Palm Sunday: March 29

Palm Sunday                                              Matthew 21:1-11                                                                         I remember when the Berlin wall came down.  I was young, but it made an impression, seeing the joy and exultation that the people experienced as they walked over and through the wall without being stopped.  The image of the wall coming down became a symbol, not just of a unified Germany, but the end of the Cold War.  In the United States, many associate the words of President Reagan demanding that Gorbachev “tear down that wall” with the fall of the Berlin wall.  Many would probably say that it was reforms that Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time, enacted during his long tenure.  No doubt it was a combination of many things.  What people don’t usually talk about is the role that prayer played in the reunification of Germany and the destruction of the wall that divided them for so long.

          After World War II, Germany was divided into 4 occupied zones.  England, France and the United States had three zones and the 4^th was controlled by the Soviet Union.  Eventually this evolved into East and West Germany, with communist controlling East Germany, officially named the German Democratic Republic.   St. Nikolai Lutheran Church is located in Leipzig and was in East Germany.  In 1982, individuals from the church and the community began meeting every Monday night to pray for peace.  While that probably sounds benign to most of us, the pastor at the time (Christian Fuhrer) knew that they were being spied on as the communist party was not friendly to Christian Churches, which made it a dangerous endeavor. 

For awhile, it was 10-15 people, but they continued to meet and pray every Monday.  Eventually, the prayer group grew, sometimes in the 100s or even 1000 of people attending.  Leadership from the Soviet Union became anxious and they demanded that the group stop meeting.  There were arrests, beatings…but they kept on praying. 

October 7^th 1989 marked the 40^th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic, which increased the tensions in an already very tense time. The prayers turned into protests and demonstrations, still meeting in front of or near the church.  The month before the 40^th anniversary tens of thousands were gathering.  Finally word came down that the government was giving the military permission to shoot to kill anyone who showed up on Oct 9^th for the prayer and protest. The pastor made an interesting recommendation.  He asked people to bring candles.  If you are carrying candles, it’s harder to be accused of violence.  Seventy thousand people showed up, many carrying candles.  The military and police stood back and watched.  Later the police said, “We were ready for anything except for candles and prayer.”  The wall fell one month later.[1]

          We call this day Palm Sunday and churches everywhere hand out these palms even though only one of the Gospels records people waving palms. Matthew’s Gospel says that people cut off the branches from the trees and laid them on the ground before Jesus.  I always feel a little disappointed when I see the palm.  There is really not much to it.  It seems counterintuitive that this is what we are given to welcome a king.  At the same time, it’s appropriate that it’s a little underwhelming. 

Matthew wrote that Jesus arrived on a donkey and a colt. No one is sure if he was riding two animals, but Matthew was obviously trying to make a connection to an Old Testament text that said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations…”

          Matthew is obviously trying to connect Jesus, to the king and the Messiah that the Hebrew scriptures anticipated.   This king was different as he would not be on war horse.  He would not carry a weapon.  He would be on a donkey or even a young donkey…possibly both.  The point is, this was a different kind of king.  And yet, he would still defeat the great powers and command peace, but not in the expected way.  Instead of ascending a throne, he was arrested, beaten and then lifted onto a cross.  The cross (that labeled him as King of the Jews) was his throne. 

          I have often referred to Palm Sunday as liturgical whip lash as we start the service with joy and attempted enthusiasm, and then we all shout “crucify him” as we listen to the story of his trial and death. Yet as I read and the studied the Gospel that we began with (the one that is often referred to as the “triumphant entry”) I realized it really isn’t that triumphant.  The last verse is: “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” Who is this who arrives so humbly yet still commands worship from the crowds and fear from the Roman Empire? Who is this Jesus of Nazareth and why did such a humble and peaceful man bring such turmoil? The whole city was in turmoil.

          Not only that, but who are we to think that waving these palms means that we actually understand who Jesus is, understand what he did, what he sacrificed? Are we being foolish to think that our faith can bring change...that we can stand before the powers that be and demand change?  Were those Germans who carried candles and prayer almost 40 years ago thinking they could break down an actual wall—were they foolish? Maybe they were, but they were also victorious… not because of who they were, but because their prayers.  Remember, this gathering of people who were praying for peace, started in 1982.  The wall came down in 1989.  Change takes time, more time than we would like.

          That crowd that welcomed Jesus carried only branches and cloaks.  That is all they were equipped with.  Seems like feeble praise, feeble protest---especially when you compare that to what the Roman Empire had.  But that’s the thing about the God that we worship.  We come with our meager offering, our weakness and our fear.  We come a little jaded, maybe a little bitter.  Thankfully, it’s not about us.  It’s about this God who we worship---this God who rode a donkey into the city where he would be condemned to die.  He must have been scared. He had to be terrified, but he rode on, over the cloaks and the branches, through the hoards of people who were not quite sure who he was…except that he was worthy of their hosannas and their praises. 

          I know many of you are weary…so weary.  Many of you have been praying and protesting, and working for longer that I have been alive (and I was alive when the Berlin wall came down).  Then some of us have only been doing this for a little while and we are still tired.  I don’t know how they schedule the No Kings rallies, but I would be shocked if it has nothing to do with Palm Sunday, the day when Christians everywhere welcome a king…a different kind of king, but a king none the less.

          In our reading from Isaiah, the writer asks to be given the “tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.”  People give me a lot of reasons why they worship, or don’t worship at a church.  The reason I hear most often for why people come to church is that it gives them strength for the week. 

Consider all those who have worshipped here over the last 330 years…in this very place. They worshipped through revolutions and wars, through economic depressions…through so very much.  Imagine the prayers that these very walls have heard, that our God has heard.  No doubt, there were many times people wanted to give up. Perhaps a few people did.  But I think the reason we are still here worshipping after 330 years is because even in our weakness and our weariness, we still keep praying, we keep speaking out and reminding ourselves and others what our king—Jesus Christ-- looks like and sounds like.  Hold on my siblings in Christ.  Easter is coming.

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[1] This story was told as part of the following commentary. I  verified the story using several other sources as well: The church out in the world (Matthew 21:1-11) | The Christian Century

Wrestling/Boxing with Prayer: October 19

Luke 18:1-8                                Year C, Pentecost 22                                                                                                                                

            In 1974, Muhammad Ali was set to fight George Foreman who was the Heavy Weight Champion of the World.   Foreman was younger and stronger.  He was favored to win, not only because he was the Heavy Weight Champion, but because of his superior punching power.   In the first 5 or 6 rounds of the match, it appeared that Ali was being pummeled.  It looked so horrible, so painful, people watching were afraid he would die in the ring.  Yet, by the end of round 5, it was clear that Foreman was tiring and Ali was able to go on the offensive.  In the 8^th round, Ali knocked him out.  It is one of the most famous fights in the history of boxing and I promise that if you keep listening, I’m going to make a connection to the Gospel. 

 

            This Gospel reading is probably one of the most well-known parables about prayer.    It has a lot of different interpretations, but the most popular is that of the persistent widow. There are a couple of things you need to know about widows in ancient Israel.  They were the poorest of the poor.  If a woman did not have a husband to support her, she either had to remarry or depend on another male relative.  If she was too old to marry, then she would depend on a son.   If she did not have a son, then her only option was to beg on the street.  Because of this, there were several Jewish laws meant to protect widows, although they were fairly limited in their scope.  As a result, widows became a symbol for all those who were poor and oppressed; all of those who needed to fight for their right to be heard. 

            It is clear that this widow did not have a male relative who was caring for her.  If she did, she would not have been the one in front of the judge.    She was at the mercy of a judge who had no fear of God and no respect for anyone.  She could not beg for mercy.  She could not appeal to his sense of justice or his respect for the law.  The only power she had in her arsenal was perseverance, and it would appear, more than her fair share of feistiness.  

          Most of the New Testament was translated from Greek.  Some things have been lost in translation.  The English translation we use in the Episcopal Church (The New Revised Standard Version) says that the judge said, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she many not wear me out continually by her coming.”  Virtually every commentary I read said that the last part of the verse (wear me out continually) is not a good translation.   The literal translation would be, “she will end up giving me a black eye.”   

People are divided about what Jesus meant by this.  Some say the judge was actually worried that she would hit him.  Others say that black eye is a euphemism for public shame.  Still others, (and this is my choice) hypothesized that it was both.  He was afraid this woman would hit him and that black eye would result in public shame.  The judge, who had no fear of God and no respect for anyone, was afraid of public shaming, even if it was by a poor and powerless widow.   It would seem that she wasn’t so powerless after all.

            I believe that there are some times when it is good to feel a little powerless.  It is a humbling experience.  And we must always remember that we are all powerless before the majesty of God.  Yet there is a time when being powerless feels more like hopelessness, and that is never a good thing.  This woman, while powerless, was never without hope.  If she had been, she would not have gone back again and again.  Where did she get that hope?  The last line of the Gospel reading gives us a good clue.  Jesus concludes the parable by asking, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  Her hope was rooted in faith, and that faith gave her strength to persevere, even when the fight had probably gone out of her. 

            Some people think this parable means that if you are persistent enough in your prayer life, your prayer will be answered.  I have tried that and I have known many people who have tried it.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not.   When it does not work, it can be faith shattering.  It can crush the strongest, the most powerful, and the most fortunate.  In my experience, prayer is about the process and not the outcome.   Sometimes that process will feel more like a boxing match, or a wrestling match than a quiet moment with God.   

            Jesus prayed a lot.  That probably seems obvious, but when you think about, it’s actually kind of odd.  He prayed, even though he had control over the outcome.  Sometimes he prayed all night.  The night before he was arrested, his prayer was such a struggle that he actually sweat blood.  Was he trying to change the mind of God, or was he preparing himself for what was about to happen?  I believe he was preparing himself, and that prayer, it was a battle.  He was going to work that out with God.  In the end, it did not free him from his death on the cross, but it gave him the strength to die in peace. 

            What Ali was doing the first 5 rounds of that fight was wearing out George Foreman.  In essence, he was preparing for the moment when he could overcome his opponent.  But in preparing, he took a beating and sometimes that is what prayer feels like, even when the outcome is the one we want.  He won that fight, but what I find most interesting was what happened to George Foreman.  He lost to Ali and he lost a couple matches after that. Then he became an ordained minister and did ministry full time for at least 10 years.  After that, he announced a comeback.  At age 45, 20 years after that fight against Ali, he won the Heavy Weight Championship again.  He was oldest person to ever win that.  It took him 20 years, but he never gave up.            

 Prayer is a process and it is not for the faint of heart.  It’s for those people who are willing to engage in a struggle.  Usually it is a struggle of the heart and not the fists (in fact we really discourage fighting in the Christian Church).   Yet most of us know that emotional blows can be just as painful as physical ones.  Sometimes our prayers will be answered after 5 rounds of beating like Muhammad Ali.  Sometimes it will take 20 years like George Foreman.  Sometimes it will seem like no matter how hard we fight, how good we are, how just our prayer, it will never get answered, not in this lifetime.  It is those times, when we have to remember that our prayer is not meant to change God’s mind, but ours.  

It is meant to make us into the person who can handle what an unanswered prayer feels like.   My prayer for each and every one of you is not only that your prayers be answered, but that when they are not answered in the way you think they should be, you will have the strength for the next round.  We are all fighting so many small battles and many of those battles have left us wounded.  The thing about the struggles we have with God is that while they don’t make us stronger physically, those struggles can strengthen us spiritually.  And if we have that strength at the core of our being, then we can handle the other struggles that come our way.  Even when our body is breaking or we feel like we are just this close to a mental breakdown, that core strength—that place where God resides in us—that will hold us up so we can face another day and never, ever, lose heart.

 

When Prayer is Hard: July 24, 2022

 Year C, Pentecost 7                                 Luke 11: 1-13 and Genesis 18:20-32                               

            Every Sunday, we have two collects at the beginning of our service. The word collect is the Episcopal (fancy) was to say, “Opening prayer.”  We begin with the Collect of Purity which is the same every Sunday.  A few minutes after, we have the collect for the day which is unique every week and reflects some of the themes of the readings. There is a pattern to every collect, an anatomy of a collect. Every collect begins by addressing the name of God. It then acknowledges the character of God. 

            For example, today’s collect begins with the very simple “O God.” That’s the address.  The collect then goes on to acknowledge the character of God by saying, “The protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy.”  Obviously there are many ways that we can describe the character of God.  This week, the author of the collect chose to focus on protection and trust. 

Now I don’t know about you, but when I make up my own prayers, I almost never start by acknowledging the character of God.  I figure, God knows what God is like.  Why do I need to describe God to God?  Yet there is a long tradition of this in our prayers and in the Psalms.  We even see it to a small extent in the way Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “Father, hallowed be your name.”

            By teaching his disciples to start with “Father” he is suggesting a very familiar form of address, a more familiar form than Jewish prayers would have used at this time. In many ways the address itself is also an acknowledgment of the character of God.  Because what is a father?  A father is a parent, hopefully a loving parent who will listen to his children.  Jesus goes on to make the character description even clearer.  This is not just any ordinary father.  This is a father who is holy—whose very name is holy. That is what hallowed means.  This father’s name is holy and worthy of our respect and adoration.

            Why did Jesus teach this prayer?  Was he hoping it would be the one prayer that would unite all Christians across denominations? That is what happened, but I am not sure it was his intention. The disciples did ask him to teach them how to pray.  Consequently a lot of people read this Gospel story and conclude Jesus is prescribing a method of prayer.  However, I am not sure that Jesus was teaching how to pray as much as he was emphasizing the importance of knowing and understanding who we are praying to.  If you look at the parables that follow the teaching of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus isn’t telling stories of ways to pray.   The parables speak to the character of God. 

            It’s the same with the reading from the Old Testament. This reading from Genesis almost seems like we are hearing two people barter. God had decided that Sodom and Gomorrah was an evil city (this was before the angels were sent down to investigate by the way.)  However since God was a just God, he sent a few angels down to do some reconnaissance for him.  Right after he sent them, we have our reading from today where Abraham barters with him.  He knows that God will probably destroy the whole city, but he also knows that God is just and merciful.  In talking to God, Abraham appeals to this characteristic of God.  He says things like, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” Here we have Abraham talking directly to the Lord Almighty, but interestingly he uses the same method of prayer as Jesus taught his disciples and the same ones we use in our collects.  He appealed to God’s character. 

            Was it because God needed a reminder of his own character?  I don’t think so.  I believe it was more of a reminder to Abraham.  Abraham had to remember that despite the power that God wielded (the power to create and destroy), he was still a just and merciful God.

            I have to admit that I struggle with the end of this Gospel reading.  “Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find…”  I struggle because this is not always my experience of prayer and I don’t think its many people’s experience of prayer. Of course we do have prayers that are answered in beautiful and miraculous ways. But sometimes, our most ardent prayers are not answered, not in the way we hope.

Now, there are people who say that God always answers, but sometimes the answer is no.  And that makes sense a lot of the time.  But what about for the spouse or parent who is dying a horrible death and your prayer is that death can come quickly so as not to prolong the agony.? Why in the world would the answer be no?  Or what about for the 4 year old going through chemo?  The family prays the chemo will work and the child still dies.  How could the answer to that prayer be no?  I don’t know.  And I have to tell you, as a clergy person, those questions haunt me.  Because I want to be able to read this text: “Ask and it will be given to you…” with conviction, but I waffle a little. 

            Which is why I think that when we talk about prayer, the focus cannot be on how we pray or even the outcome of the prayer, but the God we are praying to …the character of God.   As I mentioned earlier, in my personal prayers…I don’t usually start by describing God.  However, while I was working on this sermon, I thought I would give it a shot.  I started with a low stakes thing. Joshua was having his first sleepover.  It was 11:30 and Joshua’s friend was passed out on the floor.  Joshua was wide awake.  I started, “Dear God, who loves me and wants me to sleep…who believes that in returning and rest we are saved, please make my kid go to sleep…”  While it was not immediately effective, I found it comforting. It made me feel less alone in that moment.

            Prayer is a really difficult thing.  When I was in the hospital, I found it extraordinarily hard to pray. When I got home there were dozens of cards from people telling me that they were praying for me, and that meant so much. It reminded me of how important the church community is.  Because when we don’t have the strength to pray, we have others praying for us. 

            That is one of the reasons why we have baptisms on Sunday mornings, so the whole community can pray for the child.  Thad and his family don’t live locally (yet), but for now, Thad will be a baptized member of St. John’s.  And when you find a new community, we will rejoice with you. There will be difficult times as parents, as a family, but please know that you are not meant to do this alone.  God wants you to have a community of the faithful, to be there when you aren’t strong enough to pray on your own—to remind you that our God is a loving God who believes in the importance of rest and restoration.  Our God is a holy God who loves us even more than we love our children or our most cherished friend.  Imagine that—a God who loves us more than we love anyone on this earth. That is a God worth praying to.

Unanswered Prayers: September 26, 2021

 Year B, Pentecost 18                                                               James 5:13-20                                                                 

     Since we have had 5 weeks in the Book of James, I had hoped to preach my three Sundays on James.  Then I looked at the text for today.  “Are any among you suffering? They should pray…. The prayer of faith will save the sick.”  On the one hand, that probably sounds like a preacher’s dream text.  For some it might be, but not this one.  After I looked at this text the first time I thought, you know the Old Testament reading is a good one, maybe I will go with that.  But then as is so often the case, it’s always the texts that I don’t really like that are the most important to preach.

                What I found particularly irksome about this text is it seems overly simplistic.  And frankly, wrong.  We all know we are supposed to pray.  Hopefully most of us do pray.  But we also have experienced praying for someone who is sick and being disappointed when they did not get well.  They did not heal.  In some cases, they died.   So how can James say that the prayer of faith will save the sick?  Does that mean that anyone who isn’t healed doesn’t have someone truly faithful praying for them? Of course not.  This is one of the hardest things to reconcile as a Christian.   We are told to pray and so we do. Yet occasionally, even when we pray for something good and holy, perhaps even righteous, our prayers go unanswered. 

            Since it’s something I have never been able to reconcile, it seemed like something that I should probably avoid preaching about.  So I looked at that Old Testament text again, because it really is a great text. Moses is complaining to God about this ungrateful group of whiners he is stuck with.  This was not the first time the Hebrew people had complained.  Earlier in the story, they had complained about how hungry they were, so God provided them with manna from heaven.  Now they are sick of manna, they want some meat.  It’s kind of understandable.  I love bread, but not even I could eat just bread for 40 years.  So they are complaining again which leads Moses to complain to God about this ungrateful rabble.

God was not upset that they were asking for meat.  What really ticked him off was that they were reminiscing about Egypt, the place that God had freed them from.   Their deliverance from Egypt was an answered prayer.  They had prayed to God that God might free them from their enslavement in Egypt. God had gone to great trouble to free them from their oppressors.  God brought plagues upon Egypt.  God parted water so they could safely pass.  He sent them a leader in Moses, who they then abused.  And now, they want to go back.  This is the thanks God gets for their answered prayer?

            As confounding as it is to us when God doesn’t answer a prayer in the way that we think is good and appropriate, it must also be confusing to God when we have our prayers answered and then end up complaining about it.  I am sure we can all think of a time when we prayed fervently for something and were granted that, but then later found ourselves complaining about the very thing we desperately wanted.

            I think it all comes down to the way we treat prayer.  Do we perceive prayer as a tool to get what we want out of life?  Or is prayer a gift that God has given us, a gift that allows us to create and sustain a relationship with God and one another.  In the previous chapter, James wrote, “Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you” (4:8).  By speaking to God, we grow closer to God.  Because even when we are complaining to God, at least we are in dialogue with God.  Remember, it wasn’t the complaint about the lack of meat that irritated God, it was the desire to return to Egypt. It was the lack of gratitude for their answered prayer.

            The other thing that James is emphasizing in this text is the need for a community of faith.   James wrote, “Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.”  James was encouraging people to reach out to those in their faith community to pray for them. 

Remember, a lot of what James has been talking about in this book is the action of Christians—how to live a Christian life. Here he is explaining that one of the actions of a Christian is reaching out and asking for help.  Another is responding to that cry for help.  Prayer isn’t merely about our relationship with God, it’s also how we relate to one another. 

One of the things that we had to stop because of COVID was the healing prayers we offered every Sunday.  It was usually a non ordained person providing prayer in the chapel.  People shared their need and one of our healers prayed over them.  Now, I never asked Jane or Laura or Linda how many people they really healed.  Because I think we all knew, that wasn’t exactly the point.  The point was that people felt the care and compassion of another Christian in the community, in the context of Sunday morning worship.  It was individual prayer enfolded in community of prayer.   I believe that is a perfect illustration for what James is talking about.

Of course the problem with this interpretation is that it still doesn’t explain what the text means when it says, “The prayer of faith will save the sick.” I wish I could tell you.  I really wish I could explain why so many good and worthy prayers go unanswered.  And I also can’t explain why we humans occasionally act like the Israelites complaining about a prayer that God answered that we now wish he hadn’t answered. What I do know is this, giving up on prayer never helped anyone.  I have never spoken to anyone who said, “Yeah, my life really turned around when I stopped praying.”  Because when you stop praying, you give up.  You isolate yourself not just from God, but from your brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Now there might be times, when you simply  don’t have the strength.  That’s ok.  Don’t beat yourself up about not being able to pray at times.  That is where the clergy and the church come in.  Many people stop coming to church when they can’t pray because they think they are being insincere.  But please, please don’t do that.  Keep coming, so the community can hold you up.  Keep coming and if you can, ask for someone else to pray the prayer that is eluding you.  That is what we are here for.  Someone once said that a church isn’t a museum for the saints, it’s a hospital for the sinners.   As beautiful as this church is, I don’t want it to be a museum for super holy people to display their holiness. I hope it can be a place where wounded souls find healing and even the unanswered prayers find some solace.

July 27, 2014: Romans 8:26-39

Year A, Pentecost 7                                    

            The Book of Common Prayer is full of absolutely beautiful prayers.  They are eloquent and theologically sound.   They are often Biblically based.  Some of these prayers can be found in our Sunday morning service, but certainly not all.  If you only open it when you come to church on Sunday, you have probably only experienced about 10% of the prayers.   As Episcopalians, and people of the book, we should never be at a loss for words, especially now that you can access the BCP on your phone. 

I love these prayers and I know many of you do as well.  But there are other Christians who find it a little strange that we read our prayers from a book.  Many Christians find it inauthentic, as if we are only going through the motions.  I can see that perspective.  Sometimes we are going through the motions.  Occasionally I will be reading a prayer and realize that I have been thinking about something else the whole time.   Yet when you are composing a prayer…it’s pretty hard for your mind to wander.  If it did, it would be pretty obvious. 

            There is no right way to pray.  The Apostle Paul (who was never at a loss for words) wrote to the Roman community: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”   When I think of a sigh, I think of something rather dignified, something that would be totally appropriate in an Episcopal Church.  However, most translations use the word groaning instead of sigh.  That sounds a lot less dignified.  That sounds like someone in pain, or at least very frustrated.   If the person next to you were sighing, you would probably be ok with that.  If they were groaning, well that might get a little awkward.  You might find yourself sliding in the opposite direction.

            It is not really clear in the text whether the Spirit is groaning on our behalf, or if our literal groans are the work of the Spirit. It might not matter.  Personally I would much rather have the Spirit groan on my behalf as I read an eloquent and theologically correct prayer.  Since there is no right way to pray, I think God would probably be ok with that method.  However, I worry when prayer feels too dignified.  For me, when my prayers have felt the most authentic and the most powerful were when they came out with tears and sometimes anger.  There has been occasional teeth gnashing, foot stomping.  Sometimes my prayers come out in laughter and tears of joy. These seem to be the ones that change me the most.

This does not mean that those other prayers that lacked laughter, tears or stomping have not been true or real.  They absolutely have been. In fact, I think it is those prayers that prepare us for the prayers that come out as groans.  Those prayers equip us with a sacred vocabulary, even if we choose not to use it.  Those prayers are what we come back to when the storm is over and we find ourselves exhausted.  It is those times when it is all you can do to even read the words in front of you…but you do because that’s what you need right at that moment. 

            Some interpret this passage as Paul not only saying that we do not know how to pray, but we do not even know what to pray.  If God searches our heart and can interpret those spirit sighs…it is only God who knows what we are praying for.  I find that a tad annoying.  I should have some say in what I am praying for.  Otherwise, why use any words at all? It’s not that we do not determine our own prayer; we just don’t always know what is in our head.  Sometimes our deepest needs and desires get stuck in our heart and never make it to the part of us that formulates the words.  Thankfully, God is there searching our heart…learning every nook and cranny so we can become the Christian we are meant to be. 

            What is our part in this complicated word scramble?  If God is searching our heart and the spirit is groaning on our behalf it would seem that we could live our life and not have to worry about God or faith.  It’s as if we outsourced our prayer life to people who can do it more effectively than us.  There is one tiny problem with that scenario.  There appear to be some hearts that God and the spirit just don’t have access to.  Sure, God could shove his way through like a big bouncer at a club, but that’s not God’s style.  Jesus never operated that way.  Jesus never forced himself on people.  He invited them to follow him.  He invited them to come a little closer.  God has delivered an invitation to each one of us, but we have not all responded.   Perhaps like a good Episcopalian you are thinking, well of course I responded….when I was in confirmed (5, 20, 40, 60 years ago). 

It would be nice if it were that easy.  But it’s not a one and done type deal.  You can’t invite God in and ignore him.  Sometimes you need to invite God in over and over again.  I imagine that most of us have had those times in our lives when our heart has gotten a little closed off and we have shoved God out .  Often it is more subtle than a shove.  We just did not have time for God.  There are other demands on us and God can be a pretty high maintenance house guest.  He’s got a lot of demands and that might get in the way of our social life,  job, sports, or the Desperate House Wives marathon.

That is where weekly worship or even written prayers come in handy.  We need a reminder—a constant reminder of who we are as Christians.  We might not have the discipline to read the Bible every day.  We might be too emotionally spent even to groan.  So we come back to this service, not just for solace but for strength.  It reminds me of that phrase, “fake it until you make it.”  It sounds insincere, but I think there might be something to it.  Even for a priest, there are times when I do not want to come to church, when I don’t feel like I have the strength to say prayers and sing the hymns.  It is those times when I am so grateful that I have this tradition of prayers and worship, and a community of people to worship with.  There are no excuses not to pray.  The prayers are right there in front of me. 

And maybe there are moments, I have a hard time believing every prayer.  But I know that God is still there working through every nook and cranny of my heart ensuring that the Spirit is there to translate my groans into heartfelt prayer.   Because the more I read the prayers, the more I believe them and the more I feel them. I believe that is true for all of us.  There will be times when it is really hard to pray, really hard to believe the things we pray.  It is those times when it is even more important to show up, to open your heart, open your mouth and let God take it from there.