7th Sunday of Easter
In this Gospel scene we just heard, Jesus on the eve of his death prays to God. The disciples overhear Jesus praying to his Father. In this most intimate moment between Jesus and his Father, like his disciples, we can only be witnesses.
But more importantly, we are the ones Jesus prays for. Listen again to part of his prayer:
“I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.”
Jesus speaks to God on behalf of all us together in this our faith community – he entrusts our future to God. Who we are as a community lies in this trust that our shared life rests in and depends on God’s love and care for us.
Community is wherever we are – here at St. Georges in worship or at a meal, being with family and friends, driving on the highway, with coworkers on the job. Community means sharing a common life. And this sense of community extends to everyone on this earth.
When we pray the Prayers of the People, we pray for the universal church, our country and our community, we pray for the welfare of those we love and those we don’t even know, for those who suffer and those in trouble and those who have died.
A sixth century monk, John Climacus described prayer as a dialogue and union with God. Prayer he said has the effect of holding the world together. Our prayers may begin with what we think we need from God but they quickly move beyond that into our life with others and then toward all who populate this earth.
Another ancient desert father saw prayer as a circle. As we pray, our lives are drawn in a line from the edge of the circle toward the center – toward God. As we get closer and closer to God in our hearts, we become closer and closer to all those others whose lives are also moving toward God.
I experience this closeness praying with you every Sunday and that sense of belonging together is with me throughout the time I’m not with you.
We have all prayed for someone who is ill that they recover; someone who approaches death that they die with dignity and without pain; someone jobless that they find rewarding work.
Sometimes people say, “Your prayer didn’t work, but thanks anyway.” As if a person could be praying for only one thing.
But, in the most difficult situations that we all deal with at some time in our lives, all we can do is ask for God’s mercy. Sometimes all we can do is ask God, “What is it you want of me?
I challenge you to ask God “What is it you want of me?” You cannot imagine the wonderful things that can happen when God answers you.
Years ago now, my oldest son was just starting his first year at medical school when he had a bad car accident that sent his sister to the hospital overnight. He was hospitalized for 6 weeks with serious injuries.
He fully recovered and never lost his scholarship, his financial aid and his place in that first year class. All the prayers for my son, all the work of the surgeons, doctors and nurses that helped him to heal changed him from a person who felt completely in control of his life to one who realized how much he needed help and someone to pray for him.
My experience during all this brought me back to the church in a great out pouring of thanks to God for his recovery; and the start of spiritual journey that even now I have no idea were it will take me.
Prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine.
And change does take place – it may not be what you expected or when you expected it.
I was asked years ago to describe who I am in one word. I said, “Servant – I want to serve people”. Why did I answer in that way? I don’t really for a fact know. But my faith tells me in truth God was working on me then and I didn’t know it.
Several years later, after my once in a life time mountain top experience at Curseo, I felt called to serve. Several years after that, I felt a call to the Diaconate. The word “deacon” comes from a Greek word that means “servant”. My friends at St. Marks sustained me, supported me and confirmed me in this call. I felt loved and prayed for. A wonderful thing but hard to accept – was I deserving of all this? I was ordained as a Deacon in 2003 and I continually ask, “Why me Lord?
And the answer comes in ways I never imagined. For instance, in my career with the state agency that makes sure vulnerable citizens receive high quality care enables me to serve the elderly in nursing homes as I make sure they are cared for. I saw how lonely many of them are.
I asked for volunteers to visit residents in nursing homes to assure them we haven’t forgotten them; that they are still part of our community, that they are valued and loved. And, by God’s Grace many responded and continue to volunteer in nursing homes to this day.
Imagine all this spiritual energy from prayer, from all the acts of compassion, all the acts of selfless giving to others, this Christ-like active life building up into this great force of energy directly communicating with God - our creator who sustains us now and who prepares an eternal home for us. And, the key to this home, this heart of God is prayer.
We all come to prayer with a tangled mass of reasons. But God is big enough to receive us with all our sins and faults. We do not have to be bright or pure or anything. That is what Grace means. We are saved by God’s Grace and we live by it and we pray by it.
No matter who we are – believers in prayer or not, it doesn’t matter. The Father’s heart is wide open. You are welcome to come in.
If you have little faith or none, if you are bruised, broken and bitter, have painful memories that haven’t healed, it doesn’t matter. The Father’s heart is wide open. You are welcome to come in.
If God seems remote and distant and inaccessible, listen to me. It doesn’t matter. The Father’s heart is wide open. You are welcome to come in.
And now in humility and thanksgiving, allow me to pray to our Creator on your behalf:
In our prayer to you almighty, most holy, most high God, thank you for paying attention to small things. Thank you for valuing the insignificant. Thank you for being interested in the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Thank you for caring about us. In Jesus’ name ---- Amen
