Pray, Without Ceasing

This morning, on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, I am at at St. Stephen's Parish in Pittsfield, MA.  The readings for today can be found here. (Please note that the lectionary gives two "tracks" for the Old Testament reading in summer months - we read Isaiah 1 at St. Stephen's, which was my sermon text.)

Miroslav Volf is, for my money, one of the most important theologians of our time. He’s from Croatia, but now teaches at Yale. I had a chance to spend some time with him for a continuing education event a decade or so ago, and it was transformative for me. While he was raised in a Protestant denomination, on the evangelical side, he makes his home now in the Episcopal Church.

Anyway, I know that sermons that work should not be too theologian heavy. I get that. But I want to tell you about the most important metaphor he’s given to me in the most important book he’s written, and then I want to share a Facebook meme of his. And then we’ll be off. OK?

So Volf wrote a very powerful book trying to reflect on his own experience in the former Yugoslavia, which came unglued after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book is called Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. It’s a difficult read, but in the midst of it is a metaphor that anyone can grasp. He speaks of the drama of an embrace, the ultimate symbol of reconciliation. He says that if you slow it down, it unfolds as a drama in four parts: (1) open arms; (2) waiting, (3) closing of arms, and then (4) release. An embrace is an outward and visible sign of reconciliation. It begins when we open our arms. And then we wait. That's a risk, but a  true embrace cannot proceed if the other person doesn’t respond. Otherwise it’s a bear hug or worse, a violation of someone’s space. We cannot force an embrace. So we may be left hanging. It's a risk. 

But we open our arms and wait for the other person to open their arms. And if by God’s grace they do, then we close arms. Again, both parties need to participate. And then we open and release – because an embrace is a moment – a symbol of reconciliation, but life goes on and we are not the same. Yet in a world of difference, of otherness, of xenophobia and worse – there are moments of grace – moments of embrace. They must always be mutual. Open. Wait. Close. Release. 

In a world of otherness, an embrace gives us hope. In the former Yugoslavia, and even in our own divided families and neighborhoods and world.

All of that is a bonus on Volf – and there is no test at the end. Use it as you will. But I wanted you to know something of who he is, in order to share a meme I saw on Facebook this week, of a quote from him which also made it's away around on Twitter. I’m not sure where the quote comes from – such is the challenge of Facebook, but it is his. He writes:

There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

In other words – as I read that quote and with all I know about Volf – he’s clear that we can’t just dump problems on God as if God is going to be a magician or Santa Claus. Praying for God to fix something but not being willing to hear that we might need to change, we might need to participate, is hypocritical, he says. I'd say it's spiritually immature. Either way, it’s not what authentic faith is about.

So it’s pretty good theology for Facebook. Our vocation as the people of God is to form disciples so that prayer leads us to action. It leads us, in a world where otherness divides, to be agents of healing and reconciliation and of hope.

Practically speaking, what this means is that we pray for the sick. Of course. But that prayer must always lead to action. It might lead us to go visit our friend, or make a casserole for their family as they await chemo. It might also lead us to work for better healthcare so that they can afford the treatment they need.

We come here, week after week, and we pray for the hungry. And so many parishes collect food and serve meals to their neighbors and that is a response to the prayer for them because just words doesn’t put food in their stomachs. We need to feed the hungry and in so doing we serve Christ. And if we reach a point where we start to ask, what is going on here and why are kids hungry in the richest nation in the world? - that’s not socialism! It’s Christian faith in action.

We pray for the planet: this fragile earth, our island home. But then we join in the work of being faithful stewards – of doing our part, of becoming part of the solution. You all know this. I know you know it. Because I know the work this parish is so committed to – as so many of our congregations are. But I also know that we spend about six and a half days a week in a very polarized world so I think we come here to remember. To remember our Baptism. To remember our faith and to try to live it with more integrity, one day at a time.

There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

We don’t come here to dump a bunch of stuff on God. We come here to open ourselves up to the living God who calls us to share in the work of healing and reconciliation – of embrace. Of loving God back, and of loving neighbor because we have first been loved. Loving all of them regardless of which side of a border they may live on. Loving them enough to make sure no one is put in a cage because they fled for their safety.

When we hear the words from the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah this morning it helps to keep all of this in mind, because the subject switches from spiritual autobiography to God – at least in the imagination of Isaiah. We read of a vision that Isaiah has concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah – which is just shorthand for saying the political context in which Isaiah worked. It's not abstract; the Bible never is.

Like Isaiah in Judah and like Volf in the former Yugoslavia, we need to ask: what does the Lord require of me in this time and place? 

Hear the Word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! Here we do need just a little help from the Biblical scholars because we got off-track and let the Bible be co opted by the fundamentalists. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not about same-sex relationships. It was about not showing hospitality to the stranger. About treating the stranger with violence. Look it up! What Isaiah is saying is that God’s people need to get their act together. God’s people need to remember the whole of Torah: Love God. Love neighbor. And act from that place in a broken world – to be agents of healing and reconciliation.

In this vision, Isaiah imagines that God has had enough of thoughts and prayers. God has had enough of the hypocrisy of words and liturgy without becoming part of the solution. God has had it. It makes God sick. Now some may feel this is a bit Old Testament but the point is, I think, that what Isaiah is working out is what he’s going to do about the mess that the world is in.

And I don’t know about all of you but I think this is a very relevant question in our day. What God wants from us is not “thoughts and prayers” or better liturgy. What God wants is that we:

• Learn to do good.
• Seek justice.
• Rescue the oppressed.
• Defend the orphan.
• Plead for the widow.

Those last two are code-language in a patriarchal world without social security: those most vulnerable are women without a husband and children without a father. God says that faith isn’t about piety. It’s about how we act.

Again, I know you all know this. I know what this parish is committed to. But I also think we Episcopalians need to find our voices again. We need to not be so afraid to speak like Isaiah did. My favorite line in today’s Old Testament reading is when God says, “come now, let us argue it out.” I take that to mean that God is wanting to start a conversation – even an argument – that leads us to change our minds and then change our lives.

I am fully aware that a sermon from a guest preacher on an August morning rarely changes much. I’ll get back on the Mass Pike and head home to Worcester and if someone is offended I won’t be back for a while. Life will go on. But here is what I propose: find someone with whom you can argue in a more constructive way. In a way that teaches you to learn how to embrace. I realize we all get our news where we get our news. I’ve been in too many Facebook arguments that are really about who we trust for information and what we think is real and what we think is fake. And too few moments that feel like reconciliation – like embrace. We have our work cut out for us. But we need to learn again, I think, in this nation, how to talk with each other. Our lives depend upon it. We need to learn how to argue it out – how to have serious conversations. And ultimately how to embrace, even across our differences.

I have a confession to make. I spent this past week on vacation. Knowing I was going to be with you today, I wrote a sermon – on Hebrews – about faith. It was about the work ahead – about welcoming an interim and working through this clergy transition. And it was ok. I finished it up on August 1, after the shooting in Gilroy, CA but before the shootings that followed last weekend in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.

To be honest, it just didn’t seem like the right sermon anymore when I returned last night from the Cape. So you get this one instead – perhaps not as polished, but from the heart. I don’t care if you are a Republican or an Independent or a Democrat. Really. I'm weary of it.

What I care about here, in this room, on this day, is that we are people who know that “thoughts and prayers” are not enough anymore. That our allegiance is to a higher power far greater than any ideology. We must be more courageous and more active because faith is about learning to do good, and standing with those who are hurting in this world. If you want to find a widow or orphan to defend or to plead for, start at our southern border. Or by insisting on reasonable gun laws. 

Because, my friends in Christ: there is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

We should not pretend that the answers are easy. But let us commit ourselves to praying, without ceasing. And then arguing it out by staying with it with God and with one another, until we find ways forward. Until we can embrace, even the one who pushes all of our buttons. So that we are practicing ways that lead us to reconciliation and healing. Because the world needs us to be the Church, now more than ever.