A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Robert Morse, May 24, 2009
John 17:6-19
For most of us, tomorrow is a holiday, a day to relax, the beginning of a glorious Maine summer for which we have been waiting through ice storms, snow storms, and freezing temperatures. While all of that is true, it is also Memorial Day, a somber time set aside to commemorate men and women who have died in the military service to their community and their country. At the same time, we think of spouses, parents, children, and relatives who have also suffered greatly by the loss of those who have given their lives.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that for so many Memorial Day also represents a day of prayer. For some, a prayer to somehow overcome the death of a deeply loved person so that life can go on without remaining in a morass of loss and grief about what has been and is no more. For others a prayer of faith and hope that the war, which ever one it is, will soon end, and that there may be something hopeful and positive which comes out of it. For others, or maybe for everyone, it is a prayer for peace and prosperity for a very long time, although we are probably no longer so naïve as to think that any war we can name would be the “war to end all wars.”
Prayer – in a variety of different forms, but always prayer. Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address – a prayer: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” The poem “In Flanders Fields” following a devastating battle during World War I and which has continued to live through the generations. It begins by depicting a large graveyard where soldiers are buried amidst the poppies, and it end with a plea – a prayer – “To you from falling hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Field.”
Look at our great patriotic songs – they are filled with a clear recognition of the might and mercy of the God of history. The final stanza of “America” is all prayer:
Our Father’s God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To thee we sing:
Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light;
Protect us, by they might, Great God, our King.
Each stanza of “America the Beautiful” concludes with a prayer:
America, America, God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good, with brotherhood, From sea to shining sea.
America, America, God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul, in self-control, thy liberty in law.
America, America, May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness, And every grace divine.
Freedom is never free; it is the costliest thing in the world, but Dwight D. Eisenhower said it well, “There is nothing wrong with America that the faith in God and the love of Freedom, and the energy and intelligence of her citizens cannot cure.”
Today is also the Sunday after Ascension Day, which was last Thursday. After Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday, he appeared to his disciples at various times: to Mary Magdalene who thought he was the gardener, to doubting Thomas and the other disciples, on the way to Emmaus with Cleopas and an unnamed person, and by the Sea of Galilee with some of the disciples preparing fish for breakfast. On Ascension Day he returned to God, in preparation for the Holy Spirit to come on Pentecost, which is next Sunday. Our Scripture this morning takes place just before Jesus arrest in Jerusalem as he looks toward his crucifixion, which is now not very far away.
Jesus knows well what is going to happened to him in the next hours; there is every indication that he was fully aware of his imminent arrest and crucifixion. While we think of crucifixion as a somewhat barbaric past from of punishment, how many people are facing the fear of a potentially unknown and frightening future? Terminal illness? Major financial struggle? Not knowing what is going to happen to someone about whom we care deeply? Perhaps some of the feelings that crucifixion engenders in our lives aren’t really so passé after all.
Is it any surprise that Jesus’ approach to his own imminent crucifixion was to pray. In our Scripture this morning, together with his disciples, he prays, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. The next day – Good Friday – he prayed for his enemies from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” How many times during his life did Jesus withdraw to the hills away from the crowd – explicitly to pray.
So why would we pray? In the midst of catastrophe, in the midst of life as we know it moving toward an ending, in the midst of pain and suffering which seemed to come out of nowhere, when everything is going smoothly… Of all things, why prayer?
First it is our faith and acknowledgement that even in the midst of this, God is very much present, and cares deeply about what is happening to each one of us. It is our ongoing and constant faith that even when it might appear that “God is dead” (in the words of Friedrich Nietzsche), God’s strength, power, compassion, and love are very near for those who seek it, in this life and beyond this life.
Second, we pray because virtually every one of us by now has discovered to our amazement that God can do extraordinary things, far beyond what we could have ever imagined. I’m reminded of the book I am Whole, Now that I have Cancer in which the author, living with cancer, talks about the spiritual transformation which has taken place in his life during the entire process. I’m thinking of a young woman on a psychiatric unit when I was in a different part of the country. She was a single mother of two young children, and had recently been diagnosed with a fast-moving form of multiple sclerosis, which would be terminal. Her response was to go into a deep depression, which resulted in her hospitalization. As I continued to visit her in the depths of depression, I learned from the staff that all of the efforts to relieve it seemed to have no impact. One day, I visited and she seemed totally normal with no sign of depression; it was astonishing to all of us. After some time with this young woman, she said that she wanted not tell me something. She had prayed the night before, gone to sleep and stated that she had met God. God told her that, yes, she had this disease, yes she would die from it, but God promised that this wouldn’t happen until her children were grown, independent, and doing fine. That’s all she wanted and she was fully prepared, now seemingly free of depression, to move into the future which God had promised. Did she really meet God? My only response can be with William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience), a 20th Century author – “By the fruits of it, you will know.”
Third, we pray because God can do amazing things if we are open to them. How many of us can look back at our lives and think of events which have taken place, or think of events which had a profound impact on us, and know that we obviously had nothing to do with them. I’m thinking of a time when someone I knew talked me into doing something which I would normally never had agreed to do. Feeling that I had been totally manipulated, feeling angry beyond belief that anything like this could have happened so dramatically, feeling like I had given my word and I had to follow through on it, I arrived at the location ready to bite nails. It was in the next 45 minutes that I met the woman who accepted an initial date with me, and then many more, and became my wife. There is no other way to understand how something good could have possibly come out of an attitude like that, except that God must certainly have been in there somewhere.
So how can we pray? I’d like to end with some brief suggestions.
#1. Pray regularly. Find a time that fits into your day, and make a decision that’s when you are going to spend some time in prayer. This is your private time with God. Treat it as the most important appointment of your day. This is a time to lift up to God anything that is going on in your life. It may be joys and happiness, it may be fears and concerns. Whatever it is, God can handle it. It is also a time to listen to God; a time to expect that God may be speaking to you; this is a two-way conversation.
#2. Pray especially when you have been busy, or under a great deal of stress, even though it may be difficult to slow down enough to pray. However, this is the time when prayer with God might be the most valuable experience that you could have, and it may be especially a time when you need God’s guidance.
#3. When you pray, just be yourself. I work a lot with students who are providing care to patients. When they first arrive, numbers of them feel that the only way they can pray would be something you might hear from the pulpit in church on a Sunday morning. God knows you well, and God can deal with communication in whatever form it might take – just be who you are.
#4. Expect that God will be answering your prayer, perhaps in a way that you can’t even imagine, perhaps at a time when you didn’t expect it, perhaps in a way for which you weren’t really prepared. It could be in a dream, it could be with a brand new solid intuitive sense that you know what to do now whereas you didn’t before. It could be with a very audible voice, a powerful experience shared by several persons with whom I have spoken just recently. Scripture tells us that God hears every prayer, and God answers every prayer in the way that is best for us. This is our faith.
On this Memorial Day Sunday, may we pray for those who are no longer with us, and on everyday, may we remember who we are, and whose we are, as we enter into prayer. Prayer is truly what it is all about.