Proper 24C

"My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

This is one of Thomas Merton's famous prayers,

and an extremely useful one for daily life. 

Though my favorite Thomas Merton prayer 

is one about tulips. 

One of the lines says, "Up with the revolution of tulips!"

We live in a world full of wonder and amazing gifts from God

such as bounteous beauty.

We should pray for the roses and the tulips and the pigeons.

I counted this week and I have more than a dozen prayer books.

Not counting books about prayer, just books of prayers.

People have written prayer books for everything,

because we are to pray in everything, for everything,

in all our life situations.

Jesus told his disciples to pray without ceasing

and it can be hard to think up words in all situations,

so people write their words down and share them with others,

so that others can pray for that situation as well. 

I have a prayer book in the Celtic tradition, 

it has prayers for many daily tasks. 

A prayer for slicing bread in the morning. 

A prayer for pouring tea.

As a teenager, I was given a prayer book with prayers specifically for teens,

prayers for good... and bad... grades at school. 

A prayer for getting your driver's license.

A prayer when your parents are getting divorced 

and one for moving, one for graduating, and another for standing up to a friend.

All situations where the words can be hard to find, 

but having something written down is helpful in starting to pray about it.

As a teen, I was also given a prayer book, one of my favorite of all time,

written by this interesting Catholic priest, Edward Hays, 

called Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim.

In this book, there are prayers for 

cleaning the house, writing letters, making phone calls, before and after working,

even using the bathroom, 

or for when recognizing signs of aging.

I also have one for little children

which includes a prayer for potty training. 

It is a big deal for a little child.

For some of you, it may seem a little silly to start praying 

for your morning cup of tea or coffee,

though with all the pressure to help us out in our lives, 

I think maybe we should be praying for our coffee,

or to pray when you use the restroom,

but learning how to pray for our daily activities

teaches us to pray throughout our lives

and builds up our faith in a God who hears us and responds.

The Gospel passage from Luke this morning 

starts with the context in which we are supposed to hear the parable.

"Jesus told the disciples a parable about their need to pray always 

and not to lose heart."

Do you ever stop praying?

Do you ever lose heart?

Yes, yes.

Check, the parable is for me too. 

In the parable there is an unjust judge, who knows it,

and a widow in some kind of trouble situation. 

We don't know what the situation is, but we know that it hasn't been solved.

The widow keeps going to the unjust judge to advocate for herself.

For a while the judge does nothing,

But after her persistence,

He decides to grant the widow justice.

This parable is not a metaphor or allegory 

for our relationship with God.

God isn't the unjust judge

and we are not the widow being persistent in our prayers.

Sometimes indeed, I tend to think it might be the other way around.

We are the unjust judges and God is the one being persistent in our lives

getting us to do the right thing, 

and we give in because of the constant annoyance. 

However, God is so much better than the unjust judge. 

This real understanding of the story comes 

with the questions Jesus asks the disciples after the story

"And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?

Will he delay long in helping them? 

I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.

And yet,

when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

There is no question that when people are persistent in their prayers

when people cry out to God, pray to God regularly,

God will indeed grant them justice.

Of course, God's justice and our ideas about justice are not always the same.

The real question is the last one,

"when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Hold up,

we said at the beginning of the sermon

that the context and set up of this parable was

the need to pray always

and not lose heart.

What does that have to do with faith?

Faith and prayer go together so strongly it is hard to talk about one without the other.

We need to have faith in order to make our prayers.

But then, prayer is the active basis of our relationship with God.

Relationships require interaction and our interaction with God is through prayer.

We have to have faith in order to start praying, but prayer can also grow our faith.

Praying more can strengthen our faith and help us trust in God deeper.

The walk of faith is a marathon, not a sprint. 

We are talking about a cross country road trip here, not a drive to Cranberry.

And prayer is what keeps us moving on the journey.

Throughout the gospel stories, 

we are always seeing Jesus wandering off by himself to pray, 

to take time in relationship with God. 

He needed that and so do we.

This is why the Celtic tradition teaches prayers for slicing bread,

if you can remember to pray while slicing bread,

you'll remember to pray during the situations in life 

which are much harder. 

Both as a community and as individuals, 

learning to trust our prayers and to continually say them, 

knowing that God hears them and is working in our lives

can be hard,

but is one of the most important steps of our faith journey.

As a community, the most powerful thing we can do is pray together.

This is part of the reason Paul admonishes his churches 

not to fail to meet together.

As a community, our prayers and our faith

are the glue which holds us together.

Our prayer together changes our lives in ways we cannot even imagine.

Together, we can pray about the hard situations in our lives

where some of us do not have words,

but we can learn together how to pray for those parts of our lives. 

You may have noticed the new addition of the Stewardship prayer 

at the beginning of the service.

We are putting our faith in action as prayer,

focusing on what God is calling us to do as Stewardship,

not just what we want ourselves.

When our Stewardship Campaign is over we are going to change that prayer

so that we will be praying 

for new growth in our community. 

We are going to be starting with praying about inviting people to come to St. John's. Because we need the help with that, 

and if we pray, God will help us learn and do so.

We are called as the people of God,

the followers of Jesus

to make a difference in this world.

We cannot do so without faith and prayer.

Jesus teaches us to pray always,

to be persistent in our prayers

and to trust that God will hear our prayers.

Let us pray,

Eternal God, you know what is in our hearts before we ask,

help us to learn to ask and to listen for your answers.

Help us to pray to you always,

knowing our relationship as an intimate one,

so that we may know your heart and will,

through your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.