Preached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, November 19, 2006, at the 8:40 am service.
The Phoenix Affirmations: # 12
The Path of Jesus is found where all of Christ’s followers are understood to be called into ministry. God’s intention for us can be found and followed, however haltingly and imperfectly, in obedience to the guidance and insights, which come in prayer. We hold this conviction to be true of the church as well as of each of its members.
Ernest Holmes
When prayer removes distrust and doubt and enters the field of mental certainty, it becomes faith; and the universe is built on faith.
Luke 5:15-16 (CEV)
15News about Jesus kept spreading. Large crowds came to listen to him teach and to be healed of their diseases. 16But Jesus would often go to some place where he could be alone and pray.
I may have mentioned once or twice that I had a rural upbringing. Dirt roads, leech infested creeks, stray dogs, railroad tracks.
Well, one day when I was just a boy, just for fun or out of boredom, I was walking along the railroad tracks out in the back of nowhere, when suddenly I got my foot caught under one of the railroad ties. And, of course, just then I heard a train whistle in the not too distant background.
{Good Lord, it sounds like the beginning of a Country & Western song!}
Scared, I started to pray, “God, if you get my foot out of these tracks, I’ll stop being bad!”
My foot remained stuck and the train came closer. I prayed again, “God, if you will please get my foot out, I’ll stop being bad AND I’ll even stop swearing.” Still, nothing.
Desperate, I prayed again, “God, please, if you get my foot out of the tracks, I’ll quit being bad, I’ll stop swearing, AND I’ll stop having naughty thoughts about Robin the Boy Wonder in his tights on the Batman television series.” I looked up, and honest to Pete the train couldn’t have been 10 feet away and showing no signs of slowing down, when suddenly my foot broke free and I fell backwards, the train narrowly missing me as it whizzed by.
I got up, panting, sweating, maybe even crying a little, dusted myself off and bowed my head reverently to say, “Thanks anyway, God; I managed to get my foot out myself.”
A little story about prayer there. We’re funny about prayer. In the book of Judges in our bible, there is a story about a man named Jephthah. Jephthah is a warrior who is about to go to battle with the Ammonites in the 11th chapter of Judges. So, Jephthah prays to win his battle. Now, what he didn’t realize is that probably somebody in the Ammonite army was praying for victory too. “God, please let my enemy be your enemy and help me annihilate ‘our’ enemy” is a strange prayer, but one that politicians and preachers alike seem willing to pray from time to time.
Anyway, Jephthah prays for victory and doesn’t just say, “God help me win.” Jephthah actually strikes a bargain with God. Jephthah says, “God, if you’ll help me kill the people I don’t like, when I get home whatever comes out of my house first I’ll sacrifice to you.” He probably thought that a chicken or something might come bouncing out and he would slaughter it for God. Odd that we ever thought slaughtering things impressed God, but apparently that was the way some people thought once upon a time.
Well, Jephthah wins his battle! He goes home, mindful of his promise to God that he’ll whack whatever rolls out the front the door. Unfortunately, what came out the door when he got home wasn’t a what but a who — his only child, his daughter.
Really, any sane person upon seeing their daughter come running out to greet them would have said instantly, “Uh, you know God, I didn’t mean a HUMAN sacrifice, right? Let me make our deal a little clearer…the next goat that comes running out I’ll give the axe, but obviously NOT my daughter.” Sadly, the story of Jephthah is not the story of a sane person, but of a zealot who valued his needless vow to God more than he valued the life of his own daughter. And verse 39 of Judges chapter 11 says that Jephthah did as he had vowed; he sacrificed his only child.
Do you know the tragedy of the story? The story actually begins with this phrase, “the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah.” And a verse later, Jephthah promises God a sacrifice if God will help him. But that vow was never necessary. Before Jephthah made any foolish promise, the spirit of God had already come to him. The spirit of the Lord came upon him. God was present to him. In this adversity, God was with him. He didn’t need to bribe God, and he didn’t need to sacrifice anyone to get God’s favor. The spirit of the Lord was already with him. If only he had known or remembered that, his family could have been spared needless suffering.
How do we pray? Are we so busy telling God what to do, how to do it, and what we’ll do to seal the bargain that we fail to notice that right where we are, as we are, the spirit of God is with us, in us, around us, over us, loving us, ready to strengthen and comfort us no matter what we face?
How many people have turned their backs on their children or their friends because they married someone of another faith or because they loved someone of the same gender? They sacrificed their loved ones to please God, and yet God never required such a sacrifice. God was already with them, never asking them to hurt anyone, never requiring sacrifice but instead just offering unconditional love and hope and healing.
We all want God’s favor. We want to live in ways that will bless God and that will bring joy and purpose to our own lives. But we get in the way of our own miracles. We are so bound up with fear or condemnation or preconceived assumptions or pain from the past that we just can’t let go, that we fail to notice that God is with us, affirming us right where we are, as we are.
God in us, as us, has never rejected us. And yet, by not pausing to sense the divine healing presence, we have rejected ourselves or others, hoping that will somehow move God to like us more. But the spirit of the Lord has already come upon us. God is with us, in us, loving us, affirming us, delighting in us, and in our so-called enemy as well. There is no one to sacrifice. There’s just the truth to be recognized, the truth of God’s all inclusive and unconditional love.
If God wants anything from us, it is to live the abundant life God has offered us from the beginning. And how do we do that? We pause in prayer to experience God’s presence, and in that presence we are nourished and nurtured and called to be more than we have been. And as we become more of what we were designed to be, we share more. We give more time to worthwhile endeavors, more hope to those who need it so much, more resources to good causes that make a difference in people’s lives.
And then, the more we give, the more we receive. In that exchange of energy, in that mutual relationship with life, in that ceaseless flow of giving and receiving, we find that we are all ministers and we each are part of God’s plan to bring hope and healing and peace and abundance to our world.
Jesus, we are told, would spend some quiet time just to pray, that is, just to be in the presence of God and become aware of that presence. Not to beg God, not to bribe God, not to tell God how things must turn out, but just to be empowered by being in the presence of God. And emerging from those powerful moments of sacred Silence, Jesus would heal and bless and inspire…he would minister.
We, the followers of Jesus, are also ministers — healers, peacemakers, helpers, teachers. We are equipped to perform our ministry as we spend time in prayer — not the kind that Jephthah practiced that can actually hurt people, but the kind that Jesus practiced. The kind of prayer that reminds us that God is with us, and through us can bless the entire world. This IS the Good News. Amen.
God is with me.
God is near me.
God is within me.
God is all around me.
God never leaves me.
God is blessing me now.
Through me, God blesses others.
And so it is! Amen.
