The Lord's Baptism

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Homily for Sunday, January 12, 2014       Celtic Evening Prayer     Buck Mountain Church

I love being present for a baptism, and since they usually happen at our morning service, I hope you regular 5 o’clockers will someday attend a baptism here if you haven’t already. Generally, the ones being baptized are infants or young children. Their parents, godparents, and grandparents gather around the baptismal font. Our vicar Connie calls all of the older children to the front of the church so they bear witness and are  participants in this important sacrament, something they themselves experienced not so long before but likely do not recollect.  There is so much joy, the church is one big smile, and it seems to be a brightly sunlit day, whether the sun is shining or not.  The congregants break into spontaneous applause as Connie carries the infant all the way up the aisle and back and we are asked to welcome the newly baptized.

            The sun shone on Jesus the day he was baptized, or so it seems in the story.  In Matthew’s description, after Jesus is baptized by John, “The heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”  Imagine how startled John and other witnesses must have been! The voice of God, as described in the old Hebrew scriptures, including Psalm 29, was “a powerful voice, a voice of splendor,” a voice that could “split the flames of fire or make the oak trees writhe.”  How marvelous it must have been to hear the words of fatherly pride and love in that voice!  I am pretty sure this is the only time in the gospels when all three of the persons of the Trinity are physically represented together in the same scene. In that light, every detail of Jesus’s baptism is significant.

            Jesus chooses to be baptized by his cousin John, even though John demurs and says it would be more appropriate for Jesus to baptize him. Jesus insists, knowing that this “fulfilling of all righteousness,” as he expresses it, will be the public beginning of his ministry. The visible presence of the Spirit in the form of a dove and the proclamation by the Father himself were affirmations he may have needed as he began his journey, his ministry, whose terminal point in a brief three years would be the cross.

            Jesus’s full immersion in the Jordan River, as an adult, is very different from the infant baptisms involving a sprinkle of water that we witness today.  As much as we cherish having the little ones incorporated into the body of Christ and protected by that grace from infancy, there is an aspect of baptism that we lose when we are not fully immersed as adults.

            In the early centuries of the Christian faith, those wishing to be baptized [let’s call them catechumens] were adults who endured three years of work and study to prepare themselves for the sacrament.  In those days, all baptisms took place at Easter, and the catechumens participated in a full weekend of services. At 3:00 on Good Friday afternoon, they were publicly examined and anointed with oil for the first of three times, the sign of the cross being made on their heads to signify their turning toward the Lord. The Great Vigil of Easter consumed most of Saturday, and at its high point on Saturday evening, the catechumens stripped off all of their clothing.  Their nakedness represented a renunciation of everything in their past lives, the death of their former selves. At this time, their bodies were anointed with the oil of the Spirit.

            In the dark early morning hours of Easter Sunday, as the vigil continued, the catechumens were led to the baptismal pool, where a crowd awaited them and they were anointed and examined for the last time. After each one entered the pool, the deacon asked three questions: “Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?” After each question and the response, “I believe,” the deacon held the catechumen’s head under the water, pressing it down.  This baptism was indeed a death and rebirth into new life. As St. Paul said in his letter to the Colossians (Chapter 2), “When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God.”

            Not only was being held under water like a death and burial, but the nudity can be seen as symbolic of Christ’s nakedness on the cross. Where is the joy in such a baptism, you may ask?  In the resurrection, of course. The newly baptized Christians, knowing themselves to be born into new life in Christ, had undergone a thrilling demonstration of victory over death.  After three years of rigorous preparation, they were now finally members of the church, the body of Christ.  They lived in a world where identification with that radical group known as Christians might very well result in their martyrdom. 

The baptism they had undergone was not only a test, but a preparation. I’m sure many of them kept the story of Jesus’s glorious baptism in mind as an affirmation of their own faith. May we always do the same.   Amen.

Light and Darkness

Homily for Sunday, December 29, 2013   Buck Mountain Episcopal Church Celtic Service

From today’s collect:

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word.

            In the grand story of creation in Genesis 1, God’s first recorded words are “Let there be light.” The separation of light and darkness, day and night, follows. Even though we think of these words as opposites, each one is necessary to an understanding of the other. Without light, how would we define darkness?  Without darkness, how would we appreciate light?  In John 1, our gospel lesson for today, we have a passage that contains the New Testament complement to the creation story. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (the Baptizer). He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

John’s words speak to the glory of the cosmic shift in our human relationship with almighty God, a shift engendered by the birth of an infant in a lowly stable—the new light that would come into the world. The God of Genesis, who simply by speaking the words of creation brought all things into being, is a God whose power is truly unfathomable to the human mind. Even so, as humans tend to do, we have striven to understand and explain God to one another, often with conflicting and disastrous results. 

Since we have made such a mess of comprehending God and translating that comprehension into action, God chose to be born as one of us, to live among us as the exemplar of all we are supposed to be. The infant Jesus became the light that dispelled the darkness. As the apostle John speaks so eloquently in the gospel, “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. The law indeed was given by Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God, the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”  Jesus has shown us the face of God—as well as the kind heart of God.

The last time I led this Celtic service, I preached about the necessity, even the blessing, of accepting darkness.  That darkness, a result of our feeling distant from God, was called “the cloud of unknowing” by an anonymous early church father, who wrote about the need for letting go of our presumptuous interpretations of God’s meaning, letting go of our need to know exactly what God intends for us, and allowing ourselves to accept the mystery of God. Both God’s power and his infinite love for us are vastly beyond our ability to comprehend.  By letting go of our need to know, by welcoming the darkness of our incomprehension, we can simply relax into God’s loving arms, trusting in God’s great mercy. That trust in what we cannot see, cannot know, is the essence of faith. Often children, as we observe and may remember ourselves, are the ones who exemplify a trusting faith best of all, especially in the Christmas season.

Today’s lessons are all about the light that shines forth once we accept and move beyond the darkness. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul explains the simplicity of faith as something revealed to us. He writes, “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed… But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” Doesn’t it sound as if Paul is saying that humans needed to attribute a harsh and demanding nature to God, needed to assign laws as the pretext for a relationship between God and God’s people? The laws provided necessary limits for humans—yes indeed! But these laws also placed imagined limits on God and God’s ability to respond to human need. Through these laws, interpreted and written by humans, we have presumed to understand God and express God’s will. We refuse to accept the darkness of unknowing when we make God into OUR idea of a disciplinarian. We refuse the lessons exemplified by the living Christ when we condemn ourselves and one another. Paul tells us that it is with child-like faith that we are freed.

            And what is the source of our freedom?  Clearly, God did not wish us to remain imprisoned by our false notions about God. Paul says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as children.” It is no wonder we cherish the expression, “Love came down at Christmas.” In this way, the Old Testament Word entered the world as the new light of grace. The light of Christ’s message, the light signified by a star and offered to us through his humble birth and through his teaching, is the most simple Word of all: “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

Love, fully expressed and fully experienced, is grace upon grace.  The star of Bethlehem is the bright light of love.  AMEN.

Thanksgiving, 2013

Why Give Thanks?

Lessons:

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 100

Philippians 4:4-9

John 6: 25-35

“If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, it will be enough.”

13^th century mystic Meister Eckhart is the source of that quotation.   Is his sentiment really true?  Why should we give thanks above all else?

Today’s lessons, the ones selected for Thanksgiving Day, certainly point in that direction. In Deuteronomy, offering a sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God is the thing the people are told to do first.  Deuteronomy was a book collecting the words of Moses to the people, with his explanations of the laws handed down by God and his own words of instruction. If Moses says give thanks, then maybe we ought to listen.

As the psalm says, we give thanks because “The Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting and his faithfulness endures from age to age.”  I’m pretty sure most of us can offer plenty of evidence of God’s faithfulness in our lives: of all the ways we have been blessed by God. But how often do we count our blessings?

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul offers clues about the importance of Thanksgiving when he writes, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything [in every situation] by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known to God.” 

I’m pretty sure most of the prayers I make are prayers of supplication—when I make requests of God. I’m also sure that I don’t give equal time to saying thanks.

In the words from the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us directly why we should thank God:  “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

The basic fact that we are alive and breathing, that we have the most essential necessities of life—food and water, shelter, someone who loves us—all are gifts from God. Many of the things we ask for in our prayers are not things we need, but things we want.  We know by the evidence of our own lives and the words of the Lord that God grants us everything we need before we ever even think to ask.

It stands to reason, then, that prayers of Thanksgiving are not just what we ought to say, but that words of thanks should simply rise to our lips spontaneously at any moment. When we thank the Lord for his provision of all we need, we acknowledge that we have received our blessings with a full awareness of their source.  We simply remind ourselves how very blessed we are when we give thanks to that Source of all we are and all we possess.  We very much need such a reminder when we get caught up in worries about our problems.

Right now I’m thankful that the epistle lesson appointed for this day is Philippians 4:4-9.  These most beautiful words are some of my very favorite ones in all the bible, and they always remind me of my sweet mother and her siblings, of how blessed I was to be born into their family. In these words, Paul lists some of the intangible blessings that we too often take for granted:  “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Something about the way giving thanks can bring us to an internal state of balance, “set us to rights,” so to speak, must have been what President Lincoln had in mind when he began the annual tradition of this holiday by proclaiming a national day of “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26^th, 1863—right at the height of the Civil War.  Lincoln, whom many consider to be our greatest and wisest President, understood well the healing nature of giving thanks.

I am thankful for you, for this lovely old chapel, for all of our many blessings, and for the holiday we are about to celebrate.  May the Lord continue to bless us and keep us in his care.   AMEN.

Homily for Sunday, October 27, 2013

                                               Humility or Righteousness? 

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“If you want peace, work for justice.”

Those words appear on a bumper sticker, and the words are fundamentally true.  Most disputes between nations, most wars, have as their root cause some unjust act (or perceived injustice) on the part of another nation. Sometimes, as in Syria today, the injustice happens within a country, between opposing factions. The Hague and Geneva conventions have been in place for well over 100 years and have evolved into the bases for the prosecution of war criminals and the settlement of reparations where injustice has occurred.  Justice has to happen before there can be true peace.

            Jesus’s words  in today’s parable about two very different men praying in the temple speak to a very personal kind of peace—the peace we have within ourselves which usually translates into peace with our neighbors.  Jesus shows us very clearly that the peace he wills for us is the peace that comes from humility.

This parable also illustrates something pretty surprising—righteousness is less important in Christ’s eyes than humility.  The Pharisee in the story obeys every rule of the law; he knows he is both right and righteous and his words reflect the arrogance his righteousness produces. The arrogance that results from that self-righteousness of the Pharisee is clearly a grave sin in Christ’s eyes.  The Pharisee “exalts” himself, and by exalting himself, he sees the tax collector as contemptible. No love can be found in self-righteousness that puffs itself up at the expense of others.

Jesus’s exact words are, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”  What does it mean to be “exalted”?  The dictionary says that to exalt is to acclaim, to venerate, to elevate, to worship. If we think of Jesus and his life as the true model for our own lives, we will clearly see that Jesus never exalted himself.  In the poverty of his life and his debasing, horrific death, Jesus was an exemplar of true humility. Yet we know him as the Lord of all, God incarnate, and the author of mercy, love, and justice.  Jesus was the humble one who has been and continues to be exalted.  But we are none of us like Jesus Christ, who was perfectly humble and perfectly righteous. Like the tax collector and indeed like the Pharisee, all of us are sinners in one way or another.

So how do we live the kind of humility Jesus asks of us? And how will we be exalted by that humility?  The traditional interpretation of this parable is that the tax collector’s humility will exalt him into heaven. He prays what has come to be known as the Jesus prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He won’t even raise his eyes to heaven because he knows he is unworthy of the mercy he seeks. God, who is always more loving and forgiving of us than we are of ourselves, hears that prayer and forgives.

            I think that when Jesus says “the humble will be exalted” he means more than just the reward that awaits us when we die. I think Jesus is saying that our humility will exalt our spirits, lift us here and now into a state of grace, and give us inner peace. Accepting that we are sinners and far from righteous will lead us, as it does the tax collector, to seek God’s mercy. Focused on our own inadequacies, we will not succumb to self-righteous contempt for anyone else. Knowing ourselves to be loved by God in spite of our shortcomings and accepting that we are no better (or worse) than our neighbors draw us closer to both. We experience God’s love more fully, and we learn to love our neighbors and live with them in true peace and harmony.

            Yes, if we want peace, we should work for justice. But if we want the kind of peace that allows us to feel at one with God and with our neighbors, then we need to work on humility. It’s more important than being right! 

           

           

           

Homily for Sunday, September 29, 2013

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 Lazarus at the Gate

The lessons for today, even the parable in the gospel about poor Lazarus at the rich man’s gate, are some of the most straightforward ones in the bible.  There is not much need for interpretation in words like “Happy are they…who give justice to those who are oppressed and food to those who hunger.”  In the parable, the selfish rich man burns in hell, while the poor beggar is tended to by the angels in heaven.  This is the kind of lesson that makes me squirm. It’s tough to think about, much less preach about.  I never consider myself one of the rich, but in comparison to most of the poor people in the world, I am very rich indeed. When I think about the money I waste on trivial things, that’s when I really start to squirm.  I can just see myself on judgment day trying to justify buying that pair of shoes that gathered dust in my closet.  Then I remember with gratitude that our Lord is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” I still have time to mend my selfish ways.

            The collect for today says something pretty startling: “God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” Really?  I take a look at the beauty and wonder of creation, the incredible power of natural forces like wind and floods and wildfires, and I think, now, that’s power.

Or I look at someone who has been miraculously healed from a devastating illness, and I think—that’s power. But this collect, in stating that God chiefly reveals his power through mercy and pity, suggests that all those showy demonstrations of God’s power—the volcano erupting and tidal wave forming--are not  most important to God.  No, God demonstrates his true power in a way most of us usually overlook—or ignore—in the mercy and pity God shows each of us. Some people call it grace.

            When I was a child here in Graves Mill, I loved to hear the stories my mother told about her own childhood here, stories about the gatherings of family and friends, of neighbors coming together in times of celebration and in times of trouble. She told me about my hard-working grandparents, a farmer and his wife, about how my grandmother canned the vegetables my grandfather grew, how she cooked and spread a well-laden table at every meal, good food for the family and anyone else who came to share a meal. Mama told me about the lunches my grandmother packed for her children, how my mother was distraught one day when a big gust of wind tugged her lunch pail right out of her hand and dumped it in the river as she and her sister Mabel walked to school. Mama remembered that incident so plainly after so many years because, as she told me, her lunch contained one of my grandmother’s delicious fried apple pies.

            When I was a young adult and reflected on my mother’s childhood, it finally occurred to me that the years of my mother’s growing up, the years of what always sounded to me like years of joy and bounty, were the years of the Great Depression. From my mother’s stories, I never had the sense of anyone in the valley suffering through those hard times. I’m sure some of them did, but I’m equally sure this valley, where farming families had always known how to provide for their own and look out for one another, was at least somewhat insulated from the worst effects of the depression. The images we’ve seen of long lines of people standing in wait for handouts of bread are images of city life. We continue to think that the worst pockets of poverty in this country are in the urban areas, although we also know from the 1960s revelations about poverty in the deep hollers of Appalachia that poor people abound in all places. When we refuse to see the poor people in our midst, we behave like the rich man who overlooked the very existence of Lazarus at his gate. The words of today’s collect and gospel lesson remind us that, though we may choose to drive past the poor person in need, God always shows the poor mercy and pity and favors them over us when we neglect them.

            Let’s look at that parable again. When Abraham explains to the rich man why he is in hell and why poor Lazarus is finally receiving the comfort he deserves, the rich man doesn’t really get it. He wants Abraham to send Lazarus to bring him some water, as if he can still lord it over the poor beggar. Abraham points out to the rich man that what he asks is impossible. Then the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house, to warn all five of his rich brothers, so that they won’t end up burning in hell as he has. When Abraham says the brothers have Moses and the prophets, all of whom taught about sharing and caring for the poor, the rich man responds that his brothers won’t listen to the prophets.  He thinks they might listen to someone raised from the dead, like Lazarus. Maybe that would get their attention. The audacity of this rich man, even while he is in hell, is unbelievable!  Abraham has had enough of him by this point, and tells him that his brothers won’t listen to anyone any more than he did himself.  They are just as self-absorbed as he is.

            I wonder how many times we fail to listen to the prophets? How often do we read lessons like this one and forget about it the next day?  Two things from Paul’s letter to Timothy are helpful guides for us if we wish to do the right thing by sharing our wealth. Most of the time when you hear these words of Paul’s, they are misquoted as saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” But what Paul really says, and this is significant, is that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”  Money in and of itself is neither good nor evil. In fact, used wisely and generously, money can accomplish many good things. The problems arise from our attachment to our money and what we can purchase with it. When we love our money too much, we become less willing to share it with others.

            What’s the antidote? What does Paul say we ought to do with our money? He states very plainly how we rich folks are to behave.  We are “to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.”

            Ultimately, I think this means we have to take a close look at our relationship with our money. Actually, maybe the better choice would be to stop having a “relationship” with our money—to let go of that kind of attachment. Instead, we could assess how we use our money, and how we might be able to use it more wisely and generously.  I guess Paul would say we could redirect our love for our money toward doing a better job of loving each other and our neighbors.  Like every important challenge, that may be easier said than done. 

            As with any challenge, we can pray for the Lord’s guidance in discerning his will for us as we share our abundance with the ones who need our help the most.  AMEN

Homily for Sunday, August 25th

How Do We Bless the Lord?

Psalm 103:1-8

1

Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.

2

Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and forget not all his benefits.

3

He forgives all your sins *
and heals all your infirmities;

4

He redeems your life from the grave *
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

5

He satisfies you with good things, *
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

6

The LORD executes righteousness *
and judgment for all who are oppressed.

7

He made his ways known to Moses *
and his works to the children of Israel.

8

The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, *
slow to anger and of great kindness.

When I heard the words of the psalm as a child, I wondered in what possible way I could bless the Lord. How could a puny, scrawny kid, who possessed little more than dolls and stuffed animals, offer a blessing to God, the source of all blessings?  As I grew older, I thought the very idea that someone like me could speak a blessing on God Almighty sounded terribly presumptuous.

I’ve been glad to have the opportunity this week to ponder the words of Psalm 103 and come to a better understanding of what they mean.  Thinking of God as a holy parent—and being a mother and grandmother myself—I started to consider what a joy it is when young children offer gifts. There are few things I prize more than the little plaster cast of Lillian Grace’s hand or the pictures she has colored for me for display on my refrigerator. Thinking about the pure delight those things give me, I begin to understand why God may enjoy the blessings offered up by His children.

After my parents died, when I was cleaning out their house, I found in Mama’s kitchen two pretty worthless gifts I gave her when I was a child. One was an amber Pyrex casserole dish that I won in a raffle at Wolftown Mercantile and proudly presented to her for Christmas. Now my mother made wonderful cakes for the holidays—fresh coconut, German chocolate, a buttery pound cake, and a delicious sherry-drenched fruitcake. That casserole dish was filled with one of those not-very-good mass-produced fruitcakes, but even so, my mother oohed and aahed over my gift and appreciated it enough that she kept the dish all those years, even after the casserole lost its top. She also kept a tile trivet I made for her at 4-H camp. Now I keep those things to remind me of the blessing of a mother’s love. If God thinks like a parent, and we are told God does, then maybe our puny human blessings bring God joy.

We have a big book at our house called The Book of Legends, and it is a compilation of stories and scriptural interpretations by some ancient rabbis. These old stories and sayings were the teachings Jesus, as an observant Jew, would have heard in the synagogue when he was growing up. Although he was never officially named a rabbi, Jesus proved that he was himself a master of the midrash—an exposition of the underlying meaning of a scriptural text.

I got out The Book of Legends to see what I could find out about humans blessing God, and how pleased I was to find a midrash on Psalm 103!  This is the way the story goes:

A certain man came to Rabbi Gamaliel and asked him, “In what place does the Holy One, blessed be he, reside?”  Rabbi Gamaliel replied, “I do not know.” The man became indignant at this answer and retorted, “Is this your wisdom? You pray to God every day, and yet you do not know where his place is?”  Rabbi Gamaliel, astonished at the impertinence of his questioner, retorted: “See here, you ask me about something that is thirty-five hundred years away from me. [The thirty-five hundred years represents the time and distance since creation.] Now I shall ask you about something that abides with you day and night, and you tell me where its place is.”  The man replied, “And what is that?”

Rabbi Gamaliel replied, “It is the soul, which abides within you. Tell me precisely where does it abide?”  Of course the man was stumped by this question, and he answered, “I do not know.” Rabbi Gamaliel chastised the man, saying, “You do not know the place of something that abides within you day and night, and yet you ask me to tell you where God’s soul abides, something that is thirty-five hundred miles away from me! Not even the celestial creatures that carry the throne of glory know where God’s place is, nor in what place his soul abides. Therefore, they say, ‘Blessed be the glory of the Lord, wherever his place may be.’”

When we speak of our connection to God, we sometimes say that God resides in our hearts. Sometimes we say, like Elijah, that we hear the “still, small” voice of God speaking deeply within us. It seems that the place where we experience God’s presence with us is the place where our soul is touched by the soul of God.

When we say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name,” we speak from that mysterious place of connection with God.  We acknowledge the greatest blessing God has bestowed upon us: a portion of God’s own immortal soul.

            How do we bless the Lord?  We gratefully accept that God is the best part of each of us: the divine spark of life. 

Amen.

           

Homily for Sunday, July 28th Graves Chapel

What Do We Seek?

Lessons:

Psalm 85

Luke 11:1-13

            When I was a child, my dad always had an office for his insurance business in our basement. Usually my mother was around when he needed something typed, but every now and then, Dad had to resort to typing something himself.  At those times, he used what he called the “gospel system” of typing.  You may have heard the old fashioned phrase “hunt and peck” to describe amateur two-finger typing, and Dad’s gospel system was a variation of that. Dad typed using what he called the “seek and ye shall find” method.

            I can’t read today’s lesson from Luke without being reminded of my dad and his typing. As Americans, we seem to be a nation of seekers, always on the look-out for the next big thing. The early settlers kept pushing the frontier farther and farther west until we had filled this land from “sea to shining sea.” These days our seeking may take some of us to the frontiers of space or space-age scientific discovery. For most of us, our seeking just takes us to the mall, looking for the next gadget or the best bargain.  We are rarely satisfied enough with our lives to rest in contentment.

            I don’t know about you, but this prevailing restlessness of our society often leaves me feeling anxious.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m always stricken with anxiety—there’s a pill for that, and I’m not yet at the point of needed a prescription. (It’s not surprising that many people do need such medication.)  In my case, I can find myself treading water in an undercurrent of anxious thoughts: Am I really able to handle this difficult challenge at work? Are all of my loved ones safe and well?  Will I run into that troublesome person I’d rather avoid?  If I do, what should I say to him or her? Do I need to make an amends to someone for some failing on my part? You may have experienced some of these same anxious thoughts, and they may seem to be worth the stress they cost us.  But I can also become anxious over what to cook for dinner or where to park my car, and you may be familiar with those stressers, too.

            My dad was born in 1912.  Over the course of his lifetime, he experienced changes that people of previous generations could not possibly have grasped and would not have witnessed even if they had lived to be hundreds of years old, like Methusaleh.  My dad recalled traveling by horse-drawn wagon  to Graves Mill as a child, with his mother at the reins as they forded five streams between their house on South River and here. My grandfather Mark Haney was working as the official blacksmith for the small-gauge lumber railroad here in the valley at that time, and my grandmother regularly came to take him home or bring him supplies. By the time my dad died in 1983, things previous generations had thought to be impossible dreams had become realities: automobiles, airplanes, television, the nuclear age, men on the moon, just to name a few. Since his death, computer technologies have advanced at such an incredible rate that our laptops and cell phones become obsolete within months. It’s no wonder that our rapidly changing world leaves so many of us feeling discombobulated. There is a constant impetus to update and upgrade!

            In his book Breathing Under Water, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr asserts that our American culture as a whole is addictive by nature.   Our common anxieties arise from our addictions to everything from television to online social media to shopping to food (especially sweets) to body image to social status. We can so easily be caught up in an endless pursuit of self-gratification.  Maybe as individuals we are less addicted than others in some of these areas. But are we truly free of any of these addictions? I’m willing to admit that I’m not, and it’s a very uncomfortable admission.  

            If the primary urge that drives us is the need to satisfy some addiction or another, we are clearly not doing the kind of seeking Jesus means when he says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find.” What is it that He calls us to seek? How can we overcome our restless, addictive striving and replace it with inner peace?

            The parts of today’s gospel lesson contain signposts from Christ. In the first part--Luke 11, verses 1 through 4—Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray, and the prayer we know as the Lord’s prayer is a simple, everyday one that asks for God’s blessing in the form of our “daily bread,” that instructs us to forgive one another as we ask God’s forgiveness, that requests God’s help in avoiding temptation, that prays for God’s will (not ours) to be done. In the easy-to-overlook phrase “your kingdom come,” Jesus tells us to welcome God’s presence with us on earth.

            In verses 5 through 8, Jesus tells a story about a man knocking on his neighbor’s door late at night and asking for bread.  Jesus points out that the annoyed neighbor may not give in to his friend’s request for help on the first knock, but if the knocking goes on and on, he may finally arise and heed the request just to end the commotion. The message of this story is to pray with persistence.  Keep praying!

            In verses 9 through 13, Jesus tells us how our prayers and seeking will be rewarded: the Heavenly Father will “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for him.”  What does it feel like to have that Holy Spirit residing in our hearts?  As Christians we have all surely had the experience, as fleeting as it may have been, of peace of mind and spirit, knowing the Lord was with us and within us.  The question for us, as we swim upstream in our addictive society, is how do we hold onto that peace?  How do we more consciously and more continually make ourselves aware of God’s presence?

We pray with thanksgiving. We pray with love. We pray when we are worried and in need of help.  Most of all, we pray with persistence. 

Paul admonishes us in Philippians 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  

Amen.