A sermon given at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral on July 24, 2016, the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, considering Genesis 18:20-32 and Luke 11:1-13.
I have some idea of what God expects of me, but I have less confidence in naming specifically what it is I can expect from God. Think about that for a minute. I can have a good idea of what it God wants from me, but I’m less sure of what it is I am allowed to want from God.
Is that at the heart of the disciple’s question, “Lord, teach us how to pray.”
I was a hospital chaplain for a couple of years after I finished at the seminary and Karen was finishing up her PhD. My supervisor said to me, “I notice you tend not to pray for healing with your patients. Why is that?
I knew why, but was sheepish because I wasn’t proud of the reason. I didn’t want to raise their expectations of God. Ask God for healing, God does not grant you healing, and then these patients and their families are angry and upset with God.
His response to me? “Who made you God’s PR man? Does God need you to take care of him?”
Working in that same hospital, I received a call to a family in the cancer ward whose mother was soon to die after a long and difficult battle with cancer. The family had all gathered around her bedside because they wanted to be there when she died. For those of you who have gone through that experience you know that it isn’t always an easy thing to gauge. People tend not to die when we would like them to. It doesn’t happen the way it is depicted on TV or in movies.
But the nurse, in an effort to DO something tangible for them (because we want to do something tangible), suggested they call the chaplain to speak directly to their unconscious mother and tell her that it was okay to “let go.” Tell her that God was ready to receive her, the family was gathered to honor her, and that she didn’t need to fight anymore.
The nurse explained to me my assignment and after meeting the family and talking for a bit we moved around their mother’s bed, I spoke directly to her, something similar to what they had asking me to do, and then proceeded to invite them to join hands and pray to God, repeating a lot of what I said to their mother, but this time as an appeal directly to God.
“Show your mercy and loving kindness and assure your servant that she has fought the good fight, run the race set before her and she has kept the faith.” Something along those lines. And when I said “Amen,” I noticed that the family almost on cue, all at once, turned and looked their mother, expectantly, as though she would at that very moment, breath her last breath. And then after a few beats, when it didn’t happen, a few of them looked at me, as if to say, “Uh...it didn’t work.”
I wanted to say, “Look, I’m good, but I’m not THAT good.” They were tired, they were exhausted, and as happens with most families in similar situations, they eventually dispersed and she died with just a few of them by her bedside.
Jesus had been away praying, as he often did. When he returned, they asked him to teach them how to pray. Show us the way to relate to God so as live into its full potential. They had seen Jesus heal people, perform miracles. In this same Gospel, preceding this story, Jesus had sent out 70 people out in pairs to teach and to heal, and when they came back they were ecstatic. It worked. They told him, “Lord, even demons obey us when we use your name. And he tells them that he has given them authority over all the power of the enemy.”
Teach us how to pray. Tell us what to say.
The movie Shadowlands was about the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman, his wife late in life who died after a long battle with bone cancer. There is a scene in the movie when Lewis’ Priest is commiserating with him skeptical friends who are chiding him for praying for his wife Joy in her illness. The priest tells Lewis, after hearing bits of good news about her treatment that God is, to chagrin of skeptical friends, finally answering his prayers. Lewis responds,
“That’s not why I pray. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time – waking and sleeping. Prayer doesn’t change God- it changes me.”
Jesus does give us some language to use, but the words aren’t magic. They do not force the hand of God. The story Jesus tells afterwards gives the fuller picture of what the “formula” is for God to be active in your life. If you’re looking for a formula, Jesus gives you the Lord’s prayer, and this:
You must be persistent, like an annoying friend. You must come to God, no matter the circumstances, no matter the outcome. In fact, the story he tells is vague in the response of the friend. At first the friend says, "No. Go away." But after second thought he gives in. It makes me think of marriage, all those times when spouses ask the other to do something even though we would prefer not to, but then turn around and do it anyway, in a huff, full of resentment.
It’s not the only time Jesus depicts prayer as bothering God until God reluctantly gives in. Later in the book of Luke Jesus compares God to an unfair and cantankerous judge, who only gives a woman seeking justice what she is asking for because she is bothering him and he just wants her to go away.
Why is Jesus being so sassy about prayer?
His tone is acerbic. He calls his disciples evil, for crying out loud! Is this what it looked like when Jesus was having a bad day?
The best answer I can come up with isn’t very satisfying. Perhaps Jesus is confounded that we are even asking the question. Maybe prayer is not that complicated. The relationship between God and human beings may be (I can have some good idea about what it is that God expects from me, but I am less sure of what it is that I can expect from God), but the bones of that interaction are not. Show up. Pray. Say anything.
Today’s Hebrew scripture was the story of Abraham haggling with God over whether or not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. You could say they are arguing. You could say that Abraham is trying to manipulate God, like a child asking parents for just 20 more minutes on the XBox, then 15 more minutes, then ten. But think about it, the only people we really care to argue with are the ones we are closest to.
Tonight, if you had no other choice than to wake up a friend because you needed something, which friend would you disturb? They are the ones who you are truly intimate with, the ones you trust with that kind of vulnerability. God is one of those people.
Frederick Buechner, wrote in his work The Magnificent Defeat:
If we are really seeking God’s power, then I have one thing to say--perhaps it is not the only thing, but it is enormously important: Ask for it...Pray. In whatever words you have. And if the little voice that is inside all of us as the inheritance of generations of unfaith, if this little voice inside says, "But I don't believe. I don't believe," don't worry too much. Just keep on anyway. "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.”
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