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.”

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)

Mark 15:33-39

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three o’clock in the afternoon. At three o’clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi! Eloi! Lema sabbacthani!,’ which means, ‘My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen he is calling for Elijah.’ Someone went and got a large sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink saying, ‘Wait. Let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down.’

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly, this man was God’s son.’

As you know, I have the unique and holy opportunity to walk with people – many of you people – through some pretty sacred places, one of which is in our time of dying. And it happened not long ago that I was called to a nursing home to the bedside of a dying man who hadn’t been dying just days – or even hours – before I was invited to visit. I hadn’t met him before, or his son, who was also there when I showed up that evening.

But it seemed clear that Tom was, in fact, close to death. He didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on around him. His breaths were labored… and rattling… and growing fewer and farther between, even in just the hour or so that I was with him.

And I’m a pretty firm believer in the notion that many people need or want or respond to permission to die, if we can give it to them. I will never say I’m certain of it, but I know of more than a few occasions when dying men and women have held on to life in this world through all sorts of sickness and struggle and hardship, only to finally let go and rest easy and breathe their last, shortly after someone they love – or even some knucklehead of a pastor – gives them permission to stop fighting.

I’m not sure if that’s what happened recently with Tom. And it’s only part of what I want to share with you.

See, if I ever give such permission or pray such a prayer for a dying person, I’m sure to ask their permission – or to ask the permission of someone who loves them most – before I do. So, I asked Tom’s son if they’d had a conversation, yet – if he or his dad was ready, I mean. His son said, “Ready to …?”

“…die.” I had to fill in the blank, because he wasn’t expecting that question and he wasn’t quite ready to say it out loud, even if he knew what I was getting at. And he was ready, he thought, to give him that permission, even if he seemed to hesitate, understandably, just the same.

Tom’s son acknowledged that he was a believer. I don’t remember exactly what he said about that. But he went on to talk a little about Tom, saying he used to go to church, that he practiced his faith in the past, but that he wasn’t sure about where his dad was with all of that lately.

The insinuation was – as it so often is with too many people, if you ask me – that Tom’s son wasn’t certain his dad had “gotten right with God” enough in recent days or months or years, in order to feel good about where he might end up whenever the dying might come. Would he make it to heaven?, he meant. Would he be “saved”?, as they say. Which I find to be a heartbreaking thing for anyone to have to wonder or worry about.

But it also led to the most useful and faithful and obviously helpful moment I’ve felt in my role as “Pastor” in recent days.

Because that night in the nursing home, with my hand on Tom’s son’s shoulder as he held his dying father’s hand, we gave Tom permission to die and his son permission to let him go and both of them permission to hope and expect and to trust that God was already surrounding us in that room and that God was already waiting for Tom on the other side of eternity, too, with open arms and an abiding mercy and all the fullness of love and grace hope the universe can hold, even in the face of death. And I believe that’s just exactly where Tom landed when he breathed his last, just a few hours later that evening.

And that’s the big picture of what it means to “TELL others about the God we worship…” and learn about, and serve, as believers in this place.

Because I’m here to tell you… I’m afraid there are more people than not who are still under the impression that God can’t or won’t do what God has already done in Jesus. I mean there are still too many people who are afraid they haven’t worshiped enough, or learned enough, or served, enough, or repented or been faithful or forgiven enough. There are still too many people who are afraid that they – or we – or someone they care about – hasn’t checked all the boxes of righteousness and faithfulness and discipleship to have secured their place in God’s heaven.

And when we think that way – when we live that way – we forget about the kind of king we’re dealing with in Jesus.

Jesus is not the kind of king who lays down the law so that we will obey and be saved. Jesus is not the kind of king who demands fealty from his subjects in return for good fortune. Jesus is not the kind of king who exacts our allegiance for the assurance of our salvation.

Jesus is the kind of king who lays down his life… who suffers and dies… not just so that we can rest in peace when the time comes. Jesus does all of this so that we will live differently – here and now – because of that hope.

That’s why this good news isn’t just for crosses and Calvary or for nursing homes and death beds. The Good News of God we’re called to TELL is for the living – on this side of the grave, too – because it can change everything. Because in light of God’s good news, we can give ourselves and each other permission to die, not just to life as we know it when the time comes.

But we can give ourselves and each other permission to die – every day – to the things that keep us from experiencing the fullness of life in Christ, which God intends. We can give ourselves and each other permission to die to our greed so that we can be more generous. We can give ourselves and each other permission to die to our grudges so that we can offer – and receive – forgiveness, instead. We can give ourselves and each other permission to die to our pride so that we can live with humility, and trust in God’s power more than our own.

Now, we don’t know what the Centurion from this morning’s Gospel did next. But I can’t imagine his life was the same after he looked into the crucified, lifeless face of Jesus and recognized him for who he was. I like to imagine that he dropped his sword or his shield or whatever he was carrying and that he went home broken by the weight of it all and transformed even more-so, on the third day, when he started to hear rumors of the resurrection.

And I imagine he told someone he loved about it all. He must have said something to someone about a God who would take such a beating, who would make such a sacrifice, who would give such a gift. And I hope he knew God did it, even for him. And I hope that his life – and his little part of the world – was better because he shared it.

And I hope each of us knows the same. And that we’ll tell someone about it, too. And that we’ll live differently because of it, in some way.

This good news is too good to keep to ourselves, because its promises for life on the other side of the grave can change lives and transform the world on this side of the grave, whenever we tell others and live differently because of what we know about God’s everlasting love in Jesus Christ, our king.

Amen

Marks of Discipleship: PRAY Daily

Marks of Discipleship: TELL Others