Take it to the Lord in prayer

Yesterday’s gospel (below) has me thinking about the disciples’ request to Jesus: Teach us to pray. I found myself wondering what those lessons were like, and in what ways prayer can be taught.

At the same time, I realize that the more I wade into this praying business, the more I find myself on the edge of deep mysteries that can quickly make me feel like I’m in over my head, facing waves of questions about how prayer works. Clearly, I could use a teacher.

So I picked up a short book by a monk and bishop and deeply spiritual guy named Anthony Bloom. A holy man. The book is entitled: Beginning to Pray. He makes the point in the very first paragraph that he is just a beginner at prayer. If this guy, near the end of a life dedicated to the spiritual journey, is just beginning, is there any hope for me?

Then I turned to another respected spiritual guide, Aretha Franklin. I was driving around town, thinking about preaching about prayer. I put in a CD (remember those?), Aretha Franklin singing hymns. I found myself replaying one hymn in particular: What a friend we have in Jesus. I’ve heard that hymn played a lot. I’ve heard it played badly. Let’s just say its melody ain’t Mozart. But as she often does, Aretha brought it to life. The way she sang, her ministry of music made me focus on this bit of the hymn text:

Oh, what peace we often forfeit.
Oh, what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.

I thought of how often I forfeit a sense of peace. I thought of the needless pain I bear worrying about stuff. As I watched the political convention, it did not evoke a sense of peace. As I read the newspaper, I am not filled with a sense of peace. As I think about the state of the church, I am not always filled with peace. So I was grateful for the gospel according to St. Luke, the gospel according to St. Anthony, and the gospel according to St. Aretha, which told me, each in their way, to stop forfeiting peace, and build trust, and take it to the Lord in prayer, acknowledging that I am just a beginner.

It doesn’t mean I don’t have lots of questions about prayer. Maybe you do too. Here are a few of mine:

• If prayer works, why do bad things happen to good people?
  Does the God of all creation really care if I pray?
• Should I pray if it sometimes feels like I’m talking to the ceiling?
• What happens if I don’t pray about something? Will it still happen?
• Should I pray for a parking space?
• What happens if people at the Republican Convention and people at the Democratic Convention both pray for success?
• What happens if Chapel Hill fans and Duke fans pray for victory? Yankees and Red Sox? Cubs and Cardinals?
• How can I do less talking and more listening in prayer?

No easy answers. Deep mysteries. But maybe we don’t need all the answers to just take one step in the journey of prayer. What would that look like today for you? Maybe just sitting for five minutes of silence. For those who are tired of forfeiting peace, it may be worth a try.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.

Honor

In the mornings, I get ready for the day by spending time with scripture readings suggested by the Book of Common Prayer. Over the course of a two year cycle, the lectionary leads me to read most of the Bible, the parts I get and those I don’t, the parts I like and those I don’t,

We’re presently making our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans, the longest of his letters, one that contains passages that cry out for editor and/or explicator. To my mind the letter can be divided into two parts.

The first 11 chapters represent Paul’s best attempt at describing the grace of God, a free gift from the Holy One that is meant for all. And Paul does seem to mean all. The second part of the letter (chapters 12-16) represents what I call the so-what factor, the implications of amazing grace, what it looks like when people live their lives believing that grace is true. (Frankly, most of us have a hard time believing grace is true. Our lives are spent trying to prove our worth, trying to prove ourselves better than someone else).

Chapter 12 begins with the word “Therefore” Whenever we run across that word in Paul’s letters, we have to ask what the “therefore” is there for. It is there to say that the way we live our lives is a reflection of the grace that Paul has described in the beginning of the letter. These passages cause me to ask: Have I really grasped grace? Does my life show it? Paul describes in these last chapters what that life looks like. When I read portions from the 12th chapter last Friday morning, here is the phrase that jumped out at me:

Outdo one another in showing honor.

Paul is telling the Roman audience (and us) how to live in community. They are to honor each other. It almost sounds like a competition. See how much honoring you can do. And when you’re done with that, do some more.

So what do you make of that word, honor? I’ve written about it before. It calls for reclamation, as often we reduce its holy meaning to talk about honoring a credit card or coupons. It can mean a virtue to which we aspire, like bravery or courtesy. But here it suggests action.

The word honor, a bit old-fashioned perhaps, appears in the Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage. At the exchange of rings, the couple says: With all that I am and all that I have, I honor you. It gives an indication of what the word honor means. It’s relational, not contractual. It says that I seek the best for you, for the other person, in a world that says “me first” or asks “What’s in it for me?” I often tell couples that if they remember nothing else from their wedding liturgy (which sometimes seems like a speed bump on the way to reception and honeymoon), they should hold on to the word honor. Make it a screen saver. Put it on the bathroom mirror. Post it near the door when you leave in the morning. Better yet, post it on the outside of the door, when you’re coming home after a long day.

What does it mean to seek the best for the other? Jesus, the one who came to serve, not to be served, seemed to have a pretty good handle on it. It can come down to the most practical things. Listening before speaking. Forgiving before accusing. Assuming the best in another person, not the worst. Lowering defenses, raising hopes for the other. Blessing, not cursing. Looking at life from the other person’s point of view. Hearing the other person’s story. Imagining what that story feels like.

Carry the word honor with you today, as a response to the grace God has shown you and me. God has honored each one of us. How might we pass that on?

-Jay Sidebotham

Romans 12:1-13

 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect. 

 

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. 

 

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

In the late 1990’s, Desmond Tutu invited members of the Order of the Holy Cross in America to come to South Africa. I’m told he made the request because his country, in the wake of apartheid, needed models of life in community. Tutu believed the presence of a Benedictine monastery could help.

The brothers found a place near Grahamstown, a beautiful part of a beautiful country. They went, not knowing what they would do except to say their prayers, trusting vocation would emerge. Vocation did emerge, in the founding of a school for some of the poorest children in the region. The brothers committed to providing as fine an education as the most expensive schools In South Africa. The brothers came. They prayed together. They did indeed bring community.

After the events of last week, the hunger for community is deep. Funerals in Baton Rouge and Minnesota and Dallas are outward and visible signs of our broken world. What will it take for us to live together, as we retreat into partisan enclaves, imagining walls, breaking alliances? Difficult questions for sure, but they are hardly new.

The questions were top of mind in the 6th century. The Roman empire was falling apart. Fear and deprivation gripped the people. A monk named Benedict retreated to a cave to live out his religious life in peace. He was identified as a spirit-person, and perhaps reluctantly (I picture a raging introvert…that’s partly why I like the guy) was drawn to form communities, shaping pathways for the challenging task of life together, articulated in what is known as his Rule.

Today, July 11, is the feast of St. Benedict. We know a bit about his biography, but just a bit. We celebrate him mostly because of the Rule he established. It offered a way for people to live together, a model of community. People still read the Rule, study it, apply it, inwardly digest it, perhaps more in the last generation than in preceding periods. If you haven’t read it, let me suggest it for summer reading.

The questions which prompted Benedict to write about community are questions asked today. How can we live in community, in a world that doesn’t seem safe, in a world where political and religious institutions seem to fall apart? It’s been my great privilege not only to experience some of the life of a monastery, thin places where distance between heaven and earth diminishes. In parishes, I’ve known groups that meet weekly to study Benedict’s Rule. Out of such study, convening around common text like the spokes of a wagon wheel, new community emerges.

On the one hand, the Rule is mundane. First reading might say there’s no contemporary application. But the Spirit has something else in mind. The call to live in community shines through, though there’s no illusion that it’s easy. So it has to do with intentionality. The prologue opens with this line: Listen with the ear of your heart. That call to listening signals spiritual purposefulness. In our parlance, we might call it mindfulness. It calls us to be learners. It calls us to be guided by the heart, to follow what we love, or more to the point, to follow who we love.

It calls us to look to Christ. One of St. Benedict’s lines that grabs me: Let Christ be the chain that binds you. Esther De Waal, in her book on Benedict’s rule entitled Seeking God says it this way:

St. Benedict points to Christ. Christ is the beginning, the way and the end. The Rule continually points beyond itself to Christ himself, and in this it has allowed, and will continue to allow, men and women in every age to find in what it says depths and levels relevant to their needs and their understanding at any stage on their journey, provided that they are truly seeking God.

And if ever we needed the Lord before, we sure do need him now. Thank you, Benedict.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.

Happy Fourth of July. This is a day for thanksgiving, as we stop to consider the many rights, privileges, and joys that come with our national life. We are blessed in many ways. But I find that the biblical injunction to give thanks in all things is put to the test for me these days, given current political discourse. So here’s how I’m responding to that test:

I am unexpectedly thankful for the current campaign as it calls us to debate this question: What makes for the greatness of a nation? We get answers, for sure, from the candidates. Do what you will with those.

But are there any answers which come from scripture? Did Jesus have anything to say on the matter? This holiday gives us opportunity to think about these questions. Independence Day is one of the national holidays that has found its way into the liturgical calendar. July 4 is a feast of the church, with prayers and readings selected to offer a faithful vision of common life.

So on this day, we are asked to consider a reading from the book of Deuteronomy, as the Lord tells the people of Israel what it will mean to be a great nation, as they enter the promised land: “The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” We might suggest this passage to the platform committees of both parties.

And on Independence Day, we are asked to consider an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells his disciples: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” How would such teaching find its way into the political debate? How would MSNBC and Fox exegete such a passage?

Our church asserts that these passages inform our common life on this national holiday. You may or may not agree. But as we hear a call to greatness, I’ve been thinking about what Jesus said when his disciples were getting all political on him, shamelessly jockeying for positions of prominence in the kingdom that Jesus would usher in. (See Mark 10.) “Let me be VP.” “Let me be chief of staff.” “Give me a corner office.” Jesus called the disciples together, called them on the carpet and said the following:

“You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

As citizens of this nation who are also followers of Jesus, a call to greatness has something to do with service. The quote from Martin Luther King in the column on the left makes that point. Greatness is accessible to all. Dostoevsky said that the greatness of a society can be seen in the way it treats its prisoners. Mahatma Gandhi said it could be seen in the way it treats animals. What would you say?

On this national holiday, can we pause to offer thanksgivings, and dare to dream that a holy greatness will be the mark not only of individuals but it will also be the mark of our communities, our towns, our schools, our workplaces, our churches, our cities, our nation.

-Jay Sidebotham

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

If you’d like to join in this donor-based ministry, donate here.