Persevere in Prayer 6-17-12

The Reading: Romans 12: 9-21

Your love must be sincere. Hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Love one another with the affection of sisters and brothers. Try to outdo one another in showing respect. Don’t grow slack, but be fervent in spirit: The One you serve is Christ. Rejoice in hope; be patient under trial; persevere in prayer. Look on the needs of God’s holy people as your own; be generous in offering hospitality. Bless your persecutors—bless and don’t curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same attitude toward everyone. Don’t be condescending to those who aren’t as well off as you; don’t be conceited. Don’t repay evil with evil. Be concerned with the highest ideal in the eyes of all people. Do all you can to be at peace with everyone. Don’t take revenge; leave room, my friends, for God’s wrath. To quote scripture, “’Vengeance is mine, I will pay them back’, says our God. But there is more: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them drink. For in doing so, you will heap burning coals upon their heads.” Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by doing good.

The Gospel Reading: Mark 11: 22-25

In reply, Jesus said, “Put your trust in God. The truth is, if any of you say to this mountain, ‘Get up and throw yourself into the sea,’ and you don’t doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will happen, it will happen. That’s why I tell you that whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have already received it, and it will be done for you. And when you stand praying, forgive anyone against whom again you have a grievance, so that your loving God in heaven may in turn forgive you your faults.” (The Inclusive Bible © 2007)
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Persevere in Prayer 6-17-12
God, we come humbly and gratefully into your presence today. You have given us the sweet gift of prayer. Inspire our hearts today to learn more of you in our study today. May the words of my mouth and the meditations and the prayers of all of us bring you honor and glory. Amen

Every time that I preach a sermon on prayer, lead a study on prayer practices, or read a book, I find my humility anew. The more I know of prayer, the more I realize how much I have to learn. So, I stand in front of you, because that is what I am supposed to do at this time every Sunday, but I stand honestly, a student just like you on this subject of prayer. I gain some satisfaction from knowing that I am never expected to know all there is to know of prayer, but I am challenged to allow more of the grace that comes with a life of constant prayer into my life.
An interesting thing happened this week—many of you know that I was struggling with ear infections last week. Well, they worsened and for at least two days, I could hear very little of the outside world unless I turned up the volume on the television to a level that scared even the dogs. So, as I almost always do, I asked God what message I should take from this experience. Expecting some comforting message about taking better care of myself, I was rocked to the core, when God finally said: “Your sacred listening is too scattered—spend more time with Me”. Now, I know that you realize that I’m not talking about God actually saying those words audibly—wouldn’t have mattered at that point—I couldn’t have heard them. Inside, in my deepest heart, I knew this insight to be true. So I argued for a while—tried telling God that it was my job to listen to many folks—that the congregation needed my attention—and God said, “Devote your sacred time, your holy time to Me alone and all the others will be heard as well”.
I sat for awhile after this revelation. Realizing that God was not calling me to a different kind of prayer life, I did not run to find one of my many books about prayer and see what direction that would take me. God was, instead, calling me to a different kind of prayer itself—a communication that is complete—me to God and God to me. And, though, I wanted to argue that I already do that, I made a decision to accept this challenge as true and learn from it. I was reminded of the time when as a mother, I decided I should quiz my then 19-year-old son about what he knew about cars since he drove one constantly. So, like any good mother/father would do, I asked him, “David, what do you do when your car is making a loud noise?” Without missing a beat, he replied, “Turn the volume on the radio up!” I realized that in many ways, I and probably many of us, have been turning the volume of the world up when God’s voice gets too loud for us to ignore.
So, I went to scripture first to see what I could learn. There is little recorded about actual words that Jesus used to pray all those long, lonely hours that He managed to slip away from the multitudes and even the disciples . That He did so is recorded many times in all the Gospels. Jesus travelled in what we would call an “entourage”. Once the 12 disciples were called we hear very little of any activity of theirs that was separate from Jesus. So, they were stuck to Jesus like glue and Jesus had to slip away in order to clearly hear the Word God was speaking to him. Think for a moment about what Jesus might have prayed about—did He ask for strength and courage, I would assume so. Did He ask for rest for His body and for the disciples—seems likely. Did He ask for guidance and for insight into what it meant to be God’s child—I imagine so. So far seems pretty much like a prayer any of us would make. But Jesus clearly added one more aspect to His prayers with His Holy Parent—surrender to God’s will for Him, for His ministry. Jesus knew where His power came from and not one time did He claim it to be His alone. This surrender is felt throughout His ministry. And surrender led to trust for Jesus just as it will lead to trust in all of those of us who practice adding the blessed surrender to our prayers. In surrender, we learn to listen and in listening, we learn to trust.
Jesus said this about prayer in the passage we heard read: “Trust God. If you want this mountain to be thrown into the sea, pray for it, believe in your prayer, and expect it to happen. Anything you ask for in prayer will be done for you if you believe.”. And here comes the kicker—you knew it couldn’t be that easy—“and when you pray, forgive first anyone that you think has wronged you. This way your loving God, may forgive you what you have done.”
Many pastors choose to emphasize the first half of the saying. It is, obviously, the most appealing—mountains being thrown into seas and what-not just because we believe it will happen. But this passage is also used as a passage used to beat up Christians who struggle in prayer, and for whom prayers never seem to be answered. But Jesus does not describe the how and when these things will happen. Let me repeat that—Jesus does not describe the how and when these prayed-for things will happen. We are expected to believe that once we ask, things are in God’s hands. It always frustrates—no, angers—me when anyone uses this passage in judgment against one whose prayers seem to go unanswered. God is still God, and we, ourselves sin when we question God’s answer to another’s prayer. I have often wondered why the order of this passage is as it is.
Nevertheless, we must not, cannot, take the first half away from the context of the second. Indeed, the second half of the brief statement is the part that calls us to forgiveness of all those whom we perceive to have wronged us. It is the second half that calls us back to an understanding of relationship—with God, with others and with ourselves. Then there is the “F” word—no, not that one—the other one—‘forgiveness’. Now, I don’t know about you, but forgiveness for me is hard. It requires surrender. It requires me to say—so it doesn’t matter that so-and-so will never apologize, doesn’t matter if that person refuses to acknowledge what they have done—I can’t do that in my own power—it comes down to surrender. Now we know that God’s will for us is that we live in right relationship with God and with each other. Right relationship will be absent until we surrender to the call of forgiveness. The call to forgiveness is at the heart of our prayer lives as individuals or communities. And it is certainly at the heart of right relationship.
Our passage from Romans almost reads like a laundry list of components of a right relationship. Two of these components stick out for me in today’s discussion of prayer and surrender.
• Our love for each other—and these include all the ‘each other’s’ that we have forgiven—must be sincere—in other words, our lack of forgiveness will slip out every time. Sincerity grows from honesty and honesty calls us back to surrender.
• The One we serve is Christ. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome has much to teach us as we continue our journey towards all that God has called us to be as people and community. Indeed, it is in our service to Christ that we are continually and spiritually formed as God’s children.
What about my conversation with God? I kinda hoped you had forgotten or assigned it to an obvious side effect of the antihistamines. But, the most important thing I do, is share my journey with you—to share my own struggle with surrender and with forgiveness—to share both the heavy side and the light side of my relationship with God, with myself, and with you, my friends and family. When we are called by God to respond to God’s radical welcome, we do not fall fully-formed from the sky. Most of us are rolling along in our lives, doing the best we can to be happy, healthy, and productive. And, suddenly, we realize that our journey is changing, that we are not just accepted and loved by God, but called by God to be different and to make a difference in the lives of others. This may happen many times over as our spiritual lives deepen or when we slip away and we need a quiet tap on the shoulder.
In the call to forgiveness, God positions our own place of prayer on the path of right relationship. I pray that this is a church where people find and explore that very path—a place where we know that when we welcome God into our midst that we are welcoming a God who welcomes and loves us, a place where people are right with each other and it is obviously so, a place of welcome and generosity to the weary and broken in this world, and a place which inspires, calls, and leads each of us to be in right relationship with ourselves and our God. And so, as you stand to sing, we say together, amen and amen.