St. Michael and All Angels
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – July 28, 2013
Luke 11:1-13

Prayer is the foundation of the Christian life, yet it remains a source of discomfort for many Christians. Luke often refers to Jesus praying and it is clear that it was prayer that enabled Jesus to speak the truth in the most hostile environments, gave him the strength to break the law to heal on the Sabbath, and walk toward his own execution. Grounding his life in prayer gave him great courage. Prayer enabled him to do the impossible over and over again. In the gospel lesson today, Jesus is praying, and when he finishes, he is asked to teach his disciples to pray… and he does. Perhaps that doesn’t strike you as remarkable. It seems so basic that he takes the time to teach them to pray. But it is something we often don’t do today. The church takes for granted that everyone just knows how to pray and that is simply not true. I think many people come to church hoping that we will teach them to pray and we let them down when we assume they already know how.

Jesus doesn’t expect his followers to know what to do. He invests in them and shows them how to pray. He isn’t so much giving them a script as he is teaching them what is important to pray for and showing them that real prayer is a deepening relationship with God.

You are probably waiting for me to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. After all, how often does that show up in the lectionary? I am actually struck by the parallels between Genesis and Luke today. In Genesis, God is not pleased with Sodom and Gomorrah and in the reading today, Abraham stands before God and pushes back as if to say, “Is this what you really want to do, God? I know that you are a God of justice and I’m wondering if you really want to destroy them. What if there are fifty righteous? Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?” And God says, “You are right. I don’t want to destroy them. I just need ten righteous people and I’ll forgive the whole thing.”

What strikes me about this funny exchange is that the conversation grows out of a relationship. Abraham didn’t go knocking and saying, “You don’t know me, but I have a suggestion to make.” There was a deep sense of trust between God and Abraham that enabled the conversation to happen at all. That kind of trust doesn’t happen overnight. It is cultivated over years. It takes time and a deep investment of oneself. When have you asked something great of someone? Did that grow out of a trusting relationship or was it a cold call? The other piece that is striking is that Abraham was persistent. It seems that he was really pushing it, but he couldn’t give up because he was so convicted of his understanding that God is a God of mercy. That sounds a lot like Jesus telling his disciples to ask, search, and knock. This prayer thing isn’t a one shot deal. It is something we do over and over. When you are praying for something that is of great importance to you, you will find yourself knocking and knocking. Just recently, a couple I love very much experienced the death of their son. I cannot stop praying for them and for their healing. I will knock over and over not because I believe God isn’t listening or needs reminding, but because I find them in my heart and I know that I have to offer that grief to the one who loves us through our most desolate days.

Douglas John Hall says, “Prayer is not a meek, contrived, and ‘merely’ religious act – it is the act of human beings who know how hard it is to be human. Real prayer cannot be faked. Its only prerequisites are sufficient self-knowledge to recognize the depths of our need, and enough humility to ask for help.” (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, p. 290)

I have a friend who has been given the impossible task of turning an organization around. The organization is in big trouble and my friend doesn’t have all the skills or expertise she needs to lead them to a healthy place. Taking this step is a huge act of faith and will stretch her in many ways. We were talking about the depth of the issues involved and some of the solutions she is working on and some really insightful ideas she has. I asked who was helping her strategize. She is clearly way out in the deep end right now and there isn’t a particular person who is throwing her a life raft. Yet the raft is there and within weeks of accepting this leadership role, there is hope. She told me about what she prays each day. She is full of humility as she asks for help. She is clear that she cannot do this without God’s help and she is open and receiving the gifts that are coming her way. This approach is changing not only her, but also the organization she leads. I am in awe of the way God is moving there.

I am seeing it here as well. Many of us are praying in this time of transition. At a recent Vestry meeting, we were preparing for the next steps in calling an interim. It was a meeting steeped in prayer… not the sometimes perfunctory prayers we do when we gather, but a profound listening and humble asking for guidance as we made decisions that evening. It was palpable. We could feel the Spirit moving among us. I could feel the Vestry trusting the Spirit and one another. We are not doing business as usual. We are listening, waiting, and trusting. We are seeking, asking, and knocking. We are confident that God is guiding us and that gives us patience even when we don’t know who will walk with us through this time as priest in charge. We are certain that God is walking with us and that has been powerful. This time of uncertainty is teaching us. We are listening and waiting and discovering that God is with us in ways that we take for granted at times.

Prayer is the foundation for all that we do. It changes us to pray. My seminary professor Don Saliers said, “In prayer we hold the hand of the one who holds the destiny of the universe.”

We don’t have to know what is next. We only have to offer ourselves to the One who walks with us. It is through prayer that we participate in bringing about the kingdom of God. It is through prayer that we change the world.

I am not saying this with the assumption that we know how to pray nor that we are comfortable praying. I am assuming that we are here because we have a desire to pray. I believe that church is where we come to learn to pray. We don’t show up on Sunday because we have mastered prayer. We come open to learning. The disciples needed to be taught. Jesus wasn’t offering them a script as much as he was offering them a form. He begins by teaching them what to call God and by doing so; he defined their relationship with God in a new way. In any relationship, we have a name that we call one another. If knowing God’s name is helpful for theological discussion, it is vital for prayer. We recognize that God has a dream for the world that is greater than anything we can imagine, and Jesus invites us through prayer to see the world as God sees it. We pray for what we need each day; more than shiny new cars or winning the lottery. God’s first priority must be meeting basic human needs. We pray for forgiveness because we fall down every day. Receiving God’s forgiveness enables us to forgive others. We pray for strength to face the tests before us. An Abba said, “Everyone is tempted: the only reason you wouldn’t be suffering from it is that you have already given in to it.”

There are some who complain about praying something so repetitive. I heard a great suggestion: to cultivate a deeper prayer life, pray the Lord’s Prayer, but take an hour to say it.

I think that many struggle with the belief that there is one way to pray and they just aren’t good at it. All that does is leave us feeling guilty and disappointed. The reality is that there are many ways to pray and part of our task is discovering what form of prayer brings us into deeper relationship with God – is it contemplative prayer? Is it intercessory prayer? Is it walking prayer? Is it lectio divina? Is it praying with art? I am just getting started here…there are so many forms of prayer. John Chapman said, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.” It is also true that some forms of prayer work for a season and then begin to feel stale sometimes. Then we move to another form.

If you haven’t found a form of prayer that works for you, it is easy to be overwhelmed and do nothing. We aren’t concerned with achieving perfection on the first try (it won’t happen anyway). We take it a step at a time, beginning where we are.

Our task is to show up…day after day after day…ask when we are enthusiastic, seek when our heart isn’t in it, knock when we are too tired and sleep through, show up no matter what, no matter where. We show up and begin where we are. God meets us there and does the rest.

St. Michael and All Angels
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2013
Luke 10:38-42

If you heard the gospel reading of the Good Samaritan last week, you may have left with a sense of “I’ve got it… go and DO likewise… go and DO.” Maybe you even opened your eyes more in the last week for opportunities to DO. The story of the Good Samaritan always leaves me feeling like I’m clear about my direction… I just need to do what the Samaritan did… pay attention to the needs around me and be ready to respond. Why then, do we follow that text with the gospel from today? If we follow the logic from last week, it would seem that Martha’s doing is like the Samaritan who does the right thing. Why then, does Jesus commend Mary for not doing? It’s very confusing.

I always thought I knew this story pretty well. Somehow I missed the meaning in the answer to Martha’s question before now. I’ve certainly heard the words many times, but I didn’t really hear what Jesus said. He tells Martha she is “worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” Only one thing?? Really?? Doesn’t he know about multitasking? This is not a very productive answer to Martha’s question. Doesn’t he want dinner? For the first time, as I read and studied this text I heard the call to focus. In a day where many are doing at least two (and sometimes more) things at once, the idea of focusing our attention on one thing seems strange. Aren’t we more valuable if we can do many things at once?

I did not get the gift of hospitality. I don’t even pretend that it comes easily to me. I often confuse it with doing a lot of stuff rather than giving someone my attention. I tend to believe that if I do everything right, I can make someone feel welcome. Here is what I am hearing in this text… nothing makes a person feel more welcome than attending to them, listening to them, and receiving them as they are. That requires focus on our part. Jesus isn’t telling Martha that cooking dinner is wrong, he is saying that as she worries and tries to do everything, she is missing that he is right there in front of her. We can certainly explain this and say that he didn’t call ahead, he just showed up and if she had known he was coming, she would have put something in the crock-pot. But Jesus isn’t talking about the food she is cooking, he is asking her to see what is in front of her and to focus on the one thing.

The trouble is that we may not be sure what the “one thing” is. There is a scene in the movie City Slickers where Mitch is in the throes of mid-life and trying to figure out how to find more joy in his life. Curly, the tough old cowboy, has some simple advice for Mitch:
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger] This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that…
Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?" 
Curly: That's what you have to find out.

I’m not sure if Curly got his wisdom from Jesus or not, but Jesus is clearly advising Martha to be present to that one thing which matters more than any task.

Several years ago, Stephen Covey brought to our attention the tendency to focus on things that are “urgent but not important”. By urgent, he isn’t referring to heart attacks or car accidents, but those things that seem really pressing and want our attention NOW, but may not be contributing to the greater good we are seeking. There are other ways to focus our attention and Covey invites us to be clear about the big picture, of what is ultimately important so that we don’t lose sight of what really matters. For those of us who LOVE to check things off our list, this can be a problem. Those lists seem awfully urgent, but how often do we cross things off our list only to discover that we didn’t really get to the things that mattered? We may feel better in the short term, but we are likely to be disappointed in the longer term. There is some balance required here and part of that balance is about not losing sight of what matters most.

Jesus never seems to lose sight of that. His choice to focus on what really matters takes him away from crowds at times to rest, finds him healing someone on the Sabbath, or sitting with friends when there is work to be done. He knows who he is and what he is about in the world. The one thing is always present for him and his life flows from being grounded in that one thing. It is so clear that his life mattered. His relentless focus on God enabled him to know when to act, when to be, and always where to place his attention.

Do any of you struggle to simply be where you are? Robert Farrar Capon says, “We spend a lot of time wishing we were elsewhere and otherwise.” Or as Carrie Fisher put it, “Having a wonderful time. Wish I were here.”

Often the part of us that isn’t present to where we are is busy worrying about where we are not. We can spend so much time worrying, and worry produces almost no benefit to anyone. Jesus says clearly, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” What a bummer to realize that we spent all those hours worrying only to discover we missed Christ who is right in front of us.

I live with a Mary. I am often jealous that the Mary I live with can just be present anywhere she is. I struggle to just be present. I work hard at being, but it is rarely pretty. Often when we process this difference together, I realize that my real struggle is focusing on what is most important in any given moment. I get so caught up in the details that I miss what is right in front of me. It seems like an important spiritual practice for those of us who struggle to focus on the one thing. Realizing this, I’ve started asking again, when was I present today? When did I see Christ right in front of me?

I wonder if the issue in the parable of the Good Samaritan is one of distraction. Did the two people pass by because they were too preoccupied to really see the man in need? I get so caught up in my lists and pulled in so many directions that I can miss the opportunity in front of me. What if both of these stories are about seeing Christ standing in front of us? What if they call us to attend to Christ in each person we meet? What if the one thing is that Christ is right here, now? Would that change anything? Would it change how we live? Would it change how we interact with each other? Would it change how we attend to ourselves?

I’ve been reading a book called Cabin Fever by Tom Montgomery Fate. Tom is trying to find a balance between his life in the city as a husband and father and taking time to savor the quiet of nature in a cabin in the woods. He lives with Thoreau’s Walden as a guide and refers to it often. One day Tom takes his four-year-old son to preschool and watches the boy immediately immerse himself in Legos. As Tom observes his son playing, he asks himself, “When did I first begin to lose my faith in the moment I was living in? When did my life first start to feel like a sprawling to-do list?” (p. 22) Reflecting on that, he turns to Walden and reads “We should be blessed if we lived in the present always and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.” (p. 24)

I am really struck by how Jesus invites Martha into the community as a response to her resentment. He invites her to see that she is God’s beloved child. Period. Her value is not measured by what she does. How many of us need to hear that we are not what we do? Our value is not wholly determined by our actions. Certainly, we have the opportunity every day to be kind, to show compassion, to share hope with others. Working hard to the point of resentment isn’t what God asks of us. Maintaining our focus on God in all things is what God asks of us. It’s something we practice more than master. It’s something we grow into each day.

I think St. Michael’s often finds that sweet spot – the balance between Mary and Martha. Certainly some of us are more prone to be Mary and others to be Martha. But as a whole, we are a congregation that prays and waits, that acts and works hard. All of that makes us who we are. If we simply worked ourselves to death, we would be empty. If we only waited and prayed, we would be lethargic. The Christian life is both. The question isn’t which. It is more a question of when. If we asked Jesus should we act or contemplate, he would likely say, “yes”. The question that is larger than “when to act and when to pray” is, “can we see Christ in front of us right now?”

We are God’s beloved children. Christ is here now. That is our one thing. 

THE JERICHO ROAD
Sermon July 14th, Judith Jenkins

I was reminded this week in reading our gospel lesson of all the literature concerning tales of the road. Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or Cervantes, Don Quixote, Homer's Odyssey, or Jack Kerouac, On the Road….Jesus too, is traveling along; he leads his disciples upon a series of travel adventures, telling them tales-- parables: this one about traveling along the Jericho Road.

Luke supplies us with the setting for the story, which is essential to understanding its meaning. To see this parable as merely an illustration of ethical living,- a story of the one who gets the Good Neighbor Award for the Year, is to miss some of the implications that run much deeper.

This road between Jericho and Jerusalem was an exceedingly dangerous one in Jesus time. Today, Jericho lies on the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories, and sadly, the seeds of Distrust, Bigotry, sometimes even hatred for one's fellow travelers, haven't really changed all that much.

Martin Luther King said this: "We must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway."

The Jericho Road is a symbol of where we meet God----And where we recognize God in One Another!!! We live in a world that continues to experience much violence—where too many of us have sought to preserve only our own limited belief system.

The Jericho Road runs straight through the church, as through each of our lives, giving us the opportunity as we meet, to see the other travelers in the guise of the "Good Samaritan.” That is -- when we are willing to part with all of our old ways by not allowing our "separateness" to keep us from one another.

John Philip Newell tells about how he and his wife Ali were lost in one of the Middle Eastern cities while searching for St. John's tomb. In his words:
"My wife and I wandered by mistake into the garden courtyard of a mosque. The Imam welcomed us and asked about our visit to the Middle East. When he learned that I was a minister, HE BOWED TO ME.

'You are a minister of Christ,' he said. He then invited us into the mosque, where we exchanged blessings. It was the Imam then, who showed us the burial place of St. John, just up the hill from the mosque."

Philip goes on to say: "As I climbed toward the tomb, I could not stop thinking about the humility of this teacher who had bowed to me. It was the SAME POSTURE OF SOUL that I had encountered years earlier in the old Cree Elder from Saskachewan, that Native American Elder who said to me…'We pray for you, and for your people.' "My people," thought Philip, "who had so wronged his people!"

As Philip reflected on the Imam, he realized that the humility of spirit of both these spiritual leaders had in no sense suggested a betrayal of any of their religious convictions. Quite the opposite, it was the truest mark of spirituality. They were inviting Philip to be true to the heart of his own Christian tradition.

We honor Christ not because he embodies an exclusive truth, a truth that pertains only to him: we bow to Christ because he reveals the most inclusive of truths, the truth that the whole universe, all of us, comes directly from God's being. That is the sound of the heartbeat in the Good Samaritan!

Carl Jung says, and I paraphrase: Only to the extent that we are in touch with our own brokenness, both individually and collectively, will we be a strong presence of healing for others. Only to the extent that we know that the wounds we treat in others are part of our own woundedness, will we ever be truly whole.

I wish that we could all take a trip to New Harmony, Indiana, to visit THE CHURCH WITH NO ROOF: a place of vision which was built after the Second World War -- built with the hope that it might become a sacred place to face the brokenness and woundedness of one another.

Three statues were erected in this sacred space:
The First: The Descent of the Spirit (by Jacob Lipchiz), depicts the Spirit descending to an abstract womb about to give birth. Lipchiz was declaring that everything in the universe is conceived by God:

The Second: The Pieta (by Stephen de Staebla), depicts the form of a primitive naked woman standing with her breast split open: within her breast appears the head of Jesus. This sculpture creates a strong emotion, especially in those mothers and fathers who have known the loss of a child. It is seeing in the Palms of Her Hands, Her Feet, and in Her sides, the nail marks of crucifixion!

She is every mother or father who has lost a child. She is the mother of those 19 firefighters, of those boys just found at Quemado Lake. The pain and brokenness comes from the very heart of her being!

In the commissioning of this incredibly beautiful statue, The Pieta, was the hope that we might all find a way forward, together, in our own lives and world, hearing the SACREDNESS of ALL OUR CRIES!

But there are three statues:
The Third is called The Polish Memorial (by Eva Sygulka). It is of God the Father, behind his son, arms are outstretched, and reminding those who experienced the pain of Poland under Nazi occupation -- that the EVERLASTING and SUPPORTING ARMS of God the Father WERE and ARE-- always present.

How do we each walk our Jericho Road hearing the sacredness of all our cries? Is it easy? No – but that’s what we are called to do.

What if we could experience what happened to Thomas Merton on 4th and Walnut in Louisville? --- Merton was suddenly overwhelmed, standing there in the shopping district, with the realization that he loved all these strangers.

"Then it was," he said, "as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts, where neither sin nor desire, nor self knowledge, can reach,….instead I saw for a moment the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only” (he said) “they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time.”

To limit our existence, our journeys along the Jericho Road by allowing contact with only those whom we choose, or by limiting our knowledge to only what we already know, does indeed blind us to the mystery and wonder of how we are all divinely intertwined with our Creator.

This story is told about Jane Addams, who co-founded the Hull House in Chicago in 1889. One night, the last in the office to leave, Jane left alone to walk home through a rather questionable area. Not long after she left, she heard footsteps behind her, and when she turned she recognized one of the troubled young men from the settlement. This young man had a history of trouble and for a moment fear touched Jane. Then, instead of quickening her pace, she stopped, turned, and faced the young man.

“I’m so glad to see you”, and she called him by name. “I am a little concerned about walking through this area at night alone and I wonder if you would walk with me? I’d feel much safer.”

For a moment, neither of them moved, and then as if realizing that she was seeing him in a different light than he would have thought possible, he moved forward, giving her the assurance that he would accompany her through the area.

In that moment, did the young man see himself as God sees him thru the eyes of Jane?

Mark Nepo says: "With each trouble that stalls us, and each wonder that lifts us, we are asked to put down our conclusions and our assumptions and to feel and to think in a new way….This involves holding our opinions and our identity lightly so that we can be touched by those who are different. It means loosening our fist-like hold on how we see the world, so that other views can reach us, and expand us."

WHO ARE WE GOING TO MEET ON OUR JERICHO ROAD as we travel today: praying for the grace to see ourselves and to enable those we meet to see themselves as God sees us all.

Amen

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