May 16, 2010
Scripture Lessons: Acts 16:16-34 Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21 John 17: 20-26
As you think back over this past week, how deep and alive was your prayer, your relationship with God? As you scan the week, when did you experience the deepest closeness with God? Did you reach out for God’s presence and guidance in the middle of what was most difficult and most stressful for you in the past week? When did you pause long enough to give God your undivided attention, so that God could love and embrace you, refresh you with his loving care for you, speak to you and guide you, breath his peace into your stressed mind and heart and body?
We all know from our friendships and families and work associations that good inter-personal communication requires consistent attention and care to keep the two-way channels open and up to date. In our prayer relationship with God, the same consistent, daily attention is needed if we want to live all of life in good, intimate communication with God.
One of the best ways we can learn how to pray is by reading the Bible and seeing how our spiritual ancestors prayed. Let’s explore what God might want to say to each of us about prayer through today’s Scripture readings.
In the reading from Acts, we see Paul and his traveling companions going to a place of prayer. We don’t know where this place of prayer was. There were no church buildings for the first three hundred years, so they were not going to a church building. Were they going to someone’s house or to a quiet place by a river?
This morning, we have come to this church as a place of prayer. Where is the place you go to pray in your home? Do you have a special chair or room where you pray every day? Is your car a place of prayer for you? Is there a place in nature that is your place of prayer? Of course, we pray wherever we are…but we learn from Paul that it is also important that we have places we go for prayer.
As Paul and his companions were going to their place of prayer, a troubled young woman kept crying out loudly, distracting people from Paul’s message. So Paul prayed a prayer of cleansing, saying to the disruptive spirit in her, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” The young woman returned to her right mind and became peaceful. What a powerful answer to Paul’s prayer. God brought healing to a troubled woman.
Are there any annoying and troubled people in your life? Are you praying for them, asking Jesus to help and heal them?
Of course, sometimes, even when we do good things, we can upset people. The owners of that slave girl saw that they couldn’t make any more money from her, so they started attacking Paul and accusing him of being disruptive. So Paul is taken to court, beaten severely and unjustly thrown into prison.
What did Paul do in prison? He prayed and sang hymns to God. We don’t know exactly what he prayed, but it seems like he is praising and thanking God for God’s goodness and greatness…and enjoying the loving presence of God, in the middle of his pain. He was focusing on God, not on himself, as he sat in chains, in a dark, smelly prison.
Are there ways in which you feel imprisoned and under the control of other people? How are you praying…in your situations of unjust treatment and imprisonment?
As Paul was praying, God sent an earthquake that shook open the gates of the prison. If Paul had been self-centered, he would have immediately run for freedom. But since Paul was focused on God, God helped him notice that the jailer was about to kill himself. You see, if prisoners escaped, the authorities would have killed the jailer for allowing them to escape.
Perhaps Paul had been praying for the jailer and the people who had put him in prison. As Paul noticed the jailer’s anxiety…he quickly told him, “Don’t harm yourself, we are all here.”
Prayer leads us to love even our enemies and jailers. Because of Paul’s caring response, the jailer asked him, “What do I have to do to be saved?” Paul told him about Jesus and how he could become a follower of Jesus by inviting Jesus to be in charge of his life and being baptized. So the jailer and his family were baptized and shared a joyful meal together with Paul and his companions.
Do you see the power of prayer in this story? As Paul kept praying, right in the middle of the stresses and impossible challenges of his daily life, God guided Paul through everything in a way that blessed Paul and blessed people in need around him. God remained the life-giving center of his life. The problems he experienced were not the controlling center of his life.
How is your daily practice of prayer helping you keep God in the center of your life, and not allowing the problems you experience to become the controlling center of your life?
Do people around you find peace and hope from your prayerful God-centeredness, in the middle of each day’s challenges?
Let’s look at a second example of prayer. In the Gospel, Jesus is praying the night before his crucifixion. In the verses we heard, Jesus is praying for future generations of Christians, including each of us.
How often do you pray for the future generations of Christians in your family, in this parish, around the world?
Jesus prayed that those who would believe in him in the future, would be as intimately close with God… as Jesus was with his Heavenly Father… that we might be one, unified in heart and mind, in words and actions with God and with each other.
Wow! Can you even begin to imagine living your daily life in such a way that you are continually in an intimate and deep harmony with God the Father… as Jesus is?
Notice that Jesus is not praying that we will be one with God… so that we can be peaceful and comfortable. This unity with God is not primarily about our comfort. It’s so that other people will look at us and be drawn into love and unity with God, and God’s purpose for the world.
As we draw closer to God in prayer, we radiate the love of God who abides in us…and others are drawn to the gift of God’s loving presence…they desire to become followers of Jesus with us.
Does this really happen in our generation? It still does, in Massachusetts and around the world. For example, my son has worked at fitness centers as a personal trainer for over a decade. He has told me that usually, his new clients begin to tell him about their work, their families, their joys and their biggest challenges. After about a month, most of them ask: Greg, what makes you different? Then Greg talks about his relationship with Jesus and how Jesus makes a difference in his life every day.
Is your daily practice of prayer making you so one with God, that others see something different about you…and they ask you what makes you different? Do you ever talk about how your relationship with Jesus makes a difference in your life and how Jesus reaches out in love to embrace and help everyone?
You might ask, what do we say in our prayers that can help us and the people around us grow into closer harmony with God’s loving presence and purpose? In the reading from Revelation, we heard the words God’s Spirit is praying in heaven. The Spirit prays, “Come, Lord Jesus.” All heaven is praying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
In the early centuries, this was one of the Christians favorite prayers: Come, Lord Jesus. Every day, we can begin and end the day, taking a few moments to be still and pray, Come Lord Jesus. (3x) When we experience surprise challenges in the flow of the day we can breath this prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.
This is our hope, whether we are sick or in a prison-like situation, if we are anxious and fearful…if we feel lost and do not see the way ahead, if a person we care for is facing deep difficulty…if we are about to loose a loved one …when we are dying…we can keep praying, with joy and gratitude…Come, Lord Jesus.
In every situation, what we long for most, is to be aware that Jesus is right there with us, guiding us through whatever we are experiencing. Jesus will know what is best, even if we don’t know what to pray for. That is why we simply pray…Come, Lord Jesus.
Let’s close our eyes…and open our hands on our laps. Let’s pray that simple and powerful prayer out loud together three times…inviting Jesus to come and speak to each of us right now: Come Lord Jesus.
In the silence, be aware of how close Jesus is to you right now…and how much Jesus loves you…
Ask Jesus what he might want to say to you this morning about your daily practice of prayer. How might Jesus be inviting you to deepen your connectedness with God through each day in this coming week?
O Lord Jesus, you invite us to be people of prayer at depths none of us have yet experienced. Pour your Holy Spirit upon all of us in fresh ways today and each day this coming week. Teach us to pray, help us to pray at new depths…so that the world may be drawn to love and trust you as you live in and through us in our daily lives. So Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.