October 17, 2010
Gen 32: 24
2 Timothy 3:14 -4:5
Luke 18: 1-8
For those of you who have a solid and rewarding prayer life, I encourage you to leave and go get coffee somewhere for the next 20 minutes. I don’t want anything I say to influence you and the prayer life you have. In fact, I have avoided bringing a teaching for several years because I have been questioning a lot of basic beliefs about the Christian faith and I don’t want to lead anyone into doubting a faith that they have and that is nurturing to them.
I signed up to bring the teaching today not knowing what the scripture was, and prepared to, worse case, talk about Jesus’ ministry to the poor and imprisoned, tell you about the wonderful work that is going on where I work at OAR, and hoping to bring some type of inspiration. But then I read the scriptures. Not just the Gospel reading in Luke, but the other three readings as well. So, I am going to talk to you about what I think about prayer. Actually, what I think the scripture is telling us, and then my own experiences.
We know that when the scripture was written, not a lot was known about the physical world. Heaven was up – just above the sky. Unexplainable events were labeled miracles. And, in the Genesis passage, whoever wrote down the story of Jacob wrestling with the man during the night, was trying to convey a HUGE event in the life of the people of Israel – including how they got their name – and this is how he wrote it: READ Genesis.
My father told me the story of how he became a minister. During WWII he had been kept state side in order to teach men how to fly. Toward the end of the war, he really wanted to be set oversees and he heard that they were hiring pilots to fly transport planes – moving men and equipment around at the end of the war. So, he traveled to Dallas to take the required flying test. Here are my father’s words: “This young Lieutenant who maybe had 200 hours of flying experience, compared to my 1400 hours, flunked me. I couldn’t believe it. I went back to my hotel room and I prayed and complained and fussed with God until about 3 a.m. Then I accepted the decision. God wanted me to go into the ministry. Once I made that decision, everything became peaceful and I never questioned it again.” My father wrestled with God and they came to an understanding.
Are these two stories just stories – Jacob’s and my dad’s -- or do they teach us something? With all the information we now have about psychology and how the mind works, you might think we could turn these stories into something prescriptive, instead of just descriptive of what happen. I think maybe these two stories should just stay in the story category – confirming that we humans have the ability to wrestle with ourselves, calling at least one of our many selves God or Spirit. The stories do invite us to be in conversation in a place by ourselves, where we can hear what it is God (or one of our many selves) needs us to hear. Without that time alone, we won’t hear what we need to hear. My guess is that most of us have had one or two of these powerful encounters in our lives. I will just remind us that unless we spend time alone, we can’t and won’t have another one.
Now let’s look at the story in Luke. The passage says that Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. Actually, this scripture has several themes. Prayer, never giving up, the idea that God is going to bring justice far more readily than an unjust Judge, and faithfulness.
This story is prescriptive – Luke is telling us that Jesus is telling us to always pray and not give up. Actually, we hear this theme quite a bit in the New Testament. Given that the Jews at the time were under Roman occupation, it would not be surprising that the scriptures would stress faithfulness. And we find this theme in the Old Testament through the trials and tribulations of the people of Israel – waiting for God to intervene in their lives.
For me, the issue of God intervening in an individual’s life, or a nation’s life, is a big challenge. Did you watch the 3-part series on PBS this week about God in America? Fascinating how we have seemed to toggle back and forth with the notion of a personal God who intervenes in human affairs, and a God who has set up the world and given us what we need, and left us to do the rest. Many of the well-known founding fathers were Deist – although not publicly. I first found this out when doing research on Thomas Payne years ago. With this belief that man is responsible for what God has set in place, they were able to build a legal and cultural belief that promoted individual liberty and fairness. The program strongly suggested that it was the religious revivalist during the 1740-70 who were preaching and teaching that individuals had a right and a way to commune directly with God – without the hierarchy of a church, and that this liberation theology at the time, allowed men to assume that such liberty should expand to freedom of government as well. That was new information for me. So, the Deists and the revivalist merged to create a movement that, although never expressed outright, shared the common belief that human beings can and should be free to chart their destinies. Interestingly, when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he went back to God’s authority: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Over the last 250 years we have had political leaders and religious leaders who have influenced the collective thinking back and forth on the issue of whether or not God intervenes directly in human events.
Okay, so what does this have to do with prayer?
Well, just think about it. If you do not believe God intervenes in human events, then what is prayer all about?
And, if you DO believe God intervenes in human events, then where is God in the midst of all the fighting and sorrow our world has and is experiencing. How can you possibly believe what Luke says that Jesus says: “I tell you he (God) will see that they get justice, and quickly.”
Here is my hypothesis about prayer:
God intervenes in human events because humans intervene. God works to heal the sick because humans work to heal the sick. God responds to sorrow because humans respond to sorrow. Prayer is the act of reaching down into ourselves to find the God of creation, talking things over, and then acting. When I have felt the spirit leading, and I have, I believe that I am able to feel the spirit leading because I, I have gotten aligned with the God within me. It is this alignment that makes unimaginable things happen. That is why it is absolutely critical that we pray ALL THE TIME. We are not praying to a being outside of ourselves. We are aligning with the power of the universe that is within us. THAT IS WHY WE MUST PRAY ALL THE TIME – WITHOUT CEASING. Pray walking, in the airport, just before going to sleep, just as we wake up. Take the rock and roll music out of our ears. Cut the news off in our cars.
Our Psalm for today: 121: “I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” This Psalm says to me that the trials and tribulations will always be with us. We have a source of strength that will always be with us. I believe it is within us – not outside.
In the middle of the Luke passage, my Bible referred me to: Isaiah 40:31 “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Those who hope in the Lord, depend upon the Lord, align themselves with the Lord.
Bad things happen to Good People. My brother is in prison. I do not believe God put him there for a reason – although I think my sister does. That makes no sense to me. I think that there is good and evil in the world and that evil prevailed in this instance. But God is accessible to my brother. My brother is aligned with God – he is revealing God’s goodness in the way he lives inside prison. His frequent phrase is: It is what it is. He is not bitter. He is faithful. And so, how do I pray for my brother? I pray that I can reflect God’s goodness to him, and to those around me who have been affected by his imprisonment and by an unjust criminal justice system. I pray in an effort to align myself with the power that is in the universe so that I will be present when God needs to show up.
Whether we think the Lord is within us, or a being outside of us, to whom we pray may seem like an issue of semantics to you. I don’t think so. If I pray to God as an outside being, then my prayer can easily be: God bless this person, heal this person, be with this person, bring us a miracle so that we can meet payroll next week. If I pray to a God within me, then my prayer must be: How can I bless this person, be part of this person’s healing, be with this person, be present to the funding opportunities that abound. I don’t think I must literally heal everyone I hear about or be physically present with each person I pray about, but my praying aligns myself with that person in a way that brings some type of power to the situation. I don’t know how to describe it. But I have felt it – as a recipient and as a prayer.
The take away message this morning is to pray – however you come to understand prayer. Pray all the time. Through whatever means works for you. That is why prayer is an essential discipline for Covenant Membership in 8th Day. I hope these words will challenge you and perhaps free you to “pray” without ceasing.