Prayers Out of Left Field

Twelth Sunday After Pentecost
August 27, 2006

When I was a boy I was the worst player on the worst team in Cullman’s Dixie Youth Baseball League. It’s not much of a claim to fame, but you have to take what you can get.

It was in those days, in those lonely hours standing around in the outfield, that I developed a prayer life. Again, not much of a prayer life, but you start where you start. You see, in all my years of playing baseball I have no memory of actually getting a hit or of actually catching a ball during a live game. I managed to get on base occasionally thanks to youthful pitching skills, but otherwise never played an important role in a game.

And that’s where the prayers came in. My standing prayer was that no balls be hit in my direction. I knew I’d drop the ball and, since I wanted my team to win, I wanted the ball to be hit to someone with good eye-hand coordination, and one who could remember how many outs there were and the purpose of a cut-off man.

I know now that these were not the best use of my prayers. Clearly, I recognized that God was an important part of my life. It was to God, after all, that I turned in my panic and fear. But clearly my theology was not very well fleshed-out. I didn’t think through the implications of my prayer—what if the boy at bat were praying for a hit? Do such prayers cancel themselves out? I never stopped to wonder.

You may notice another peculiarity in my prayer. I wasn’t praying for the ability to catch the ball or to hit the ball or to do anything baseball-related with any skill. I’m not sure what that means. Was I questioning God’s ability to do something with such limited resources? I doubt that. I suspect that I simply realized my athletic limitations and didn’t want to bother God with requests that I didn’t feel strongly about. I didn’t really care if I ever became a good baseball player, but I didn’t want to let the other guys down. So call it a compromise prayer.

Mind you, I’m not recommending this approach to prayer. But I do raise it for two reasons. First, please don’t ask me to form a St. Luke’s softball team. And second, I want us to think about how we pray and what we pray for.

In First Kings today we hear the the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the Temple. This was a ceremony echoed millennia later at the dedication of this church in 1857. Solomon prays for the Temple as a place of prayer, asking that God hear the prayers of those who come to its altar.

Note the structure of the prayer. Solomon does not begin as I did in the outfield with a simple request: “God, please do this for me.” No. Here’s what he did:

First he prepared himself for prayer. He didn’t simply leap into prayer. He thought about it first. He assumed the posture you see in a priest at the altar today, hands spread toward heaven. Then he began by praising God. “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you.”
He proclaimed God as the one true and living God—none other like him. Then he recognized that God had answered prayers in the past. He lists these answered prayers: 1) God had kept covenant with the Israelites and had showed them chesed, the Hebrew word for steadfast love. 2) God had been always at the side of his father, King David. 3) God had put Solomon onto the king’s throne as part of the promise that David’s descendants would rule as long as they walked in the Lord’s ways.

All this was part of the prayer before anything was asked. It’s an excellent prayer, one that puts God first. This pattern is retained in our Prayer Book today in the collects, those prayers that collect our prayers together. Most collects begin with an acknowledgement of God, usually either by acknowledging God’s goodness and might, or perhaps some characteristic of God that is relevant to what we’re praying for. Then we pray for something in particular and conclude with an acknowledgement of Christ, our savior and the mediator of all our prayers, of all goodness.

I’ll give you an example, the collect in the Prayer Book “for all Christians in their vocation.”

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified; Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In this prayer we first recognize God in the Holy Spirit, which governs the church. Then, like Solomon, we ask that God hear and answer our prayers. In particular, we pray that all ministers may serve God truly and devoutly. And then we conclude by recognizing God in Jesus Christ.

This is a healthy mode of prayer. Like Solomon, we should acknowledge God’s goodness to us, no matter how lowly our state. We should first recognize that God indeed has the power to answer prayers and has answered our prayers in the past. Then and only then should we petition God for answers to our needs.

Of course, we should be ready for any answer. You may have heard the country song by Garth Brooks that claims some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. I don’t turn to Garth Brooks for most of my theology, but I suppose you could do worse in this case. Speaking of great theologians, did you see the Jim Carrey movie “Bruce Almighty”? Given the job of God, Jim Carrey’s character decides to simply say “yes” to every prayer. The result is that everyone’s prayer to win the lottery is granted—and the million dollar prize is split a million different ways. Nobody’s happy.

All our prayers will not be granted in the way we wish. Solomon’s father, King David, wanted to build the Temple, and the Prophet Nathan said, “Go ahead, God wants you to build it.” But God did not want him to build it. God said No. Solomon prayed for wisdom and not only did he get wisdom, he was granted long life to boot. One got a No, and the other got a Yes-And.

Solomon asked that the Temple be a house of prayer. Solomon asked that God hear the prayers of the Israelite and the prayers of the foreigner. Not that every prayer be answered in exactly the way that we wish—for remember, Solomon had been granted wisdom and he would have known that such a prayer would be foolish. No, he simply asked that God hear prayers and continue to fulfill his promises as God always had.

The writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians likewise urges us to prayer in the same way. “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me.” That is, pray at all times. Be filled with the Spirit. Don’t pray only for yourselves, but for all the saints, for all the church, for all your neighbors. And then he asks the Christians at Ephesus and elsewhere to pray for him. This is typical of Paul and all the epistle writers. Paul famously said in First Thessalonians: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing.” Less famously, he said just after, “Beloved, pray for us.”

I’ve often heard it said that most preachers have one or two sermons in them that they preach over and over, just in different words. I don’t know if that’s true. But if it is, I suspect you’ve just heard my sermon. You’ll hear it again, just in different words. And it will sound like this: “Beloved, pray at all times in the Spirit. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Pray for all the saints. And beloved, pray for me.”

Amen.

Making Change

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 20, 2006

The more things change, the more they stay the same. You’ve heard it said. And like me, you’ve probably scratched your head wondering exactly what this means. As a baseball fan, I’m convinced that it means I always will have my heart broken by the Chicago Cubs.

I do know that the saying is about change and how it’s something we must expect. And about how there are constants in our lives. The problem is trying to sort out what’s going to change and what’s going to remain the same.

Our Old Testament reading today from First Kings is about change. It begins with the death of King David, setting up the transition to King Solomon. Solomon says he is but a child – though that’s a figurative expression. He was probably 20 or so. But to inherit a kingdom, to have all the responsibility for war and peace and the welfare of the people on your shoulders…that must have been intimidating at any age.

Solomon was to preside over change, and change is never easy. Solomon was inheriting a kingdom that bore the indelible stamp of King David. The concept of Israel, the chosen people, had been around, of course, since the days of Moses back to Abraham. But David was the great king of that people, a uniter and military victor. David had conquered the Jebusites and took their most important city, the Citadel of Zion, and modestly proclaimed it the City of David. This eventually became the city we know as Jerusalem.
David was greatly loved by his people, despite his lapses in judgment in his personal life. He was a musician, a poet. A renaissance man before the Renaissance.

Then came Solomon. His brother, Absalom, was dead and obviously could not inherit the throne. But his brother Adonijah plotted against him from the beginning. Solomon worked fast. He showed that he could be as firm and ruthless as David, and had Adonijah slain.

Some things, then, would be the same. This would be a king who could rule with a firm hand. He would rule in the name of the Lord God, like his father. He would wipe out his enemies, like his father.

And some things would be different. If nothing else, he was a different person, a different king, than his father. People would see him stride by and know in their hearts that the world had changed. David, the man and king they loved, the man who was after God’s own heart—David was gone forever. And try as they might, some folks would never get over that fact.

Some things would actually be better under Solomon, though nobody could know that at the time. We know that Solomon would be wiser than David. This is the point of today’s reading. Solomon prayed for wisdom and was rewarded with that, and more. If there is any doubt, today’s reading is followed immediately by the famous story of the two prostitutes who each claimed a baby as their own. You know how that one turned out. Solomon looked crazy for a moment—“Cut him in half!”— but the true mother called out for her child and Solomon’s reputation as a wise king was cemented.
One of the greatest changes that came during Solomon’s reign was worship. Up to this point, the Jews worshiped by making sacrifices at altars. These altars were at what the Bible calls “high places,” scattered about the kingdom. Solomon would continue this tradition, and would build more of them for his foreign wives to meet their different religious needs. But you’ll note that the language of today’s reading is apologetic. Here and elsewhere, the writer of 1 Kings explains that in those days the people sacrificed at high altars.

You see, Solomon in his kingship would build the Temple. This would become the center for all Jewish worship. Even though Solomon obviously couldn’t sacrifice at a Temple altar that had not been built yet, it still seemed awkward to a later writer. The writer had to explain that things had changed in the interim.

Yes, things had changed. But things had remained the same. You’ve heard this in old movies, when the king dies the cry arises, “The king is dead, long live the king.” It’s a reference to the continuity of the office, of the kingship itself. That’s what the Jews experienced with the transition from David to Solomon. Difference and continuity.

The same held true in their worship. This must have been a huge change for people, to find that they were now limited to one place. Hard, but yet later generations would consider the very concept of religion to be impossible without the presence of the Temple. The psychological change may have been difficult, but there was continuity in worship. Sacrifice continued. The priesthood continued. And of course, the one true God continued to be worshiped. That is the most important thing, and certainly the Jews recognized this.

You’ve seen this in your own lives. The concepts of nation, family, religion remain constant. Yet things change. Wars come and go. Children grow. There are births and deaths. There are changes in worship, changes in ministers. Yet we still have religion, nation, family. I can’t speak for your families. I won’t speak for the nation. But religion—I can do that. Because there are constants even amongst the changes in our religious worship, and those constants are captured in today’s words from Jesus Christ.

If you were in the Episcopal Church before 1979, you went through changes in weekly worship with the introduction of what some people still call the “new” prayer book. One of the primary changes was to make the eucharist the central worship experience, with eucharist to be held weekly. The fact that the eucharistic service was now conducted in 20th century language and not in Elizabethan language actually drove some people out of the church. But the majority who remained were worshiping in the style advocated by Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the first Prayer Book back in 1549. Like Martin Luther, he advocated frequent communion, and he would have had the church offering holy communion weekly.

You have seen a change more recently here at St. Luke’s. There has been a transition from a rector to an interim rector to a deacon in charge. And there has been a less-obvious change on Sunday mornings in our worship. Over the past month, our morning worship has been conducted as what is unofficially called a “deacon’s mass.”
If you haven’t noticed a change, don’t worry. The difference is simply the absence of what is called the prayer of consecration, the eucharistic prayer. The bread and wine in our service already have been consecrated at another eucharist. In fact, the elements for today’s service were consecrated by Father Bruce White in a service at St. Michael and All Angels. So our service is a little different, and it’s because of the nature of the ministry.

You see, deacons in the Episcopal Church can conduct services, most typically morning and evening prayer. They are specialists in intercessory prayer. They are charged with linking the church with the needs of the world, with the poor and hungry, with the widow and the orphan.

In December, God willing, I will be ordained a priest in God’s holy, catholic and apostolic church. What will change in my ministry at that time is that I will be charged with the privilege and responsibility of granting absolution in God’s name, giving blessings, and consecrating the bread and wine at worship services.

And at that time, our service will look a little different again. Change.

And continuity. For what never changes is our purpose for gathering. Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” We will return again and again to exchange the peace with our neighbors, to repent of our sins, and to eat of the bread, the bread that brings us life everlasting.

Let us pray: O Lord Jesus Christ, who in a wonderful Sacrament has left unto us a memorial of your passion: Grant us, we beseech thee, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood, that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of your redemption; who lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Good Citizens, Saints, and the Law

Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
August 13, 2006

I want you to know that I am a good citizen. This past week I went to the county administration building in Anniston and got a driver’s license that shows my new address. You’re required by law to do that. I registered to vote in Calhoun County and even made sure of my new polling place. In true local fashion, they gave me directions by saying, “It’s behind the Burke’s Outlet. You know, across from the Chinese buffet.” So I’m all legal now. Oh, and when I visited Richard and Diane the other day I saw he had a new boat in the driveway. So I picked up a fishing license. You know, just in case.

So, I’m good with the law. Though that doesn’t get me very far. Following the law makes me a good citizen, keeps me out of jail, and keeps me out of others’ way. But that’s just doing the bare minimum. Following the law doesn’t tell me what else to do. The question remains: How am I supposed to live?

When you read the Epistles in the New Testament, you see Christians working out their new approach to life as Christians. The Book of Acts tells us the story of the early Christians debating this very point. What do you do when you’re a Jew who now follows Christ? Do you follow the Law, the Law of God as followed since the days of Moses? What if you are a Gentile, are you now required to begin following the Law in order to follow Christ?

St. Peter saw in a dream that it was all right to eat what once had been forbidden by the Law. The Council of the young church at Jerusalem decided that circumcision no longer was required. That answered some questions, but left some others open. Circumcision, that most ancient symbol of the chosen people, was no longer required under the new conception of the Law. But do remember that Jesus had said, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” [Matthew 5:18] In fact, Jesus sometimes said the Law ought to be even harder than what Moses taught.

This is hard. This is the sort of difficulty we have when we read the Bible because it isn’t simple. It isn’t as clear and easy as some want us to believe. You can’t go picking out favorite verses without relating them to all the others. You can’t invoke one “abomination” without raising the possibility of invoking all the others.

There were those like the fellow named Marcion back in the second century said we’d get around all these problems by just throwing away the Old Testament. That idea never took off because Jesus Christ said he was the culmination of the Law and the Prophets—and he honored the prophets and kept the Law. You throw out the God of the Old Testament and you throw out Jesus.

This is what St. John meant when he said that “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” [John 1:17] Jesus is the new manifestation of the Law and Prophets, the incarnation of God right here on earth.

Which is good theology, but it leaves us with the original question. How am I supposed to live my life? That is what the writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians is trying to help us with. He is passing on the teachings of the Apostle Paul to some of the earliest churches in Christianity. He wasn’t writing about problems at one church— St. Paul often did this—but rather was writing about the more general questions of life as Christians.

The Wednesday morning Bible study group has been studying Ephesians in depth. They can tell you that it isn’t the easiest reading in the Bible. The exciting story of David and Bathsheba and Absalom is much more compelling. War, sex, intrigue—that story has it all. In many ways, that story from 2 Samuel is the opposite of Ephesians. It shows us how not to live. Ephesians gives us guidance on how to live.

We are told to speak the truth to our neighbors. Be not angry and do not sin. Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander. Be tenderhearted. All good advice. Not exclusively Christian, however. The formula, “do not let the sun go down on your anger” is ancient. Go back and read Proverbs, or the Wisdom literature in the Apocrypha. Very wise, commonsensical, and definitely helpful in steering us to peaceful coexistence in Christian community.

Ephesians is not a restatement of the Law. And it’s not something newly unique about Christianity. It’s not a systematic statement of Christian ethics. In fact, there’s no such thing as a clear working-out of a Christian ethics in Scripture.

That sounds as if I’m pulling Ephesians apart, somehow disregarding it. Don’t you believe it. It’s Holy Scripture. It’s given to us for edification, for inspiration. It is inspired Scripture. But this is a letter meant by its writer to have a specific function, and it is not our business to make it into something it’s not. It is not a list of rules and regulations, not a new law to replace the historic Law. It is Scripture that gives us pro-active guidance toward behavior of the sort that my grandmother would have called “the Christian thing to do.”

You’ll notice that Paul and the other Epistle writers shy away from giving direct commands—you must do this, you are required to do that. But rather, they specialized in exhortation, urging us forward in love. Toward the goal of full Christian brotherhood. Toward salvation.

And salvation is the ultimate goal. Eternal life will come from our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from our relationship with the Lord, not from how we fulfill a list of laws. St. Paul and the writers of all the Epistles were quite clear about this.

Tomorrow, August 14 is the feast day of Jonathan Myrick Daniels. As you probably know, he was a seminary student at the Episcopal Divinity School who came to Selma, Alabama, to work in the Civil Rights Movement. He was arrested in Fort Deposit on August 14 and on his release from jail in Hayneville six days later, he was immediately shot and killed. Murdered, while wearing his clerical collar.

Just a few months before, he wrote an article for his diocesan newspaper. Here’s what he said:

There are good men here, just as there are bad men. There are competent leaders and a bungler here and there. We have activists who risk their lives to confront a people with the challenge of freedom and a nation with its conscience. We have neutralists who cautiously seek to calm troubled waters. We have men about the work of reconciliation who are willing to reflect upon the cost and pay it. Perhaps at one time or another [we] are all of these. Sometimes we take to the streets, sometimes we yawn through interminable meetings. Sometimes we talked with white men in their homes and offices, sometimes we sit out a murderous night with an alcoholic and his family because we love them and cannot stand apart. Sometimes we confront the posse, and sometimes we hold a child. Sometimes we stand with men who have learned to hate, and sometimes we must stand a little apart from them. Our life in Selma is filled with ambiguity, and in that we share with men everywhere. We are beginning to see as we never saw before that we are truly in the world and yet ultimately not of it. For through the bramble bush of doubt and fear and supposed success we are groping our way to the realization that above all else, we are called to be saints. That is the mission of the Church everywhere. And in this Selma, Alabama is like all the world: it needs the life and witness of militant saints.

This is exactly what Ephesians is urging us toward—life as a saint. In verse 4:12, we are told that the job of evangelists and pastors is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Jonathan Daniels wasn’t trying to meet some particular requirement of the Law. No reading of the Law would have prepared him for the ambiguities of the times. But he had been equipped –by the teaching of the Scriptures—to live the life of the saints. To live in and among the saints, to break bread with them. To be a saint.

That is what we are called to be in the Epistle to the Ephesians. That is what we are called to be by the writers of all Scripture. That is what we are called to be by Jesus Christ, who told us that he is the bread of life, and that whoever believes has eternal life. We are all so equipped. Go forth, and be a saint.

Amen.