"Even Cars Can't Stay in the Garage!"

The January 3 issue of USA Today had an article titled “God, Religion, Atheism ‘So What?’ That’s what many say”.The article takes note of a trend in society away from all types of searches for meaning and truth and purpose. It is not just that people are turning from being “religious” to “spiritual”, or from “spiritual” to “atheist” – it is that more and more people just don’t care about any of it.

“God? Purpose? You don’t need an opinion on those things to function,” the article quotes one engineer as saying. Another, discounting the possibility of a spiritual component to our existence,  says, “we might as well be cars. That, to me, makes more sense than believing what you can’t see.”

I’m not so sure it was much different in the time of Jesus, either. I mean, if everyone was on the same page, why was Jesus going around saying to people “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”? No, Jesus, fresh from his baptism, has what he believes is good news for people who had yet to hear it, and he wants to share that with them.

There is an old model of what we call “church” – a model that is still very much in existence in our world – which says that what we need to be about as church is to get people in the doors and into the pews – it is about membership. And there is something to this, because, after all, Jesus’ great commandment is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them as I have commanded you.”  And so baptism is the rite by which you join the church.

The danger, of course, is that we leave it at that. With the idea that church is about what happens in here, that the purpose of the church is to support its members.

But look at Jesus and what happens after his baptism. Far from retreating to some sort of spiritual haven where he can be surrounded by like-minded and adoring folk, he goes off into the hustle and bustle of the world, in and among all the people who are spiritually adrift, apathetic, and just uninterested, who are all tied up in the minutia of doing things like they had always done them without remembering why.

And Jesus comes to them, and with his words, and with his teaching, and with his healing, he tells them and shows them that there is more to their world than appears on the surface, that the people are not just “cars”, but instead are beloved children of their Creator; that another kingdom, a kingdom greater than that of Rome or the petty governor ruling their corner of the world, has come near, breaking the power of injustice and tyranny; that there is something which you can’t see – to quote the USA Today article – something called “love”, which is stronger even than death.

Jesus says to them “repent”, which means, literally, “to turn around.” Turn yourself around, he say, turn your face to the warm rays of the rising Son and believe the good news and change your life, so that you might have abundant and eternal life starting today.

This is our mission, this is our task. We, who are in the church, we, who have like Jesus been baptized, we need to repent, to literally turn around, and march back out those doors that so warmly let us in. Our mission is not in here, it is out there, to be the church in the world. Even cars are supposed to be out on the road, not stuck in the garage!

St. Francis told his Friars, as he sent them out into the towns and villages among the poorest of the poor, “Preach the gospel always – if necessary, use words.” That is our mission, as well. We preach the good news as much by what we do as by what we say – as we practice love of neighbor not just by exhibiting a kind attitude to those we see on the street, but by reaching out to the world in acts of generosity and caring and seeking justice for those who are oppressed.

We do that as individuals: as one volunteers down at A Baby Center in Hyannis, an organization which helps lower income parents of newborns and infants with cribs, diapers, strollers, and clothes; as otherstake a few hours each week to be a Big Brother and a Big Sister to kids who lack an adult presence in their life. We each can do that in the individual things we do to share the love of God with others by caring for them.

But we also are called to do this as a church, as together we serve the world in a variety of ways: working together on a Habitat build, or serving a meal at the NOAH Shelter, or going on a mission trip to New Orleans, and so on.

Friends, let us remember our baptism, and how we are called into the church to be sent out into the world, blessed so that we, in our turn, can be a blessing.

“We Don’t Know How to Pray – Get Over It!”

I think most pastors find it astonishing – as do most folk in the pews – that the Bible is full of folk who just don’t know how to pray. We just assume that they wouldn’t even be in the Bible unless they could nail something as elementary as prayer.

            But look at those disciples who followed Jesus around for three years. If anyone should have picked it up it was those folk, who hung on Jesus’ every word as he traipsed the length and breadth of the countryside. But then they come to Jesus and say, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1). Jesus responds by giving them a prayer, one we now know as The Lord’s Prayer.

            And here we have Paul the Apostle, the same guy who founded churches throughout Asia Minor and Greece, confessing that “we do not know how to pray as we ought.”

            All of this I think is great news for all of us who tend to get anxious when it comes to prayer. We often tend to think prayer is all about technique. For instance:

 – that we need to breathe deeply, and slowly – never mind that whenever I am intentional about breathing deeply and slowly my heart rate picks up and next thing you know I am panting like a dog.

-- or that we need to empty our mind of all our cares and worries. My spinning instructor is big on this one. She will say, “Okay, for the next two minutes I am going to stop coaching you, I just want you to have two minutes of uninterrupted silence, a time when you can just let go of all the things on your to-do list, all your worries about your health or loved ones, all the things waiting for you back at the office.” So of course while I previously was very happy just thinking about my bike riding, now she has me thinking about that to-list, health worries, loved ones, and the work back at the office!

--  Or that we need to walk the labyrinth, or find a secluded glade up in the mountains, neither of which is ever around when you need on!

            So what happens for a lot of people is they just figure since they will never get prayer right, never master its techniques, they should just forget about the whole thing.

            But friends, Paul reminds us that we don’t know how to pray, but that is alright, because the Spirit intercedes for us “with sighs too deep for words.”  When we cannot find the words, there is the Spirit filling in for us, but not with words – because often our deepest concerns are simply just beyond words – but with sighs. The same God who loves us so much that he came to us in Jesus Christ, taught us, walked with us, suffered for us – that same God is not some sort of cosmic red-pen-wielding essay editor just ready to reject every petition that crosses her desk, but instead is right there alongside us, right there deep within us, supporting us in our deepest yearnings.

            So no, you don’t know how to pray as you ought – so get over it!

            But maybe you are still expecting to get your money’s worth out of this sermon, and so are expecting some instructions on how to pray. Instructions I have none, but I do have some stories to share about prayer as I have experienced it. Not because I am an expert at prayer, mind you, and not that what works for me will necessarily work for you, but in the hope that my stories might help you with this spiritual practice we call prayer.

            So we are driving down to the Jersey shore on the Garden State Parkway a month ago, about 9:00 on a Sunday evening, the car loaded up not only with our bags but also with all the paraphernalia that Julia is taking with her to college, five of us crammed in together, when all of a sudden I hear a high-pitched whine coming from the left side of the vehicle. Definitely not from the engine, from the left side. So I pull over to the breakdown lane and, one eye on the traffic whizzing by, I try to see if there is anything going on with the two driver’s side wheels. Of course I see nothing.  Hoping against hope that I was just imagining things, I climb back in and we start off again, but once we get back up to speed there comes that high-pitched whine once again. So nothing else to do but get off at the next exit and look for a service station. We found one pretty quickly, but of course it is Sunday night and there is no mechanic on duty. The two men working the station, each with accents that seemed to indicate that they were recent arrivals to the States from perhaps Portugal, could not have been nicer or more helpful, even calling a mechanic and urging him to come help us out. But to no avail. A call to AAA produced no better results – they could only offer us a tow, but no mechanical help. So there was apparently only one thing to do – well, actually, two. As I pulled out my smart phone to look for a nearby hotel, where we could spend the night before trying to get the car fixed the following morning, I muttered a silent prayer. Nothing complicated, nothing eloquent like you might find in The Book of Common Prayer, just more along the lines of “Oh God, help us out here!”

            The next thing you know Christie is talking to a guy who had stopped to get his car filled up, who also seemed to be of Portuguese extraction, and who had overheard the attendants talking about our problem. So he comes over and tells us his sister-in-law has the same make car, and had the same problem, and that what she learned was that the cause was a pebble jammed between the wheel and the brake, and that the thing to do was to put the car in reverse, go forty feet, and then hit the brakes hard, and the pebble may fall out. With nothing to lose, I gave it a try, out popped a pebble, problem solved, and we were safely on our way.

But prayer is not always about happy endings, or getting what you want when you want it. Sometimes it is just all about being honest about how bad things really are. Ellen F. Davis, in her book “Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament,” tells of the minister who visited a parishioner in a nursing home. The parishioner would not speak to her or look at her, simply glaring ahead all the time.  Realizing that making chit chat was not going to help, she went straight to the Bible, opening the psalms and reading psalms of comfort. But they elicited no response, still the same stony stare. At last she turned to the psalms of lament, reading Psalm 102:

I have become like a vulture in the wilderness,

like an owl among the ruins….

I eat ashes like bread and mix my drink with tears

because of your indignation and anger,

because you have picked me up and tossed me aside….”

And for the first time that stony face softened, for the first time he looked at his visitor, for the first time he spoke, saying, “Finally, somebody who knows how I feel.”

            And prayer often is not even about us, or by us, or up to us. It turns out that on that same vacation as the car trip I told you about earlier I developed a blood clot in my left calf, which turned out to be a big deal, and very, very painful, for a couple weeks at least. All the time. 24/7. It made me quite grumpy, as chronic pain can tend to do to people, but it also made me feel just too bad even to pray for relief.  It was like just as I didn’t have much time for inter-personal relationships because of the pain, I just was not in the mood for that relationship with God which we often think of as prayer. Reaching out was the last thing I wanted to do – I just wanted to crawl inside myself and be left alone. But that is not to say prayer was not important to me. It was. It is just that I knew, that a member of this faith community, this church, I had a whole lot of people, starting with the chair of the Board of Deacons and some members of the choir who were in the know, praying for me. They were picking up the ball for me when I was just in no shape to run with it myself. And I have to say this was a great comfort to me, so much so that it got me to thinking about all those folk who do not have a church or faith community that can hold them in prayer in the tough times, and made me think how terribly lonely that must be.

            Paul the Apostle was right. We don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the good news for us is that it just doesn’t matter, because the Spirit is right there with us in our lack of knowing, our lack of diligence, even our lack of wanting to pray, interceding for us with sighs too deep for words.

So pray at all times, pray free from anxiety about whether you are doing it right, pray in the confidence that you have a divine prayer partner close at hand, praying with you, and for you. Amen.

"Your Soaking In It!"

It was a moment right out of that old Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid commercial, the one where Madge, the wisecracking manicurist, shocks a customer by telling her that her hands are soaking not in beauty salon lotion, but a dishwashing product.

Flanked by Amy and Nicole, with whom I had just spent a grimy week rebuilding Katrina homes in New Orleans, I am sitting in an express nail salon at Dulles International Airport, on a short lay-over on the return to Boston. A newbie to the world of mani-pedis, on a whim I had decided to join them as they sought some cosmetic first aid for hands more attuned to the rigors of texting and typing than ripping out ceiling tiles, pounding nails, and painting trim. “I’m new at this”, I told them, as the manicurist worked on softening my cuticles (what is a cuticle, anyway?), “but I think we are supposed to talk about whether Jen is over Brad yet and if his thing with Angelina is really going to last….”

Well next thing you know, Irina, who is applying some sort of disk-sander to Amy’s soles, asks where we were and what we were doing, and when she finds out that we were on a church mission trip, starts in telling us about how much she loves the Russian Orthodox church she belongs to. Then Abril, busy applying a vermillion shade to Nicole’s fingernails, starts in about what a great Hispanic Pentecostal church she attends, and how she doesn’t know how she would get through a day without her faith.  At which point Marcy starts chiming in about the evangelical church she calls home.

It was a “Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore” moment for us three New Englanders, where the odds of anyone talking about their faith in public are about as long as a summer Friday back-up trying to get over the Sagamore Bridge.  Funny thing is – I went in looking to get my hands worked on, I came out renewed in soul.