prayer

Humbled.

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PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.

God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.

God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.

God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber,
God in mine ever-living soul,
God in mine eternity.

(Ancient Celtic oral traditions – Carmina Gadelica)

Luke 18:9-14

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

A couple of years, I made a bold statement about preaching.  We were talking about belief and practice at our college/young adult gathering that we had when I was pastoring at Immanuel in Clifton.  I quoted an author that I have enjoyed reading over the years is George MacDonald.  He was a children’s, theology, and fiction writer in the late 1800’s from Scotland.  He once said that God isn’t interested in our theological doctrines, but in our obedience, or awareness, to or of God and how we honor others.

Specifically, George MacDonald says “to hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it.  A person’s real belief is that which a person lives by.”  George MacDonald goes on to say that believing in an opinion about God is one thing, but trusting and being in a deep and abiding relationship with the one true and very good God that resides within and all around us is another.  

It seems as if God is more concerned about a person’s heart and mind being changed and growing that whether that person believed in the right things about God.  Relationship trumps dogma in other words.

So, I said, I might not preach another sermon on dogma or doctrine or man-made opinions about God.  It seems that in today’s preaching world, we try to give out feel good talks rather than prophetic words that Jesus said and lived out.  Words that cut to the bone of the corrupt system of injustice in the socio-religious-political world of Jesus’ day and what is STILL happening in our day.

Yes, today, things haven’t changed much.  Even though, in today’s thinking, we often want (and should) separate these things, but in Jesus’ day, society, religion, and politics were all intertwined.  And, even in our attempts to separate them today, they are still a part of a system that must be questioned and reformed, just as Jesus set out to do and has given us that same charge to live in Christ.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus is continuing this journey towards Jerusalem and is in the middle of a series of dialogues on prayer.  Jesus doesn’t seem to be too discerning of his audience.  He’s talking about the religious leaders again, the Pharisees, but also his disciples, folks following him and the folks in the crowd.  This is a message for us today as we often find ourselves in the place of the Pharisees as disciples or followers of Jesus…or we find ourselves as the other person in this story, the toll collector, or the sinner, the one seen as outside the religious boundaries that we have created.

The religious leader, and the non-religious toll collector…a person that was often looked down upon because he collected a tax and often took a cut for himself are both near or in the temple courtyards in this story.  Both of them are separated though from each other and from the others gathered there to pray.  The temple was set aside for prayers, but over the generations, there had emerged separate places of prayer for Jews, Gentiles, foreigners, men, women, etc.  All sorts of boundaries and walls created.  Yet, the Pharisee felt like he was living in a right way, had no need for forgiveness at the time, and was thinking God that he wasn’t like others…rouges, adulterers, etc. even the toll collector that he singles out.  Now, it’s good for him to give thanks, and it’s good for him to pray, but it’s not so good for him place himself above others.  He even goes on to say that he tithes 10%  and fasts twice a week.  Again, good things to do, but they denote a certain sense of entitlement.  If I do the right things, go through the religious motions, then God will be pleased with me and I am honored and can feel good about myself.

What’s missing?  An awareness of God, himself also, and certainly God’s love for everyone…and humility.  God is not interested in how well put together we think we are, but God is interested in how we have eyes and ears to see and hear our need to be connected to ourselves, others through God…to recognize God’s love and forgiveness for us.

In contrast, we see the toll collector…again standing off, not because he feels like he’s better than others, but because he knows that he has missed the mark, that he has sinned.  It doesn’t say with what, but maybe we can assume it’s because he’s gotten rich off of others…but, he’s beating his chest, crying out to God…asking God for mercy.  The definition of prayer really is about pleading to God…putting yourself in the midst of God’s flow and desperately wanting to place yourself before God.  That takes a risk.  Some of my most impressionable times in prayer have been when emotion and my full being are involved…when I’m yelling or pleading with God…placing myself in the midst of a vulnerable space.  

This man recognizes God.  He’s not interested in an opinion about God, he’s placing himself squarely in the midst of a very powerful, but loving God.  Now, we don’t know what happens next with this man.  Love from God is interesting.  It’s with us, but we may not always get what we think we want, or when we do, it may not be exactly as we intended.  But, we understand as Richard Rohr states in his book the Divine Dance that “God is the ultimate Participant – in everything – both the good and the painful.”

As we move through life, as we let go and live in awareness and as we cultivate being open as best we can to the the Divine presence of God in everyone and everything that we encounter daily, we can begin to live in a Trinitarian understanding of God.  A God who isn’t distant from us at all, but is dancing, crying, laughing, loving, and holding us together.  A God who created us out the relational energy of being 3 in 1, who saved us out of that same relational energy, and who sustains us out of the flow of that relational energy…holds us closer than we can ever realize and shapes and molds us into a community of humility of faith.  

In the book of Colossians, we are reminded that everything was created and finds it’s being in God…and later, in chapter 3, that all is in God, and God is in all.  We can’t create without one another, we can’t distance ourselves as the Pharisee did, we can’t pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and go it alone, we have to pray for humility to see God in everyone and everything.  Nor, can we allow our sins to keep us away from knowing that we have a God who is merciful, we must be like the toll collector, to wander into that risky place of vulnerability and confession, and plead for mercy.  In so doing, we can know that we are justified through Christ’s humanity and divinity that flows all around us.  

Ask.

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PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Our genesis is in you, O God, our beginnings are in Eden,

our origins are those of every man and woman.

Forgive us the falseness of what we have become, the ugliness and divisions of which we are a part.

Restore us to the truthfulness of our birth in you, the heritage of all that has being.

Renew us this night in the genesis of our soul, the beauty of Eden deep in each created thing.

– JP Newell, Songs of the Eternal:  A Celtic Psalter

Gospel Lesson

Luke 11:1-13

The Lord’s Prayer

11 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father,[a] hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.[b]
3     Give us each day our daily bread.[c]
4     And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”[d]

Perseverance in Prayer

5 And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’7 And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

9 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for[e] a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit[f] to those who ask him!”

Footnotes:

a.     Luke 11:2 Other ancient authorities read Our Father in heaven

b.     Luke 11:2 A few ancient authorities read Your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us.Other ancient authorities add Your will be done, on earth as in heaven

c.     Luke 11:3 Or our bread for tomorrow

d.     Luke 11:4 Or us into temptation. Other ancient authorities add but rescue us from the evil one (or from evil)

e.     Luke 11:11 Other ancient authorities add bread, will give a stone; or if your child asks for

f.      Luke 11:13 Other ancient authorities read the Father give the Holy Spirit from heaven

Most days, I love being a dad.  There’s been a lot of ups and downs, oftentimes I’ve struggled with the concept of how to be a dad.  And that’s certainly changed as both of my kids are in their 20’s now. I was reminded of that this past week as we’ve been preparing to up my son from OSU’s biology island where he’s been doing research on climate change and the environment.  And, being with our daughter as she’s living with us until her departure to Scotland for 5 months.  This summer has been so good in many ways.  

Plus, being a son, I’ve had to unwrap my own relationship with my dad, and my mom.  How those relationships impacted me in good ways, and in ways that I’m still trying to figure out even as they have both passed away.

But, I’m finding out more and more, the biggest thing as a dad is to simply be authentic in who I am and being in deep relationship with my kids.  I don’t beat myself up too much for mistakes I’ve made along the way, but try to always keep the deep love that I have for my kids in front of me. 

Our gospel lesson this morning finds Jesus using the word “father” in what we have commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer”.  It’s a teaching moment for his disciples as one of them asks Jesus to teach them to pray.  They noticed that Jesus had a deep sense of intimacy with God, that Jesus prayed and conversed with God and that it seemed to have a calming and transformational effect on Jesus.  

Jesus is using his relationship to God to redeem the word “Father”.  In Jewish understanding, beyond the patriarchal implications that could be there, father is still a relational term.  It should denote a sense of deep and abiding love and commitment.  As we’ve said before, the word to describe God’s characteristic the most in the Bible is Hesed…which means ever loving, ever faithful, ever compassionate, and ever loyal to us in community with us.  

So, the writer of Luke is saying that God is a father not like other fathers, but a father filled with care and commitment to his children.  And, a father who also was like a mother.  Which, in other parts of scripture, feminine words are used to describe God as well.  

Jesus is also saying that we should respect God’s name.  Honor and respect are important for any relationship.  If we want to grow in our relationship with God and with others, then we need to honor and respect that relationship.  

Jesus goes on to say that praying for the Kingdom to come is important…not just a kingdom in the future, but to for Kingdom or Presence of God to made known to us every day and that we are to pray for God to provide for us sustenance, or to carry us with nourishment every day.  

It’s also important to note that we are to ask for God’s kingdom, no one can give us God’s presence…no one can say magic words and eyes will be opened to see God or ears cleaned out to hear God’s word…that we have to realize that we are surrounded by God’s presence and we should converse with God to be aware of that presence…and that presence will eventually clear our eyes and clean our ears, IF we are willing to let go and be.

Our Presbyterian book of order talks about worship quite a bit.  One of the things that it emphasizes is that worship is not a spectator sport.  We can get into all sorts of conversations about what happens on a Sunday morning or any other time, and those can be important, but the real work is being done by all of us together.  We can go into any worship service, or any setting really, and experience God’s Presence, God’s kin-dom…but it’s up to us to be in prayer for our lives to be settled and to let go.  When we can do that, we can experience more fully the blessings of God’s Presence.

Jesus goes on to say that it’s important for us to know that we are forgiven, that God is not concerned about the past.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t grow from the past, and that we should own our past, but it does mean that God wants us to move forward.  That we are forgiven in God’s eyes.  And, because of that, we should forgive those whom we feel owe us something.  

As a parent, sometimes I want my kids to say they are sorry, I may work really hard to get them to understand that…and, my kids are pretty aware and eventually, most of the time, will come around to that.  But, I’m more focused on them realizing that my love for them, the love that will carry them through this part of their journey and hopefully take them to the next, is not dependent on their actions.  I’ll love them and forgive them no matter what.

Jesus is saying that same thing.  God loves us, and God wants us to practice loving others.  When we do, we’ll find our relationships with ourselves, God, and others will thrive.  

Forgiving debts is also important…I think that word “debts” is huge.  We live in a world that piles up debts, not only monetarily, but to so many things that hold us back…  Dr. Walter Brueggemann says that we are all a part of a pharaoh economy, that we are all enslaved to something.  As people of faith, we are called to walk away from whatever we are enslaved to, just like the Israelites walked out of Egypt.  Freedom isn’t easy, but it does beat being broken by the debt that’s put on us.  But, God doesn’t send us to freedom by ourselves.  The Israelites as a people gathered were freed together, none of this rugged individualism, but a called out people together.  We cannot do this journey towards freedom alone, we have to depend on one another.

We are also to ask God to not test us.  We don’t have anything to prove.  God’s love for us is a transformational relationship.  It isn’t a transaction.  God is not going to love us any less if we pass or fail or a test.  We will always have things or people in our journey in life that will want to test us, but not God.  God wants to love us into growth from the inside out.  As that happens, we can find ourselves able to overcome so many obstacles.  

The second part of our gospel narrative gives us more of an understanding of the practical aspects of prayer.  The verb to ask is very similar to the verb to pray.  It is an action.  I believe that it’s paired with the Lord’s prayer because Jesus wants us to understand that our God wants us to be able to go to God as a loving parent, in relationship.  God wants us to converse with God, to pray for whatever we may need in order to be sustained and to grow.  Jesus gave us a prayer when our words fail us, but, really, God wants us to have agency and to know that we are in constant prayer, to also realize again and again that prayer gives us a sense of relational intimacy and growth.  Even with the story of asking a neighbor for bread after they’ve gone to bed…they may not want to get up, but they will eventually give us bread!

Friends, Jesus is telling us that if you want to be sustained in your relationship with God, that if you want to grow, if you want to be strong in who you are as a child of God, made in God’s image…that you need to persevere, that you need to know that God is a loving father and will not give you a scorpion if you ask for bread!  What kind of a parent is that?!  

But, you have to ask, you have to be aware and to be humble.  Asking for forgiveness, asking for God to sustain you, that you can’t do it on your own, asking for eyes to see God’s Presence means that you have to admit that you haven’t been looking or have some blind spots.  

I know that for me as a dad that my kids are teaching me new things and part of my rebirth in my 50’s are coming from my changing relationship with them.  

May we all ask God, the force that is so intimate and relational…the force that creates, saves, and sustains, to move through us in this moment and in every moment of our lives.  

JP Newell has written this Celtic version of the Lord’s Prayer, it seems like a good way to end this sermon!

Holy One beyond all names

Eternal Wellspring

May love rise again in us today

With food for every table Shelter for every family And reverence for every life.

Forgive us our failings in love And free us from all falseness

That the light of our souls may shine And the strength of our spirits endure

For Earth and all its people

This day, tonight, and forever.

Amen

One.

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John 17:6-19

6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Here we are at our Kirking of the Tartans!  Fun!  

My love for my Scottish heritage stems from my maternal grandfather, my PePa…he loved all things Scottish and signed me up for the American Clan Gregor society as a junior member when I was a kid.  I’m still a member to this day.  PePa never made it to Scotland, but his stories of our ancestors captured my imagination…especially Rob Roy!   

When I played bagpipes in our high school marching band, he would always come and listen and watch.  He’d take me to highland games in North Carolina and Tennessee.  And, when I became Presbyterian, breaking from my Baptist upbringing, he was so proud because Presbyterians came out of the Church of Scotland!  Every time I’ve been to Scotland, I think of my PePa and I think he’s experiencing it with me.

My PePa believed in me.  There was a deep unity between us.  And, even though he’s been dead for a couple of decades or more, I still feel connected to him.  I spent a lot of time with him, we worked on a lot of projects together at his house and on his land.  

Today’s text says a lot about trust and working together, of striving towards friendship unity.  It’s filled with Jesus’ last prayers found in the Gospel of John.  I believe it was important to him and has great meaning for us.  

Our passage in John has much to say about unity.  Our unity starts with an understanding that all is from God.  God has created everything.  God has made God’s dwelling in us, with us, and around us.  This God is ever expanding around us and as we grow beyond ourselves, we can then begin to understand that our call is to be disciples of Jesus, following God’s Spirit into the world around us, where God is already filling, or has filled with his Presence.  

Jesus is praying for us, his disciples, those of us willing to grow, to change, to be impacted by our relationship with Jesus and Jesus’ love for the other in John 17.  We are called to carry on Jesus’ mission to be God’s living Presence in this world.  

Verse 11 calls us to remember that Jesus’ name is placed upon us, that we are marked by Jesus.  Because of this, we do have unity, but we don’t always live in that unity.  We are not always one.  Yet, we yearn for this oneness, this unity.  We are hardwired for it.  

A few years back, Bono, the lead singer for the band u2 wrote these words:

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to 
Carry each other
Carry each other
One…life

One

We are not the same, we are created as beautifully diverse in thoughts, opinions, shapes, sizes, color, preferences, etc.  Yet, we can still be one.  We can still live in unity as we are marked by a God who lives in perfect unity.  Jesus is the word, the expression of God.  Jesus lived this out and calls us towards maturity in faith, not grumbling, gossiping, or complaining, but to the deeper stuff of understanding, trust, patience, peace, self-control rather than “others control”, and love.  We have to carry each other.  I have to carry you, and there will be a time when YOU have to carry me.  

And, as we have said, especially on this day of the Kirking of the Tartans, we are striving to be a  a multi-cultural congregation, one family of God, 

Friends, the folks in this community are noticing.  I’m listening, I’m hearing a lot.  So are others in our church.  We all want this church to be that place of diversity and unity and oneness loving the neighborhood well.  And, it is happening here in Westwood.  

Yet, we know that a church, any church or community or organization, can also not be places of unity.   It’s mostly not intentional, but we sometimes can’t seem to live in the unity that God’s given us. 

But, what I’m committed to and what I believe we are all committed to in this time and place.  We are moving towards a new story together, living in a new promise rooted in the nature of Jesus, in the nature of what God intended for us as the church, as his disciples.

Listen to the next few verses in John.

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

In this text, Jesus had just finished praying for his disciples and now he was praying for all of those who would believe in him because of his disciples’ message.  His prayer was for all of us, for each of us in this room.  He wants us to be so together, that we are one.  Jesus was giving us a great picture of his relationship with God the Father.  They were intimate, together, of the same essence or being, so unified that they were one.  Jesus was giving us that picture of the relationship of God within the Trinity.  This text says to us today  that the core of God’s being is relational and that Jesus is calling us into a deep and intimate relationship with this God.  In our Trinitarian understanding, God is constantly emptying into God’s Self and also filling up God’s Self…and, God includes humanity, us, in that cycle, that communion of the Trinity.  

Jesus prays his desire, his will, for us to be one so that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father.  By our being one with God and each other, the world may know and experience the love of God as they see our unity.  

When I was a kid in the 70’s, my dad (who was way more of Welsh ancestry than Scottish being a Jones…) was a volunteer youth director at our church, I remember hearing the youth group kids sing a song with the chorus, “they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love”.  

Friends, we have a God who loves us so much and has done everything to show us love, even becoming just like us.  Jesus breathed his Spirit upon us,  God gave us the power of God’s Spirit to unify us.  God’s power and love transforms us as it brings us into relationship with God, making us one with God and with each other.  This world needs to see that love, and they will through our unity, our oneness, our radical hospitality and inclusivity of all people regardless of nationality, skin color, sexual orientation, age, whatever.we are all made in the one and diverse image of God…  Yep, as I’ve said before, I’m stuck with you and you are stuck with me forever, and that’s a long time.  We might as well trust God and get on with letting him form our community, a community marked by grace and unity, a community known as the body of Christ, the church.  May we live into this prayer of Jesus of being one, just as he has demonstrated to us by being one with the Father and with us…with all of humanity!