Matthew 26:6-13
The Anointing at Bethany
6 Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 7a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. 8But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? 9For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ 10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. 11For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. 12By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. 13Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’
Several years ago, Dave and I participated in a live recreation of the city of Bethlehem. Our post was at the manger where Jesus was born on the outside of the city. We played the rolls of Mary and Joseph for a night. There was a musical score at the scene, so we didn’t have any lines. We were just there: sitting in the places we all imagine the parents of Jesus to occupy moments after his birth—adoring the new baby and meeting the visitors who came to see him. After the music finished, we would pick up the baby doll swaddled in a blanket and carry him along the line of people lined up at the stable to see. It seemed silly to me the first time the director described the act of walking a doll around like a real baby. Won’t the people realize that this is not real? What kind of significance could this really have?
On one of the last rounds of the little drama we were portraying that night, there was a little girl standing in the line at the stable with her mom. As we passed by with the baby doll in our arms, trying not to let the children recognize that it was just a doll, this little girl dropped her mommy’s hand and reached in her pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic doll and tried to place it in the folds of the blanket wrapped tightly around the baby Jesus. Not wanting her to discover out secret, that it wasn’t really him, I reached my hand out in an attempt to help her find a place for the doll. She quickly pulled her hand back and the doll and looked at me and said—with some contempt, to be honest—“It’s not for you! It’s for Baby Jesus.”
What that girl had came to her as a gift, and just as freely as she received it, she gave it. As she was trying desperately to shove this tiny plastic doll into Baby Jesus’ blanket, her mother noticed what she was doing and gently tugged at her arm and asked if she was sure she wanted to give away the doll. “Mommy,” she said, “it’s for Baby Jesus!” You may not be close enough to see this little doll, but it looks to be part of something bigger than himself. I suspect that there is still a plastic family out there missing their baby son. It’s been obviously well-loved; and that all took place before he came to live in our house because ever since that night I’ve had this little guy in safe keeping for Baby Jesus. He came to her as a gift, to me as a gift, and is meant ultimately for Christ as a gift—a sacrificial gift that was likely missed in that little girl’s household.
Friends, for me there is not better telling of the Christmas story than that. And there is no better way to think about what it means to give in the United Methodist tradition. John Wesley’s sermon on giving titled “Serving God with Mammon” says it this way:
"I entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, act up to the dignity of your calling! No more sloth! Whatsoever your hand find[s] to do, do it with your might! No more waste! Cut off every expense which fashion, caprice, or flesh and blood demand! No more covetousness! But employ whatever God has entrusted y[ou] with, in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree to the household of faith, to all [people]! This is no small part of 'the wisdom of the just.' Give all y[ou] have, as well as all y[ou] are, a spiritual sacrifice to God who withheld not from you [God’]s Son, [God’]s only Son.”
It is our calling, brothers and sisters, to give—not just what we have to spare but what is also a sacrifice for us. How can we begin to understand what that might be for each of us individually?
The obvious first answer is that we can give more money to the church, and I’m not going to lie to you: I like that answer. Not for my sake but for the sake of the people who need for us to give. If you think about what the world needs that we can provide, so much of that is dollars and cents. Churches, service organizations, non-profits all need us and our wallets right now. Did you know that United Methodists lead the way most of the time in financial response to disasters around the world? Giving through the United Methodist Committee on Relief to help the victims of the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in the gulf coast of the United States in 2005 broke records in giving to these 2 relief funds, and those funds continue to be used today. On a more local level, your giving here makes us able to have diapers and toys for the children who spend time in our nursery on any given Sunday or to provide a place for senior citizens to gather during the week that is safe, cool and warm in hot and cold climates, and where there is the guarantee of a meal at least 2 days per week. But it’s not just even about the money.
Your gifts are shared and needed in so many ways. There are so many opportunities for you to give. It may even seem overwhelming sometimes. And there may even be more you could give if only you had the courage, or maybe even just the time. You may have gifts to share—voice, instrument, teaching, dance, caring for others—and you may be holding them back because you are honestly not sure that what you have to give can truly be useful to someone else. Or, you may simply be afraid that its just not good enough.
That night in recreated Bethlehem, when I dared to put on the costume of the mother of Jesus, I was converted again by the generosity and sacrificial giving of the little girl who wanted Baby Jesus to have her tiny plastic baby. That gift came to her out of generosity and love. And it was passed on to Jesus the same way. And it probably didn’t cost much money or even take very long to produce; how much more can our gifts be pleasing to God and nurturing to the world around us—those gifts which are hard to give or hard to give up?
You may know that the Methodist movement both in England and in America grew so quickly among the members of society who had the least. Wesley himself commented once on how he preferred the soft, velvet cushion of the pulpits throughout the beautiful church buildings across the English country but how God had called him to go into the fields to share the news of God’s love and mercy with those who had never heard. He gave it all, everything he had, even what had been given to him as a gift, and gave it to the people of God who needed him. And we continue to follow in his tradition today. We are United Methodists because we give. We can do more. When we give money or time that we miss, then we know we are on the right track.
So I encourage you, friends, to follow the example of our sister in today’s gospel lesson who gave what she had to the dying body of Christ so that the Body of Christ would continue to live. We can only assume she was saving the ointment for her own burial or that of someone she loved. But she gave it to Jesus because she recognized in some way that he needed it now. She saved it until just the right moment, and then she gave it, and we continue to tell her story every time we give something that we might need later, give until it hurts, give something that is very precious to us so that the Body of Christ can continue to live, grow, and thrive.
The little girl in Bethlehem with us that night saved her gift until just the right moment, and I continue to receive grace and blessing from that gift even today. May we never forget that as United Methodists we are not in this for what we can get out of it. We are in it for what we can give to it, and the grace and blessing we receive anyway—well, that is just a gift.
Amen.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
You Had to Be There...
Luke 10:38-42 (New International Version)
At the Home of Martha and Mary
38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
When I was in about the seventh grade, I attended the First United Methodist Church of Commerce, Georgia. It was a beautiful sanctuary, not totally unlike the one we are gathered in today. Great big stained glass windows lined the side walls, long curved pews lined the floor, and a balcony loomed over the main floor. It was there that I sat with my other friends in the youth group every Sunday on the back row. Just as we do here, we received holy communion on the first Sunday of every month in that church, and the dutiful ushers led us row by row to the front where the curved kneeling rail surrounded the altar. The back row of the balcony was usually the last group to gather around the altar together. One first Sunday, there was an elementary-age kid invading our space on the back row, and when it was our turn to go to the front and receive the bread and cup, we lined up neatly around the rail which, because it was curved, made it possible for us to see each other while we were kneeling. As my dad and the other communion server made their way around the rail offering us a small wafer and a tiny cup of grape juice, everyone’s eyes were drawn to the child among us who ended up kneeling at the point in the curved rail where the rest of us had a good view of him. As the wafer and cups made their way to him, he took the wafer just as he should and ate it quietly without much disturbance or mess. The excitement came when he received the cup of juice. He set it down on the rail for just a moment while he reached inside his jacket to the inside pocket where a straw had been carefully placed at home that morning in preparation for church. In what seemed like 2 seconds he pulled the straw out, stuck it in the cup, slurped every drop but one of the little glass, set it back in the tray that came behind to collect all the little cups, shook the straw out to dry, and placed it back in his pocket. And we all saw it. We were stunned; we were shocked; we could not stop the laughter that welled up inside so we just stayed there a few moments shaking in uncontrollable but silent laughter. Then we were led dutifully back to our seats, and it was over. But I’ll never forget it.
And then there was another time that I gathered with the community of faith at the Lord’s Table. I was in seminary; it was my second year. It was my 6th year of worshiping in Cannon Chapel on Emory’s campus, a place where I would later be married and where we would take our daughter Joy to be baptized. We basically consider it to be our family chapel. In fact, when I first arrived there, I didn’t care much for the space. If you’ve ever seen it, you might have a clue as to why. Having come from spending most of my years growing up in historic sanctuaries and small town churches, when I discovered that Cannon Chapel was “modern” and mostly decorated with copper, wood, and concrete, I was underwhelmed. Those first few Sundays that I attended worship there were wonderful in spite of the space. I just hoped I’d get used to it after a few months of Sundays came to pass. Six years later, it had become a sacred place to me: wood, concrete, copper, and all.
And so there I was on a Friday for the weekly Eucharist in the midst of a difficult semester, a season of questioning about what was next in ministry for me, and some personal challenges, sometimes wondering why on earth I was there and what in heaven’s name God could possibly want with me in a pulpit or the office of an elder in the United Methodist Church. I came to the eucharist that day thinking that I really didn’t have time to be there, that I needed to be several other places, that I had class assignments that were due, that I needed to planning for youth I was working with while in school, maybe just getting some rest, doing anything but being there for a mere 45 minutes—long enough to hear the readings for the day, sing the Psalm, pray for the community and the world, and receive the bread and the cup. I was distracted during the service, not by the concrete and copper but by the questions and queasiness I was wrestling while trying to figure out ministry and life all at the ripe age of 24. And then the celebrant began with the words, “The Lord be with you,” and I started to cry.
In the midst of the chaos, the busy-ness, the uncertainty, I was brought to my knees by the words of the prayer that followers of Christ have been praying for generations: “Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. Make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at the heavenly banquet…” It was a moment of palpable grace for me. In the breath I breathed were the words, voices, and presence of people praying with me as far back as the apostles themselves and so were the words, voices, and presence of people who will come long after me to be joined into the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. The practice of communal prayer, the practice of coming together to the table, the practice of hearing scripture read and interpreted to the gathered body, the life lived in the community of the faithful—it is a gift, a means of grace, the way that God communicates with us, sometimes when we least expect it.
Our brother John Wesley and his brother Charles were Anglican priests. The Methodist societies they started were groups of Anglicans who gathered together for prayer and bible study but who also continued to attend the weekly service where Eucharist was offered so that they could be sure to receive the grace of God available to them in every opportunity of the gathered body. The ideal of the gathered Body of Christ has always been an important part of the identity and legacy of the people called Methodists. Even our ancestors, the Evangelical United Bretheren with whom the Methodist Church merged in 1968 to become the United Methodist Church held it in high regard to gather together for worship and for study and prayer, understanding the need to attend to the rituals of religious life and to do so with others so that one’s knowledge and love of God would increase as life came and went. The ways that the Wesleys and their class societies understood to be the most common ways we receive God’s grace were prayer, study of scripture, and participation in holy communion—all things that were encouraged to be done with others when at all possible. We know that prayer and study of scripture can be done individually and that John Wesley himself would often receive holy communion when he was alone on the road traveling from one field preaching post to the next, but ultimately the celebration of holy communion is meant to be done with others, in community, with all of our voices raised together in praise and thanksgiving—a holy and living sacrifice in union with Christ’s offering for us.
When Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part by removing herself from the preparation of the meal and devoting herself to Jesus and to listening to his word and teaching, we who overhear this exchange learn something about the importance of taking time away from the regular busy-ness of life to be in the presence of Christ. It’s not that Martha was not in his presence doing her preparation routine; but she was not of a mind to pay attention to what he was saying to her as she rushed from one end of the house to the other performing her tasks. When we gather for worship and study, we take the time to pay attention to the voice of God who speaks to us in music, in the spoken word, in the children, in dance and movement, in the words we share together before and after the service, in just being here together to set our busy lives aside for a while and be in the presence of God.
Presence is about being there, being with and for each other, and being with Christ, just as Mary is in our story today: where he meets us—in God’s house, paying attention, listening, doing God’s work, living into God’s grace.
My life of faith would not be what it is today without you, without that kid in Commerce, Georgia, who prepared for communion in his own way that day because he knew what Sunday it was and what was waiting on us at Church, and especially without that moment in Cannon Chapel when I simply sat at the feet of Jesus and listened.
You just have to be there, my friends. You have to be there.
Amen.
At the Home of Martha and Mary
38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
When I was in about the seventh grade, I attended the First United Methodist Church of Commerce, Georgia. It was a beautiful sanctuary, not totally unlike the one we are gathered in today. Great big stained glass windows lined the side walls, long curved pews lined the floor, and a balcony loomed over the main floor. It was there that I sat with my other friends in the youth group every Sunday on the back row. Just as we do here, we received holy communion on the first Sunday of every month in that church, and the dutiful ushers led us row by row to the front where the curved kneeling rail surrounded the altar. The back row of the balcony was usually the last group to gather around the altar together. One first Sunday, there was an elementary-age kid invading our space on the back row, and when it was our turn to go to the front and receive the bread and cup, we lined up neatly around the rail which, because it was curved, made it possible for us to see each other while we were kneeling. As my dad and the other communion server made their way around the rail offering us a small wafer and a tiny cup of grape juice, everyone’s eyes were drawn to the child among us who ended up kneeling at the point in the curved rail where the rest of us had a good view of him. As the wafer and cups made their way to him, he took the wafer just as he should and ate it quietly without much disturbance or mess. The excitement came when he received the cup of juice. He set it down on the rail for just a moment while he reached inside his jacket to the inside pocket where a straw had been carefully placed at home that morning in preparation for church. In what seemed like 2 seconds he pulled the straw out, stuck it in the cup, slurped every drop but one of the little glass, set it back in the tray that came behind to collect all the little cups, shook the straw out to dry, and placed it back in his pocket. And we all saw it. We were stunned; we were shocked; we could not stop the laughter that welled up inside so we just stayed there a few moments shaking in uncontrollable but silent laughter. Then we were led dutifully back to our seats, and it was over. But I’ll never forget it.
And then there was another time that I gathered with the community of faith at the Lord’s Table. I was in seminary; it was my second year. It was my 6th year of worshiping in Cannon Chapel on Emory’s campus, a place where I would later be married and where we would take our daughter Joy to be baptized. We basically consider it to be our family chapel. In fact, when I first arrived there, I didn’t care much for the space. If you’ve ever seen it, you might have a clue as to why. Having come from spending most of my years growing up in historic sanctuaries and small town churches, when I discovered that Cannon Chapel was “modern” and mostly decorated with copper, wood, and concrete, I was underwhelmed. Those first few Sundays that I attended worship there were wonderful in spite of the space. I just hoped I’d get used to it after a few months of Sundays came to pass. Six years later, it had become a sacred place to me: wood, concrete, copper, and all.
And so there I was on a Friday for the weekly Eucharist in the midst of a difficult semester, a season of questioning about what was next in ministry for me, and some personal challenges, sometimes wondering why on earth I was there and what in heaven’s name God could possibly want with me in a pulpit or the office of an elder in the United Methodist Church. I came to the eucharist that day thinking that I really didn’t have time to be there, that I needed to be several other places, that I had class assignments that were due, that I needed to planning for youth I was working with while in school, maybe just getting some rest, doing anything but being there for a mere 45 minutes—long enough to hear the readings for the day, sing the Psalm, pray for the community and the world, and receive the bread and the cup. I was distracted during the service, not by the concrete and copper but by the questions and queasiness I was wrestling while trying to figure out ministry and life all at the ripe age of 24. And then the celebrant began with the words, “The Lord be with you,” and I started to cry.
In the midst of the chaos, the busy-ness, the uncertainty, I was brought to my knees by the words of the prayer that followers of Christ have been praying for generations: “Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. Make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at the heavenly banquet…” It was a moment of palpable grace for me. In the breath I breathed were the words, voices, and presence of people praying with me as far back as the apostles themselves and so were the words, voices, and presence of people who will come long after me to be joined into the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. The practice of communal prayer, the practice of coming together to the table, the practice of hearing scripture read and interpreted to the gathered body, the life lived in the community of the faithful—it is a gift, a means of grace, the way that God communicates with us, sometimes when we least expect it.
Our brother John Wesley and his brother Charles were Anglican priests. The Methodist societies they started were groups of Anglicans who gathered together for prayer and bible study but who also continued to attend the weekly service where Eucharist was offered so that they could be sure to receive the grace of God available to them in every opportunity of the gathered body. The ideal of the gathered Body of Christ has always been an important part of the identity and legacy of the people called Methodists. Even our ancestors, the Evangelical United Bretheren with whom the Methodist Church merged in 1968 to become the United Methodist Church held it in high regard to gather together for worship and for study and prayer, understanding the need to attend to the rituals of religious life and to do so with others so that one’s knowledge and love of God would increase as life came and went. The ways that the Wesleys and their class societies understood to be the most common ways we receive God’s grace were prayer, study of scripture, and participation in holy communion—all things that were encouraged to be done with others when at all possible. We know that prayer and study of scripture can be done individually and that John Wesley himself would often receive holy communion when he was alone on the road traveling from one field preaching post to the next, but ultimately the celebration of holy communion is meant to be done with others, in community, with all of our voices raised together in praise and thanksgiving—a holy and living sacrifice in union with Christ’s offering for us.
When Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part by removing herself from the preparation of the meal and devoting herself to Jesus and to listening to his word and teaching, we who overhear this exchange learn something about the importance of taking time away from the regular busy-ness of life to be in the presence of Christ. It’s not that Martha was not in his presence doing her preparation routine; but she was not of a mind to pay attention to what he was saying to her as she rushed from one end of the house to the other performing her tasks. When we gather for worship and study, we take the time to pay attention to the voice of God who speaks to us in music, in the spoken word, in the children, in dance and movement, in the words we share together before and after the service, in just being here together to set our busy lives aside for a while and be in the presence of God.
Presence is about being there, being with and for each other, and being with Christ, just as Mary is in our story today: where he meets us—in God’s house, paying attention, listening, doing God’s work, living into God’s grace.
My life of faith would not be what it is today without you, without that kid in Commerce, Georgia, who prepared for communion in his own way that day because he knew what Sunday it was and what was waiting on us at Church, and especially without that moment in Cannon Chapel when I simply sat at the feet of Jesus and listened.
You just have to be there, my friends. You have to be there.
Amen.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Why United Methodist Prayers Seem to Work So Well
Luke 11: 1-13
The Lord’s Prayer
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’
Perseverance in Prayer
And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
In my last appointment, the prayer group that met weekly at church had quite a reputation. It wasn’t the negative kind that congregations sometimes have; it was a positive one. That group of 5 or 6 people were known for their praying. We met every Monday at 1 pm; we went over the prayer list from the Sunday before as well as the monthly list. They kept me updated on the pastoral care needs of the congregation, and I asked them to pray for situations that needed an extra special showering of prayers. It was holy time we spent together, lifting up one another in love and prayer, and asking God to come near to serve the needs of the church and the community.
One week a member of the prayer group came with a request from a friend of hers who attended a local Roman Catholic church. Her friend had sent her with a request for our group and our church to pray for her and said, “Methodist prayers just seem to work better than any others!” What is it that is special about prayer in the Wesleyan tradition?
I have a friend whose mother is an alcoholic. Many Christmases ago, when we were young adults, my friend and I had a long conversation about how the things that we wanted in life, our wish lists, were changing as we matured. She felt a tremendous amount of guilt about that fact that one of the things she often found herself wishing was that her family would stop having to live with the problem that was her mother. “How could I wish my mother to be dead and gone,” she wondered? But what else was she supposed to wish for? She didn’t even know how to live with her mother’s disease anymore. She had been cooking meals and keeping house for herself, her brother, and her father since she was about 11. There just weren’t any words anymore, hardly much feeling left in her. It broke my heart. So I began to pray for my friend and her mother. I didn’t know what I was praying for. I wasn’t praying for a cure to her mother’s alcoholism. Those prayers hadn’t worked before; why would they work now? So I started praying for my friend and her mother every night by name. I simply said their names in prayer, not knowing what to say or how to pray for them, but simply calling God’s attention to their family and the pain they were all living with and how much I hoped God would attend to them. Today, my friend and her mother have found ways to be in each other’s lives, although it is still difficult and always will be. But since then, my friend has found greater and greater peace in her life and with her mother, who still lives with the disease. But I think that I may have been more affected by the prayers for them than either of them was.
What I realized was that I began to feel a very strong connection to both my friend and her mother, a woman I had only met a few times at that point in our lives. I began to care deeply for them and to truly ask God to act in their lives in some way, whether I knew what it would be or not. I didn’t need to control the outcome; I needed to connect to the problem and the hope for its resolution. And connect I did. Not only did I feel a deeper connection with my friend, but I felt a deeper connection with God. Through prayer, I was connecting to the action of God in our lives, to the love and compassion that God shows us through each other, to the feeling of being loved by God beginning to know the heart of God through a very personal relationship that I had with a close friend. I knew that God loved her and her mother, and I knew that it pleased God for me to love them and pray for them. And I know that I was deepening my relationship with God by asking for God to help them in their time of need. Does that make sense?
It takes work to know the heart of God. It takes the work of living through the struggles that our lives present to us and entangle us in every single day. It takes the work of coming to the realization that we need God’s help to get through those struggles and to help each other through. It takes work to build a relationship of any kind, and the relationship we each have with God is the most important we’ll ever have; how much more do we need to work at making sure that connection is strong and alive and growing?
As much as I may like to imagine it so from time to time, Jesus Christ was not a United Methodist. Actually, our dear brother John Wesley was not a United Methodist. But we are, and one of the things that makes us so is our understanding of prayer as a means by which we receive God’s grace. When we pray, we not only speak, but we also listen. We not only ask but we also receive. We don’t control God or time or circumstances or life in anyway. We open ourselves up to the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the lives of others. And we open ourselves to one another in deep and abiding ways so that over time we realize that we are at work in the lives of others, too. By receiving God’s grace in prayer, we also give it to others for whom we pray regularly.
I loved my friend before I ever began to pray for her and her mother; but since that time, I have felt connected to her in a way that I have not felt with many others, and it continues even now, and that first Christmas conversation was more than 10 years ago. It is the grace of God that keeps them both in my heart now, and it is the grace I received by praying for them that helps to deepen my faith and calls me into prayer for others.
Prayer is not passive; it is active. It takes work to listen, to ask, and to receive. We pray when it is easy to give God thanks, and we pray when it is hard to understand what is happening in the world or in our own lives. We pray to bring order into our lives. We pray so that we can do anything else. Brother John said “I have so much to do that I spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.” He saw life as lived in constant prayer and so taught the people of the Methodist movement to live their lives. In his sermon A Plain Account of Christian Perfection he says that “whether we speak of, or speak to, God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer.” This is our heritage: life lived seeking the presence, grace, and connection with God.
Right after the attack on the World Trade Centers in New York, CNN ran one of the brand new United Methodist Church television commercials at no cost to the church because we were the only ones putting a hopeful, compassionate message out to the nation at time of deep pain and distress. The ad showed a diverse group of people praying in a variety of ways, and the tag line at the end was, “No matter how you pray, the people of the United Methodist Church are praying with you.”
That is why we are United Methodist.
The Lord’s Prayer
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’
Perseverance in Prayer
And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
In my last appointment, the prayer group that met weekly at church had quite a reputation. It wasn’t the negative kind that congregations sometimes have; it was a positive one. That group of 5 or 6 people were known for their praying. We met every Monday at 1 pm; we went over the prayer list from the Sunday before as well as the monthly list. They kept me updated on the pastoral care needs of the congregation, and I asked them to pray for situations that needed an extra special showering of prayers. It was holy time we spent together, lifting up one another in love and prayer, and asking God to come near to serve the needs of the church and the community.
One week a member of the prayer group came with a request from a friend of hers who attended a local Roman Catholic church. Her friend had sent her with a request for our group and our church to pray for her and said, “Methodist prayers just seem to work better than any others!” What is it that is special about prayer in the Wesleyan tradition?
I have a friend whose mother is an alcoholic. Many Christmases ago, when we were young adults, my friend and I had a long conversation about how the things that we wanted in life, our wish lists, were changing as we matured. She felt a tremendous amount of guilt about that fact that one of the things she often found herself wishing was that her family would stop having to live with the problem that was her mother. “How could I wish my mother to be dead and gone,” she wondered? But what else was she supposed to wish for? She didn’t even know how to live with her mother’s disease anymore. She had been cooking meals and keeping house for herself, her brother, and her father since she was about 11. There just weren’t any words anymore, hardly much feeling left in her. It broke my heart. So I began to pray for my friend and her mother. I didn’t know what I was praying for. I wasn’t praying for a cure to her mother’s alcoholism. Those prayers hadn’t worked before; why would they work now? So I started praying for my friend and her mother every night by name. I simply said their names in prayer, not knowing what to say or how to pray for them, but simply calling God’s attention to their family and the pain they were all living with and how much I hoped God would attend to them. Today, my friend and her mother have found ways to be in each other’s lives, although it is still difficult and always will be. But since then, my friend has found greater and greater peace in her life and with her mother, who still lives with the disease. But I think that I may have been more affected by the prayers for them than either of them was.
What I realized was that I began to feel a very strong connection to both my friend and her mother, a woman I had only met a few times at that point in our lives. I began to care deeply for them and to truly ask God to act in their lives in some way, whether I knew what it would be or not. I didn’t need to control the outcome; I needed to connect to the problem and the hope for its resolution. And connect I did. Not only did I feel a deeper connection with my friend, but I felt a deeper connection with God. Through prayer, I was connecting to the action of God in our lives, to the love and compassion that God shows us through each other, to the feeling of being loved by God beginning to know the heart of God through a very personal relationship that I had with a close friend. I knew that God loved her and her mother, and I knew that it pleased God for me to love them and pray for them. And I know that I was deepening my relationship with God by asking for God to help them in their time of need. Does that make sense?
It takes work to know the heart of God. It takes the work of living through the struggles that our lives present to us and entangle us in every single day. It takes the work of coming to the realization that we need God’s help to get through those struggles and to help each other through. It takes work to build a relationship of any kind, and the relationship we each have with God is the most important we’ll ever have; how much more do we need to work at making sure that connection is strong and alive and growing?
As much as I may like to imagine it so from time to time, Jesus Christ was not a United Methodist. Actually, our dear brother John Wesley was not a United Methodist. But we are, and one of the things that makes us so is our understanding of prayer as a means by which we receive God’s grace. When we pray, we not only speak, but we also listen. We not only ask but we also receive. We don’t control God or time or circumstances or life in anyway. We open ourselves up to the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the lives of others. And we open ourselves to one another in deep and abiding ways so that over time we realize that we are at work in the lives of others, too. By receiving God’s grace in prayer, we also give it to others for whom we pray regularly.
I loved my friend before I ever began to pray for her and her mother; but since that time, I have felt connected to her in a way that I have not felt with many others, and it continues even now, and that first Christmas conversation was more than 10 years ago. It is the grace of God that keeps them both in my heart now, and it is the grace I received by praying for them that helps to deepen my faith and calls me into prayer for others.
Prayer is not passive; it is active. It takes work to listen, to ask, and to receive. We pray when it is easy to give God thanks, and we pray when it is hard to understand what is happening in the world or in our own lives. We pray to bring order into our lives. We pray so that we can do anything else. Brother John said “I have so much to do that I spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.” He saw life as lived in constant prayer and so taught the people of the Methodist movement to live their lives. In his sermon A Plain Account of Christian Perfection he says that “whether we speak of, or speak to, God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer.” This is our heritage: life lived seeking the presence, grace, and connection with God.
Right after the attack on the World Trade Centers in New York, CNN ran one of the brand new United Methodist Church television commercials at no cost to the church because we were the only ones putting a hopeful, compassionate message out to the nation at time of deep pain and distress. The ad showed a diverse group of people praying in a variety of ways, and the tag line at the end was, “No matter how you pray, the people of the United Methodist Church are praying with you.”
That is why we are United Methodist.
Women in the Bible: Sam, the Evangelist
John 4: 1-30, 39
Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
4Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’
This text is normally heard during the season of Lent. About halfway through his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus finds himself with the opportunity to travel through Samaria on his way. He probably didn’t have to take the road he took; isn’t that just like Jesus?
On this un-needed sojourn, Jesus meets an un-necessary woman, or at least, she seems this way at first. Coming to the well in the middle of the day is code language for the fact that she was shunned by her community. But Jesus turned that on its ear: this is the longest recorded conversation we know of between Jesus and anyone else. And its kind of a one-sided conversation—it’s all about her: her past, her men, her choices, her consequences, like having to come out in the hottest hours of the day to get the water to sustain your life.
And speaking of her life, Jesus sure does know a lot about it. And isn’t that an interesting testimony that she is left with; “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” Fred Craddock comments that this is not exactly a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. Barbara Brown Taylor says that when Jesus tells her who she is, he is also telling her who he is. She’s a woman, not allowed to have much choice in how her life is lived out, not even allowed to pray with the men in the synagogue, born a Samaritan and, therefore, a half-breed child of God. The morning devotions of men included a prayer that actually said, basically, “Thank God I am not a woman.” She was all the things that one was not supposed to be—at least one who spent time with the Son of God. But then again, so was he.
I think that sometimes Jesus surprises us with who he is. He know us; he get us; he loves us; he shares God with us. Sam wasn’t really known by anyone anymore, and I am certain that no one “got” her. I wonder if she had ever received much real love in her life, and she was excluded from everything—God included. By knowing and spending time with her, Jesus opened the relationship back up between God and her, and that was something so wonderful in her life, something she needed so much, that she just couldn’t keep quiet about it. I imagine it might have been something like that feeling you have when something unbelievable happens to you and you tell others whom you don’t expect to believe you with a sense of unbelief yourself. Her message is simple: he knew me. My God, he knew me.
And her audience: the people who have no interest in anything she has to say. They already know her. Who cares who else knows her? And her declaration is actually a question: could he be the one? She’s not really even sure of anything except that something unbelievable has happened, something that could change her life forever. And it changed all of our lives. The ones who heard her, not Jews, born enemies of Jesus and his people, call him by name: the Messiah. She is among the first to preach the Word.
Once again, Jesus surprises us with his embrace of this woman. He reminds us that we are all loved beyond expectation by God, no matter who we are or what is in our past. I think that sometimes we hide behind the belief that we are not good enough for God’s love. It is easy to stand outside the love and expectation of God if we can prove that we are undeserving. And to be able to stand outside the love of God is to not live with an expectation on our lives, the expectation of living that love out in our own lives. Once we are brought inside the circle of God’s love and expectation, we now live in the knowledge that something is expected of us. We are expected to live in and contribute to the community. Up until this point, Sam was not allowed to do that. But now she brings them the word, and she suddenly has new expectations around which to orient her life. Now she matters to someone; now she has a story to share. Now she understands that there is love available to her that is positive and supportive, and she’ll have to pay that forward at some point. There is a lot of responsibility tied up in accepting God’s love and grace.
Sam does her part by having the courage to tell an unbelievable story to folks who probably tend not to believe anything that comes out of her mouth. The Greek text tells us that what came out of her mouth was “the Word.” The gospel; the story of Jesus. And it came from her own life.
Maybe you have a story to tell. Maybe you have no cause to make anyone listen to you. Maybe you believe based on experience or your own ideas that no one wants to hear anything you have to say. But you have encountered the graceful love of God, and you need to talk that out, to tell someone.
What are you going to say?
Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
4Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’
This text is normally heard during the season of Lent. About halfway through his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus finds himself with the opportunity to travel through Samaria on his way. He probably didn’t have to take the road he took; isn’t that just like Jesus?
On this un-needed sojourn, Jesus meets an un-necessary woman, or at least, she seems this way at first. Coming to the well in the middle of the day is code language for the fact that she was shunned by her community. But Jesus turned that on its ear: this is the longest recorded conversation we know of between Jesus and anyone else. And its kind of a one-sided conversation—it’s all about her: her past, her men, her choices, her consequences, like having to come out in the hottest hours of the day to get the water to sustain your life.
And speaking of her life, Jesus sure does know a lot about it. And isn’t that an interesting testimony that she is left with; “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” Fred Craddock comments that this is not exactly a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. Barbara Brown Taylor says that when Jesus tells her who she is, he is also telling her who he is. She’s a woman, not allowed to have much choice in how her life is lived out, not even allowed to pray with the men in the synagogue, born a Samaritan and, therefore, a half-breed child of God. The morning devotions of men included a prayer that actually said, basically, “Thank God I am not a woman.” She was all the things that one was not supposed to be—at least one who spent time with the Son of God. But then again, so was he.
I think that sometimes Jesus surprises us with who he is. He know us; he get us; he loves us; he shares God with us. Sam wasn’t really known by anyone anymore, and I am certain that no one “got” her. I wonder if she had ever received much real love in her life, and she was excluded from everything—God included. By knowing and spending time with her, Jesus opened the relationship back up between God and her, and that was something so wonderful in her life, something she needed so much, that she just couldn’t keep quiet about it. I imagine it might have been something like that feeling you have when something unbelievable happens to you and you tell others whom you don’t expect to believe you with a sense of unbelief yourself. Her message is simple: he knew me. My God, he knew me.
And her audience: the people who have no interest in anything she has to say. They already know her. Who cares who else knows her? And her declaration is actually a question: could he be the one? She’s not really even sure of anything except that something unbelievable has happened, something that could change her life forever. And it changed all of our lives. The ones who heard her, not Jews, born enemies of Jesus and his people, call him by name: the Messiah. She is among the first to preach the Word.
Once again, Jesus surprises us with his embrace of this woman. He reminds us that we are all loved beyond expectation by God, no matter who we are or what is in our past. I think that sometimes we hide behind the belief that we are not good enough for God’s love. It is easy to stand outside the love and expectation of God if we can prove that we are undeserving. And to be able to stand outside the love of God is to not live with an expectation on our lives, the expectation of living that love out in our own lives. Once we are brought inside the circle of God’s love and expectation, we now live in the knowledge that something is expected of us. We are expected to live in and contribute to the community. Up until this point, Sam was not allowed to do that. But now she brings them the word, and she suddenly has new expectations around which to orient her life. Now she matters to someone; now she has a story to share. Now she understands that there is love available to her that is positive and supportive, and she’ll have to pay that forward at some point. There is a lot of responsibility tied up in accepting God’s love and grace.
Sam does her part by having the courage to tell an unbelievable story to folks who probably tend not to believe anything that comes out of her mouth. The Greek text tells us that what came out of her mouth was “the Word.” The gospel; the story of Jesus. And it came from her own life.
Maybe you have a story to tell. Maybe you have no cause to make anyone listen to you. Maybe you believe based on experience or your own ideas that no one wants to hear anything you have to say. But you have encountered the graceful love of God, and you need to talk that out, to tell someone.
What are you going to say?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
