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I Thessalonians 5:12-24, Romans 8:26-27, Matthew 6:5-15
[Since spoken communication differs from written, some of the grammar and syntax of this transcript may seem awkward in written form. To keep integrity with the spirit of the original delivery, the transcript stays close to the exact words spoken.]
Today's sermon is the third installment of a three-part series on prayer. We've been reflecting on the question, "What is prayer?" I didn't want to take time to review the first two sermons of the series, but I did a very brief summary for you on a blue insert in your bulletin. Please feel free to take time to review that.
The first two sermons in this series have focused, for the most part, on how we think about prayer. How we might approach understanding, or in some sense, "standing under" (I suggested last week) prayer. Theologizing about prayer. Today I want to focus on the "doing" part of prayer. How do we practice prayer? How do we do it? I'm going to offer three images--they're actually three ways of doing prayer, but let's call them for now images of prayer--that I think are helpful in one's developing a prayer discipline.
I need to take this opportunity--I can't pass up the opportunity--to encourage you, if you don't have a prayer discipline, to develop one. To find a way in your everyday life to integrate spiritual practice. It makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference in my life, and I want to suggest that in our practice of Christian faith, that's an essential thing for us to develop, a way of practicing our faith every day.
So, three images that I hope might help in developing such a practice. The first one is breathing, the second is listening, and the third is seeing. Breathing, listening, seeing. They're not just images--those comprise, really, what prayer is.
So, breathing. Let's take a moment to look at that as not just as an image of prayer, but a way of praying. I think it's a wonderful image, because breathing is not something we have to think about doing, is it? I mean, we don't put a "to-do" item in our day timer each morning that says, "Breathe." Although maybe some of us would do well to put that in there: "Breathe" before we do. Breathing is something we do automatically--it comes out of our being. I think, therefore, it's a neat image that helps us connect our "being" and our "doing." Because if breathing comes out of our being, it's not something we have to think about, but it's also an activity. It's a bridge between our "doing" and our "being." And it suggests that prayer is not just something we do, like going to the gym and getting our workout, it is, in fact, a practice of our life. A practice of life.
In the passage from I Thessalonians that we all heard this morning, we hear in that passage an exhortation to "pray without ceasing." To pray without ceasing. Now, some of the ancient fathers in the Eastern tradition of Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox tradition, took that exhortation very seriously. They read that exhortation "pray without ceasing" and they thought, "How can we do that? How can we pray without ceasing, and still take time out for real life?" And they developed a spiritual practice around a prayer known as The Jesus Prayer. It's the prayer spoken by Bartimaeus in Mark 10. Bartimaeus was a blind beggar, and heard Jesus coming by, and cried out, "Lord Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner!" So they took that prayer, and they developed a whole spiritual practice around it, using their breath. They would take that prayer and they would practice it with their breathing. Breathing in, and saying that prayer, breathing out, and saying that prayer, for long periods of time during the day. So that prayer and their breath became one. They then developed the sense that their breathing was also their praying. And so that they could go throughout their day and not cease from the activity of prayer. Life, for them, therefore becomes prayer. To pray without ceasing.
So, breathing suggests that prayer isn't just something we do, but is a practice of our life. It's not just saying words--it is a part of our being.
I think here might be a good place to mention just a brief word about the distinction that people sometimes make between prayer and meditation...between prayer, which we might think involves, for the most part, words; and, as I've been suggesting the last couple of sermons, involves a conversation, an intimate conversation. And, as a conversation, we're stuck with words and concept. And meditation, as distinct from prayer, we might think of as a way of praying beyond words, where we give up discursive thought. We give up words, so that we can experience the reality beyond word and concept. There are different kinds of meditation, but that summarizes in many ways what we mean when we say "meditation." Or, Christians have sometimes referred to that as "contemplation."
And some make a distinction between those two things, meditation and prayer. I, myself, don't do that. In my own spiritual practice, I get up really early in the morning, and I go to my prayer room, which is my study, and I follow a discipline that I learned from the Buddhist community--it's become very precious to me--that involves praying without words. Following my breath, and trying to experience the mystery beyond words. But I don't think of that as "not prayer." One of the ancient mystics in the Christian tradition once said that God spoke one word throughout all eternity, and that word was silence. So for me, that kind of prayer is being with God--resting with God, resting in God. And it informs the other kind of prayer that I do following that time--praying for people in the congregation, and people in my life; spending time with the scriptures, and so on.
So, I just want to suggest that prayer might involve both words, and not words...and what is beyond words.
So, when we say that prayer involves both words and speaking, and not speaking, maybe that's a good segue into my second image that I said I would suggest to you, and that's the image, or the activity, of listening. Last couple of sermons, again, mostly I've been talking about prayer as a way of speaking to God, suggesting that it really involves our asking, boldly, of God. But if it is a conversation, we should be reminded that conversing requires us to listen, as well as speak. We can often, I think, forget that that's part of prayer. I think one of the edges for us, in our worship life, is just that. If you'll notice we do spend, as Presbyterians, an awful lot of time talking during the service, and not a lot of time listening. And I think that there may be something that we need to explore about that.
Prayer involves listening. And if we listen, we do so with the faith that God really does speak to our lives, and the real situations of our lives, not in some vacuum, but to the real, difficult situations that we might face.
I've been struck by the comments that some people have offered in response to the little questionnaire that I put in the bulletin. And some people have emailed me stories about their experiences with prayer, many of which were life-changing experiences. And I wanted to offer just one, sort of representative story among the many that people emailed to me. One person emailed a story about a time in her life when she was taking care of a husband who had a terminal illness, and felt she was failing in life--as a wife, caregiver, as a mother, as an employee. And because of her prayer life, and some spiritual counsel, she decided to take a leap of faith. She quit her job. And the leap of faith was about whether she would have enough money to survive. As she told the story, she said, "I never would have discovered a kind of abundance that unfolded for me because of that decision." A decision that wouldn't have happened without this process of listening, in the practice of prayer.
So, prayer is breathing, listening, and I want to suggest that also prayer is seeing.
Prayer is, in the spirit of being a life-practice, prayer is a way of looking at the world. Jesus' teaching on prayer in John 6--what he says here is that prayer is not about words, fundamentally. He says, "When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who like to make a big deal of their speeches in the synagogues. Don't be like the gentiles, who think their prayers are going to get heard for their eloquence, and their many words." He says, basically, "Prayer is a matter of the heart." He says, "When you pray...." and he gives a prayer to teach about prayer. He gives words, ironically, to teach about what is fundamentally of the heart.
But, the way he introduces his teaching about prayer is really important, and I think sometimes we might miss what Jesus says here. He doesn't say, "When you pray, say these words." Sometimes I think we say the Lord's Prayer that way. "When you pray, say these words"--he doesn't say that. He says, "When you pray, pray like this." If he were a Buddhist master, he might be saying, "When you pray, pray with this mind." And I think Jesus offers this prayer not as words, but as a world beyond words, in which we can live. A world that unfolds in our heart.
So, we ought to speak those words as suggestive of a way of life, and a way of looking at the world. And I don't have time this morning to exegete, to comment on, the whole prayer, but just really suggestively to say...(I saw somebody's head nod. I don't have time to comment on the whole prayer!) Maybe that's a good assignment for homework, to think about what prayer opens into our heart when we say the Lord's Prayer.
It is one that doesn't begin with "my" it begins with "our." A plural pronoun. A God as intimate as a father, a parent. A God whom we are to trust for our daily life and daily bread. We're invited to occupy a kingdom that is both eternal, in the heavens, and right here and right now. A kingdom that we experience most closely when we love and forgive others, and in that way, impute to ourselves forgiveness. And we find our deepest purpose in glorifying this God whose power, glory, and majesty is revealed in all things. A God who is sovereign over all of life, and over our life. That's the world Jesus invites us to see when we say those words. Not just saying the words, but seeing the world beyond the words.
So, those are three words: breathing; listening; seeing. But there's one other one that I feel like I need to include here. (I lied, there are actually four words, four images that I want to talk about this morning.) After I wrote this final section of my sermon, Tom Wilfrid emailed me his reflections about prayer. And he said, "You know, I wish we could connect our praying with our action." That really resonates with me. And it's where I wanted this series to end.
Because, if we are listening to God, it will change us. And it may be that that change isn't going to be pretty in our lives. It may mean that we get sent somewhere, maybe even a place where we don't want to go. The letter of James states that faith without works is barren, is dead. Christianity without action is dead. So if we're really involved in this process of prayer, we find it does not lead us selfward, but it leads us otherward. It leads us outward, into the world, to seek to claim that world for the love of Jesus Christ. Prayer is not navel-gazing for it's own sake. It's meant to change us, and impel us beyond ourselves into a life of service and self-donation. My friend and mentor in the faith, Robert McAfee Brown, who I came to know at First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto said that Christian life involves two things: praying and picketing. Because if we're praying, we might find ourselves ending up on the picket line, advocating for God's justice in a very broken and hurting world.
In the intimate conversation that Jonah had with God--remember the story from Sunday school? Jonah heard and listened to God saying to him, "Go to Nineveh!" And he said, "I don't want to go to Nineveh." God says, "You have no choice." That may be what God does in our life. If we truly listen in this intimate conversation, we may hear a final image in this practice of prayer, and that is the image of sending. We may hear this word, emanating from the voice of God--Go, for I am sending you.
So, breathe--prayer is a life practice. Listen--prayer is not just speaking, but listening. See, and look. And go; be sent by the one who made you. May it be so.
Amen.
June 24, 2007
Jeff Vamos
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