Today is the National Day of Prayer.
All around the country, people of
faith are gathering to pray together.
That’s a pretty amazing thing.
People of various traditions, various
creeds, backgrounds, and languages
gather
together to pray this day.
Together we are called to pray-- for
our nation, for leaders, for our cities, towns, communities.
In Buda, we gather for breakfast to
honor and pray for our city employees.
Generally speaking, praying doesn’t
seem that hard.
I know many people who pray without
having to think much about it.
On the other hand, some people don’t
pray because they’re not sure how to do it, what to say.
When I was a child, my brother often
asked me to pray on his behalf,
because
he was sure that God would listen to me better than God would listen to him.
I don’t know why he thought that, but
I am happy to report he says his own prayers now!
So the idea of praying isn’t that
hard, but HOW are we to pray?
What are we to say when we come into
the presence of an awesome God,
who
longs to hear from us?
And how are we to pray for something
as diverse and ambiguous as a whole nation?
In a time of discontent, in a time of
election, in a time of violence,
in
a time of mistrust of people and of institutions—how are we to pray?
Sometimes we know what to say.
We know what we want, and we ask for
it, or maybe even demand it from God.
Sometimes we don’t know what we do
want, but we do know what we don’t want.
Sometimes we don’t have any words for
our prayers,
and
sometimes our prayers are set to music.
We don’t all pray the same, and we
don’t all pray for the same things.
Yet we are urged by our forebears,
whose stories we know from scripture, to pray.
Pray in silence, pray aloud, pray
alone, pray with others, pray without ceasing.
Tell God some things, ask God some
things.
Abram, Rebekah, Moses, Elijah, Jesus,
Peter, and other biblical ancestors prayed to God—
it
seems to be a good thing to do!
And so, we pray.
We tell God what’s wrong.
We ask God to bless, to heal, to give
wisdom and guidance.
We ask for protection, for trust, for
respect across differences.
Sometimes we tell God exactly what we
want and how we think God should do it,
and
sometimes, perhaps in our better moments,
we
let ourselves melt away and entrust it to God, however God will handle it.
But prayer is more than talking at
God.
It’s even more than listening to God,
which for me is the harder part of prayer.
Real prayer is becoming so
intertwined with the Divine that we start to resemble God.
We are made in the image of God, and
when we pray, we are empowered to live a godly life.
The theme verse for today from Isaiah
58 commands us to “shout out, do not hold back!”
Pray, yes, and fervently, without
ceasing.
But the rest of this chapter puts
legs on our praying, shows us what prayer looks like in action:
Isaiah 58 Shout out, do not
hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their
rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2Yet day after
day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that
practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they
ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
3“Why do we fast, but you do not
see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own
interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. 4Look,
you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such
fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5Is
such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the
head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a
fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? 6Is
not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the
thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7Is
it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into
your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself
from your own kin?
8Then your light shall break
forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator
shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall
be your rear guard. 9Then you shall call, and the Lord will
answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the
yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,10if you offer your food to the
hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in
the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 11The Lord will
guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your
bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail. 12Your ancient ruins shall be
rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be
called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
13If you refrain from trampling
the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the
sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your
own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; 14then
you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will
make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage
of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
And so on this National Day of
Prayer, we are gathered to pray.
We will spend an hour here, eating, praying,
knowing we are friends.
But then what? What will these
prayers mean this afternoon, or next week?
Isaiah sends us out not to pray, but
to BE THE PRAYER—
the
grace, the peace, the justice, the food, the liberation, the hope, the healing
of God.
Yes, God hears and answers prayer,
and often it is through us, the beloved children of God.
We are reminded that we do God’s work
in this time and place by these beautiful words
based
on ancient Jewish teachings:
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's
grief.
Do justly, now. Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly now.
You are not obligated to complete
the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
Indeed, we are a
world in need of prayer.
Thank you for the
prayers you offer, and the prayers you are. Amen.
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