June 28th 2009Readings:
Psalm 130
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5: 21-43
Sermon:
What do YOU pray or?
Today, in this place, as part of this service, what have you called to mind as we’ve gathered before God and prayed?
Honestly – what do YOU pray for when you engage in prayer?
Do you pray for your family and friends? Do you pray for healing for someone close to you who is sick? Do you pray for recovery for someone in the hospital? Do you pray for what others would call a miracle?
Do you pray at all?
As I read today’s Old Testament reading I was mindful of a time in my ministry when the community where I lived prayed for the health of a young boy who was in hospital … we prayed for his recovery and healing … we prayed for his family and care givers … we prayed that God’s spirit would rest with him and grant him peace.
Then one day word came that to recover this young boy would need a heart transplant. We were ready to pray that a heart could be found for the surgery, but then even before the words escaped our lips the implication of that prayer hit …
To pray for this young boy’s recovery, was to actively pray for the death of another young person … With trembling lips and a heavy heart we prayed carefully and mindfully …
Not for the recovery of our young boy at the expense of another family, but rather we prayed that in the event of a tragic accident some good could come of it by perhaps extending life, in the face of death …
It would have been easy and callous to pray for the health of the young child needing the transplant, but the full implication of that prayer was not lost on our faith community, nor on the family … it was a moment of brutal honesty, and gut-wrenching agony … it was a lament in the fullest sense … naming the pain and the feelings of alone-ness that enveloped the family and their faith community, while also acknowledging the pain and alone-ness that came with any outcome … but then, in the midst of our tears, we also proclaimed our trust in God …
A Lament is form of prayer that names the reality of the moment, rages at God for the injustice and the hurt of this moment, and then in the midst of the anger, disappointment, sorrow and hurt, pauses to proclaim our certainty that even NOW – in this moment when we might feel completely and utterly alone – God is with us …
One of the best descriptions of a Lament I’ve eve encountered comes from Jewish writer and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who describes a court case held in one of the darkest hours in a Nazi Death Camp.
Taking in to consideration all the suffering and death around them, a group of prisoners put God on trial. They call witnesses, they review evidence, and they argue whether God has abandoned his people or not, and ultimately if God exists at all.
At the end of the trial, having listened to the arguments, and having heard the testimony of the witnesses, the judge solemnly pronounces his sentence. With a soft voice he proclaims that God has indeed abandoned the people and that the evidence all around them compels him to pronounce God dead.
As the judge bashes his gavel on the table before him pronouncing his sentence and his words – “God is dead, there is no God” settle across the erstwhile Court room a door to the barracks opens and a young boy bursts in proclaiming – “It is Shabbot – Sabbath, it is time to pray …”
The judge then proclaims the court closed, and orders everyone outside to observe the Shabbot … he orders them to pray.
(pause)
The judge declares there to be no God, then in his very next breath demands that everyone observe the Shabbot to honour that absent, non-existent God.
Such is the power of the Lament … you can inventory all the terrible things that are happening around you, you can name the feelings of abandonment, you can weep and rage at God and declare God dead … then in the next breath fall to your knees and TRUST in God’s presence to hold and sustain you …
The Lament is an ancient prayer that is offered in times of distress and trouble … in those moments when you feel MOST alone, you can and should rage at God … and then as you fall to the ground exhausted and depleted you crumple into the presence of that God – OUR God.
Our Gospel readings echo this … the young girl’s family are exhausted … they search out Jesus … they are at their wits end … they need – they want – they yearn for healing … so they ask Jesus …
Along the way, a second healing happens. This one is of the woman who for twelve years has been hemorrhaging. She is the ultimate outcast – there is no way for her to be ritualistically clean. Her ailment renders her and outsider to her family, her friends, and her community … she is alone … utterly and totally alone …
And so, in desperation she reaches out and touches the hem … the hem of Jesus’ cloak searching for healing …
Both the family of the little girl and the woman who for twelve years has suffered from a hemorrhage receive their healing … They have each in their own way lamented to God, and in that moment when they fall to the floor exhausted and spent, they find God’s holy presence there to hold them …
So, we pray for healing … we pray for the miracle … we pray for restoration … but does it mean that if the outcome we yearn for doesn’t happen, that God hasn’t heard our prayer? Or that God has denied our prayer? Or that we haven’t prayed hard enough?
Several years ago I met a woman who was dying of terminal cancer. To look at her you would never know. She looked hale and healthy. She was active in many activities, and rode her bike and jogged. She was in better shape, than many supposedly healthy people.
But her acceptance of her diagnosis had not come easily, nor had it come without a great deal of soul searching and emotional angst. She had many long dark nights of raging at God about the unfairness of it all … then one day she encountered a book on prayer and medicine, and she came to realize that sometimes the answer to our prayer is not the miracle healing, but the gift of
wholeness …
Not the gift that flippantly says – “it’s God’s will” but rather a wholeness that proclaims life to be a gift, and every moment to be precious, and that allows us live life fully …
This is not an idealistic, pie in the sky polly-anna-ish outlook that pretends life is wonderful ALL the time, and we never experience suffering and the alone-ness that comes when the bottom seems to fall out of our world … this is the foundation of our faith – us and God … and in our weakness, we find God’s wholeness and strength and courage.
The Lament – lived and spoken – is one of the most powerful expressions available to us.
In the Lament we name the harshness of life, we rage at God, we may even doubt God’s existence at all … then when we are utterly spent … we fall into the certainty that no matter what God is with us …
It is a deeper understanding and experience of the poem Footprints that says – “during those times, I carried you …”
The Lament begins and ends before God … we can thunder at God from the deepest anguished depths of our soul and God will listen and God’s response will be to hold us even in the darkness …
… and in that moment comes the whisper from the lips of Jesus himself, who says – “do not fear, only believe …”
We may not get exactly what we want when we cry out to God, but we WILL receive the gift of life, strength, grace and most of ALL love …
We need only ask …and it will be there… "Do not fear, only believe ..."
May it be so – thanks be to God – let us pray …
