You Need To Pray

 James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

Anyone here had a rough week?
Been dealing with trouble at work or in the family or just in general?

You should pray!

Or is anyone here in a good mood this morning?

You should pray, too!

 

Sick? Injured? Living the dream? Bored? Happy? Sad?
Then pray!

Everybody pray!
Whatever is happening, good, bad, or indifferent, you should pray and/or praise God.

 

It says so right there in the Bible. In the Letter of James, which Christians have been reading to one another for roughly 18- or 19-hundred years.

 

Whatever is going on, you should be praying.

And in some cases – if you’re sick, if you’re likely to be alone – you should be getting the community to pray for you, too. Because prayer is powerful.

It saves us all.

And possibly controls the weather.

 

This is excellent advice.

Prayer, in all circumstances, is a core truth of being Christian, being followers of Jesus and members of the family of God.

And proclaiming that we should pray rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

 

Because, well…

How many of us, once or more in our lives, have prayed for something we really wanted or needed, and…not been healed, or rescued?

Prayed – and seen the relationship we were worried about get worse?

Stood among the rest of us right here and prayed together for peace and justice to prevail on earth and turned on the radio on our way home to hear of another bombing or shooting or betrayal of the innocent.

Or prayed, and still had it rain on the parade, or been broiled in unseasonable heat? Or seen hurricanes devastate places and people we care deeply about?

 

How many of us have prayed, and not gotten the miracle or gift you asked for, great or small?

 

While I know people who are gifted pray-ers, and people who are glad they’ve been praying no matter what happens, what “result” appears, I don’t know anyone who has never been disappointed in prayer, at least a little.

Unless they haven’t been praying.

 

Personally, I never get what I ask for when it comes to weather (no matter what James claims humans just like Elijah will do), so I swore off praying for snow or sunshine a decade or two ago.

There are so many ways, great and small, you and I and people just like us have not seen what we’ve prayed for.

 

So why would we bother?

 

It’s a fair question. In fact, it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to say “look, you’ve been praying for 20 years, and your health just gets worse. Why do you do this?”

 

Because while I know – know, from my own personal experience, and that of others – that prayer matters, I also know it doesn’t exactly work the way James seems to be selling.

And when you know that,  wondering why we’d bother to pray is a perfectly natural response.

 

Jesus’ first disciples might have been wondering why they’d bother, too.

After all, if just anyone can tap the power of the Name of Jesus to do miracles without even bothering to come learn from Jesus himself, why have John and James and Peter and the others been trekking up and down Galilee, working their butts off, to stay close to Jesus?

 

If any rando can just say “In Jesus’ Name!” and do miracles, why stick it out with all the actual Jesus’ uncomfortable teachings? Or his “give up your life, or your hand, or your eye to follow me” exaggerated demands for full commitment?

 

Personally, I do not really want to remove body parts to stay close to God, or court death just to assure that I’m enough like Jesus to matter.

I suspect I’m not the only one.

 

I am willing to believe – pretty firmly convinced, in fact – that being like Jesus, being close to God in the world is worth giving up a lot of independence, self-determination, personal power, public respect, and self-image – all things that are implied by the giving up of hands and eyes in Jesus’ language.

 

But if I could get all the healing I wanted by just claiming it out loud: “in the Name of Jesus it will be done; amen,” without all the other complicated holy relationship stuff, I’d sign up for that in a hot minute.

 

Of course, it doesn’t work that way.

Jesus tells the disciples who are worried about it that “doing a deed of power in my name” (Jesus’ name), creates a relationship with Jesus.

Not the same one, in the same way, that the disciples who are upset about this interloper create their relationship with Jesus. But a relationship that has claims on your life, that leads to all those uncomfortable teachings and callings, even so.

 

Jesus isn’t talking about people who “take the Name of God in vain”; when we use the name of Jesus without expecting Jesus to actually notice, or care. 

That’s a whole different story.

 

But to use the name of Jesus effectively must connect you with Jesus. Put you on Jesus’ side.

So when you call on Jesus because you want God to listen, it tugs you into the family of God, whether you intended that to happen or not.

Jesus doesn’t explain this part to the disciples in our story today, but my own experience and observation suggests to me that when you fall into the influence of Jesus – even accidentally – that complicated, holy, demanding relationship starts to work on you, to claim you and change you, whether you signed up for it or not.

 

Not that we’re transformed overnight into selfless, pure, holy little Christs, perfect in prayer and unbreakably faithful.

This relationship that claims us frequently has every zig and zag imaginable (and some of those public zags that claim to be “in the Name of Jesus” sure are embarrassing to the disciples trying to get there through dedication and self-denial) but every time any of us calls on Jesus because we expect Jesus to heal – we make Jesus more powerful in our own life.

 

After all, if something works, we start to trust and rely on it.

And come back for more.

And the relationship grows tighter, and deeper inside us, bit by bit by bit.

 

That’s why we pray, too.

Why James is so convinced that our prayer – in sickness and trouble and joy – is powerful and effective.

Because every time we turn to God, that relationship takes deeper root inside us, bit by bit by bit. And every time we pray with our community, that relationship grows deeper, and richer, and stronger and more trustworthy.

 

Yes, James believes that we get what we pray for faithfully.

Believes it more concretely than I do, I think.

But I think he’s not recommending that we pray in order to get the miracles.

I believe he’s telling us to pray because we need the relationship with God, and with one another, both when we receive miracles and when we don’t.

 

After all, if we don’t get the miracle, are we any worse off because we prayed, because we talked to God about our needs and hopes?

And if we don’t pray, we’re still going to be navigating the same troubled waters we’re already in; just without our companionship with God.

Or we may be happy, but without the expansive gift of sharing that joy with God.

Or sick, in body or in spirit, but without the comfort of the community of prayer James instructs us to call to our bedside.

 

James wants his friends, and you, and me, to pray – to praise God, to petition God, to turn to God together – all the time. To turn to Jesus, whatever’s happening and when nothing’s happening, and keep deepening, enriching that relationship with Jesus – and with one another – bit by bit by bit.

 

Because for Jesus, and for James, it is the relationship that matters.

Matters more than hands and feet and eyes; matters whether we’re in trouble or in joy.

The relationship that God will claim with us any time we call God’s name and hope for an answer.

That relationship is powerful, and effective.

And will change our lives.

If not the weather.

 

The Good Life

Mark 9:30-37, James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Proverbs 31:10-31

Who wouldn’t want to live “the good life”?

 

Searching that hashtag on Instagram gives results that are at least two-thirds pool and beach-related. A quick “good life” browse on Facebook trended more toward photos of food.

But the good life comes in many varieties, and lurks in the subtext, if not the actual text, of the scripture readings assigned for today.

 

If you were to ask Jesus’ first disciples about the good life – at least at the beginning of today’s story – they’d probably tell you about being recognized in their rank and status – holding positions of honor and greatness.
Any one among us or our friends with an eye on a particular promotion at work, or an award in our field – or anyone unironically enjoying their “World’s Greatest Coach” or “Grandpa” coffee mug – might be sympathetic to how those early disciples were thinking.

 

Jesus isn’t, of course. He has no hesitation in telling those first followers – and us – that lack of status is an earmark of the holy life – or at least the kind of holy life Jesus expects us to want and to imitate.

(Of course it didn’t take long for the corporate followers of Jesus – the church – to start reinventing servanthood as a status symbol of its own. There’s probably a set of “world’s greatest servant-leader” mugs out there by now. It’s hard to resist imagining some kind of recognition being part of the good life.)

 

And nobody asked James, the epistle-writer, to describe the good life, but he calls it out today, inviting us to display our “good life” rooted in “gentleness born of wisdom” – rooted in the inner peace of a life devoted to God.

And there’s a portrait of that wisdom-life in the final poem of the book of Proverbs, which we started with, today.

 

The one about the amazing woman who does everything well.

The “capable wife” language in our English translation transforms a call to seek a “woman of valor” into a dryly functional, colorless job title. But the job description – the portrait of this woman of valor, the good life to be fervently sought – is full of color and detail.

 

This is the woman who has it all.

Or, maybe, the woman who does it all.

It’s an extraordinary list of tasks and accomplishments: executive management, sharp business leadership, active charity and service, excellent handcrafts, teaching and coaching - a role model – whose lamp never goes out and who is never lazy. No personal days and me time, just success and fulfillment in everything she touches.

 

You see versions of her on Instagram these days – at the head of an “influencer brand” everyone’s supposed to want to imitate.
See versions of this woman whipping up a picture-perfect breakfast for her smiling, prompt children with one hand behind her back prepping a several million dollar presentation at her high-powered job, organizing a food drive at the kids school and a benefit gala for a medical charity, while supporting her husband’s run for governor or something.

 

I

Am

Exhausted

just reading this scriptural portrait.

Or contemplating the current-day equivalent.

 

I’m from a generation that grew up shaped by the expectations that wherever our mothers fell short of having it all, we would cross the finish line and Win Everything.  That we’d be the ones who finally made having a perfect family and high-powered career (and perfect body, but we didn’t talk about that explicitly) all at the same time normal and achievable for every woman, and the promised land of Equality would be come.

 

And when I saw this scriptural Woman Who Does It All coming up in the assigned Sunday readings, I cried.

 

The lived experience of a generation – or a hundred generations – has affirmed that this glorious portrait of the woman of valor is fantasy. A standard to which no actual human woman can live up.

No human person, female or otherwise, honestly.

 

None of these scriptural descriptions of the holy human, the person of wisdom, fit normal human beings, honestly.

James tells us a life rooted in “the wisdom from above” is pure, peaceable, gentle, open and flexible, full of mercy and good results without a trace of bias or hypocrisy.

Raise your hand, would you, if you know people just like that: Universally pure, peaceable, productive and perfectly, constantly objective and always sincere.[know more than one person like that?]

 

We do need ideals to strive for, and a life that’s halfway to peaceful, fruitful, gentle, welcoming, honest and generous is a more pleasant life to live than one that’s a quarter of the way there, or one that’s mostly disrupted, cranky, hostile, shady and distorted.

 

But what James, and Jesus, and the compiler of the book of Proverbs need us to do when we read their words is to desire that good life of wisdom, to seek that fruitful, generous, welcoming life as a gift of God, as the way of life of God’s household that embraces and supports our faithful living. 

Not as some accomplishment or goal we create, achieve, or own for ourselves.

 

The faithful reader and responder of Proverbs is the one who seeks, loves, and makes a commitment to a life with the wisdom of God – the wisdom which is and does all those glorious things. The wisdom of God protects, provides, gives, produces, cares for all – not we ourselves, as individuals. We seek to join her household. To move in to the world shaped by this pure peace, this fruitful gentleness, this wholehearted openness and grace.

 

To let go of having the success for ourselves, and commit to supporting God’s success in everyone around us, participating in God’s generous care for everyone unworthy of that extraordinary glory.

 

In that household of God, we find ourselves becoming more like that amazing woman, more steeped in James’s “wisdom from above”. We become more fruitful, peaceable, generous, capable, oriented to the service of all, not by our individual efforts and achievements, but together, as the household of wisdom we become extraordinary. Together, in the household of God, we become the people of valor. 

 

That good life is waiting for us.
Calling to us.

Inviting us to welcome it as a gift, and to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to join in.

To become a part of the whole of God’s wisdom, protecting and promoting and providing for the strength and joy of all God’s people.

High Expectations

Mark 8:27-38

What are people saying?

What are you hearing about me?

Jesus seems to be conducting something of an opinion poll as our story opens today. And the responses place Jesus solidly in the long tradition of God’s prophets – those who bear God’s Word to God’s people. This is old news to many of us, listening and watching. Interesting, but impersonal – like a lot of contemporary opinion polls.

 

When Jesus turns the question to “Who do you say I am?” some of us may take it more personally, checking in on our own confidence or doubts about who Jesus of Nazareth really is and what he’s all about, while others of us still feel like comfortable observers – we’re watching a conversation from a long time ago, with Jesus’ special chosen disciples, after all.

 

And then the story takes a turn (the same turn it always takes, but a sharp turn nonetheless).
From focus group or theological teaching moment to a hard and direct conversation about death.

Many of us are squirming now. Or should be.

 

Because death is uncomfortable to talk about in the midst of life.

And it doesn’t sound especially friendly, or welcoming, or, for that matter, sane to announce that you’re going to be arrested, rejected, murdered, and resurrected.

Or to encourage everyone around you to do the same.

 

I’d be quietly unfriending that person on Facebook, if someone I knew was doing that. Or checking to see if they’ve got mental health support services. Peter tries a bit of that with Jesus, and is told in no uncertain terms to butt out. This is for real.

 

It’s a stark statement from Jesus: that the popular man who heals and inspires people, and brings us right in touch with a sense of holiness and God’s care for us is expecting, shortly, to be suffering, killed, and resurrected.

And that he expects other people – us?!? – to do the same.

 

Does Jesus really want us to embrace rejection, the loss of all we have and are, and literal death?

Want you and me – not just his specially chosen few, but us – to die for or with him?

 

Yes.

 

And yes, my gut lurches every time I look straight at that possibility.

But I’m convinced this is a real ask, a real expectation Jesus has.
That if we want to follow him, we will actually reject, renounce our selves, and deliberately accept death.

And, that when we lose self, life, everything, we also – gain it?
But not by avoiding death?

 

It’s weird, hard to understand. And just plain hard.

I don’t want to.

 

Rejecting your own life, your whole self, is a really stark and repellent demand.

It’s a wonder Jesus has any followers if this is what he’s asking for.

His expectations are too high for reasonable people to meet. And he’s talking about being ashamed of us at judgment day if we don’t meet them.

What happened to the nice, welcoming, loves-everyone Jesus we’ve heard about? The one who wants to save us?

 

Good news and bad news, friends.

This demanding, stark, potentially terrifying Jesus is precisely the radically loving, welcoming, generous Jesus.

The demand to give up our lives entirely is a demand to live in that radical, divine, extraordinary, generous love that Jesus brings us.

 

Tough as it is, it is welcoming in a profound way, because Jesus is opening this invitation to anyone.

“If any of you want to become my disciple,” he says.

I’ll take anybody. Garbage collectors, the neighbor with the tackiest yard signs, Wall Street tycoons and day laborers, tax accountants, immigrants, girls… even politicians.

In a context where to be chosen as a disciple of a popular and well-known rabbi was probably the end result of a lifetime’s focused education and training and the kind of family investment now reserved for beating the odds into an Ivy League university, Jesus standing in front of a random crowd and saying “if any of you want to be my disciple, you can” is bombshell-radical welcome, generosity, and empowerment.

 

Nobody is disqualified.

Not the person who has been bored out of their mind by church and Jesus’ other followers, not the person who’s been insulted and rejected, not the hopeless underachiever, not the person who’s broken all ten commandments (or all 613 in scripture, depending how you count) just to keep score.

Anybody can be a disciple – an apprentice – even a close personal friend of this miraculous, popular, powerful Jesus.

Anybody can decide to follow Jesus, which means to become like Jesus.

Which means to become deeply, personally close to God, to become a human being infused with, filled with, the presence and power and love of God’s own self.

 

And here’s the thing – the thing that I think is so obvious to Jesus he doesn’t do a really good job of explaining what happens when you renounce yourself and lose your life for and with him. It’s that this incredible closeness to God, to God’s self, enables all the self-sacrifice as well as demanding all the self-sacrifice.

The renunciation, the losing of our selves, is the same thing as experiencing the glorious, rich, soul-filling closeness to God Jesus shares. The same thing as the deep, joyous, earthshaking love obliterating all our selfishness and fears.

 

And Jesus is telling us that that’s what he expects from us.

Expects that we lose ourselves in love.

 

Sometimes, we give ourselves up because the love takes the lead. Sometimes we get to feel the warmth  and joy of love making it almost easy to give up time, or wealth, or choices or opinions or kidneys or other things we take personally, other elements of ourselves.

 

Other times, the hard decisions of self-denial come first – and then love reveals itself to us.

A bone marrow donor discovering after the difficult process of donation a sense of deep, supportive, familial love and friendship for the stranger who received that physical part of her self.

Someone slowing down his frantic rush out of a burning building – deciding to risk his life – and discovering that he feels no resentment or fear, just love and hope, as he helps lift the office’s most annoying colleague out of danger.

You, reluctantly choosing to go to a movie or concert you expect to hate, because it’s what your child or spouse or friend has been longing for. Then realizing that though you’ve been dreading it for so long (and it is pretty terrible), you’re feeling the peace of love in the experience of it. 

Or resenting how much laundry detergent costs, and then – after you grumpily add two more bottles to your cart to bring to the Trinity household needs pantry – feeling your heart lift. And realizing that’s God’s love taking over your heart, whether you planned for it or not.

 

Renouncing ourselves – giving up our life for love – doesn’t just happen once, in one decision to follow Jesus.

It’s such a big deal, such a high expectation, because Jesus is calling us to a constant attitude of choosing to step away from our self-interest, self-protection, and right into the proactive, generous, overwhelming love of God, whatever it costs us.

 

Over, and over, and over, and over, no turning back.

Until our whole lives become a sacrament of that generous, welcoming, hope-fueling, divinely joyful love that doesn’t need to protect ourselves, but delights in giving up our selves.

 

Because we have become like Jesus.

Become love.