(silent prayer -
unannounced)
I quite like that: Spiritual Communion - a coming together
of spirits between us and the One whom we worship.
//
In a parable story, Jesus
presented contrasting prayers.
First a pharisee.
By all accounts, Jesus,
himself was a pharisic jew. He worshiped
in synagogues, he believed in an active spiritual realm, he championed social
justice, he found inspiration and authority in not only the books of the Torah,
but also in the prophets and other writings in scripture. Like other pharisees, Jesus believed that
there was a resurrection hope for the
dead. Jesus respected the pharisaic way
of faithful living.
Jesus' audience would
naturally assume that the pharisee in the parable would be a person worthy of
admiration.
In the story Jesus told, a pharisee stands out
in the open and prays loudly (for everyone to hear): bragging to God that he is
deeply devout - O Lord, I follow faithful
religious practices: fasting twice per week, giving a tenth of my income. Aren't I great, God - better than
others. I thank you, God, that I am not
a thief, an adulterer, a rogue, nor (point)
a tax-collector. Even though this pharisee is in prayer, his
focus seems to be on his surrounding; he is looking around, pointing out to God
(in the middle of his prayer) that there is a less devout tax-collector in the
Temple at the same time.
I'm
the best pharisee.
Nobody
prays as well as I do.
//
Jesus is clearly implying
that this pharisee is doing more than personally communing spiritually with
God; the pharisee clearly wants others in the Temple to hear his words. He wants others to contrast his life and
faith with that of the tax-collector. The
pharisee fully expects to win this little piety contest.
//
Now, just as they would
have a natural positive reaction to a pharisee, the audience listening to Jesus
would have had an instant negative reaction to the character of the
tax-collector.
//
During the first century,
Judea was an nation occupied by the Roman Empire that was at the height of its
reach and influence.
Rome's expansionism was a
means of expanding its tax base. People
in the lands it controlled were expected to pay taxes to Caesar. Provincial governers along with puppet regional
leaders set up systems to ensure that the Empire got what it wanted. Practically, complicit locals were recruited
by the Empire to collect these taxes.
To their compatriots, these tax collectors were viewed as traitors to their own people.
Tax collectors were given a
quota to collect for their region - their personal income was derived from
collecting amounts above and beyond what had to be turned over to the
Romans. So, you can imagine that an
unscrupulous or intimidating person could do very well for themselves as a tax
collector for Rome.
Jesus expected the audience
to start with the assumption that the tax collector was a sinner and that the
pharisee was the model for an upstanding righteous person.
Then we heard the pharisee's
self-indulgent public prayer and contrast it with the other one. The tax
collector's prayer was deeply personal and heart-felt. With his head down and pounding his chest, away from others, he
admitted his own shortcomings and laid out his soul to the mercy of God. If he was speaking loud enough for others to
hear, that was not his intent - even in a crowded courtyard, he felt as if he
was alone in his spiritual communion with his God.
//
//
In the reading from Second
Timothy, we have a third prayer (of sorts) from scripture this morning.
We heard some of the
Apostle Paul's reflections as he knew that he would likely die in captivity.
Although, in the letter,
the words are presented as a soulful sharing with his friends, we can imagine
that Paul could have expressed these same sentiments to his God.
Lord,
you have stood by me, even as others gave up on me. Forgive them God. Lord, you gave me strength enough (even as a
prisoner) to share the message of Jesus with the gentiles. As I finish life's race, I am ready to
receive the rescue of your heavenly kingdom.
//
//
Three prayers.
·
One
showy and self-engrandizing.
·
One
humble and vulnerable.
·
One
accepting and appreciative.
These types of prayers are
not stuck in time - each are still prayed by certain people in certain
circumstances, today. We pray for ourselves, we pray out of our vulnerability and we pray in gratitude.
//
//
Prayer:
a spiritual communion with God.
//
//
Formal public prayer - during worship gatherings - is one of
our traditions.
tradition =
faithful habit
When we come together here
on Sunday mornings, we regularly include several times of prayer in the worship
service:
We open with prayer.
I offer a prayer just
before I preach.
We pray over our offerings
and over water for baptisms and the bread and juice for communion.
We offer prayers of
Dedication a day blessing for prayer shawls, stained glass windows and other
significant artefacts of our ministry.
In virtually every worship
service, we prayer some version of the Lord’s Prayer.
And near the end of our
time together, we take time to share prayers of thanksgiving and
intercession.
Sometimes, we prayer
together (pre-written words on the screen).
Sometimes one person (me)
offers prayers on behalf of all of us - including prayers others have written
down.
Sometimes we pray in
silence.
Sometimes we pray in song.
Sometimes, we light candles
as signs of prayer.
//
And I know that many St. David's
people include a practice of prayer in their lives beyond our congregating
together in this place.
//
//
And we are wisely humble
enough to know that prayer isn't
limited to houses of worship or even the hearts and minds of the regular
church-goers.
Afterall, being religious
and being spiritual and having faith are not necessarily the same things.
For example, when something
horrible happens - locally or on any arc of this world (natural disasters,
serious accidents, acts of terror, the horrors of war, etc.) - calls go out for
‘thoughts and prayers’ - often far beyond those who have an active faith
lives. On social media, ‘prayer memes’
go viral far beyond churchfolk; even profile pictures can be temporarily changed
as actions of digital prayer in response to tragedy.
//
Prayer is a word that flows
easily off the tongue. But... how often
do we think about the nature of prayer:
Why do we
pray?
What are we
doing when we pray?
What impact
do we intend or hope it to have?
How does it
affect us?
How does it
affect the Holy Mystery we call God?
//
//
dictionary.com's definition
of prayer as spiritual communion is
further described with words like
1.
supplication,
2.
thanksgiving,
3.
adoration
and
4.
confession.
These are four common types
of prayer that are part of our tradition: supplication, thanksgiving,
adoration, confession.
The last three are focused
on the mindset of the pray-er and might be described as a 'reporting to
God': Thanksgiving; Confession;
Adoration.
In prayer, I express
gratitude or I admit my shortcomings (my words, actions and inactions that are
inconsistent with what I see as the will of God) or, I simply tell God that I
am in awe of my creator: I offer praise, express adoration/love for my God.
Prayer (in these ways) are
an spiritual communion based on our inner, self-reflection.
But when people think about
prayer, I suspect that supplications
are what usually come to mind: prayer as a devout petition to God.
This type of prayer is more
than a report to God. Supplications (or
intercessions) are requests for God to take some action on behalf of someone -
to intercede in the otherwise natural course the world. God,
please do this; guide me; help me; heal my friend; stop this war; change the
weather; let my team win; get me this job; change me or another person for the better; punish someone; win me this prize;
give me peace...
//
How we understand supplicative prayer is directly related
to our beliefs about the nature of God.
//
Before, I get into this, I
have to say, that I (like most of you, I suspect) have no certainty about how
God operates.
I am informed by not only
the traditions of the church and centuries of faithful study and thought, but
also my own experience as a person practising faith and as a person in touch
with a need to balance knowledge and mystery.
My training and designation
as a minister does not (unfortunately) give me any secret insights that are not
available to any of you.
Like many modern seekers of
faith, I need what I believe about God
to make sense within my understanding of how the universe works. I am open to mystery, but I won't abandon
logic and reason on my journey of faith.
//
In the United Church, when
we say our New Creed, we profess that
"We believe in God, who has created and is creating". Is
creating: if we believe this, we are saying that God is more than the spark
of the big bang and that we are open to God as an active force in the life of
the universe - not only in the past, but in the present and the future.
This view takes a whole
continuum of forms among people of faith.
//
There are some who reject
any notion of an interventionist God.
This is not necessary only the mantra of atheists, but is also believed
by people of faith, who would profess that at most, God is the source of the
stuff of the universe and the author of the laws of physics, but that once the
machine of existence was set in motion, God is no longer involved in what
happens. God may have created, but is no
longer creating.
With this view, perhaps God
is simply waiting and watching to seek how things unfold.
Or... this might match a
theology of predestination - a belief
that God included (in the first stirrings of creation) all of the things that
would ever happen in every time and place.
Scripturally, we see this
in passages like Psalm 139: Even before a
word is on my tongue behold, O Lord, you know it altogether... Your eyes saw my
unformed substance; in your book were
written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there
was none of them. (Psalm 139:4,16)
With predestination, there
is nothing that can be done to alter the primordial will of God. Every single thing that happens is part of
God's original plan.
//
//
The opposite view to this
is... to ascribe to God the ability to evolve new divine thoughts and have an
openness to recreating as God's interaction with the universe is lived out.
//
There are those believe
that the nature of God is like someone playing with Legos - holy hands in
constant creative mode: adjusting, taking apart, reassembling, adding new
pieces, etc. This nature of God is one
of being the Universe's micro-manager.
The stuff that the
micro-manager God plays with is physical and meta-physical; tactile and
emotional. The world we live in, our
deepest thoughts, feelings and actions are under the ultimate control of
God. There is no detail so small that it
is beyond God's influence.
If this is the nature of
God, one view of prayer is for us to seek to influence God to arrange the Lego
of the universe in ways that we want.
I sometimes have referred
to this as the vending machine god. We simply have to push the right buttons and
give up the correct amount of our resources, and God will respond with the
treat we want.
We see this in scriptures
like Luke 11:9 - Ask and you shall
receive. Or Jeremiah 18 or Isaiah 64's metaphor of god as an artisan potter.
A truly faithful person can
enjoy extraordinary blessings. God is
pretty much obligated to reward the pious for their piety.
//
That is an extreme view. I have to admit that I have
not met many people (who claim a God) who claim to have the ability to control God. I feel comfortable saying
that almost no one believes that God has no say in the matter. The belief goes... that the sovereignty of
God is such that, even if we do everything right, God may not respond as we
want. Sometimes, God's answer to prayer
is no.
Although, if we don't get
the answer we want, we will probably hear things like "we must not have
prayed hard enough, or been faithful enough" or "God had other
plans" or "the Lord works in mysterious ways". And we might want to cry out to God: "Why!?!"
//
The existence of seemingly senseless tragedy and suffering in the world is one of the arguments against the existence of a god - a benevolent, interventionist god, at least.
//
The existence of seemingly senseless tragedy and suffering in the world is one of the arguments against the existence of a god - a benevolent, interventionist god, at least.
//
//
Another perspective is to
view God as less of a micro-manager and more of a mentor. In this view, God may be more intimately
involved in the big picture of our lives rather than tinkering with the
details.
As a holy mentor, God is a
companion on the journey of our lives - offering support, advice, but not so
concerned with controlling us.
The opposite of a theology
of predestination is a theology of free will.
Deuteronomy chapter 30,
from the end of the Exodus in the time of Moses, has God saying: See, I have set before you today life and
prosperity, death and adversity ... Choose life so that you and your
descendants may live. (Dt30:15,19b)
//
One of my earthly mentors,
Gareth Higgins, has taught me that with free
will 'people make choices' and 'evil exists' in the world, not because God
predestined it but because 'sometimes [the] choices [we make] have shadows'.
Higgins says that God's
universe makes sense with free will because it is 'better that dictatorship and
tyranny; it's better than making us into robots'.
//
My kids like to play video
games. Part of the fun of a game is not
knowing what is coming next.
Well-crafted games allow for multiple choices and multiple possibilities
that flow from those choices. Even the
most avid gamer would be hard-pressed to fully understand every nuanced aspect
of the game. Perhaps only, the original
programmer would be aware of the totality of the gaming environment, but if the
game is complex enough, even the programmer could be surprised by combination
of choices and consequences an individual gamer might make on a given day.
//
In my mind, it makes sense that for God to have an honest
relationship with creation, God needs to allow creation to unfold beyond God's
willingness to control every detail.
Free will allows God to truly commune with the creatures of the creation
in ways whose possibilities are endless.
//
In this way, God is not so
much the designer of a single path for our lives, but a companion along a
journey unfolding before us that is determined by some conscious choices on our
part and other factors beyond our control.
And so, prayer within this
nature of God, is to seek assurance that we are not alone. We pray for companionship and compassion in
whatever circumstance we end up in.
As with a mentor, we might
seek advice, we might receive some insight, but the mentor does not force us to
act in a particular way - the impact of what will happen has more to do with us
and the choices we make than the mentor.
The spiritual communion
with a free will god, is not so much asking Our Maker to change our situation, but to support us as we live
with the effects of our choices and circumstances. The comfort of discovering that we are not
alone or abandoned, but held and loved, becomes a factor in our next choice.
CS Lewis famously said,
"I pray because the need flows out of me all the time - waking and
sleeping. It doesn't change God - it
changes me."
//
//
//
That is my food for thought for today. Three possible natures of God that can effect
what a person hopes to get out of prayer
- a spiritual communion with God.:
1
The
creator who, now that the universe is spinning, just watches the plan
unfold. To this god, the purpose of
prayer is primarily gratitude and awe.
2
The
creator who isn't finished yet, still changing the plan as time unfolds. Praying to this god, seeks to influence the
next combination of Lego blocks in God's playroom.
3
And,
a god who is along side us as we live and move and have our being. Communing in prayer with this god is to know
holy presence, to be assured that God is known through hearts filled with love
and peace. Given that, we pray to seek
support and comfort in good times and bad.
I'm sure that God and
Prayer are not so neatly defined to fit into any one of these three
exclusively.
//
Prayer - like God - is
mysterious.
//
And yet, without certainty,
we still desire to have an on-going relationship with this mystery.
//
We long to join our spirit
with the Spirit of God.
//
//
Trusting that there is
something meaningful in the mystery, let us pray:
Holy Mystery, guide us and comfort
us. Raise us up when we are low and
gently bring us down when we are out of touch.
Amen.
#497VU “Nearer My God to Thee”
