October 17, 2010

Of all people, I certainly do not see myself as the person to give a homily on Prayer. The mystery of prayer evokes in me, and I am struggling with the exact word... but fear comes to mind. Fear of being asked to offer a spontaneous, on the spot prayer- I admire people who can do this with ease. Another fear is that I don't know if I really know how to pray- what to say, how to start, how to end.

Sometimes I think I may suffer from spiritual attention deficit disorder, where I am spiritually adrift as I pray, my mind is every where else but in prayer and my body is figity. The mystery of prayer opens up more questions about prayer than when I first began to pray like: What difference does prayer make? Why should I keep praying? Is prayer real? Why are some prayers heard and others not? What good is prayer? "Am I just", as Steve Harper in his book titled, Talking in the Dark?

Jesus tells the parable of the Widow and the unjust Judge to his disciples because they too were struggling with prayer. We all at times have problems with prayer, even those who lead an active prayer life have "dry" periods and have reocuring questions pertaining to prayer. Prayer life is difficult. I read an interesting statistic stating that the average Christian prays 4 minutes a day and the richer the culture the less time it has for prayer.

In our busy lives we realize we have problems with prayer, but when we actually think about it, our biggest problem with prayer is that we easily lose heart. We lose confidence. We lose trust and hope that our prayers will be heard and listened to. We lose heart. And Jesus, a man of prayer, whose disciples watched pray often, during good and bad times, ask Jesus to teach them to pray. The parable Jesus tells goes like this:

There was this absolutely horrible judge. He hated people and he hated God.
He didn't go to church and he refused to give to such causes as the M&S Fund and the United Way!
Unfortunately appearing in his courtroom that day was a poor widow who needed justice but was poor. She had nothing- no money, no husband, no standing, no power, no resources, she had absolutely nothing. Even on a good day with a good judge she probably wouldn't have gotten justice. But here she is in a courtroom of the worst judge ever.
Remember I said that she had nothing? Well that is not exactly true. She did have one thing. She had the ability to pester and to be annoying. And when you have only one weapon in your arsenal, you use it. She annoyed the judge ruthlessly. She shouted aloud in his court room:
"Give me justice!" She continually knocked on his chamber doors when he was studying other cases, left messages on his answering machine, pestered him as he tried to tee off at the golf course or when he went out with friends to a favorite restaurant.
"Give me Justice. Give me Justice!" Finally she just wore him out.
The judge said to himself, " You know, I don't care about justice. I don't care about this widow, I don't like people, I care less about God, but this woman is driving me crazy! I'm going to give her what she wants just to get rid of her."

That is somewhat the parable that Jesus tells in order that we might pray always and not lose heart. Now what are we to get out of that story that will help us pray always and not lose heart?

Is Jesus saying that we need to keep our eyes focused on the bad judge? If it is, then we see that even though he was a horrible man, at the end of the day he did give the woman the justice she demanded and needed. Even though the headlines on the TV News show a world in turmoil, this is, God's world, this is a world watched over by a loving and just God, and at the end of the day, there is justice after all. The bad judge is only part of what we need to focus on, but it's not the heart of Jesus's parable, because if that is what Jesus wanted us to see, the moral of the parable would be more like, "Take heart. Things are not as bad as they seem." But the moral of the parable is "Pray always and do not lose heart."

Maybe Jesus wants us to focus our attention on the poor widow who went after what she needed, who was so persistent that she was able to get justice from the unjust judge.

Last Saturday as I was in the card isle at Shopper Drug Mart I heard this young voice saying to his mother " You know that I am thirsty." She tried to change the topic a number of times but it wasn't working. He kept on with the same statement— " You know that I am thirsty". After about the fifth or sixth time I was ready to buy him a drink. Instead I left the store. I am not sure how much longer the mother held out but he was certainly wearing her down. That's the way five year old children are. They bug you. They bother you. They are pushy. They are persistent.

This is not a trait limited to just children. A story is told about the day Mother Teresa went to visit Edward Bennett Williams, a legendary Washington criminal lawyer. He was a powerful man. He at one time owned the Washington Red Skins and the Baltimore Orioles and he was the lawyer for Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon, among others. Mother Teresa visited Williams because she was raising money for an AIDS hospice. Williams was in charge of a small charitable foundation that she hoped would help. Before she arrived for the appointment, Williams said to his partner, Paul Dietrich, " You know, Paul, AIDS is not a cause I usually support. I don't really want to make a contribution, but I've got this Catholic saint coming to see me, and I don't know what to do." Well, they agreed that they would be polite, hear her out, but then say no. Well Mother Teresa arrived. She was this tiny little thing sitting on the other side of the big mahogany lawyer's desk. She made her appeal for the hospice, and Williams said, "We're touched by your appeal, but no." Mother Teresa said simply, " Let us pray." Williams looked at Dietrich; they bowed their heads and after the prayer, Mother Teresa made the same pitch, word for word, for the hospice. Again Williams politely said no. Mother Teresa said, "Let us pray." Williams, exasperated, looked up at the ceiling, "All right, all right, get me my checkbook!" (Thomas Long, Praying Without Losing Heart, 2007)

So, are we to pray like the insistent widow, the annoying five year old boy, or the persistent saint? Possibly but if that was the whole meaning of Jesus's parable, then the moral would be: "Be fiesty. Pray always." But the moral is "Pray always and don't lose heart."

And if the parable is not just about the unjust judge and its not just about the insistent widow. It must finally be about God and about you and me. If a poor widow can receive justice from an unjust judge, how much more will we, Gods beloved, find a God who will hear and listen to our prayers.

I think this story speaks more to Jesus's Parable and it is one I am sure you have hear before:

Two boys are sailing down a river on a raft. Their destination is an Island in the middle of the river. As they were approaching the island a big wind came up and overturned the raft, breaking it into many pieces. The boys have to swim to the island. There they are abandoned on the deserted island, late in the day. No one knew where they were. Right at that moment a fishing boat came down the river and one of the boys runs to the shoreline waving their arms and screamed Help! Help! The other boy says why waste your time. They can't hear you and even if they did they wouldn't pay much attention to boys like us." But just at that moment the fishing boat turned toward the island. The one boy said to the other, "How did you do that?" The boy replied, "Well, there's something you don't know. The captain of that fishing boat is my father!"

The moral of the story is "Pray always and don't lose heart."

So why should we keep praying and not lose heart?

Remember Tevya, in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof"? Tevya was always talking to God. He would talk to God as he did his everyday chores- delivering milk, feeding his animals or as he walked along the road. He talked to God as he tried to work out his problems regarding his wife and 5 daughters. He prayed his life- he prayed about the things that touched him deeply. He prayed when life didn't make sense. He prayed from the heart. Tevya talked to God.

Those focused moments were really concentrated moments that represented a totality of an ongoing daily fabric of conversation he had with God. "Jesus was attentive to God on his knees and on his feet. He modeled prayerful living for us. He moved through the day in communication with God, able to move into and out of prayer with such ease that it appeared he was in a spirit of prayer all the time. Speaking with God and speaking with others was a singular experience." ( Steve Harper, Talking In The Dark, pg 51, 2007) I think a kind of ongoing conversation is the fundamental way that we pray always and God delights to see us keep trying.

When you have been angry with God... Have you let God know that you are angry? Job asked why righteous people suffer. The psalmists wondered why evil people prospered and good people didn't. Paul prayed for God to remove his thorn in the flesh but it remained. Even Jesus cried from the cross, " My God, My God, why have you forgotten me?" All the above took their pain and anger to God.

They did not simply work their way through the tough times, they prayed their way through them. Instead of giving up, they found strength in their praying. When we ask why in our prayers, we have somehow recognized that we are permitted to bring every question, every issue, every confusion and every struggle to God. God knows that we cannot pray authentically unless we can honestly express every thought and emotion. The old gospel song has it right- "what a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer!" Even our anger. There is a saying: Pray hardest when it's hardest to pray! A good friend of mine reminded me during a time of recent personal trial to pray and keep praying, even if the only words were "Help."

We can ask for God's presence when you pray. Even when it seems that you or God has moved away. People like John Wesley, Theresa of Avila and George Fox have felt periods of separation from God yet they continued to pray. To stop praying is a mistake because it makes sensibility the measure rather than faith. It takes away the sacred place where God is most likely to come back to us. If God has been real to us in prayer, it will probably be in prayer that God will become real to us again. To give up praying cuts us off from the very medium where renewal will come. Even when we talk in the dark and walk on a path we cannot see, we know we are not alone, and we know the path is there, God is there. We only need to knock.

Have you noticed that you usually bug and bother people who are closest to you. It is only people who are the closest to you that would tolerate you being pushy and persistent. "Abraham was close to God and out of that closeness Abraham felt free to bug God at certain times. For example Abraham says to God: "If you find 50 righteous people in that wicked and immoral city of Sodom and Gomorrah, you won't destroy it, will you, God? God said, "No, if I find 50 righteous people in the city, I will not destroy it." "How about 40 righteous people?" " No, I will not destroy it." How about 30 righteous people? What about 20? 10?" In Abraham's closeness to God he felt the freedom to bug God." ( Edward F Markquart) Sometimes our problem is that we spend more time working for God rather than walking with God. We need to substitute a professional relationship with God for a personal one. God desires a relationship rooted in love not performance , a relationship rooted in persistence and closeness.

When I went to a student/teacher night at my son's school when he was in grade 1, there were mother day cards up on the wall. They were practicing their printing and putting sentences together. All of them had warm sentiments about their mothers. This is what my son wrote: To Mom, I love you. Sometimes she bugs me, but I still love her more than anything. The one to whom we pray is the one who made us, loves us and wants to do more for us than we can ask or imagine. God never tires from our bugging.

We can not expect to maintain an authentic relationship with God when we give God the leftovers of our lives. God is the God of life. When we are artificial in our praying, its more difficult for God to respond to us as we really are. God can always deal with us when we are open, when we are real. We do not solve our problems by keeping prayer safe and clean and superficial. Rather than finding a God offended by honesty we find a God who can handle whatever we have to say.

Arnold Prater, a United Methodist minister, stated that every day he would get up, go to his place of prayer, and begin to exude flowerey words like: "O thou omnipotent God, who dwellest in splendor and who reignest in glory from age to age," and so on. Arnold said he could almost hear God's fingers drumming on the banister of heaven, communicating God's boredom with his artifical praying. One morning, Arnold reached a turning point; he moved into real prayer. He woke up with a 2-Excederin headache. Holding his head as he stumbled to his place of prayer, all he could say that morning was, " God....my head hurts!" In that moment Arnold heard the voice of God deep in his soul saying, "Well Arnold Ð finally! Now you know how to pray." (Steve Harper, Talking In The Dark, pg 42, 2007)

We need to experience prayer in a new way- or more correctly, experience God in a new way. In a way that builds deep, lasting relationship...in a way that makes coming to God in prayer -nourishing, refreshing and most of all real and intimate.

Prayer enables us to see every moment as a gift and as an occasion to cherish. Prayer is God's gift to us. We can choose to stop praying, to keep praying with diminished commitment or stay praying and continue to pray as best we can.

If we pray the second choice we go through the motion and we feel the emptiness of prayer. It is often here that we lose heart. If we continue to pray as best as we can we learn to deepen our prayer lives and our prayers become more meaningful and heartfull.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, convictions of things not seen. This can also be said of prayer. As Christians we walk by faith not by sight and this can lead to many questions about prayer and God. If there was ever a people who should have lost heart in prayer and God it was those who endured the concentration camps during the war or more recently the Chilian miners who survived almost three months under ground. Rather than be discouraged their testimonies give us hope. Like them, we realize we too can continue to pray often and not lose heart.

Church is a place where prayer can come alive. Where people are encouraged to bring their lives to God in prayer and view prayer more as a way of life then as a time. This would increase the amount of praying we do but more than that it would mean a growing sense that we live in an atmosphere of prayer.

Marcus Borg in his book, Meeting God For the First Time, writes, "I know that on days when I remember to pray I usually feel more centered, more present, more open, more peaceful and more appreciative. Yet I can so easily forget. When I go 3 or 4 days without remembering God, my life has the opposite qualities: less centered, less present, less open, less peaceful, less appreciative.

How I can know this and yet sometimes forget to pray remains a puzzle to me."

Today we hear how it is ok to be pushy and persistent in our praying. That God desires it and actually encourages it. God says knock relentlessly ...pray your life to me...pray your heart ...choose to pray often..... I am with you ......I am your God and you are my people....you are not alone.... and even if you are fearful.....continue to pray and don't lose heart...

Amen