil.’”
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God of all creation, we come into your presence with expectations only you can meet. Bless us this day with your Holy Spirit and may all that I say and all that we ponder bring you honor and glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen
In our first two sermons in this current series, we talked about receiving the presence of Christ in our lives. In our first sermon, I invited you to experience the invitation to the Table as an invitation to being and living the Good News yourselves. I invited you to think about how you want to go about being the Good News. I asked you to contemplate the question: “What do you need from each other, or from me, your pastor? What, even, do you need from God?” in order to be the Good News in the world. I’m hoping that you are continuing to tell others that you are the Good News and that you are wrestling with all that means in your lives. The second week we acknowledged that “we do not spring full-grown in our spiritual lives. We need guidance, we need practice, and we need a continuing sense of the presence of God’s love.” We spoke of exploring God’s Word with spiritual consistency. We talked about learning to listen to God and learning to put aside the claim of the world upon our lives so that we can recognize the very presence of God in the here and now.
Today, we will strike out boldly and begin to look at the calling to be the Good News in the world as a calling to a life of prayer—individual and corporate as the Body of Christ. I’ve noticed that many people tend to squirm in their seats if they believe they are about to be asked to pray. In many churches, prayers are full of complicated words, wild claims on God and God’s actions, thinly veiled attempts to encourage people to feel guilty about something or another and the prayers go on for so long that you dose off hoping you will be awakened by the loud Amen at the end. This, my friends, is not a life of prayer and our Gospel reading shows that Jesus was not won over by these kinds of prayers at all. Today, we will take a beginning look at a topic that has been made complicated, but is really not complicated at all.
Our passage from James contains all that the church needs to know about prayer. Anybody unhappy? Pray. Anybody happy? Sing praises. Anybody sick? Call the church leadership and pray over them, even anointing them with oil. Christ will do the rest. Anybody not in right relationship with themselves, with another, with God? Confess your sins to each other. And then the promise: The prayers of the just are powerful and effective. Seems relatively simple—time to ask ourselves why we make it so hard.
While we may find it difficult, it is important to remember that Jesus, was himself, a person of prayer. We know little of what he said in his prayers, but we know that he prayed A LOT. The Gospel writers record often that Jesus went away to pray. His earthly ministry began with 40 long days of praying and fasting in the desert. He prayed in the garden and on the cross. Jesus was a human being who knew the importance of conversation with God. Although we do not have much information regarding the content of his prayers, we do have instructions on prayer from him. Think for just a moment about the incredible gift this is. I, for one, have little patience for those who think they are experts and you will rarely find me being more than simply polite when they speak. I long for the time and space to be able to learn from those who are living their truths—and, here, in the life of Jesus, we see just this.
Jesus stands on the mountainside in a sort of spur of the moment amphitheater. He is speaking in a very structured way about what it means to truly be a disciple and to worship God. Just as we join the crowd, he comes to his point on prayer:
“And when you pray, don’t act like those people who pray only to hear their own voices and not with any great love for God or for humankind. All the reward they are ever going to get is in the applause of the shallow people around them. God has not heard a word they’ve said. Here’s how I want you to pray: go into your room and shut the door. Block out the presence of all those other things that call you away from your time of prayer. Pray to God there—to the God who longs to hear you and connect with you in private. Talk just like you would talk to each other. God isn’t impressed by big words, God loves you so much that your needs are known to God even before you ask. So use simple words, everyday words. Here’s how you should pray.
Our God, you are precious to us, holy is your name. Let all that you taught us through Jesus Christ come true, now, here on this earth—May your justice be everywhere in the world. May everyone live in the peace of your presence. God, give us exactly what we need so that our hearts will be focused on you. Give us just enough bread so that we have bread for each day. Forgive us when we are not in right relationship with You, with our neighbor, with our world, and with our selves. Lead us to forgive each other in the very same way you forgive us—completely, not keeping a list of wrongdoings. Don’t let temptation lead us away from you and what you would have us do and free us from the habit of putting our own needs first. Amen.”
This is what Jesus taught us about prayer through his life and his teachings. Prayer is, first and foremost, about our relationship with God. When we are ‘not right’ with one another or within ourselves, we are ‘not right’ with God. Prayer is our first effort to right that relationship. Listening and doing are our second and third efforts.
The older I get, the more I learn about prayer. Prayer is the path through which we learn to live in the presence of God. By this, I do not mean that God is not present to us because God is always present—but through prayer I am learning to continually be present to God.
How do we learn to pray? By praying. That’s all, by praying. Now, let me tell you a few of the ways I have learned to pray—you might want to try some of them on. I pray by going for a walk and talking to God. If I am frustrated or angry, I try to go places where I won’t disturb other walkers if I get loud. I pray by going for a drive—driving, probably because it requires a concrete skill which has become ingrained in my memory though years of driving, clears my head and makes me more open to hearing God’s word of peace or love. I pray by going to places that I have felt the presence of the ‘holy’ before. Simply by going there again, I find myself in a place where I can pray. I hope that someday we will have such a ‘sacred place’ easily available for all of us on Open Circle property. My ‘holy places’ have over time been churches themselves, parks, labyrinths, certain beaches and other places where I have identified the feeling of holy. Sacred places are important in our lives. Some people find that their prayer life is enhanced by a special place in their homes set aside for seeking and finding the presence of God—a home altar of sorts.
Then there is prayer in the Body of Christ—this Body of Christ. When you ask for prayer, it is one of the great gifts that God gives to every pastor. But God also gives this to each of you. By allowing yourself to be prayed for and to be praying for others when needed, you are building up the Body of Christ. It is my prayer that we will become a praying congregation—that, as we are comfortable, our meetings will become increasingly in tune with the presence of God, and we will pray often and simply. It is my prayer that, as a people, we will turn more and more to God for guidance, wisdom, and courage—that we will walk into the future firmly planted and rooted in the practice of prayer. And as you grow, we all grow; just as our communal spiritual growth impacts your own. And so it is—we live the God News in ways that contribute to the spiritual growth of this congregation, this denomination, and ultimately, the world. Our lives are a prayer, our words a love sonnet to the God who loves us and calls us “beloved”. Amen and Amen
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