Help is a big one, especially when we feel like the world is closing in or we are drowning or in a pit. The psalms are a good way into this, which runs so counter to our American values of being self-reliant. We sometimes need help. Twelve-step spiritualities have this as a core value. All of us need help in small ways every day and that becomes more and more true the older we get. We know that our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. God is always there to help and by God’s grace, so are God’s people.
And every new day gives us a chance to say thanks, even the hardest of days. Thanks for waking up, for the sunrise, for loved ones, for friendships, for food on the table, for health, even for challenges and even disappointments. Meister Eckhardt once said that if the only prayer you ever said was “thankyou” it would be enough.
That last one is about being amazed, about being in awe, about being awake to the majesty and mystery and wonder of the world around us. Wow! You’ll discover that a close second to quotes from Bruce Springsteen in my sermons is the late Mary Oliver. I think a lot of her poems are prayers of awe, but for today, how about this one?
When it’s over, I want to say all
my life
I was a bride married to
amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the
world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
If I have made of my life something
particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing
and frightened
Or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having
visited this world.
Help! Thanks! Wow! I think that people who are learning to pray these three prayers one day at a time are learning to love God and neighbor in the process. They are learning that none of us is an island unto ourselves. We belong to God, and to each other. When we pray those prayers we make authentic community possible.
Last weekend we considered Francis of Assisi. One story I didn’t tell is captured on a fresco that hangs in the church at Assist to this day – an embarrassing private moment between a father and son that played out on the public square. Francis decided that to follow Jesus he needed to give up all his stuff, stuff that in truth his father had worked hard to earn. One day, Francis took off all his clothes in the public square and left them at his father’s feet. The bishop was there and was so embarrassed he took his cope off to cover Francis up.
Francis was the rich young man who stayed with Jesus, who gave it all up to love God more dearly and walk more nearly. He is the counter to the rich young man in today’s gospel reading: Francis felt that to follow Jesus he needed to give it all up and start again, with nothing, not even a shirt on his back.
You don’t meet too many people like Francis as a rule, at least I have not. Far more common is the rich young man who comes to Jesus in today’s gospel reading. Let’s be clear, he seems to be a really good guy. So far as we can tell he really is doing what he says he is doing: following the commandments. But there is one thing that stands between him and God, and Jesus picks up on it pretty quickly. He’s attached to his stuff. His stuff defines him, and keeps him from really engaging and ultimately loving his neighbor. We might say today that he is a person of privilege and that’s ok, but with privilege comes responsibility.
Jesus’ invitation to leave it all and become a Franciscan friar is always out there – and to this day people do that. At it’s heart is the insight that when you have nothing you have nothing to lose. Choosing to embrace poverty, by the way, is very different than having it chosen for you; I don’t know of any Franciscans who would claim otherwise. So we must not glamorize or romanticize the poor who are poor not by choice but by circumstance. But learning to let go and let God and learning to put our whole trust in God’s provision: there is grace in that.
On the other end, many go away dejected because they are always in danger of allowing what they have to own them. We need reminders that it’s just not true that whoever has the most toys when she dies wins. I’ve done a lot of funerals in my day and trust me, across the socio-economic spectrum what people want to notice when someone they love joins the company of the saints are core values like generosity and kindness and creativity and love. Even failures and disappointments can be embraced as graces especially where there is forgiveness.
But I’ve never heard a single person remembered as having some amount of money in the bank. Everyone at a funeral knows that you can’t take it with you.
Help. Thanks. Wow. I want to invite you to consider this thought – that the reason the rich young man cannot loosen his grip on his stuff is that he very likely is not able to pray these prayers. None of them. These three essential prayers teach us that we need God and we need our neighbor. They point us toward authentic community. They open the door to vulnerability which is the doorway to the way of love.
When we fall into the trap of feeling we are self-made or self-sufficient – that we are independent rather than interdependent – we think we need no one. We start to believe that adage of Ben Franklin’s that is not, in fact, in the Bible: that God helps those who help themselves.
All of the generous people I have known in my life have, at some point, faced a crisis where they had to get help. Where they couldn’t do it on their own and needed God and friends to be there. Whether that’s through the twelve-step path to recovery, or whether it’s an illness or terrible loss, they found help, sometimes in surprising ways. You remember the psalmist: from where will my help come? My help comes from the maker of heaven and earth. When we remember that to the core of our being it also leads us to pray: all things come of thee, O Lord – and of thine own have we given thee.
Help! Thanks! Wow!
I submit to you that the rich young man didn’t spend a lot of time counting his blessings, because that’s hard to do when you are clinging to your stuff. Gratitude opens us up and is one of the most powerful spiritual practices we can cultivate. Thank you, God, that I woke up to live another day. Thank you for this good earth, for a home to live in, for friends, for family, for signs of hope, for the transformational power of love. Thank you God. Thank you, my partner, my grandchild, my neighbor, my employee, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
And wow. This world truly is amazing. It inspires awe – surely when you look up at the Rockies or the Grand Canyon or that image of the earth taken from space – this fragile earth our island home. Last Saturday, Hathy and I walked along the water on a day that was a perfect ten, to the town beach and back. The birth of a child and even death, are great mysteries. But every single day for those who have eyes to see there are opportunities to pray, “wow.”
This morning, I invite you, in the quiet of this space, in the quiet of your hearts, to take a few moments to take an inventory of your lives and to silently pray these three essential prayers, and offer them up to the living God.
Help. Where do you need some help right now in your life, from God, from a friend or family member, maybe from a good therapist or even a priest? How will you seek the help you need this week and this month? Who do you need to reach out to for that help – and is there anyone who needs your help?
Thanks. Count your blessings. What are you thankful for today? Take a few moments to consider your gratitude. Make a list, if not in this instant then later today, or early next week.
Wow. What takes your breath away? Where do you need to be to put yourself in the presence of God’s tremendous mystery? Often it’s outdoors somewhere – but it might also be at table with really good friends where you feel safe and loved and well-fed. Or live music. Take a moment to think about when you’ve had those awesome experiences, and if there is a way to build more of those into your life?
Let us pray:
O God
our help in ages past, be our help now, today, here. Help us to know, to
remember, to live. Grant us the courage to ask for help when it’s needed and
the wisdom to offer help to others who may be too timid to ask us. We ask for
grateful hearts and the grace to count our blessings and not to covet what we
do not have. And open our hearts and minds and eyes and ears to the wonder and
beauty of your creation. Help. Thanks. Wow.
Amen.
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