This was a terrible week in my life. A post to follow this one will explain it a little more, but I had to finally say "good bye" to my beloved cat, Valkyrie "Kyrie" Gage, who was one of the most loving animals I have had in my life. It broke my heart to leave her to go seminary. And I was just happy that she hung on long enough to have a couple months together once I got home. That said, I simply could not wrap my mind around the Gospel for this week, and I had to prepare to lead a vestry retreat the Saturday before at St. Barnabas, so this sermon had to be written in a day and be what it was going to be. Certainly, I needed a lot of prayer; I imagine others did, too. And as I joked, "If you want to talk to me about cutting off your hands or gouging out your eyes, we can do that at another time."
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One of my friends
and mentors once told me years ago that one should always preach on the Gospel.
That’s the only text preachers should focus on for their sermons. Fortunately,
I went to seminary and my Homiletics professor…Homiletics is the preaching course…told
us we do NOT have to preach on the Gospel every Sunday. In fact, she encouraged
us to break away from that mode of thinking that the Gospel is the only text we
need to hear about. Thanks be to God for that! Much as I love all four of
Gospels for different reasons, and much as I can get into Mark and would love
to one day stage a dramatic reading of Mark’s Gospel because it so
action-packed and dramatic, I found myself this week reflecting on and being
deeply drawn to our reading from the Letter of James.
As just a little
bit of context about this reading: for some reason, the committee that
assembled our lectionary readings decided to hit the fast-forward button…and
skipped us past the first half of James Chapter Five that set the stage for why
James has chosen to end this wisdom letter with a statement about prayer.
Briefly, what we have not heard this morning is that in the preceding 12 verses
of Chapter Five, James calls out the rich and those who exploit laborers and
then turns his attention to the ones being oppressed reminding them not to lose
hope in their place of suffering.
And so we start
with today’s reading:
“Are any among you the suffering? They should
pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you
sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over
them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:13-14).
Prayer is our
avenue for being in dialogue with God…both with and without words. We tend to
pray at times of suffering or illness, and James is reminding us here that at
times of joy and celebration, we should also pray with music and songs. Lift up
our voices in Hallelujahs for the birth of a child…a new life-giving work
opportunity…recognition of accomplishments. Those are the times to sing to the
Lord a new song…rejoice in God and call upon God’s name! In fact there’s the old adage that those who
sing songs of praise are praying twice.
Music can be a
helpful way to enter prayer because it speaks to the right side of the brain,
that center of our creative activity, and doesn’t require words. It can be a
potent and powerful way to pray with those who have suffered a stroke or are
living with Alzheimer’s slowly stealing their memories. More than once when I
was doing my chaplaincy at Hebrew Home in Rockville, Maryland, I found the best
way to communicate with residents was to sing with them. There was one
African-American woman who had had a stroke. She didn’t talk much at all, but
would nod her head yes or no, or she might tell me “my back” and then make a
face to indicate that her back was hurting. I decided to try music with her.
And I figured a woman of her age, she was in her 80s, I couldn’t go wrong with
suggesting I play some Mahalia Jackson singing “Precious Lord.” On this
particular visit, I pulled up the YouTube video on my phone, and we started
listening to Ms. Jackson’s soulful rendition. I looked at this resident and
sang along with the recording. And this lady, who had not said much at all on
my other visits, joined with me in singing along with the video. We became our
own duo in her room, praying for God to take our hand and help us stand.
I have been talking about songs of praise and
thanksgiving, and music can sometimes be the simplest way for some to express
themselves when they are feeling too broken inside for words. It can also aid
us when we feel our prayer life is dry.
I’m talking about
those times when we pray and we just aren’t sure that God is listening. The 16th-century
Carmelite mystic John of the Cross termed this the “Dark Night of the Soul.”
We’re in the Dark Night of the Soul times when we pray but feel nothing in
return. Our prayers may feel like “Blah,” just rote and mechanical.
Or maybe we are in anguish,
and we pray but we still are left feeling restless and hopeless and we wonder
if we’ve been abandoned. The psalms are full of such prayers, including the one
Jesus quoted from the cross, Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me.”
For John of the
Cross, this is not a time to believe that prayer is worthless. Rather this is
the time when our faith is actually experiencing a growth spurt because it is
being put to the test. When we are in the Dark Night, the demand of us is the
ability to develop patience, which requires sometimes slowing down, relaxing
our minds, and breathing through the time of trial we are in. It is a time of
letting go of the attachment that we will get an answer to our prayers. We tend
to want to fashion God not only in our own image, but to meet our own ends and
our own desires and to do it right now. John of the Cross, and his fellow
Spaniard Teresa of Avila encourage us instead to not be attached to a
particular outcome of our prayers. The attachment becomes a distractor and even
blocks us from having a real dialogue with God. Developing an openness gives us
the chance to move through the darkest parts of the Dark Night to discover the
awe and wonder of God’s constant presence around us.
Now in letting go
of a fixed outcome…we are not going to satisfy that 21st century need
to have God immediately text back a thumbs up or smiley emoji.
But God may show up
to us in the face of a friend or even a stranger treating us with love,
kindness and dignity when we’re under stress. Or simply in being able to get a
good night’s sleep and wake up with a clearer mind to put toward whatever had
been weighing us down the many nights before. That may be the beginning of a
prayer being answered.
If individual
prayer is good, then bringing our individual selves together in community to
pray corporately for the needs of our world and others is especially important.
Giving voice and acknowledgement to what is happening around us and placing
that before God serves as the reminder that there is a Source of strength,
courage, compassion and mercy that is greater than ourselves.
Our corporate
prayers don’t make things happen. By lifting up our hearts and minds to God in
prayer, putting our intentions out there in a Godward direction, we are trusting
God to hear us and meet us. And in making this a communal activity, it draws us
closer to one another, and creates bonds that are deeper than the superficial
and quirky things that make us different. And in our world today, where there
just seems to be so much anger and strife, putting aside our differences to
pray may be a way for us bring the temperature down and start to see each other
again as children of God.
One thing in the James letter that I think needs to be addressed is the talk of “sin” in connection with being “sick.” In this case, we’re seeing that James was a man of his First Century time when disciples believed that people became physically blind or disabled because they “sinned.” I think we now know that disability is not a sin and I also trust we know that microbes that cause viruses infect people…no matter who the people are or how often they pray. But if we look at this in another way… when people are sick or ill…it does result in a separation from their church community, and that can feel like a separation from God. And the most common short-hand definition of “sin” is “separation from God.” This is one of the reasons it is so important for us to remain informed about who in our membership is not here because of an illness.
Physical and social isolation
has been such a constant since March 2020 that we might have become numb to the
pain it causes. And this separation brings shame on the person who is sick as
if they have control over a virus or any ailment that has got them down. This
is why James says it is so important for the elders of the church to go out and
meet the person at their sick bed. Elders can mean clergy, but it can also mean
longtime members or others who have a leadership role in the congregation. This
past week, I have seen evidence that this is happening at some level in our own
community with texts and emails alerting me to a problem with one of our
members. And it seems there is an interest in making this even more a part of
what we do here.
Finally… bringing
people back who have gone away. James maintains helping the person who has
wandered off from the community not only helps the wanderer; it will “cover a
multitude of sins.” This odd ending to the letter leaves room for some
reflection for us. Lots of people have wandered off because COVID hit and
caused a lot of fear and caution and maybe even confusion about being open. We
are open. But how will people know that? And how will they know how they will
be received when they come back? The only way for them to know that we’re
thinking of them is to invite them back to be part of our community.
A community that
worships and prays together is one that grows stronger, healthier and more
vibrant. And praying helps to shape what we believe and demonstrate in our
interactions with others out in the world. May the love of God…Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, grow in you through regular dialogue with God in prayer.
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