Truth be told, the longer I’m at this business of faith exploration, the more mysterious prayer seems to me. I so appreciate that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, They needed help. Me too.

I feel like I spend a fair amount of time praying, or at least trying to clear my monkey mind so that I can pray. Truth be told, I know I’m often just mulling things over in my mind, a conversation with myself. I sometimes wonder if my prayers go higher than the ceiling. I can forget that my prayers are addressed to someone.

For that reason, I’m grateful for teachers like Thomas Keating, a monk and priest who helped people focus on centering prayer in a world that is definitely off kilter. He spoke of the importance of the contemplative life, of a prayer life, of placing one’s self in the presence of God. Keating cited St. Teresa of Avila who wrote: “All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.” Keating adds: “This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent.”

From another branch of Christendom, I’m mindful of the hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus.” It talks about taking it to the Lord in prayer, about the peace we often forfeit because we don’t pray.

Jesus not only taught about prayer, how to do it and how not to do it. (We saw that early in the Sermon on the Mount.) He also modeled a life of prayer by stealing off for times of quiet conversation with God, the one he called Abba or Father, especially at key moments like the night before he called disciples and the night before he was put on trial.

One could easily interpret the teaching on prayer in today’s verses to say that we will get whatever we want, that prayer is like a blank check or three wishes from Aladdin’s lamp. Prayers are not like calling DoorDash and getting a delivery of what you want. God is not valet. But prayer does have the power to change us. And it can change the world.

What I’ve come to love about the people who have taught me about prayer (Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr) is that their focus on contemplation, on a life of prayer, on attentiveness to God’s voice in no way ignores the problems of the world and things that need to get done, the healing that needs to happen. It’s neither pie in the sky, nor retreat.

Rather, the contemplative focus equips people to contribute to the transformation of our world. I think of how Martin Luther King insisted that those participating in demonstrations have daily prayer and bible reading, When John Lewis was attacked on that bridge in Alabama, getting in good trouble, he had a backpack that included the Bible and a book of meditations by Howard Thurman.

So I’m thinking that when we pray, we place ourselves in God’s presence. We may not get what we ask for, which in many cases is a blessing. But we will be changed. Doors will be opened. And we will be brought into a new relationship with God, neighbor and even self. And by amazing grace, our world will be changed.

Today’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount offers some tough talk from Jesus. His colorful language suggests that the lives of disciples unfold in the presence of opposition, resistance or indifference, perpetrated by folks compared to dogs and swine. Have you ever felt like that is what you’re up against?

Jesus makes the point that as the disciples live in the world, as they offer what they have as followers of Jesus, as they share what they consider to be good news, they may not be well received, to put it mildly. It echoes what Jesus says when he sends out his disciples (see above). He tells them to extend peace to communities they visit. If their word of peace is accepted, awesome! If that peace is not accepted, move on. Shake the dust off of feet. Don’t try to compel agreement. Ah, if only the church throughout its history had bought this idea.

So today we read about pearls before swine. The pigs simply don’t recognize the value of the pearls. Holy gifts to dogs. All the dogs know how to do is fight.

What does this say to us this morning? We’re living in rancorous days. I don’t remember a time when people would say I can’t go on vacation or have dinner with family or friends because they watch a different cable news show or embrace a different candidate. Courtesy of television and social media, we retreat to communities of affirmation and agreement. We navigate parallel universes, with completely different perspectives, and facts which we pick and choose. Given all that, how do we move forward?

First, Jesus tells his disciples (us) that they (we) are not always going to be well received, as much as we people-pleasing clergy would like for that to happen. So let that go.

Second, Jesus suggests that we may not find ourselves able to change other people’s minds. Beyond that, it suggests that that is not our job. We are not the ones who can cause folks to value what they don’t value. Changing people’s hearts and minds is God’s work, not our own. Posting on social media may be fun, even delicious, but all we are called to do is be faithful. We can indeed be instruments in transformation, but when that happens, it most likely happens through the witness of our lives and not our compelling arguments.

Third, for me it’s a call to humility accompanied by trust that God is in charge. We are not in charge, and we are especially not in charge of what other people think. We have a gracious plenty tending to our own thought processes, our own opinions.

Which makes me wonder about Jesus’ instructions. I’ve always read it as faithful disciples meeting faithless pagans. I’ve always placed myself in the faithful disciple camp. But as I thought about this, I wondered how I’m like those swine, not even noticing pearls set in front of me. I wondered how I might be like those dogs, eager to tear somebody else apart, even if only in my imagination. Do I really value the pearls of God’s grace set before me, the limitless forgiveness, the beauty of nature? Do I growl too much? How might the change come to me, or am I stuck in the pig sty of my own focus, my own agenda, my own resentment that keeps me from recognizing pearls?

It may be helpful to recall a time when pearls were presented to you and you changed your mind. I’m old enough to recall when women were first ordained to the priesthood in the church. I remember conversations with people who thought that the ordination of women was a bad idea. But something amazing happened. People changed their minds, not because they were argued into it, but because they began to see women function in the role of priest. I remember someone saying: “I’m not in favor of women’s ordination, but our parish priest (a woman) is awesome. I’m so glad she is leading our church. I’m so glad she was ordained.”

Maybe that person could have been argued into acceptance of what I thought was a grand idea. But what changed that person’s mind was a relationship, witnessing a faithful and loving ministry. Maybe that’s all we can do, all we are called to do. Be faithful in our witness to good news. Share the grace we’ve come to know. And let the Holy Spirit handle the rest.

I so look forward to the day when I will be able to do that.

From a column that appeared on July 8 in the NY TIMES, a guest essay by Anne Lamott on the subject of prayer, as a reflection of her relationship with God:

I will have horrible thoughts about others, typically the Christian right or the Supreme Court, or someone who has seriously crossed me, whose hair I pray falls out or whose book fails. I say to God, as I do every Sunday in confession: “Look — I think we can both see what we have on our hands here. Help me not be such a pill.” It is miserable to be a hater. I pray to be more like Jesus with his crazy compassion and reckless love. Some days go better than others. I pray to remember that God loves Marjorie Taylor Greene exactly the same as God loves my grandson, because God loves, period. God does not have an app for Not Love. God sees beyond each person’s awfulness to each person’s needs. God loves them, as is. God is better at this than I am.

Anne Lamott has also noted that the difference between you and God is that God doesn’t think He’s you. All of which brings us to Jesus’ wisdom in today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount. Apparently knowing us quite well, he speaks about the ways we judge others. We obviously make many judgments on any given day. We have to make decisions. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is talking about.

So what do you think he’s after in this passage? What does it say about us when we judge others? What does it say about those others whoever they may be, i.e., the people we judge? What does it say about what we think about God?

Take them in order. First, what does our propensity for judgment say about us? Have you ever heard someone say: Who am I to judge? It’s a little like someone saying: Bless your heart. There’s always more behind the statement. Who am I to judge, but let me tell you why I think that person is off track. Let me tell you why God should be upset with that person. There’s a gracious dose of hubris implicit in judging. It suggests we see ourselves doing God’s job for God. Here’s the problem: We don’t know as much as God knows. We don’t love as much as God loves.

Then what does it say about how we regard others? What does it mean if we find ourselves passing judgment on others? It can only mean that we think on some deeper level that we are better than those people, a particular temptation for religious folks. It can’t help but bring division. Jesus suggests that the spirit that inclines us to judge others will come back to bite us. The judgment we give will be the judgment we receive. If that’s the field we choose to play on, we will undoubtedly get smacked with judgment ourselves.

Truth be told, it seems that judging other people probably does little to change other people. Have you ever really “won” a political argument or made headway on social media? All that that kind of judgment does is damage community. Once we get into the mode of judging, it can be hard to know where to stop. Pretty soon, we’ve ended up judging everyone around us.

I recognize in myself a potent judgmental streak. I think about where that comes from. I can get really judgmental about the people and communities and ways of thinking that made me judgmental. Talk about a loop! As Anne Lamott prays: Help me not be such a pill.

Finally, what does our judgment say about how we regard God? It implies that God is not up to the task, that God can’t be trusted to be the ultimate judge, that maybe we know better than God does. It implies that we think that the unconditional forgiveness at the heart of the gospel is not really all that unconditional, that it depends on our own judgments, that we become final arbiter in some way.

So what do we do? We recognize we’re all in this together, that every one of us could be judged, that every one of us needs mercy. We each and all need to be given a break. On a regular basis, it helps to give thanks that mercy has come our way. It can be work, it can involve discipline to do that, but it’s worth the trip, even though it’s much more delicious to judge. But as noted, while I’m actually quite judgmental, I have a sense that if I could stop or curtail judgment, I would enjoy life more. I would enjoy relationships more. I would experience greater freedom. I’d be less of a pill.

Psalm 37 has been a help to me in moments when I feel inclined to judge. Portions of that psalm appear above. When I get on my high horse, it helps to turn it over to God, remembering the psalmist’s call, the warning to refrain from fretting about others. It leads only to evil.