THE GREAT STONE FACE

As I began preparing for this sermon series on prayer, I started out thinking, "How am I possibly going to fill up three sermons with that topic?" And after doing some reflection and research, I ended up thinking, "How am I possibly going to say anything at all of meaning in just three sermons about this subject?" Indeed one that seems so vast and variegated. I find that, in approaching this topic...to speak about prayer over these three Sundays...calls to mind the story of the three blind men and the elephant. And I'm sure that many of you've heard that parable. It's about three blind men who encounter an elephant. And one finds the side of the elephant and says, "It's a wall." And then the other finds its trunk and says, "No, it's a rope." And the third finds its leg and says, "No, it's a tree." I think in many ways, that is what our inquiry is going to seem like, in trying to understand what is vast and, in some ways, impossible to pin down. But today we're going to try to do that.

Today, we're going to begin by some reflection on, maybe, trying to define what prayer is, or how should we think about prayer as Christians. Next Sunday we'll explore a very particular way of thinking about prayer: prayer as a power for healing. And then the third week, on the 24th, we'll explore: How do we pray? How do we practice this thing called prayer?

So this morning, let's just begin with what we might call a few working definitions of prayer, to get us started. Again, humbly, and understanding that no one definition could ever exhaustively pin down what we mean when we say, "prayer." But here's a start. No better place to start than, of course, John Calvin, the founder of our Presbyterian tradition, our beloved patriarch, who wrote of prayer the following. He said, "Prayer is the intimate conversation of the pious with God." Last week we spoke about how God is both mystery beyond human category, and yet wishes to be in relationship with us. So that word "intimate" I think is an important word as we think about prayer. It's the language by which we create a relationship with God, and Calvin says that it's the way by which "our heart discovers the ever-flowing stream of Christ's love," that then changes, and forms, and molds our life."

So from John Calvin, now to Anne Lamott. Another one of my favorite thinkers, who's a contemporary writer and I like to refer to her as a kind of folk theologian. This is not a definition of prayer, but maybe a way to think about categorizing prayer. Anne Lamott says that there are three kinds of prayer: Thank you; Help me; and Wow! I like that. Thank you; Help me; and... "Wow, I had no idea you were so awesome."

From our Book of Confessions, here's a sort of representative and serviceable definition of prayer. From the Westminster Catechism, maybe the most Presbyterian of catechisms in our Book of Confessions, which I'm sure you have by your bedside, each of you. The Westminster Catechism is a question and answer, sort of FAQ catechism, and one of the questions is, "What is prayer?" And here's the definition: "Prayer is an offering up of our desires to God, in the name of Christ, by the help of His spirit, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies." I can almost picture little children, about 100 years ago, memorizing that catechism. Because that's what they used to do--memorize each of those questions and answers. That's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? But I'm going to focus this morning just on the very beginning part of that. We've maybe covered a little bit of the landscape, and now we're going to drill down into one particular way of thinking about prayer. So the beginning of that answer, to the question "What is prayer?" is: "Prayer is the offering up of our desires to God." So we're going to pick that apart, recognizing that it's just one part of the elephant; it's not the whole thing.

And before we begin focusing on this definition, a little parenthetical thought here. Before we begin, a question to raise. I know that one of the money questions in this series, that I promised to address, was the question, "Does God answer prayer?" If we desire something and want something, does our prayer somehow change God? That's a very big question, I think. Does prayer make a difference, somehow? And I don't want to disappoint you, I'm not going to answer that definitively today. I'm more interested in what you think about that question, actually, so I'd really be pleased if you might struggle with the questions on the back of that insert and hand it in, so we can learn what each other thinks about that.

But even though I'm not going to answer it definitively, let's talk a little bit about it. Because at first glance these scripture passages (maybe I stacked the deck a little bit) if we read them, it might appear that the answer to that question--does prayer change God, who is in some sense, by definition immutable and unchangeable--surprisingly enough, listening to these passages, it would seem that the answer is "yes." They seem to indicate that our human desire, our human beckoning and calling upon God, who desires to love us and be in relationship with us, makes a difference.

Were you listening to that story from Genesis that Diane read so beautifully? I find that it's an incredible story. Here is Abraham bargaining with God. You know, he's thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah, and he's remembering, "OK, how many people do I have there? I've got Lot, his wife, his family..." and he's standing before God bargaining. Appealing to the justice of God--the God of the universe; appealing to the essence and nature of God, on behalf of human beings. He says, you know, "OK, if there are 50 righteous people, what's that going to do to your reputation if you destroy the whole place?" And, when God says, no, I won't destroy it for the sake of 50, then Abraham says, you know, "OK, how about 40? How about 30?" and he bargains God down to 10. It's a delightful story, and one that would appear to suggest that God listens to human prayer, and to human beckoning and desire.

Throughout the New Testament, there are scripture passages that also seem to suggest we are dealing not with a God who is a stonewall, and to suggest that we are not to be wallflowers. The scripture I read this morning from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount suggests that we ask, that we seek, that we knock. Of course we don't know what's on the other side of that door, although we know it is ultimately loving and good. We don't know what lies on the other side when it's opened. And we'll have more to say about that later. So keeping that in mind, let's bracket it for a moment. We'll come back to it next week. But, it's important to explore this first--because if we're reflecting on this definition of prayer--lifting up our desires to God--it's important to entertain the notion that God listens to, and is somehow affected by, our prayers.

But let's go back to the definition I mentioned earlier: that prayer is offering our desires up to God. And we might see that in so doing, we become intimate with God and God's desires. You see, I think most people, when we say the word "desire"--I think probably most of us have something of a negative association with that word. We might think that "desire" equals "bad." When we have desire we need to kind of kill it. My experience with Buddhism I think has certainly influenced me in my thinking about this. Because Buddhism truly does have quite a bit of suspicion about human desire. Because you know, what happens in human life, according to Buddhism, is...we want something--I want that thing, and if I get that thing, it doesn't really satisfy the desire I thought I had, and so I want another thing. And I get that thing, and it really doesn't satisfy my desire either, and on and on. It's like the Hamptons, I buy a boat and then I see a bigger boat, and I want that boat, and I want a bigger boat, and on and on. So Buddhism would say that desire leads to suffering. That's the diagnosis. And the cure is that we ought to, sort of, get rid of our desire. We need to work to rid ourselves of it, work toward a mind that is guided by a kind of equanimity and detachment. But you may be surprised to know that Christianity doesn't take that strategy.

Christians don't believe that desire is a bad thing. If you read Dante, in his wonderful poem The Divine Comedy--have I mentioned it before? Sometime in the past? But if you read that wonderful poem (and again, I would commend your exploring it) you get the sense that the problem with the human condition is not too much desire--it's not enough desire. Because, you know, what we think of as desire is a cheap substitute for what is true desire. What we desire is often a cheap substitute for what is the true desire of every human heart, which is God. You see, Christianity takes the view that within each of our breasts is an inborn desire to love what is most desirable, which is God. And there is a classical definition of sin that holds that sin as simply a perversion of our original desire to love God. Because we love, instead of God...we love things as if they were God. You see we endow material things with the desirability that we should reserve for God.

And it's not that desiring things is wrong, as long as we understand that they are stepping stones toward what is most desirable, which is God. St. Augustine put it this way, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee." Our Psalm for today, Psalm 42--did you notice?--spoke about the yearning of the human heart this way: "As a deer yearns for cooling streams, so yearns my soul for God." You see, the problem is, what we desire is often not God. And again, it's not that wanting things is a bad thing, it's what we desire; it's how we desire them. Instead of understanding that these are things that point us toward the object of our true desire, we get confused, and think they, in themselves, can satisfy a desire that only God can fill.

Think about Howard Hughes, for example. A kind of good parable for this point...a person who could have fulfilled any human desire that he wanted to, and yet died a recluse, and miserable, and eccentric. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, I think following Dante, no doubt, C.S. Lewis says that Hell is getting exactly what you want. Hell is getting exactly what you want. And you know, again going back to Dante's poem, the people down in Hell--it's as if God said, "I have this wonderful thing for you, over here; it will truly satisfy you. And yet you want that? And so I'm going to give you exactly what you want." And that's what Hell is, people who get exactly what they want. They follow their desires all the way to their logical conclusion, and find themselves in Hell. And the irony is that they want to be there.

So, here's the punch line of the sermon today, as we talk about prayer. And I would encourage you, if you remember nothing from this morning, to remember this idea: we become what we desire. We become what we desire. And ultimately what prayer does in our life, as we practice it, is to tune our desire to accord with that of God's.

We speak of the will of God, and we think of our will as somehow different; as if there somehow has to be a kind of dialectic there--my will has to sort of accommodate, to give in, to the will of God, which is somehow better than what I want. And yet, if we plumb the depths of our desire, we find exactly there, interposed with our own, God's yearning for us and for the world.

So if you're going to pray, prayer is about examining your desire. You might put it this way: prayer commends us to look at what we're looking at. You know, if what we're looking at sort of indicates what we desire, it means looking at what we're looking at. You go into a store, and think, "I want that thing." You know? What we behold, in some sense, indicates what we desire. And thus we become what we desire. What holds our attention, what involves our being, determines really the kind of person we are.

In that first chapter of John's gospel, in the passage I read, John the Baptist's disciples see Jesus over there, and they're people, I think, who want to engage in the spiritual life, and they want to check Jesus out. And so they follow him. And Jesus looks back, he sees them following, and he says, "What are you looking for?" And if you hear that question in your life, you know you've begun the spiritual journey. It's a good question for each of us to ask ourselves, at whatever stage we find ourselves. What are you looking for? And they ask, "Where are you going?" And Jesus says, "Come and see." That's a great parable for the spiritual life: come and see. We become what we desire, and we become what we behold. And prayer is the means by which we create a relationship with God, and through that relationship understand God's desire, which if we explore it deeply enough, we somehow discover then matches our own deepest desire.

I want to end with a story. And it's a parable, really, that was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the 19th century novelist. I wish I could give homework. I would assign this story that I'm about to tell in a moment. It's a story called The Great Stone Face, hence the title for this morning's sermon. The Great Stone Face. You can find it on the internet, check it out this week, and read it. I think it is a parable about prayer, and what it means to live a life of prayer.

But the Great Stone Face was a work of nature--an outcropping of rocks situated in a valley among a family of majestic mountains. And this outcropping of rock bespoke an image that represented the greatest ideal of humankind. And the inhabitants of the valley would look at the venerable countenance of the great stone face out on the outcropping of that rock, on the side of that mountain, and see in it all that represented their highest ideals and yearnings. The story involves a character named Ernest, whose deepest desire is to see the prophesy fulfilled in his lifetime: that a human being would come, whose visage and whose character would reflect and embody that of the Great Stone Face, which the inhabitants of the valley looked upon with great awe and reverence.

And the rumor spread that the prophesy was going to be fulfilled, imminently, and Ernest, a humble man whose quiet wisdom seemed to grow as he looked each day so intently upon the face upon that rock, found himself looking with the people to see who it might be; who might come to embody the Great Stone Face. First people thought the Great Stone Face had come in the form of a wealthy man who had lived in the valley and come back a wealthy man. And he built a mansion in the valley, gilded with gold. But soon they came to realize that he was not the one, and all that was left of his great wealth was the shell of a mansion. Then they thought it was a great warrior who had lived in the valley and returned, having attained some fame in battle. Perhaps he is the Great Stone Face, they thought. But no, he was not the one. And then they thought it was a politician with a silver tongue who visited the valley. All thought him to be embodiment of the Great Stone Face. But Ernest knew, and all the inhabitants eventually came to know, that he too was inadequate to embody the highest virtue that the Great Stone Face had come to represent.

All the while, Ernest's quiet wisdom grew, as he became an old man--still searching for the one who would embody the spirit of that face that had become so important to him, that almost seemed to speak to him he had become so intimate with it. But, people unbidden by him would come seeking his words and his insight. And it happened that a poet came to visit him, who had also been inspired by the Great Stone Face. They spoke of their yearning to see the face revealed in human form. At the end of the story, Ernest rose near the mountain to speak to the people who had come seeking him. And the poet who listened to the words of the old man looked at the rocks, and gazed upon the Great Stone Face, and then fixed his gaze back upon the old man, and realized the mystery. And he said, "Behold, behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face." He had become his greatest desire.

We become what we desire. And prayer is the means by which we become God's desire for us. May it be so.

Amen.