Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, November 19, 2006, at the 9:50 am service.
The Phoenix Affirmations: # 12
The Path of Jesus is found where all of Christ’s followers are understood to be called into ministry. God’s intention for us can be found and followed, however haltingly and imperfectly, in obedience to the guidance and insights, which come in prayer. We hold this conviction to be true of the church as well as of each of its members.
Ernest Holmes
When prayer removes distrust and doubt and enters the field of mental certainty, it becomes faith; and the universe is built on faith.
Luke 5:15-16 (CEV)
15News about Jesus kept spreading. Large crowds came to listen to him teach and to be healed of their diseases. 16But Jesus would often go to some place where he could be alone and pray.
The
rabbi and the priest were driving along a country road discussing business when
a little rabbit ran in front of the car. They quickly pulled the car over to
the side of the road, only to discover that the rabbit was dead.
The priest decided he must say last rites for the poor unfortunate critter so he walked over to the rabbit. He proceeded to pray, taking a vial out of his pocket and sprinkling some holy water on the rabbit.
As the priest walked back to the car, the rabbi felt that he should take a turn at the rabbit, so he walked over, said a few words, removed a vial from his pocket and sprinkled something on the rabbit.
Immediately the rabbit jumped up and scurried away. The priest was astounded! He said to the rabbi, “I don’t understand......I said prayers over the rabbit and sprinkled holy water on it and nothing happened. What was it that you sprinkled on it?”
The rabbi showed the vial to the priest. The label read: Hare Restorer.
Now I don’t know how efficacious Hare Restorer is. If it worked that good, I suspect I’d be supporting a beautiful head of hair. Unfortunately, my hair developed a permanent wave…goodbye!
So I’m not here to recommend a hair restorer to you. Instead, I’d like to recommend another product; it’s called “Prayer Restorer”.
It’s not exactly the same product as recommended by the harried person who felt frustrated at work. She bowed her head and prayed: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill today because they got on my nerves.”
But she didn’t end there. She went on to pray: “And also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on today, as they may be connected to the feet I may have to kiss tomorrow.”
She concluded her prayer by saying: “And help me to remember that when I’m having a bad day and it seems that people are trying to wind me up, it takes 42 muscles to frown, 28 to smile, and only 4 to extend my arm and smack someone in the mouth!”
We’ve all felt that way, one time or another. Even working in a church can get on your nerves sometimes…even here, at the Sunshine Cathedral, where life is usually quite peaceful and serene. But when we have a month’s worth of Spirit & Truth to get ready for publication, a sermon to write for next Sunday, a Christmas concert staring us in the face, event after event right around the corner, volunteers to encourage and sometimes supervise, a staff member home sick with something no one else wants to catch, and…you know what I mean?
That’s when I recommend a good dose of my new elixir: Prayer Restorer.
I’m not suggesting that we somehow restore prayer in the church. We pray as a group every day at 11:45, first reading the daily devotion in Spirit & Truth, and then praying for the requests we have received, each one by name. It’s a special moment in the middle of the day, and everyone who is here is invited to join us. Sometimes it’s a handful of the staff; other times we have a number of volunteers and guests who drop by joining us in our Prayer Pause.
We also pray during our worship services. I love the way we come up to the front of the church and pray as a group. Something wonderful happens in that moment, when we lay aside our own needs and pray for the person on our left and the person on our right. And then, when we conclude with the Affirmation, it just seems to lift me right up to heaven!
But there are times when our Prayer Pause needs to be quiet and quite alone. We need to get away and just stop all activity. That’s Prayer Restorer…when we are restored physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually by being alone with our God.
Jesus did it! Our Gospel reading today tells us “…but Jesus would often go to some place where he could be alone and pray.” Not only will you find this in Luke’s gospel, but you’ll read similar references in Matthew, Mark and John.
Even in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus tells his disciples: “If they ask you: ‘What is the sign of your Father in you?’ tell them: ‘It is a movement and a rest.’” He is pointing out the balance between activity and renewal, between movement and rest.
The great Mahatma Gandhi said: “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
When I hear Martin Luther talk about praying, I feel so inadequate. He says, “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”
I admit that I don’t spend three hours in intense prayer, as Luther did. I’ve tried that and I last about 15 minutes. But I’ve discovered that if I sit quietly without so much as mentioning a thing to God, the time flies by. Only late in life did I discover that what I was doing was meditating.
In all fairness to Dr. Luther, he said some wonderful things about prayer, such as: “All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired, although not in the hour or in the measure, or the very thing which they ask. Yet they will obtain something greater and more glorious than they had dared to ask.”
Take another look at Jesus in prayer. He was thoroughly convinced that he had a calling, a purpose for his life, a destiny. That’s apparent in all that he did and said. Yet he took time to recharge, to employ the Prayer Restorer.
Our affirmation today reminds us that “all of Christ’s followers are understood to be called into ministry.” That’s you and me, the true ministers in the Sunshine Cathedral. Not just professional clergy, but everyone.
Yet the affirmation reminds us: “God’s intention for us can be found and followed, however haltingly and imperfectly, in obedience to the guidance and insights, which come in prayer.” Without prayer, our ministry is weak and ineffective; with prayer, we are changed and we change our world.
James Dillet Freeman, whose Prayer of Protection we say at the end of every service, tells us: “Sometimes the answer to prayer is not that it changes life, but that it changes you.”
The ‘father of existentialism’, the great philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, agrees. He says, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes [the one] who prays.”
Samuel Shoemaker, Episcopal priest and a great friend of AA in its early development, also agrees, saying, “Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for things.”
I cannot recommend more highly the practice of finding a quiet place and a quiet time to reconnect to the divine, to recharge your batteries, to try Prayer Renewal. Listen to the prophet Isaiah: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.”
‘Waiting’ is not working; ‘waiting’ is being still and letting God work in and through you. You see, as Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh, tells us, “God is waiting eagerly to respond with new strength to each little act of self-control, small disciplines of prayer, feeble searching after” God. And the good bishop reminds us, God’s “children shall be filled if they will only hunger and thirst after what [God] offers.”
And you know what? That’s the truth!
I am filled with Spirit.
Spirit flows through me.
My life is a prayer.
My words are a prayer.
My actions are prayer.
I am wonderfully blessed,
and I bless those around me.
I am abundantly blessed,
…and I like it like that.
And so it is. Amen!
