Marks of Discipleship: PRAY Daily

Marks of Discipleship: PRAY Daily

Aaron Stamper

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Matthew 24:36-44

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

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Throughout Advent we prepare for the Christmas good news that God has been born among us in flesh and blood in order to show us the way. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew emphasizes the need to “be ready” and to “keep awake” as we wait for the Kingdom of God to arrive in its fullness. 

The Kingdom of God has been revealed, in part, through Jesus’ ministry and will one day be revealed to us in its entirety. This is not some ethereal thought-experiment; rather, the eventual coming of the Kingdom of God in its entirety is the core hope of Christianity. Christ-followers place our hope in the promise that existence is not just headed somewhere, but headed somewhere good. And given that existence is headed somewhere good, it is our calling to live in a state of awareness and expectancy that God is at work here and now.

Living in a state of awareness and expectancy is a perfect way to think about prayer, which is our next topic in the Marks of Discipleship sermon series. The idea that prayer would get its own 10-minute sermon and be sufficiently explained or grasped is, of course, preposterous. Entire books can and have been written on the subject, typically only after the authors have lived a lifetime of direct and formative experience with prayer. I can only hope in my time today to paint a big picture of the power and necessity of prayer.

If you need a brief summary of prayer, I recommend this one to you:

Prayer is “a way of co-laboring with God to accomplish good things and advance God’s Kingdom purposes.” *

Understanding prayer in this light leads me to three conclusions: 1) God is at work in the world; 2) we can bring our thoughts and actions in line with God’s; 3) prayer changes us and the world.  

God is at work in the world.

Scripture tells us God is a loving relationship of three persons -- the Father, Son, and Spirit. The Trinitarian relationship of love extended to the creation and sustaining of the universe. You and I, along with all who came before and all who will come after, are expressions of God’s love. Love is the beginning of all things, the root of all things, and the destination of all things. God is at work in the world, or in other terms: the source of all love is constantly expressing love among all that is loved. 

Prayer, therefore is an exercise of love. 

I recently read a book on the subject of prayer and suddenly realized how far I was from truly believing that God is at work in the world. The author writes, “[W]hen [Jesus] prayed for others he never concluded by saying ‘If thy will be done’....there was evidently no room for indecisive, tentative, half-hoping, ‘If thy will be done” prayers.” **

I realized that I have been a “if thy will be done” pray-er. I have sat next to make hospital beds, held the hand of someone who was suffering, and offered prayers for healing punctuated by the phrase “if thy will be done.” I suddenly realized how that must feel for someone in pain or fear to have a pastor utter a prayer in which he hedges his bets. Prayer in that way revealed my core conviction that God, though present in the world, generally defaults to a hands-off approach to it. This does not count as good news and I have since endeavored, through scripture and prayer, to come to a more accurate understanding of God’s ongoing presence and activity in the world.

The daily events that unfold in our lives are not pre-determined, as though we are acting out a script. Things can be changed because God is present and at work. Scripture is full of accounts of faithful people who “prayed as if their prayers could and would make an objective difference.” **

We can bring our thoughts and actions in line with God’s.

God is actively loving the world right now. Prayer makes it possible for us to actively love ourselves and others. As Juliana of Norwich states, “The whole reason why we pray is to be united into the vision and contemplation of him to whom we pray.” 

God’s love gets distorted, abused, neglected, and tossed aside. The presence of suffering or evil in our world does not negate the truth that we were created by love, to love, and destined for love. Martin Luther calls for Christ-followers to daily remember our baptism -- the event of dying to our self and rising to the new life in Christ. Prayer is one exercise that God uses to bring us back online where we can recognize and respond to God’s unconditional love.  

It is possible to be in communion with God’s will and God’s love. Just as importantly, this communion changes us and the world. 

Prayer changes us and the world.

We pray so that we may be changed. In this sense, change is good news, even for those who typically chafe at the very word. 

The Biblical call to repentance is a call to literally turn one’s self around and go in a different direction. We are not perfected people. Daily we need to change in order to be more in sync with the Kingdom of God. Author Anne Lamott put it best when she wrote, “God loves us exactly the way we are...and God loves us too much to let us stay like this.” God wants us to change. God wants us to change the world. 

I have been deeply immersed in the spiritual teaching of Richard Foster, and he writes this in his classic work on spiritual practices: 

“To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ….In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills.” **

I hope what I have presented today whets your appetite to engage in the essential spiritual practice of prayer. I hope that you would desire to partner with God to accomplish good things and advance God’s Kingdom purposes.” I realize I have not presented you with any concrete steps, tips, or techniques regarding the practice of prayer. If you would be interested in learning more about how to pray I would welcome the opportunity to talk with you. 

In the meantime, know that I am praying for you. I am praying that you would be drawn continually deeper into union with the force of love that created and sustains the universe so that you may go out into the world bearing and being good news for the world.

Amen.

* Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (pg. 184)

** Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (pgs. 37, 35, 33)

The Gift of a Dark Christmas

The Gift of a Dark Christmas

Aaron Stamper

Luke 2:1-16 (NRSV)

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

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Six months from now I will be in Norway with my family. Each day will be filled with over 19 hours of direct sunlight, with over 3 hours of twilight each day. That will leave approximately 1 hour of darkness. The summer solstice in the nordic countries is a big celebration, typically referred to as Midsummer. In Sweden, friends and family gather on Midsummer to sing and dance around the maypole and drink a potent spirit called aquavit, while young women place seven wildflowers under their pillows at night in hopes that they will dream of their future husband. In Norway, huge bonfires are built and burnt in the twilight hours under the auspices of warding off evil witches.

Many of the countries where Midsummer is celebrated have roots in the Celts. The Celts were people from around 1,000BC to 1,000AD that extended from Ireland all the way into Turkey with a shared language, culture, and religion. The Celts were heavily influenced by nature, with their festivals drawing inspiration from and celebrating the natural world. As an agrarian economy and culture, they profoundly understood their dependance on the land, the sun, and the seasons. As you can imagine, having entire days filled with light would have been taken as a tremendous blessing worth celebrating and being thankful for.

In much the same way, the Celts had a unique way of understanding the days of December and January, filled as they were with upwards of 20 hours of darkness each day. For the Celts, the dark days of winter were also a gift. Those days were a time of slowing down and resting, much like the crops and animals for which they cared.

Often an oak tree (the most sacred symbol of the Celts) would be located in the center of each village. The tree, barren through the winter, would be decorated with produce leftover from the previous summer, namely oranges and apples strung from the branches of the oak. These decorations were hung as an offering to the sun, imploring it to shine once more. (Their limited astronomical knowledge meant they never knew with certainty that the hours of daylight would increase again).

Their major winter celebration, the winter solstice, was observed on December 24, which is three days after the actual date of the solstice. They waited three days because the third day after the winter solstice is the first time the sun can be observed to shine for longer than the day before. Three days after the solstice was the first time they knew for a fact that another summer was on its way.

As Christianity spread north from Asia and Africa, missionaries encountered the mythology of the Celts and noticed the profound truth and beauty of their culture. The Celts, primarily influenced by the sun, moon, stars and earth, had identified the truths that:

• light is a blessing,

• darkness is instructive and necessary,

• hope can exist in darkness,

• and sometimes you have to wait three days after the darkest night in order to see the rays of sunlight stretch out further across the earth.

Rather than destroying and replacing the culture of the Celts, the Christ-followers added to their story to it. When they saw the sacred tree in the center of the village they told the stories of the tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden as well as the Tree of Life from the book of Revelation. When they learned of the winter solstice feast that came three days after the darkest night, they told the story of the Easter feast that came three days after Jesus was crucified. They were so inspired by this connection to the winter solstice that the Christian church moved its Christmas celebration to December 25.

The Celts and the Christians shared their stories and each were left profoundly impacted by them. However, today much of the influence of the Celts has been lost. We no longer have a deep connection to the land. We take the movement of the sun and planets for granted. Trees are removed from the center of our towns (and everywhere else, for that matter) in order to make room for new buildings of wood, concrete, and steel. Even the Christmas tree has gone from a symbol of thankfulness, with its decorations of last year’s harvest, to a symbol of consumerism, with the presents under the tree. And now our lives can be filled with artificial light 24/7/365. We have lost the intrinsic balance of light and dark both in our world and in our hearts.

Christmas done well and Christmas done right is a celebration of darkness. Yes, it is a celebration of light in the darkness; but it cannot only be that. Christmas cannot only be strings of lights and a future hope of God’s promised presence. Christmas is the celebration that God comes to us in the midst of the darkness, in the midst of our rest, in the midst of our despair and anxiety that maybe the darkness will overtake us. All this happens right now.

My friends, the darkness can be scary. I don’t think negatively of anyone who acknowledges that they are scared of the dark, whether literally or figuratively. But let’s not be so quick to fill the darkness with artificial light, for by doing so we can blind ourselves to the true source of light in our lives – the loving presence of God that is always present, even in the darkness.

The Christmas story, particularly as it is influenced by the mythology of the Celts, reminds us that the darkness is not the playground of monsters and boogeymen; but the darkness is the place where hope and grace are born.

As theologian and author Alexander Shaia reminds us,

“We know that every time we go into the deepest dark that the grace of the fresh radiance will come forth in us through our courage to walk into the dark. The deepest dark is not the place where grace goes to die but the deepest dark is the place where grace goes to be reborn.” *

There is a good chance that many of us here tonight are dedicating a lot of time and energy to avoiding the darkness within us. We know something is there, just under the surface, but we’re afraid to wade too deep into those dark waters, less we end up trapped there forever. Perhaps it is grief over a loss, disappointment with someone or something in your life, feelings of failure or inadequacy, or emotional or physical trauma that never quite healed. Despite the origin and nature of your darkness, it will ever and always be the place where God can come and be the light.

Fear not, I bring you good news of great joy, for to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Go with courage into the dark and there, in the darkness, expect to encounter the light of God, born anew – a light no darkness can overcome.

Amen.

** “Alexander Shaia on the Mythic Power of Christmas” The Robcast, Dec. 10, 2017.