Praying Well, Loving Much – Br. James Koester

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12, Year C)
Genesis 18: 20 – 32
Psalm 138
Colossians 2: 6 – 15
Luke 11: 1 – 13

One of the most amazing places in the world, at least as far as I am concerned, is the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. I know that I have preached about it before, and I am sure that I will do so again, and again, and again.

On one of my visits to Jerusalem, I was there with a small group of people who were participating in a course at St. George’s College. We got into a conversation with one of the Armenian seminarians who was staffing the Armenian gift shop. Our friend Charlene, who claims that she doesn’t speak Armenian very well, got into a conversation, in Armenian, with the young man. The next thing we knew we were taken down, down, down into the depths of the rock quarry that the Church of the Resurrection is built on. As we descended from street level, we passed any number of pilgrims and tourists. We passed two Armenian chapels in the lower level of the Church. At the side of one chapel, near the altar was an iron grille. Having been ushered through the altar rail, our host pulled out a large key and unlocked the grille. We went through the grille single file, and he pulled it shut, locking it behind him. We followed him along a long, narrow wooden walkway and down, down, down more stairs. We finally arrived at the bottom and saw what we were looking for: a bit of graffiti dating from sometime in the very early part of the fourth century, before the church above us had been built. Long before the Church of the Resurrection had been built in the years after AD 335, when it was still illegal to be Christian, pilgrims had been making their way to the place associated with the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord. One of them had drawn on the rock face a small sailing boat and below it had written the words Lord, we have come. It was stunning to be in a place of prayer and pilgrimage that predated the building of the great church. But what took my breath away was what we were shown next. As we made our way out, we stopped at another flight of stairs and headed down, down, down. We were in a great crevice in the rock. When we reached the bottom our guide announced that this was the place where Jesus and his disciples had come and prayed after the Last Supper and before they went to the Garden of Gethsemane. I asked our guide if we too could pray and so the four of us said the Lord’s Prayer together. It was a spine tingling moment that I will never forget.Now I have no idea if what our guide said is true. It would be impossible to say with any degree of certainty whether or not Jesus had been there on that night, or indeed ever. There is certainly no record of this happening in the gospels. What I do know was that while we prayed, the sense of God’s presence was palpable. I knew that God was listening to our prayer.

For many, prayer is one of the great puzzles of life. It is thought by some to be largely hocus pocus and because nothing happens, or at least nothing magically happens, it is deemed useless and quickly abandoned. And because nothing happens, it is clear that there is no one ‘there’, and any previous understanding or experience of God on their part is quickly abandoned. Because prayer doesn’t ‘work’ and because there is no one ‘there’, the great enterprise of faith is rejected.

But for us as Christians, prayer is not about the magic of saying certain words so that some desired outcome happens. Rather prayer is about mystery. It is about the mystery of love. We prayer, not because we want something, but because we love someone. It is, as Father Benson reminds us, the occasion when the soul really enters into union with God.[1] Thus we ought, then, to approach with a real hope that God will reveal Himself to us; not merely that He will enable us to acquire some view of this or that truth that we have prepared, but that He will reveal himself to us.[2] In that moment, deep under the Church of the Resurrection, in the heart of the earth, God mysteriously revealed himself to me. I spoke, as did Moses with God in the Tent of Meeting, face to face, as one speaks to a friend.[3]

When this speaking with God face to face as one would speak with a friend becomes true for us, prayer ceases to be magic and the conception of prayer as homage paid to a distant God falls away. We shall find ourselves full of awe and gratitude that the life of divine love is open and accessible to us, for God dwells in us. ”Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them, and make our home in them.”[4]

It is this that we witness today in both Luke and Genesis. We are witnesses of love. Where there is no love, prayer is empty magic. As Paul reminds us in the First Letter to the Corinthians: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.[5]

What is clear throughout the gospels, and what is clear in the story of Abraham, is that both Jesus and Abraham were great lovers of God. Both put their whole trust and confidence in God. Both had come to know God as a friend and as a son. And so both dared to speak to God face to face, as one speaks to a friend.

Jesus calls God ‘father’, ‘abba’, ‘dad’. Abraham argues with God: suppose, suppose, suppose. This is not the language of strangers but of those who know and have come to love, one another. And because they know and love the One to whom they speak they are filled with boldness.

Both Jesus and Abraham are incredibly bold in their prayers. Jesus asks God to give, forgive, save, and deliver. Abraham has the audacity to bargain with God: suppose 50, suppose 45, suppose 40, suppose 30, suppose 20, suppose 10. One biblical scholar describes them both as shameless.[6] They are shameless not just in their requests, but their demands. They shamelessly and boldly demand: give, forgive, save, deliver, suppose, suppose, suppose, suppose.

I sometimes wonder if our prayers are too timid, too polite? Are we still too afraid of God? Is God still a threatening force to hide from and not embrace? There is no fear of God in either Jesus or Abraham. Instead, they are shameless in what they ask, and confident that their requests will be heard, not by some distant deity in the sky, but by a loving father and a compassionate friend.

We gather here today, as we do every Sunday, and indeed as we gather every day, not to speak some mumbo jumbo or hocus pocus, expecting some magical response to our mumbled incantations, but to hear a loving answer to our shameless requests: give, forgive, save, deliver, suppose, suppose, suppose, suppose.

At the heart of real prayer, whether it be uttered by Jesus, or Abraham or you or me, whether it be uttered deep in a crevice under the Church of the Resurrection, or in the privacy of your room, or publically here in this chapel, prayer is a relationship of love: our love for God and God’s love for us. It is love which makes prayer real and not magic. It is love which makes prayer effective and not empty. It is love which make it possible for prayer to move mountains. To paraphrase Father Benson, we have prayed well, if in our prayer we have loved much.[7]

In a few moments we will gather up all of our prayers in the Prayers of the People. Make them today a real offering of love. Pour out your love to the Father, in the name of Jesus the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Pour out your love of God to God. Pour out your love for the world and its people, which God made and also loves. Pour out your love for those whom you love, to the One who is Love, for God is love[8] and surely God loves those whom you love so dearly. Pour out your love and know God’s love in return.

Jesus and Abraham were great lovers of God and their love of God gave them the boldness to pray shamelessly: give, forgive, save, deliver, suppose, suppose, suppose, suppose. May we too be granted such love for the Father that our prayers may be shameless and bold signs that we too have prayed well because we have loved much.

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[1] Benson, Richard Meux, The Religious Vocation, Of Mental Prayer, page 190

[2] Ibid, page 191

[3] Exodus 33:11

[4] SSJE, Rule of Life, The Mystery of Prayer, chapter 21, page 42

[5] 1 Corinthians 13:1

[6]Pilch, John J., The Cultural World of Jesus, Collegeville MN, The Liturgical Press, page 116-17

[7] Benson, Richard Meux, Instructions on the Religious Life, Second Series, 1935, page 3

[8] 1 John 4: 16