2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5
Psalm 119:97-104
Luke 18:1-8
10/16/16
A High-School English teacher was well known for being a
fair, but hard, grader. One day Tim received a B minus on a theme paper. In hopes
of bettering his grade and in the spirit of the valentine season, he sent her
an extravagant heart-shaped box of chocolates with the pre-printed inscription:
"Be Mine." The following day,
he received in return a valentine from the teacher. It read: "Thank you,
but it's still Be Mine-Us."
Instruction and
persistent prayer. Those are the focuses
of today’s scriptures. We need to follow
God’s instructions. And we need to be persistent
in our praying. But the question that
all of this raises is simply, “why”? Why
do we need to follow God’s instruction?
And why do we need to be persistent in our praying? Is it because God wants us to prove that we
are faithful? Is it because God needs to
test our faith by seeing how often we are willing to think about, and engage
God by following the Bible or by praying?
Is it because the instructions God gives are simply the right thing to
do?
The psalm passage we
read for today tells us that it is through following God’s instructions, doing
what we learn to be right from scripture and study, that we come to know God,
to understand God, who God is and God’s ways.
Reading scripture brings us into spending time with God, learning what
God asks us to do and making an effort to follow that path, leads us closer to
understanding God, praying opens our hearts and souls to hearing God and being
led by God in new ways.
In 12-step programs
people are encouraged to pray good things for those who have hurt them. It is a hard practice, to pray everything
good for someone who has hurt you, angered you, betrayed you. A friend of mine, whom I will call Jane, grew
up in an abusive household. After
several years in a 12-step group, she decided to undertake the very hard task
of praying good things for her abusive mother in particular. She found it so hard to do at first that she
set herself the task to pray for 30 seconds a day for her mom good things. At first, she did not feel the prayers she
was praying. She prayed for health for
her mother and found anger rising within herself about her mother’s failure to
care for Jane physically. She prayed for
her mother’s happiness, and found herself internally raging at her mother for
making her childhood a living hell. But
she kept at it. Within a week she found
she could extend her prayer time for her mom to a minute, though she still
didn’t really feel the prayers she was offering. Within a month, she extended the prayer time
to 10 minutes a day and actually began to genuinely wish good things for her
mom. By the end of six months, she found
herself able to forgive her, to let go of her anger and pain, and even to find
compassion within herself for what her mom had suffered that had caused her to
be a less than ideal mother.
Jane found herself changed. Changed enough that she was able to volunteer
helping out with other abused children, not from a place of anger, but from a
place of compassion and strength. Her
prayers changed her. Taking time with
God daily gave her the strength to deal with her pain with her mother, it gave
her the courage to heal and face her childhood.
It gave her the power to do something about a situation dear to her
heart, to be part of the solution for other children suffering abuse and
neglect in their homes. She has become
God’s hands in a small corner of the world, affecting and caring for God’s
children - because of her prayers and the commitment she made to spend that
daily time with God. C.S. Lewis says, “I
do not pray so that I may change God. I
pray that God may change me.”
If we are serious about our prayers, about our study
time with God, and about following God’s instruction, we have to allow those
prayers, that study and that instruction to change us, to move us into action,
to move us deeper into understanding to relating more fully to God. I saw this bumper sticker once that said,
“Nothing fails like prayer.” And I found
myself reflecting on it a great deal. I
believe prayers work for many, many reasons.
I believe that God does answer and respond to our prayers, though maybe
not in the way we expect. But I also
think that if prayer for us is just one-directional talking to God and then
waiting around for God to do what we ask, then we are not using prayer the way
God calls us to. God, after all, is not
Santa Claus, there simply to fulfill our wishes if we are good. If, on the other hand, we take seriously that
praying, studying scripture, and following in God’s ways are all steps towards
being in relationship with God, if we are open to allowing our study, our
faithful devotion to God’s ways, and our prayers to change us and make us
active agents for the changes in the world, then nothing succeeds like
prayer. As the psalmist tells us, it is
through following in God’s ways, doing what God asks us to do, that we come to
understand, relate to and see God.
Today’s passages all
unite in this way. The Psalms passage
tells us that in following God’s instructions, we come to know God, to
understand God. The Timothy passage
tells us that the lessons we learn from scripture equip us for doing God’s
work. And the Luke passage tells us that
when we are in relationship with God, when we are persistent in our prayers,
God will answer us because God loves us.
The bottom line in
each of these is that God wants relationship with us. Taking the time to read scripture, to work to
follow God brings us into deeper relationship with God. Taking time to pray, daily, to God takes us
into deeper relationship with God.
The most important reasons to pray and to follow
instruction have to do with our personal connection with God. God does not just want for you to be in awe
of God. God does not just want for you
to be treating God, again, like a big Santa Claus. God does not just want you to be grateful and
faithful and caring. God does want you
to be grateful, faithful and caring. But
not just that. God wants to be in
relationship with you. Every
relationship requires time together, requires communication, requires
sharing. God wants to know how you are,
from you, in your words, with your intention of speaking with God. God wants to hear from you your pain, your
joys, your hopes, your fears and your thoughts.
God also wants to talk or communicate with you. When our minds are filled with the noise and
business of daily life, it can be hard to hear God’s voice. Prayer and Bible study, reflection and
spending time working to follow God’s instruction gives us time to talk, to be,
to reflect. It gives us time to listen. It gives us time with God, focused on God and
God’s will for our lives.
A
minister, responsible for the religious education in a school once visited one
of the classes, to check out the education level. He asked the students:
"Please tell me, who destroyed the walls of Jericho?"
One of the students stood up and said: "It was not me, Sir!"
The minister thought the kids were making fun of him, so he turned to the
teacher and asked: "Is this the way students normally behave here?"
The teacher was puzzled and answered: "I think this student is very
honest and I really don't believe he could do such a thing".
Confused, the minister went to his assistant and explained to him what
had happened. The assistant replied: "I know this guy very well, as well
as his teacher, so I am absolutely sure none of them is guilty of destroying
that wall".
When the minister heard this, he made a formal complaint before the
Christian Education Commission. The answer he received from them was the
following:
"Dear Sir, let us not make a big issue out of this. We will pay for
the damages caused, accounting for them as current school repairs. Whatever the
losses are, our insurance will cover them."
Do we know the
stories? Do we know who God is? Do we know what God asks of us and do we make
efforts to follow in God’s ways? Do we
pray and engage God in relationship?
Those are the things that matter.
Those are the actions that make life worthwhile. Those are the choices that will fill us with
understanding and connection to the Divine Being, and will lead us to LIFE,
here and evermore. Amen.
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