Don't Lose Heart

Texts: II Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18: 1-8 In these past weeks we've been reading great parables and stories from the Gospel of Luke that have a theme: Don't lose heart. The theme is present in our scriptures and in our focus on the national observation of Children's Sabbath. To find ourselves relating to children, their needs and thoughts, let's hear some children speak about their perspectives on faith, related to views on angels. My dear friend in Massachusetts, a person I met while a missionary in Thailand, sent me these quotes: "Angels explained by children" "I only know the names of two angels. Hark and Harold." Gregory, age 5. "Everybody's got it all wrong. Angels don't wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it." Olive, age 9. "My guardian angel helps me with math, but he's not much good for science." Henry, age 8. "Angels don't eat, but they drink milk from Holy Cows!!!" Jack, age 6. "All angels are girls because they gotta wear dresses and boys didn't go for it." Antonio, age 9 "My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got a big head start on helping me while she was still down here on earth." Katelynn, age 9 "Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal sick animals and pets. And if they don't make the animals get better, they help the child get over it." Vicki, age 8 This morning we participate with faith communities all over this nation remembering the precious lives of our children and youth by observing Children's Sabbath. Don't we treasure their honesty, sincerity, and literal way of seeing the world. How can we let them suffer and become the victims of our greed? Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund says: "If every one of us looked at each child as a child of God, we wouldn't stand for the injustice that kids suffer." The facts tell us that every 10 seconds a high school student drops out. Every 35 seconds a child is abused or neglected. Every 40 seconds a baby is born into poverty. Every 51 seconds a baby is born without health insurance. We need the persistence of the widow in the parable to make sure that we are not lax in seeking the highest quality of care for our children in their early stages of development toward adulthood. What can we learn from scripture? The parable of widow is about persistence in prayer and relationship to God. It is about persistence with our human ways of dealing with layer upon layer of social problems that affect every level of family life. We are guided to be like the widow who badgers and persists an uncaring and corrupt judge to give her justice. She gets justice, because she just will not stop until she has the answer she's looking for. We are asked as followers of Christ to value this approach of the needy woman without power, position or money. Jesus used this parable to teach us about the great need of ongoing conversation with God and conversation with those who can help us "with the cup of cold water for the least of these my children." The tiny mustard seed of faith can move mountains. Every congregation's prayers, words, actions, matter. We are encouraged to be like the widow, persistent and determined in our prayer life and in our seeking of justice for those who are needy among us. A powerful book written by Marian Wright Edelman in the early 90s is about what her family gave her to take with her through life. She remembered at the funeral of her mother some of the wisdom she lived by and the wisdom she wants to pass on to her children. (Edelman, The Measure of our Success, c. 1992) Edelman writes, "The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-it-ness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity." "Give up and burn-out were not part of the language of my elders-you got up every morning and you did what you had to do and you got up every time you fell down and tried as many times as you had to to get it done right." She says about her family... "They had grit. They valued family life, family rituals, and tried to be and to expose us to good role models.....I have always believed that I could help change the world because I have been lucky to have adults around me who were good role models-in small and large ways." (pp 6, 7, 8 The Measure of Our Success) Who were your role models growing up as a child? What did they teach you that have helped you to be persistent and faithful as a Christian? Marian tells us in the 25th lesson of her 25 lessons for life, her roadmap for her children: "always remember that you are never alone." She tells her children that there is nothing they can ever say or do that can take away her love or God's love for them. She recalls a sermon her father gave in the 1950s' regarding home life and devotion to children "Parents for today's children must at all costs maintain a home, a center of love for their nurture and security. The pressure of our high-powered civilization is too much for a homeless and loveless child....nothing must separate parents from their duty to their children." (p 75 Ibid.) The emphasis in the parable is on God's love for us, God's children. God is reliable and cares for us. We are to never give up and always hold on to our prayers, not matter fragile they seem. This poem made me aware of how fragile our prayers are but how needed the urge to persist is in our prayer life. Let me share a poem with you that has helped me to be aware of the meaning of these persistent prayers... Wild Horses Prayers are not predictions. They are hardly contracts Binding gods and events To the tether of our will. They are wild horses. The cures to our pains and soothing our losses graze with unconcern on slopes in the distance. Some are spotted, others solid bright or dark- all free as ragged wind on an upland range. As we near them they raise their head, catching scent of our desire, deciding whether to run, whether to await us. (William M. Ramsey, Christian Century, 9-26-10-3-01, p 6) Our Gospel lesson guides us toward prayer and an attitude to "not lose heart." Who would have predicted that story of a widow's persistence for justice when confronted with a corrupt and uncaring judge would direct us to our knees. But, that is exactly what God wants of us. Prayer, conversation, action, commitment....the combination will keep us hopeful. We close with a prayer and a pledge on this Children's Sabbath that we take responsibility for all God's children. We will try not to lose heart! "We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, for those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance. For those we smother....and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it." (p 97 The Measure of Our Success)

Prayerful Disciples

July 29, 2007 Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Sermon: Prayerful Disciples Text: Luke 11: 1-13 Our lesson today is a teaching about prayer and our need to be persistent with our prayer requests. There is encouragement to always ask, seek, and knock. The promise is that God will answer if we are listening. The story is told of a four year old who was spending a night away from home. At bedtime, expecting the usual prompting, she knelt at her hostess' knee to say her prayers. Finding the woman caring for her unable to help her and being somewhat unhappy staying with this person, the little girl prayed, "God, please excuse me. I can't remember my prayers and I'm staying with a lady who doesn't know any." There are times when we feel exactly like this four year old, we can't remember our prayers and there is no one around to help us to remember. Or, we may be like the author who wrote a poem he titled, "I'm Not Sure How to Pray." (Kenneth Phifer, A Book of Uncommon Prayer) How should I pray, O Lord? Should I wait until my life is cleansed and my spirit is hot? Or, should I come just as I am with my half-hearted commitment and my on-again, off-again faith? How should I pray? Should I choose my words carefully and phrase my petitions with discrimination? Should I sit very straight and very still? Or should I let my needs roll out and my doubts and difficulties show? How should I pray, God of morning sun and evening shadow? How should I pray in the high, hot noon of life? I really do not know. (poem goes on but I'll stop there for now) Can you relate? We all can relate, so we, like Jesus' disciples of long ago, come asking "teach us to pray, Lord." In this passage from Luke (as well as in Matthew 6:9-13), Jesus disciples are asking him to teach them to pray. This was a regular custom of a Rabbi, to teach a simple prayer which might be habitually used when bowing to speak to God. The "model prayer" or "the Lord's Prayer" is the prayer Jesus taught them. Since I have been your pastor, I have learned that for you this is a very important prayer, a prayer you pray a meetings or other gatherings often. At the Volleyball game last Sunday evening, it was prayed before the match. So, have we stopped to asked about what this prayer means to us? A few years ago, I met Rev. John Bodycomb, a campus minister from the Uniting Church in Australia, who wrote a little book he titled The Prayer That Could Change the World. He visited Bentley College, where I served as Protestant Chaplain, in Waltham, Massachusetts. The little book is a commentary on this prayer we call "The Lord's Prayer." He believed this prayer that Jesus taught, one that we know by heart, changed his disciples and can change us. The change was about articulating what we believe, how to apply the beliefs to our actions and how to listen and talk with God. Let's break it down the way he does in studying the Prayer more closely. He suggests that the prayer is for us: a model of conviction, a model of conduct, and a model of conversation. How is it a model of conviction? It is about naming God and acknowledging God's presence. When we stop, at a meeting, a volleyball game, or a church service, to say "Father, hallowed be your name, Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done" we are affirming God's real presence. God is good and personal, like a loving parent. God is mystery yet God understands and cares for our deepest need. With our opening words to this prayer, we are saying, "may all that is done in my life today bring honor and not dishonor to God's good name." How is it a model of conduct? The prayer addresses our need to demonstrate behavior that is mature and responsible. We do this on a daily basis. We are to pray "Give us each day our daily bread" in a way that is mindful that we need to be thankful for our daily blessings. Sometimes we take our daily blessings for granted. Often, we must learn to live with our past. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." There is the need to live with the past losses, wrongs we have done, the sorrow we wake up to and regrets that linger. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." We must be aware that we are creating our future. To do this, we must ask ,"what are my temptations?, what are my tests in life? or what choices do I have? How is the prayer a model of conversation? We pray, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The prayer is not addressed to ourselves, but to God. It is a two-way conversation, the most satisfying of all relationships. What is our will, what is God's will? Are they the same? Rev. Bodycomb points out in his teaching that prayers sometimes have a danger of being addressed to ourselves rather than God. Our prayer becomes thinly disguised preaching, practical atheism in which God doesn't really matter because we are talking to ourselves. In asking God, "Your Kingdom come, your will be done," prayer is conversation with God, not magic and merely prattling on to ourselves. Our prayer is worshipful recognition that God is continually acting in the world and inviting us to be a part of God's divine activity. God is working for the good of the world, bringing order out of chaos, inviting us to be makers of peace. Prayer as conversation means that we are listening for God to remind us that our doubts, disbelief and anguish do matter. When we do not have answers to our prayers, sometimes we feel our prayers do not matter. We may not understand why we pray for badly needed rain and get none, or ask for a tumor to be healed and it becomes worst. Prayer does not answer the "why." Prayer can give us the faith to live in spite of the lack of answers. We may be like the man who said, "I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered." Jesus taught us to be persistent in our prayers because the promise that God is always there for us: "Be not afraid, for lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." God is listening! We leave today grateful for this prayer Jesus taught us so we may be prayerful disciples. We continue to ask as we pray it, again and again, how is the prayer a model of conviction, a model of conduct, a model of conversation, so we can be drawn closer to the presence of our loving God. I share with you now in closing, the last portion of the poem "I'm Not Sure How To Pray": How should I pray, O God? I do not really know how I should, But I have prayed as best I can. And where I have left unsaid What should have been said, O Lord of the heart, Take the intention for the deed. Amen.