Shine with Radiance (Epiphany 2A)

 

Shine with Radiance
Homily delivered the Second Sunday after Epiphany (Epiphany 2A RCL)

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
15 January 2017; 8:00 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
Readings:  Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42; Psalm 40:1-12

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

  

When I first became an Episcopalian, I was puzzled by the use of the word “collect” to describe the opening prayer.  I wondered what it had to do with taking up a collection, which clearly happened much later in the service.   I finally asked about it in an Inquirer’s Class we took and found out that the word was not pronounced col-LECT, but rather COL-lect, and had nothing to do with passing the plate.  It is a summing prayer that gathered together the themes of the various readings.  Its form starts with one of the attributes or actions of God, and then offers a petition responding to it.

So today’s collect:  “Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world” there is your attribute of God.  Then a petition growing from it:  “Grant that your people, illumined (enlightened) by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory.”

“I have placed you as a light to the nations” says the Isaiah passage.  The Psalm talks about God’s song as if it were light that gives people the ability to see: 

“He put a new song in my mouth,

a song of praise to our God; 
many shall see, and stand in awe,
and put their trust in the Lord.”

Paul in 1 Corinthians connects the joy we feel in the gospel with the witness we bear to others through our deeds and words: “the grace of God … has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind… [thus] the witness you bear to Christ has been strengthened among you.” 

In the Gospel reading, we hear John the Baptist give his witness to the Light of the world, and see the reaction of some of his disciples to meeting that Light: Andrew immediately finds his brother Simon Peter and says to him, “We have found the Messiah” and introduces him to Jesus. 

Being formed in Christ’s light, and passing it on to others: this is the essence of living as a follower of Jesus.   “Grant that your people, enlightened by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory.”  Jesus, the word and sacrament of God, made present to us in scripture, preaching, and such things as baptism and Holy Communion, brings us light.  He stirs us to joy.  He challenges us to grow into what God intends us to be.  

Jesus teaches clearly:  “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  (Matt. 5:14-16)

It’s all there in the spiritual: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.” 

As good as life is, it is really easy to get depressed at times.  Our relationships and families only approach, but never arrive, at the ideal of loving kindness that families should have.  Our friends and loved ones get sick and die.  Sometimes we experience betrayal and abuse by those who should be giving us care and support.   In our church life, we sometimes make it so hard on each other.  Church is supposed to be light and life, not petty squabbles or infighting.  It is supposed to form us as disciples of Jesus, not judges and condemners of others.  And we are hard on each other in our community and national life.  The nation is the most divided and bitterly conflicted, I think, than we have been for over 150 years.  

Jesus says in the face of all this: let your light shine!

The change in administrations has caused a controversy in Episcopal Church circles.  Some say we cannot pray for the President-elect.  His name is just too painful for many, especially those who have suffered sexual abuse or harassment, bullying, or discrimination based in race, national origin, handicap, or religion.  Others reply rightly that scripture teaches us to pray for our national leaders, even if the prayer is only to change their hearts and behaviors. We are all children of God and need prayers. 

The Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, issued a statement this week saying that given scriptural teaching, the Prayer Book, and the example of Jesus, we must pray for the new President.  All Saints’ Pasedena announced that even as they continue to pray for the nation’s leaders, they have dropped the new President’s name from petitions, since it is so traumatic for some.   Others insist that fair is fair, and say that “we pray for our President Donald” is in order if we prayed for “our President Barack.”  The other side replies, “We prayed for George W. Bush by name.  But Trump is different.”     

The fact is, the Prayer Book’s suggested forms of prayer give petitions for the President and leaders of the nations, but do not instruct us to use their names.   In Anglican churches in countries where the British monarch is head of state, the authorized prayers usually include the sovereign’s name.  This practice was part of Tudor and Stuart political control of religion to ensure that a state-sponsored church supported the monarch’s line.  But this has never been the American Prayer Book’s way.  I saw the real dilemmas it causes while serving as a priest in post-1997 Hong Kong at a Church of England rite cathedral and seeing the agonies of some Chinese parishioners who had earlier fled bitter persecution in Mainland China when they heard Anglo- or left-wing Chinese prayer leaders pray in the Cathedral Intercessions for “our President [Jiang] Zemin” or “our President [Hu] Jintao,” the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.  I can only imagine what praying by name for such an active persecutor of Christians as current leader Xi Jinping must do.

This week, as noted in your bulletins, Trinity has reorganized our instructions for Prayers of the People.  We seek better focus and shorter public prayers.  We have decided to follow our Prayer Book’s usage and simply forgo the use of names in Prayers of the People except for those on our short, urgent list of those needing healing or support in time of trouble.    So President Trump will not be named in Prayers of the People even as we pray for him, that he may have the strength and wisdom to know and to do God’s will, serve the common good, and be, to use the Prayer Book’s words, “ever mindful” of his “calling to serve this people in [the fear of God].” We have not announced that we will not pray by name for the incoming President.  We will also usually not be naming church leaders or others whose names appear on our larger prayer list.  We do not want to reduce prayer to political partisanship.  But we do want to live the gospel and pray for all in need of prayer.  

What is key here is this:  we must let our light shine.  We all must be fair-minded in dealing with those who differ from us politically.  We must not let labels or name-calling dictate our behavior.  A new administration always brings with it uncertainties and fears, and this is particularly the case with this one, presided over by a man who made a point in the campaign of vilifying and dehumanizing his opponents and whole classes of people.  We must focus on the policies and behavior of all of our political leaders.  If any pursue policies that are hurtful to the marginalized, that puts the Kingdom of God farther away rather than draws it nearer, then we must oppose those policies and actions clearly and effectively.  If any try to do things that help advance the common good and the lighten the burden of those suffering, then we should make common cause with them on these things, not vilify them for being “insincere” or “deceitful.” 

In such a divisive climate, we must call policies and actions by their true name, and not worry so much about labels and the names of those we support or oppose.  Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and those of the Confessing Church who wrote the Barmen Declaration were careful not to oppose the Nazis on the basis of partisan labels.  Rather, they named and opposed specific actions and teaching of the Nazis that violated gospel truth and scripture.  I am very troubled by Mr. Trump’s exclusive choice of “prosperity Gospel” ministers as prayer leaders this week at what should be a united national ceremony of transferal of power.  I must say clearly:  the doctrine that wealth is a sign of God’s approval and poverty a sign of God’s curse is heresy, and opposes much of the teaching of our Lord.    

“Letting your light shine” in the current context means activism and public witness.  It means taking the power of prayer seriously, and praying for our enemies.  It means listening to our opponents fairly and carefully.  It means letting the joy of the gospel, the love of God, and the fellowship and friendship given us by the Holy Spirit bubble up from our individual hearts and minds, from our limited church community, and pour out in abundance into our private and public affirmations and actions.   It means, to borrow words from the departing First Lady, “when they go low, we go high.”  It may mean civil disobedience to unjust and immoral laws.

Sisters and brothers at Trinity:  As Saint Paul says, “Now is the day of salvation.  Now is the acceptable time.”  Now more than ever, we must live the gospel, follow Jesus, and let his light shine out through us.  The Kingdom is ever in our midst, and we must not lose heart. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.        

A God of Surprises (Easter 6B)

A God of Surprises

Easter 6B
13 May 2012; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

[They] were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  Acts 10:45

God, take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of the Anglican Church in South Africa describes the final process of his nation moving from its Calvinism-inspired policy of Racial Separation, Apartheid, to the multi-ethnic democracy that followed in this way, it was “a kind of roller coaster ride, reaching the heights of euphoria that a new dispensation was virtually here, and then touching the depths of despair because of the mindless violence and carnage that seemed to place the whole negotiation process in considerable jeopardy. And just as we were recovering our breath, the God of Surprises played his most extraordinary and incredible card.”  “God's sense of humor is quite something, you know… Beyers Naudé … was an Afrikaner who at one point said, ‘No, apartheid can't be justified scripturally,’ and for this he was turfed out of his church.  [T]hey expelled him because they said he was a traitor.   And so he joined up with blacks and others who [opposed Apartheid].  When freedom came, there was a road in Johannesburg that had been named after … the first nationalist prime minister, the … D.F. Malan driveway.  In 1994–95, the name was changed to the Beyers Naudé Highway. I mean, you would almost imagine them in heaven sort of rolling in the aisles.”

God is a God of Surprises.  There is no way that a year ago I would have thought that Elena and I would now be living in Ashland Oregon and I would be priest at Trinity.    Three years before I was ordained, there is no way I would have thought it possible.  

Our oldest son and his wife, after many years of disappointed efforts at having children, gave up and got ready to adopt.  The week they were put on the receive roster, his wife turned up pregnant.  And then, when their daughter was only two, they unexpectedly got pregnant again, but it turned out to be twins, now four years old.  God is a god of surprises. 

The stories we have been reading these last few Sundays from the Book of Acts tell of one of the great tricks played by this God of surprises, the great turning point when the early Christian Church, despite itself, reached out and brought in the gentiles as equal partners to what previously been a Jews-only affair.  

The story is told in Acts chapters 8-15, where gradually, bit by bit, the gentiles—not members of the people of Israel—come to be included in God’s plan.  Rather, God’s people gradually come to recognize that God has already included these outsiders.  

A couple of weeks ago, we read where Philip privately preaches to the Ethiopian Eunuch and baptizes him (Acts 8:26ff).   This guy is not only a gentile, but also had a physical impairment that the Scriptures specifically taught should prevent full participation in the worship of God’s people (Lev. 20:20).  The culmination of the story is the Ethiopian Eunuch’s simple question, “Here is water.  What is there that possibly keeps me from being baptized?”  With this God of surprises, what once was an impediment is no longer one.   

Today’s reading is part of a larger story about Cornelius and Peter. Cornelius is a centurion of the Italian Cohort, a famous military unit known for its harsh suppression of anti-Roman nationalism.  He is a believer in the one God, but one who has not converted to Judaism by being circumcised, or observing Jewish the dietary laws.   The technical term used to describe such people as he at the time was a “God fearer,” someone on the fringes of Judaism but still squarely on the outside.  Cornelius prays, reads scripture, and gives alms.  He has not yet heard of Jesus. Because of his faith, he is told by an Angel to go and find Peter, who will tell him what God wants him to know. He sends messengers to set up a meeting. 

Meanwhile, Peter takes a noon-day nap and has a dream where he sees a giant picnic cloth.  On it is every kind of animal, most of them forbidden as food by the Hebrew Scriptures.  A voice tells Peter to butcher some of the animals and eat their flesh.  Peter is understandably reluctant, saying that he has always tried to keep the commandments of God and he doesn’t want to start disregarding them now.  “I try to keep kosher, like God commands. Those creatures are unclean.  I can’t eat them.  You’re testing me, right?” 

Place yourself in Peter’s position.  Think of something you have always been taught is wrong, something that you have a visceral reaction against.  The dream is telling you to go ahead and pursue this.  You say, no thank you.  

Relentless, the voice replies, “Don’t call unclean what God has declared clean.”  This happens three times, and Peter wakes up, deeply troubled.  Just at this time, the messengers from Cornelius arrive.    The synchronicity is too great for him to ignore.  He agrees to accompany them to see Cornelius.  

Now as I said, Cornelius is a gentile.  Eating with Gentiles or even having extended dealings with them is a contaminating act under the careful and strict interpretation of the Law.   His ‘kind’ has been seen for centuries as unclean by most Jewish religious leaders of any stripe.  It’s the written Word of God that makes the distinctions, and for many, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.  No more questions allowed.”   

Yet God, that trickster with surprises up his sleeves, has other plans.  Peter has seen the vision of the unclean foods turned clean, and has heard the chastising voice when he is reluctant to follow the voice’s instructions.  And now he meets Cornelius, a gentile, someone his faith tells him is unclean, and he wants to hear the Gospel.  

Peter preaches the Gospel to Cornelius and his companions, and begins with “I understand that God shows no partiality.”  He declares that "no matter what nationality, anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God."   As Peter preaches, the Holy Spirit falls on those gathered, even on the gentiles.  Peter declares, "can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" 

Note this: “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  (Acts 10:45)  The point is this—Peter and the other leaders of the early church did not want to welcome these marginal people, these people without God’s Law.  And they were surprised and shocked when they began to see in the lives of these unclean strangers the very signs they saw in themselves of God’s action and engagement.   

Peter, against his native sense of religious duty to God, openly baptizes gentile Cornelius.  It took a dream vision and huge amounts of “coincidence” to bring him to do it, but he does it nonetheless because he recognizes in the lives of these strangers things he knows from his personal experience come from God. In coming chapters, the onetime Saul, now Paul, preaches widely and succeeds beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.  Large congregations of Gentiles become the mainstay of the Church.  Paul is early Christianity’s Beyers Naudé, once an opponent who became a proponent of what he had stood against.  And so in chapter 15 of Acts, the Church must meet and figure out in Council how to manage the new reality, Gentiles as Christians.   

In all of this, the members of the Church were engaged in a great effort at discernment of vocation, or trying to hear and identify exactly what it was that God was calling them to.   They knew they needed to share the Gospel, but did not know exactly with whom. 

Presbyterian theologian Frederick Beuchner defined vocation as where our deepest joy meets the world’s deepest need.  Finding out where we are energized, “in the flow,” and in sober deep pleasure and matching this to the hunger of those about us is the principal task of discernment. 

Attentiveness is key, paying close attention to where our joy lies. 

In the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a key practice in discernment is the examination of our feelings.  Where our actions and aspirations, our dreams and our hopes lead us to greater joy and appreciation, greater connection with God and others, they are seen as congruent with God.  Where they lead elsewhere, they are seen as working against the God who made our hearts. 

The early Church realized that its greatest joy was in sharing the stories of Jesus broadly and serving and welcoming broadly.  And this deep joy met the deep hunger of the people around them in the diverse and messy world that was Greco-Roman antiquity.   

We here at Trinity clearly value welcome, hospitality, openness, and inclusiveness.  It is essential that we continue to seek to discern what God is calling us to, both as individuals and as a parish.    In spiritual life, as in organizations and business, there is no standing still.  You are either moving forward or falling backward.  And to move forward, to grow further, we need to discern more carefully what God is calling us to.

Prayer is a key part of this.  Just like the three legged-stool of Anglican belief—scripture, tradition, and reason—there is a three legged stool of Anglican prayer life:  the Eucharist, the Daily Office (Evening and Morning Prayer), and then private devotions, the meditation and prayer practices that we individually find suit us well and that we use daily.   Private devotion is where we individually find the thin places between this world and the unseen world of Spirit. 

Let us this week continue in our practice of private and family devotions, and common worship as possible on a daily basis.  If you are not praying regularly, then start.  A good place to begin is found on page 136 of the Prayer Book, with the shortened and simplified Morning and Evening Prayer form called “Devotions for Individuals and Families.”   A small group of us sings Morning Prayer here in the Church every day at 7:15, and all are welcome.  

Each day, take a few minutes to examine your feelings.  What is bringing you deep joy?  What is distracting?  Don’t beat yourself up about it.  Just examine and look.  And then let the knowledge gained by the examination settle in you for further reflection over time.  A time will come when it will become clear where this joy meets the world’s hunger.  And then be ready for more surprises.  

Thanks be to God. 

God Already Knows (Proper 12C)

 

God Already Knows
Homily delivered the Ninth Sunday of Pentecost (Proper 12; Year C RCL)
25 July 2010; 10:00 a.m. Morning Prayer
Congregation of the Good Shepherd  Beijing, China
Readings: Genesis 18:20-32  Psalm 138; Colossians 2:6-15; Luke 10:25-37

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When I was ten years old, I had my first schoolteacher who was a man.  I was in fifth grade.   Mr. Franklin, an athletic and handsome 20-something, always wore a short-sleeved white dress shirt and tie when he taught.  He had just finished teacher’s college.  He had a sharp wit, demanded a lot of us.  He wore dark sunglasses when he took his turn as playground monitor. My friend Jeff’s mom—in my small conservative town she was the rare Democrat—said that Mr. Franklin was part of the new direction of the whole country, with our young new president John Kennedy and his wife Jackie.  But Mr. Franklin was still unmarried.  Most girls in the class got crushes on him; we boys saw him as the kind of big brother we wish we had, manly but smart and not ashamed of either.  He was a new kind of teacher, one we were just then learning to call “cool.”

One day in November, the principal came into the classroom mid-morning and asked to have a word with him outside.  He returned, pale and visibly shaken.  He asked us to put our books away.  He said, “I have just been told that the President has been shot in Texas.  They have taken him to a hospital, but the radio isn’t saying how badly he is injured.  I think it would be a very good time for us to have a few minutes of silence for him, his family, and our country.”

The minutes that followed were surreal.  All of us students had known each other pretty much from kindergarten, but we knew each other only as roles:  as class brains or dummies, teacher’s pets or bad cases sent to the principal’s office, as playground and cafeteria pals or rivals.  We who went to the same churches together knew each other only in those same roles in a different setting. 

I had learned in Sunday School to pray free form—address God, say what you’re thankful for, and then say what you want God to do.   Remember to use “thee” and “thou” instead of “you” to show reverence.  Close “in the name of Jesus Christ” and say “amen.” 

I silently asked God to keep John F. Kennedy alive and then give him full recovery.  I opened my eyes and looked around me at the strangely silent classroom.

A couple kids looked bored and puzzled.  Some looked stunned.  But most were praying.  One girl fervently held her hands in a little church, looked up with wide eyes at the ceiling as if into heaven itself, and muttered something obviously memorized.  She crossed herself and prayed again.    Mr. Franklin sat at the head of the class, with one hand covering his face, as if to force his eyes shut with fingers and block out the whole evil world.  His lips moved silently.  

After an hour or so, Mr. Franklin left the classroom briefly and came back with word that the President was dead.  That evening, my father said that the President had been killed instantly when shot. 

I had always been taught that God heard and answered prayers.  From Sunday School and home, I thought that if we just had enough faith when we asked for something in prayer, God would give it to us.  

But not only had God not given us what we had prayed for so fervently, all those prayers seemed kind of silly because the President was already dead at the time we offered them.  

I went away from that experience with a very different, if less confident, view of prayer.  I also went away from it with a very changed view of my classmates and my teacher.  In those few minutes I had glimpsed them as people, in all their rich complexity and depth, much more complicated than the various roles they each played.

Today’s Old Testament reading has Abraham praying that the cities of the Dead Sea plain be spared a horrible fate.  He is trying to save his nephew Lot and his family, who live in Sodom.  He bargains with God:  “If I can find 50 good people there you won’t destroy the cities, right?” “So how about 20?”  “How about 10?”  He is a shameless haggler, and repeated uses Asian honorifics to flatter the ego the deity before him ("now don't be angry with this, but ...," "don't think your humble servant here is being presumptuous to say...," etc.)    In the end, not even 10 decent people can be found, but because of Abraham's haggling, God warns Lot and his family to flee before the sulfur and fire starts falling.  In a similar story in the Book of Exodus, Moses engages bargains with God to save the children of Israel from destruction (Exod. 32). 

In both stories, it sounds like God is an angry, petulant deity who needs to be argued with, to be reminded to do the right thing, to be merciful and true to his promises.  But this is a misreading. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says this:

“… [T]he Bible puts before us … not a record of a God who is always triumphantly getting his way by doing miracles . . . , but [of] a God who gets his way by patiently struggling to make himself clear to human beings, to make his love real to them, especially when they seem not to want to know or to want to avoid him and retreat into their own fantasies about him. And typically, the Bible sometimes does this by a very bold method—by telling a certain kind of story from the human point of view, as if God needed to be persuaded to be faithful to his people. Someone like Abraham or Moses, someone who has good reason to know something about what God is really like, is faced with a crisis. Things are going badly; surely God is going to give up and blast people into oblivion. So Abraham and Moses argue with God until they have persuaded him to be merciful. These writers knew exactly what they were doing. They didn’t believe in a bad-tempered, capricious God who needed to be calmed down by sensible human beings. They knew that the most vivid way of expressing what they understood about God was to show Abraham and Moses appealing to the deepest and most true thing about God as they pray to him.” (Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christianity, p. 17)

The parable of the persistent friend at midnight in today’s Gospel reading provokes a similar misunderstanding about the nature of prayer amd of God.  Jesus uses the image of a bothersome friend who just won’t take no for an answer as an encouragement for us to persist in prayer (Luke 11:5-8).   Some think the parable likens God to the householder, and says that God cannot be bothered with us and our concerns.  But here, as in so many other places, we must remember that a parable usually tries to make one point of comparison, and is usually distorted when we try to turn it into an allegory with many points of comparison.   “Go ahead—bother God and keep bothering him,” says Jesus, not because God is like the sleepy householder annoyed at the disturbance, but because we need to persist in prayer, no matter how disappointed we might be with what we see as its “results.” 

Jesus adds another parable as if to correct any misunderstanding we might have from that first one: “If any of you have a child who asks him for a fish, will you give him a snake?  Or if he asks for an egg, you give him a scorpion?  If you, who aren’t all that perfect, know how to give your children what they need, how much more will your Heavenly Father know how to treat you?” (Luke 11:11-13)  God is love, and good, and not like the householder at midnight. 

When prayer doesn’t seem to deliver what we think it’s supposed to, we get disillusioned and maybe stop praying, or only go through the motions of prayer out of a sense of duty, but without any hope or faith that it matters.   But Jesus says persist like that friend at midnight.  And this is because God is good and loving, not grumpy and selfish.

 

There are many scriptures that say that if we ask God in faith, he will give us what we ask.  But this is a metaphor, a way of saying that God is on our side and will give us what we need, not that we will always get what we want..  Let’s remember:  Jesus’ own prayer in Gethsemane, “Let this cup of suffering pass from me,” was not granted.  The point here is that is that we persist in prayer, regardless of how things “turn out.” In the process we are changed and our will becomes closer to God’s.  We are able to say, with Jesus, “thy will, not mine, be done.”    Through prayer we gain acceptance of what we can’t change and strength for the truly intolerable things that we may happen to face. 

When Paul says “make your desires known to God,” he is consciously using an imperfect metaphor.  Paul understands perfectly well that God already knows whatever we might tell him in prayer.  When we pray, we aren’t “letting God know” anything that he doesn’t already know. 

Taking literally the image of asking God things we want in order to convince him to give them to us is really a kind of sick magical thinking.  The Almighty in this view begins to look somewhat like a wacky great uncle who, if we just call long distance at the right time and tell him what’s up, will send us that check we need in the mail.  Prayers in this view are almost like taskings put onto the desk of some overworked divine bureaucrat.  We need to flag them the right way so that our request goes to the top of the pile. 

As St. Augustine points out, God created space and time.  God in some ways is outside of space and time, in other ways inside and behind it all.  So it isn’t like we are going to convince God to behave in a way that he wasn’t going to anyway.  God simply is.  God simply acts.  Past, present, and future are all one from the viewpoint of God.   What appears to us as a cause, effect sequence of events to timeless God is seen all at once.

Changing God or God’s will is not what prayer to the Almighty is about.  The point is not that we let God know something he doesn’t know so this will affect him in the way we want.   The point is that we are the ones doing it, because of how this affects us. 

No matter whether a prayer of petition, of thanksgiving, of adoration, or as intercession for others, our prayers are not about changing God.  They are about changing us.   Our prayers are a way we voluntarily reveal ourselves to God, and participate in a relationship by telling him things he already knows but that we may not yet have realized.  We sometimes find that if we are honest about telling God our desires, that some of them can only be put before him as confessions of sin. 

Persistence in prayer is not just about asking. As we pray, we learn that we need not just prayers of petition, but also ones of thanksgiving, adoration, and intercession for others.

After the death of his wife Joy Davidman, C.S. Lewis was asked whether it was worth it—had any of the prayers offered on her behalf during her cancer changed anything.  He replied, “They changed me.”   I knew as a boy that those prayers that day were not silly, even though the way I understood prayer at the time made them look so.  I sensed, and still believe, that they were exactly what God wanted us to do. 

Discipline and persistence in prayer is key, but not because they work a fix with God.  It is because prayer changes us.  

I was raised in a tradition that used almost exclusively free-form prayers, and looked down on set or written prayers.  I found that if I tried to persist in prayer over time, I ended up using repeated phrases of my own, and these often were not particularly uplifting or insightful.  In the long haul, I have found that I need both free-form prayers from the heart, but also a good percentage of written prayers handed down us from those who have gone before, the “Our Father” foremost among them.  The Psalter and the other poetic passages of the Bible we know as the Canticles form a major part of my prayer life. 

I try to recite the liturgy of Morning and Evening Prayer every day, and have found that this creates a rhythm in my life that helps me grow closer to God and better serve those around me.   It makes me part of a great dialogue of prayer of the Christian Church that has been going on centuries.  But it takes time, at least 20 minutes in the morning and 10 in the evening.  In prayer, as in so many other human endeavors, you get what you put into it. 

I challenge all of us this week to pray daily, and to put some effort and thought into it.  All of us can revitalize our prayer life in some way, by following our own tradition or by learning from other Christians.  The important thing is to set the time aside, and go ahead and bother God, just like that annoying guy in the middle of the night bothered his friend.  Let us persist in prayer. 

In the name of God,  Amen. 

---

At the request of a parishioner after this homliy was delivered, I am here including  Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families from the U.S. 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.  It  provides a shortened form of liturgical prayer for private devotions.   They follow the basic structure of the Daily Office of the Church (the Liturgy of the Hours, or Evening and Morning Prayer.)  --Fr. T.

In the Morning

From Psalm 51

Open my lips, O Lord, *
    and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, *
    and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence *
    and take not your holy Spirit from me.
Give me the joy of your saving help again *
    and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *
    as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
 
A Reading

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
1 Peter 1:3

A period of silence my follow.

A hymn or canticle may be used; the Apostles' Creed may be said.

Prayers may be offered for ourselves and others.

The Lord's Prayer

The Collect
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought
us in safety to this new day:  Preserve us with your mighty
power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by
adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your
purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
 

At Noon

From Psalm 113

Give praise, you servants of the LORD; *
    praise the Name of the LORD.
Let the Name of the LORD be blessed, *
    from this time forth for evermore.
From the rising of the sun to its going down *
    let the Name of the LORD be praised.
The LORD is high above all nations, *
    and his glory above the heavens.

A Reading

O God, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are
fixed on you; for in returning and rest we shall be saved; in
quietness and trust shall be our strength.  Isaiah 26:3; 30:15

Prayers may be offered for ourselves and others.

The Lord's Prayer

The Collect
Blessed Savior, at this hour you hung upon the cross,
stretching out your loving arms:  Grant that all the peoples of
the earth may look to you and be saved; for your mercies'
sake.  Amen.

or this

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, "Peace I give to
you; my own peace I leave with you:"  Regard not our sins,
but the faith of your Church, and give to us the peace and
unity of that heavenly City, where with the Father and the
Holy Spirit you live and reign, now and for ever.  Amen.
 
In the Early Evening

This devotion my be used before or after the evening meal.

O gracious light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praised, O God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of Life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

A Reading
It is not ourselves that we proclaim; we proclaim Christ
Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants, for Jesus' sake.
For the same God who said, "Out of darkness let light
shine," has caused his light to shine within us, to give the
light of revelation -- the revelation of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 4:5-6

Prayers may be offered for ourselves and others.

The Lord's Prayer

The Collect
Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is
past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and
awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in
Scripture and the breaking of bread.  Grant this for the sake
of your love.  Amen.