Prayer
Basics of
Faith 4 – July 16, 2017
A Sermon by Rev. M. Gayle MacDonald
Lessons
read on July 16: Gospel: Mark 6:34-46;
Responsive Reading: Paraphrase of Psalm 122
Paraphrase of Psalm 122
(Kindle Locations 3157-3172).
Wood Lake Publishing. Kindle Edition.
One: God calls people everywhere to a
pilgrimage.
All: From
all over the world,
many feet beat a path to God’s holy
places.
One: They
struggle over high mountain passes;
they shuffle across dusty deserts;
they crawl along the walls of river
canyons.
All: Straggling lines of searchers converge in a
fertile
valley; a great shout of joy goes up to
the heavens.
One: Muslims,
Christians, Jews, Hindus—in common cause
the great religions rise above doctrinal
differences.
Pray
for their unity; pray for their commitment.
All: May they not threaten each other;
may they
generate peace among their peoples.
One: God,
watching over them, says,
“They do not all call themselves my
followers.
Yet because they are brothers and
sisters,
meeting in harmony, I will treat them as
my own.”
All:
Because they do God’s will, God welcomes them.
One of the things that surprised me as
I did my research on the statements of faith of the United Church of Canada and
Prayer is how little our statements of faith have to say on prayer. The
last time prayer was mentioned as a specific topic in our Statements was in
1925, in the basis of Union.
As I
read the Basis of Union’s Article XIII[1] – On Prayer – I am kind of glad it
got dropped – not only because of the language which is un-redeemably dated,
but because the perception of prayer is somewhat limiting in its context –
i.e., asking for things – forgiveness, strength, what we need for this life –
and an underlying assumption of the grace of God to provide. While there
is nothing wrong with praying for these things and in this way, this ‘article’
on prayer is, as I said, limited and leaves to many questions about prayer
unanswered. Questions like:
·
What happens when it seems
my prayers aren’t being answered?
·
Or is it right to pray for
material things?
·
And how do I pray when I
am not sure what is the right thing?
While I
am glad that prayer (which is common to all major religions) is, subsequent to
1925, left out of the doctrinal and faith statements of the United Church; I
would still like to see prayer receive a more prominent place in the education
and faith formation of all of us.
Prayer
is one of the tools we have in our faith tool box. Prayer, the Bible, the
Church or gathered community: these are the things we use to help us and
support us and challenge us in our journey towards God. Prayer is the
oldest and most tested tool. Prayer predates the formation of churches and
the canonizing of the Bible of sacred scripture. As long as there have
been people of faith, there have been people praying.
On
three different occasions, I have held a six-week group reflection on ways of
praying. Our first session was on spiritual types. This session
consisted of a questionnaire based on the Myers-Briggs personality type, but
adapted for spiritual or faith expression. We began there, because who
you are helps determine what kind of worship appeals to you and what kind of
prayer you find most effective. The next sessions were an exploration in
ways of praying and included such things as praying with scripture or lectio
divina, bodily prayer (i.e,. engaging the whole body in prayer), prayer
journaling, and praying with colour.
Bodily prayer – using the body in prayer, includes
things like prayer walking (walking the labyrinth is one example of prayer
walking) or perhaps liturgical dance. How does or might the movement of
our body assist our prayer, or, alternately, be used to portray the feeling of
words of the prayer? The body at prayer
is not something new; we engage our bodies in prayer all the time – when we
kneel or when we put our hands together or bow our heads, we are engaging our
body in prayer.
Lectio
Divina or praying the scriptures is a
very old form or prayer that begins with reading and re-reading a passage of
scripture contemplatively, imaginatively, prayerfully – engaging both the mind
and the heart in the reading.
Prayer
journaling is simply creating a journal of
prayers you can use or refer to. Your journal can include written
conversations with God, or lists of people for whom we pray, or prayers we have
written, our doubts, our gratitude, our questions, and reflections.
Praying
with colour is simply what it
says – using colour and our eyes and hands and imaginations as we reflect and
pray. There are a myriad of ways to use colour when praying – whether
creating a mandala, or prayer trees (with a prayer for each leaf), or simply
drawing and colouring what we feel.
The act
of creation – whether art or music or writing – can be prayer. Some
people tell me that when they are knitting prayer shawls they are praying,
thinking of the person who might receive it (even if they don’t know who the
person is), and putting their love, their prayers into it. There is a
very old saying that says when the crafts-person is practicing their craft,
they are praying. There is a lot of truth in this. Those who lead a
contemplative life would tell you that the more you do what you do with
intention, and the more that intention is in the direction of God, then the
more of what you do becomes prayer – until life is lived as a prayer.
There are as many ways of praying as there are people. The life of prayer
is a journey and it requires commitment and trust – trust in God and that God
is good. There will be many trials and many times when life and prayer
are confusing, and so we trust that what we don’t understand is in good hands;
and then make a commitment to choose good and live prayerfully in all
circumstances. I like to think of the attitude for prayer as the three
“h’s” – humility, honesty and hope.
1. Humility - we
are humble in prayer, knowing that we do not always know or understand and with
a humble heart we are ready and willing to be open to what we receive;
2. Honesty – we hide nothing in
prayer about our life and about ourselves. If we are angry, we say we are
angry and humbly ask for help; if we don’t understand, we say we don’t
understand. We are open and honest about who we are, about our doubts,
about what we are feeling.
3. And hope. Even when
the situation seems hopeless, we place our trust and hope in God. We come
hoping for what it is we or those we pray for need; or we come hoping for the
means and strength to cope with what is; hoping for some direction.
Hoping also means remaining open to what we don’t understand and possibilities
we haven’t yet imagined.
Prayer,
like life, can seem arduous at times; but it can also be joyous with many
surprises; and it can lead to a place of deep inner peace.
My MDiv thesis was on prayer; in particular, prayer as presented in The
Interior Castle which is the name of a book by Saint Theresa of Avila
on prayer. Theresa describes prayer as an interior place, a castle which
one begins exploring from the outside and then goes ever deeper to the
centre and, in so doing, is drawing every closer to God.
Theresa is also very practical, making allowance for people getting lost,
falling back, moving between the inner and outer rooms of the castle. She
pragmatically suggests that visions be treated with proper rest and a proper
diet before considering them to be inspired by God. To me, this practicality,
more than anything, speaks of her experience with prayer, for she herself had
visions and was suspicious of them. In 1970, Theresa of Avila was made
the first female Doctor of the Roman Church, mainly for her work on prayer.
The main thing to remember about prayer is that it is our heart’s language, our
heart’s way of communicating with God. Our prayers, often, in the
beginning have words, but prayer doesn’t need words. Prayer can simply be
to place oneself in God’s presence and do nothing, but let God be. There
are many types of guided meditation and prayer suggestions to help one do just
that – to relax in the presence of God and let God nourish and heal the
soul. It is a different way of asking, asking without words.
Of course, the prayer we are most used to is the prayer of asking or supplication.
But how often in our living and the longer we live, the truer this is – how
often have we come to a place where we don’t know what to pray. Often,
prayer of this sort has to do with people who are terminally ill. We
don’t want them to die, but we don’t want them to suffer – and none of us lives
forever – so what is the right thing to pray? Or perhaps we may be
praying for a person who is a crossroads and we don’t know what the right thing
for them is. On occasions when knowing what to pray or how to pray is
difficult, there are two simple prayers which I find particularly
helpful:
·
One is “God, or Jesus, or
Holy Spirit, use a name for the Holy One with which you are truly comfortable
for this is a conversation: “Holy One, hold Johnny in your arms
today” or hold ‘Mary’ in your arms today.
·
Another, I find
particularly helpful when I want to prayer but don’t know what my prayer should
say is “God, I join you in Your prayer for Johnny today” or God, help me to
join you in your prayer for Johnny today. This can be a prayer for
any person or situation which seems unclear. “God, I join you in
your prayer for the refugees from Syria today.” “I join you in your
prayer for those affected by the wildfires in British Colulmbia
Today." "God, I join you in
your prayer for the World today.” And then don’t rush away, but rest with
that for a few minutes and, in the silence, let God in. Or you may wish
to extend the prayer: For instance take this short prayer: “God, I join
you in your prayer for Kingston Pastoral
Charge today”. And extend it to something like this but also
short. “God, I join you in your prayer for Kingston Pastoral Charge today.
Help me to see and be what is needed for your prayer to become our reality.”
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Supplication can come
together if we think about celebration and imagination. We celebrate what
strengths have gotten us to this place; but now it is time to imagine, with all
that is within our reach, in the midst of our reality and equipped with all our
strengths and talents – known and unknown – it is time to imagine what we could
be; and better yet, what God is calling us to be in this time and in this place
for the sake of the world. Take time each day to put turn off your cell
phones and your computers and your TV’s and pray; but also imagine, day
dream.
I was
listening to CBC radio program a few years ago.
The program was presenting yet another research piece of the effect of
technology on our brains. With technology, people, esp. young people are
spending very little time day-dreaming. It turns out that day-dreaming is
necessary for the development of our brains and our thinking. By day-dreaming
we accomplish 4 tasks: the organization of memory; using our
imaginations, planning for the future, and the development of empathy.
Since
one of our tasks this year is to look to our future, over the next few months I
am going to invite you to day-dream – to remember your best experiences of
church; and your best experiences of yourself engaged in church. From
that we will come to know our strengths as people of faith. Then as you
daydream, let you mind go and imagine the church as living out its ministry
within this place – a church that is a joy to behold and a good place to
be. With the two tools of remembering our strengths and imagining what we
can be, we will have the tools to prayerfully plan our future.
But
this is the start for all of us for the next little while, daydreaming –
remembering our best selves and imagining what can yet be. This Pastoral Charge has three buildings on
three properties. These buildings and lands and the people who frequent
them are assets - not in monetary terms, but in terms of being useful for the
ministry to which God calls us.
And you
people who are come to these buildings, who worship together, who work for your
church - so many gifted, good-hearted, committed people – are you finding joy
in your service? What is the Joy to which God calls you, calls us?
What is it you love to do? What is your deepest desire for the people of
God in this place, for you in this place? Because, one of the things deep
prayer teaches us is that our deepest desire is quite often God’s deepest
desire for us. We but need dare to imagine and believe, and trust in the
reality of what is already ours.
Let us our desire and compassion for the work of God
decide our ministry, make use of our assets and create the will to acquire what
we need to become the best version of Church, of God's people we can be.
The
longest prayer in the Bible is Jesus’ prayer for his disciples which is found
in John, chapters 14 to 17. His prayer is also a kind of spiritual-will; a last will in testament for the spiritual
life, for in it he gives his closest
friends his final teachings, his hopes for them, his advice for living into the
future and his dreams. Jesus desire for his disciples was that they
should know joy:
John 15: 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be
in you, and that your joy may be complete.
And his most enduring advice was as simple as
this:
12 "This
is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
“That my
joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” This is, I
believe, God’s desire for us - God’s desire for Kingston Pastoral Charge
as a whole and the people in each of its 3 congregations as together we discern
the future: that God’s joy may be in us, and that our
joy may be complete. And that we love one another.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray:
Compassionate
God, we remember with thanks all we have received in this place: the friendships, the faith, the comfort and
support; as well as the ability to live with hope into the future.
Holy
Spirit, blow among us. Clear out the cob webs of fear and doubt and anxiety
that we may discern with You the possibilities You wish to live among us. Teach
us the joy of living gratefully in the present, the grace of accepting humbly
our reality, and the faith to trust Your leading as we imagine our tomorrows.
Amen.
United
Church of Canada Statements and Creeds on Prayer
1925 – Basis of Union
Article XIII. Of
Prayer. We believe that we are encouraged to draw near to God, our Heavenly
Father, in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and on our own behalf and that of
others to pour out our hearts humbly yet freely before Him, as becomes His
beloved children, giving Him the honour and praise due His holy name, asking
Him to glorify Himself on earth as in Heaven, confessing unto Him our sins, and
seeking of Him every gift needful for this life and for our everlasting
salvation. We believe also that, inasmuch as all true prayer is prompted by His
Spirit, He will in response thereto grant us every blessing according to His
unsearchable wisdom and the riches of His grace in Jesus Christ
1940 – Statement of Faith - no article on prayer
1968 (Rev.
1980, 1995) - A New Creed – no mention
of prayer
2006 – A Song of Faith
We sing of the Spirit,
who speaks our prayers of deepest longing
and enfolds our concerns and confessions,
transforming
us and the world.
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