Prayed For

John 17:20-26

I didn’t really learn to pray for other people until I was in my twenties. 

Of course, I’d grown up praying with others in church, and I would occasionally ask God to help me if I was in trouble, or to help people I cared about get well.  But when I was leading a confirmation class, and found myself wanting to pray for that diverse group of 11-13 year olds  - well, it’s not as easy without easy specifics like healing an injury.  Praying for a whole person somehow seems to require a deeper commitment to trusting God.

And then I went to seminary, and spent a summer doing CPE; an immersion experience in hospital chaplaincy in which I suddenly I realized I was going to have to pray out loud for someone. In front of them.

I had no idea what I was doing.

But I remembered a lot of phrases from the Book of Common Prayer, some of which seemed appropriate, and I took a deep breath….

It turns out that you can talk to God about more or less anything, even in front of people, and if you mean it, prayers for finding missing glasses or for a better grade of hospital juice cups can be incredibly healing.

But in the end, the most important thing I’ve learned about prayer hasn’t been how to do it.

It’s been how to receive it.  How to be prayed for.

And I didn’t learn that until I was almost done with seminary.

I learned it from a child.  And from a community.

Every year, people who want to be ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church take a week-long set of comprehensive exams.  It’s a tough and risky week. You feel like your whole future is at stake. So at my seminary, we had a custom of having prayer buddies.  Someone who would pray for you, specifically, while you took exams.

I feel pretty comfortable with tests, so I thought I’d leave the prayer warriors for other students, so I asked a friend’s 9 year old daughter to pray for me.

I thought it would be fun.

Well, I woke up the morning of the first exam, and I had no idea why I felt so peaceful.  I spent the whole week in a baffling state of calm, humor, patience, and even comfort, despite hours bent over a keyboard.

You see, Morgan took praying for me much more seriously than I had imagined, and she made sure I knew I was prayed for.  She wrote me notes.  She invited me to dinner at her house, so I would not be alone. Most of all, she prayed as I had never expected, or thought I wanted.

And because she prayed in a way I hadn’t planned on, I began to realize that the prayers of the whole community were around me, supporting me on every side.  That I could lean into that support, almost float on it.  The sense of God’s compassion and care had never been so present, vital and holy in all my life.

Being prayed for changed me.

That’s not the only time it happened, of course, but that was when I learned to listen.

It multiplied my ability to trust – trust myself, God, and others.

It taught me hope – the heart-deep ability to believe in joy present and yet to come.

It grew my heart – I found space for love, for God, for myself, for friends and community, that I hadn’t planned to find.

Can you remember a time when that happened for you?

In the gospel story we heard today, Jesus is praying for his disciples.  It’s the last thing he’s able to do for them, before he goes to be glorified: to be killed and rise again, and return to be one with the Father.

He’s praying for the things that make us church. That make us brothers and sisters and children of God.

That we may be one.  United, in spite of – or maybe because of – our differences of opinion, experience, skin, speech or anything else. 

That we may be whole, and complete.

And love weaves in and out and through all this. Love for and from one another that’s inseparable from God’s love for us and our love for God.

Listen to Jesus pray for you:

Father, I pray for these who hear me, and also for those who will hear them.  Let them be united, like you and me, so that the world can see that you love them the way you love me.  Let them be one, whole, complete. Let them be loved, and know that they are loved, and share it with the world!  Amen.

What does it feel like, to know that Jesus prays for you?

That Jesus prays much more than that, for you?

If you’ve come here this morning, chances are pretty good that someone is praying for you.

It might be someone here. It might be a friend.  It might be your mother, or your child. It might be someone who saw you in the grocery store and doesn’t even know your name.

And for sure, Jesus is praying for you.

We pray together a lot here at Calvary.  We pray for people who are injured, sick, grieving, dying, celebrating, and changing. We pray for each other. We make and bless blankets that go out of here to be a touchable prayer - prayer that you can literally feel and wrap yourself in.

That’s essential. It’s the work of the church, of the Body of Christ.

But it’s also important – essential, for us to be disciples of Christ – to be prayed for.

Even – or especially – when we don’t think we need prayers.

We need to open our hearts and spirits to the presence of God in the prayers of others.  To listen, not the way we normally listen, but with an unfocused openness and trust; the kind that lets you be guided or supported or inspired when you weren’t looking for anything of the sort.

You can practice this right here.

You don’t have to be sick, or have something wrong.  You can practice being prayed for when things are great, and when you’re happy, or when you’re worried about someone else, or even if you’re just bored.

You can ask someone here to be your prayer buddy.

For a week, or a day, or much longer.

And you should.

Because if Jesus is praying for his disciples; if Jesus is praying for us, for you, then we have to be able to receive prayer.

So we have to practice being prayed for,

because it will, in the end - and sometimes right away - transform our lives, make love shine through us, and change the world.

42

I saw 42 today.

It made me cry.  Laugh, too, but often with gentle tears in my eyes. And I realized that’s why I went.  I went because I want this story to have power over me, within me.

It’s the feel-good story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey breaking the baseball color line: a sturdy, enjoyable movie that probably won’t win awards for cinematography and doesn’t have a particularly suspenseful plot.  After all, most if not all of the audience knows how this story ends.

But it’s precisely the feel-good story that matters to me.  It’s a story of triumph despite a deck stacked for the opposition; of virtue rewarded in spite of being both unpopular and unconventional.

Which makes it a kingdom of God story.

And like the gospel, 42 is told in highlights.  Although the movie does a good job of sampling the threat, frustration, vitriol and sheer awkwardness that comes with crossing the color line, there’s no way a two hour movie can show the grinding reality of justified fear and scary anger, the sheer cross-country drudgery of either baseball.  Just like weary sandal-footed miles and boring bits drop out of the Bible. The story we see is composed of moments of hope and action.

The problem with – and the necessity for – these stories are one and the same.  Most of the world’s struggles against fear and danger, hatred, oppression, and other faceless systems are invisible, or seen only by a few.  It’s scary, uncertain, and painful when it’s your own struggle; my own daily life.  Our challenges and victories are not narrated by Red Barber, or re-told to dramatic orchestration.  So many triumphs and resurrections are invisible, too.

That’s what makes movies like 42 important.  Because we have to train ourselves to believe in the triumph of character and determination, in resurrection and renewal, and that the world can be improved in real ways.

It’s why we tell the Easter story over and over in church.

Life is hard, messy, uneven.  So we need practice believing in the good news – the (inaccurate but fun) game-ending, pennant-clinching homer in the top of the 4^th; the victory of empathy over prejudice; the triumph of grace and joy.

That’s why we need to enter in to such feel-good stories, to cry and laugh and give them power in our lives, even if only for an hour or two.

I use baseball and the gospel.  You may find your hope and grace in romance novels, or hockey, or even politics (two of which are utterly beyond my comprehension), or something else entirely.  Whatever you use for hope and grace, keep it up, stay in practice. 

Because practice – in resurrection, like in baseball – makes us better.  Stronger, faster, readier for the next challenge, whether it’s the 15^th throw to first in a close inning or a life and death struggle against oppression or illness.

I practice this every Sunday, and lots of times in between, with my congregation and community. But I might just go see 42 again.  And I’ll buy it on DVD.  Because the tears in my eyes and the laughter on my lips are a workout for my soul, making hope stronger for the messy but essential daily business of living resurrection.

Tragedy Week

Revelation 7:9-17

The Book of Revelation is one of the hardest books of the Bible to read and digest.  It’s not quite as dry as the endless census in the aptly named book of Numbers, but the Revelation to John is long on obscure, hallucinatory code-language, and short on clarity and logic.

It’s full of end of the world disaster – the famous images of the apocalyptic horsemen: conquest, war, famine, and death – and cosmic battles – but those are regularly interrupted by visions of healing and grace, glimpses of eternal life breaking in to the miserable end of time – like the bit we heard today.

Singing and praise and celebration and transformation for “those who have come out of the great ordeal.” These words – all of Revelation – were written for a community overwhelmed with persecution and suffering – a community that knew murder and death and pain first-hand, and frequently.

Today’s vision reminds us that those who have experienced this ordeal live the truth that they cannot ever be separated from the face to face presence of God, where “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; … the Lamb … will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

These are words we turn to in the church in times of suffering – at the time of death, and in the face of tragedy.  And I’m so glad that we hear them this week.

You see, this is Tragedy Week.

I realized that on Tuesday when my cousin Betsy proposed on Facebook that it might be time to skip the third week of April altogether.

She had reason. 

18 years ago this week, Betsy’s mother, my Aunt Kathy, died far too young.

Just two days later that year, the Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma City – on April 19, timed for the anniversary of the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas in 1993.

A few years later, on April 20, 1999, two students opened fire at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Six years ago, 32 students died and 17 were injured in a massacre at Virginia Tech on April 16.

And now, well, there’s the bombs at the Boston Marathon, and all the sequels.

And an even more deadly fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, that won’t get nearly the same traction in our national memory as those intentional acts of violence.

An earthquake in China.

And many of us here heard the last of that news while dealing with flooded basements – more stress than tragedy, but still…

It’s too much. 

I’m more than ready to dump this week from the calendar,

and even more ready to live in a world where the news doesn’t make me cry.

Tragedy is exhausting.

Personal tragedy, like a death or diagnosis in the family, the loss of important relationships or work.

Public tragedy, like Boston, Oklahoma City, 9/11, Newtown, Virginia, Columbine, Tucson, Aurora….

Or under the radar tragedy, like Alzheimers and depression, the extinction of another species, and the hundreds of murders that never make the evening news.

We live with tragedy, seen and unseen.

But the thing is, we also live with God.

God, seen and unseen, just as real, even more present.

That’s why we still read Revelation, wading through the code,

because suffering and tragedy inhabit our world, yours and mine, today and every day.

And if we live with tragedy, we need to – we have to – live with hope.

Hope not just for a cure, or for a change, but hope that is a bedrock trust in the truth that God is present with us now, to guide and guard and rejoice in us.

Today, we hear the vision of “those who have come out of the great ordeal;” those who have witnessed and experienced murder and oppression, tragic loss and great danger and fear.  These are those for whom Tragedy Week doesn’t pass, on the calendar.

And they are singing.

They are shouting salvation and praise; singing with heart and soul and body.

It’s not denial, it’s not relief at survival, it’s not even really about comfort, but about the fundamental hope, the trust that we do live in the healing presence of God, always, just as much, or even more, than we live amid suffering and death and ordinary stress.

So they’re singing.

Because one way or another, our bodies have to express and respond to healing and hope,  just like they respond to tragedy with tears and exhaustion, and music is one of the best ways our bodies do praise and joy.

That’s the other bonus to reading Revelation this week.  I think people sing more in Revelation than any other book of the Bible.

And I’ve been thinking about music all week because today we’re celebrating the gift of music that we share at Calvary, declaring “Jeri Kellan Appreciation Day” as we give thanks for twenty-five years of gifted, caring musical leadership here among us.

It’s a day to celebrate, because there’s great truth to the holiness and healing power of music.

Music can carry our celebrations: as we sing for birthdays or national holidays or Alleluias and everything in between. And music can heal: restoring joy or bringing comfort, nurturing memory and hope, as we sing lullabies, laments, and old favorites. And music makes community, because it needs hearers as well as performers.

So I want us, like the saints in the Revelation, to sing.

Will you sing healing, this week?

You don’t have to know one note from another or carry a tune to sing healing.

You might want to offer well-rehearsed, beautiful, elaborate melody and harmony.  And if you can, please do!

But you can also just crank up the volume, tap your feet, drum your fingers, dance, or shout along to your favorite tune.

Sing Beethoven, or Beach Boys, or Lady Gaga.

However you do it, tune your body and your voice to joy, and to hope,

because that’s what we do in faith, even – or most importantly – when we grieve.

It’s been Tragedy Week, again, in our public lives.

And tragedy happens without consulting the calendar in our private lives.

But our story, here at Calvary, our Revelation, to share with the world, in the aftermath of Boston and all those other griefs, and in the centuries of faith;

our story is the song of hope, and healing, and eternal life.

One we live not in spite of tragedy and ordeals, but in the midst of them,

singing, because nothing – nothing! – can separate us from the wholeness we find in the presence of God, where “the Lamb … will be [our] shepherd, and he will guide [us] to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes."