Genesis 18.32

Peace be to you and grace from him who freed us from our sins.

 I know there are times you probably ask “Why?” but there truly is reason for homilies such as the next thirteen minutes. And no it is not so you can drift off, although meditation might provide you with the better sermon.  The purpose of homilies is to stand at the intersection of scripture and culture and not just spark a discussion but challenge the conscience of the community.  So to that end no cute story today, but two pieces of awkward information gleaned from the news. 

The first was a commentary on NPR discussing the qualities of the most successful soccer teams in the recent World Cup. It was an American who said in decidedly un-American fashion that the teams doing best were all socialists in their organization. Not capitalists. No competition within the team. There was no star.  Everyone passed to each other.  Each labored together and all got the reward. 

The second item was a comparative study of Amish grade school children and, using the Amish name for folk who are not Amish, English grade school children.  Researchers found that when Amish children engage in playtime conversation their use of personal pronouns (I, me, mine) were about fifty percent less than the frequency of personal pronouns used by  English children.   The friend who pointed this out observed, “I suspect the (Amish) enjoy many gifts of the spirit because of their focus on community and (on) giving to one another.”

What do Soccer Teams and Amish children have to do with us?  In sermons this summer we have been noticing that the purpose of religion is not to be “right”, but to be about what is good. So perhaps the thread is that the individualistic spirit, while thoroughly American, is not complimentary to the community of Christ.   We are not putting down self care or self respect or even self awareness here.  Those are essential to wholeness.  But we are saying that self care and self respect and even self awareness are in the service of something greater which is worshipped in the community of those who gather under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion or the Holy Spirit.

So then to the business of the day.  This is Prayer Sunday.  It is fair to ask why we pray.  Is it to serve our own ends as in another variation making ourselves right?  Or is it about being assistive, nurturing, useful for the sake of others?  Listen to how Scripture teaches it, naming three different kinds of prayer.

The First Reading.  Abraham who thought he was host to strangers finds out that God is indeed host of the entire universe.  And Abraham is merely a guest.  But he is a guest who is honored by God who seeks his counsel.  Abraham beseeches God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is a Petition prayer.   Abraham petitions God to spare the cities for the sake of those in their midst who are good even though few in number.  Incidentally this petition runs contrary to the Deuteronomic presupposition that “a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel.”   Abraham seems to be saying that a few good and gracious people might have a healing effect on both cities. 

The Second Reading. Paul encourages the Colossians to be “abounding in thanksgiving.” This is a frequent reminder in Paul’s letters.  “Nurture that grateful heart,” says Paul, which is something we take to heart.  Notice that of the fourteen or so times we pray during our liturgy, a full eight of them are prayers of Thanksgiving.  In fact the word used for the Meal, the Eucharist literally means “The Great Thanksgiving.”  I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it is Jesus giving thanks as in “in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, and gave thanks…..”; or is it our thanksgiving for the gifts of grace savored in this taste from the heavenly dinner table? 

The Gospel.  “Teach us to pray” say the disciples to Jesus in Luke.  And Jesus gives them the Lord’s Prayer.  But as his following discussion makes clear, Jesus is not intending the Lord’s Prayer to be a formula repeated without thinking as if fingering a good luck charm.  Jesus postures prayer within relationship, calling God a loving parent and we the children.  This pushes the point.  These Surrender prayers perhaps are the hardest type of prayers for us to grasp, much less pray. People in Twelve Step Groups get it quite well.  I think that is because they know something about suffering.  The rest of us, those who like to do things our own way, have a harder time.  Jesus gets political.    It just plain isn’t American to surrender. We make other people do that. Yet Jesus says the real way to live is to place ourselves at the mercy of God’s grace.  This is exactly what we do in our liturgy. Everything hinges upon it.  In Latin it is called the Sursam Corda. Lift up your hearts.  Lift up to God everything that makes you mad and glad and sad and scared.  It is just too much for us to hold it all together.  Likewise in the Lord’s Prayer we are taught to ask, “forgive us our sins. 

To tell you the truth, prayers of petition and thanksgiving and surrender aren’t always discrete categories.  But they all move in a certain direction.  And the direction always is towards community.  Abraham’s petition prayers are on behalf of community.  “O God, you wouldn’t be anything less than gracious to all your people, would you?”

Just so Paul’s description of a grateful heart is not a bad definition of the Christian community.  That is where the Spirit dwells.  And the seventh gift of the Spirit is joy in God’s presence. And that is the appropriate response to living in the light of the cross and empty tomb.

And Jesus discusses our dependence, our reliance upon God in terms of Community.  That is why “forgive us our sins” is connected to “as we forgive those who sin against us.”  And while we are at it, pay attention to the personal pronouns.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  How absolutely Amish of God. 

If it is from or for or in or through the community that our prayers generate, it might be helpful to discuss the way we pray.  Our notions of prayer could use some stretching.  For ages we have conceptualized prayer as folding our hands and bowing our heads and closing our eyes and saying the right words.  How about prayer as action instead of words, or listening or reverential silence?  Perhaps it’s not necessary to explain to God the diagnosis of our problems, carefully walk God through the prognosis, and then gently point out to God the recommended treatment plan complete with goals. Prayer is not managed spiritual health care. Abraham had the right idea, wrestling with God in the values he learned from God. Paul was on to something good noticing that prayers from a grateful heart are vastly different from those of a resentful heart. And then there’s Jesus with  prayer as radical reliance on God’s grace and love and nothing else, focused on the good of the people of God, the world and all those in need.

 Soccer Teams and Amish children. Prayer is inextricably tied to community where the Spirit works far better when we pray for one another instead of each carrying our burdens alone.  Ah, but this would mean we need to trust the community to be a community of grace and love. It wouldn’t be bad to surrender to that.  In fact it would nurture a grateful heart.   

But enough words about trying to use less words.

Let’s just be about it.