Category Archives: Prayer

God is like…

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I received this prompt for prayer writing in my email today from Rachel Hackenberg at faithandwater.com: 

A frequent scriptural image used to identify God’s faithfulness is rock. “For who is God except the LORD? And who is a rock besides our God?” (Psalm 18:31) I thought that I might write a prayer today using new images for God’s faithfulness . . . but to my surprise, I’m stumped! What is more constant than a rock?! My cell phone, which is constantly by my side? It will glitch and die just before its two-year contract expires. The sun, rising every morning? Its lifespan is only as long as the day. The river, with its endless run toward the ocean? Its paths are ever-shifting and eroding, and its ecosystem varies depending upon pollution, salinity, droughts & floods.
So I pose the challenge to you for your creativity in prayer: what image of faithfulness might you use to describe God?

 I wrote this prayer, which doesn’t exactly capture the idea of faithfulness, but does consider some different similes for God (cross-posted at revgalblogpals.org).

“For who is God except the LORD? And who is a rock besides our God?” (Psalm 18:31)
God, you are like water- present in all living things, surrounding us at birth, above us, below us, besides, within.
Holy Parent, you are like the scent of cinnamon and vanilla- comforting, pervasive, overwhelming, mouth-watering, magnetic.
Spirit of Hope, you are like calculus- mysterious, enigmatic, amazing when understood, an explanation for how things work, essential, but just beyond my grasp.
Jesus, you are my brother- teaching, teasing, wrestling, hide-and-seek, companion of long nights, fellow traveler, of the same stuff as me and yet even more. Even when I don’t speak to you, I cannot undo that I am your family.
Amen.


What are your images for God and for God’s faithfulness? 

Lord’s Prayer: Second and Third Petitions

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Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
What is the Kingdom of God?
Jesus gives many descriptions of the kingdom, particularly through his parables. While some of his stories are metaphors beyond our understanding, some are very clear in their explanations. Whether or not we want to accept his message about the expansiveness of the kingdom or its openness is a different story.  In particular, the kingdom is a place of welcome, no tears, no dying, growth in mind and spirit, forgiveness, justice, and inclusion.
What is heaven like? Specifically, how is heaven different from earth?
In the most specific sense, given our knowns, unknowns, and unknown unknowns, heaven is the place [right now] where God’s kingdom, Christ’s reign, the Spirit’s effects, are all fully realized. It is the place of the healing of the nations, the river of life, where death and sin have no power.
However, since we are not yet there… more correctly, since we are here, we have purpose here. Jesus specifically says, according to Matthew, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And, according to Luke, the kingdom of heaven is within you. Thus, we are not talking about an abstract place, but a reality that is both here and now. A place apart from sin and death is at hand and within you… at this moment.
If the kingdom of heaven is among us… what would that look like?
I know a couple people who do not like the song we sang earlier and will finish after the homily. They don’t like the line, “I abandon my small boat” because they like their boats. They enjoy the experience of God they feel on their boats- in creation, in harvesting, in solitude, in family time. All of us have things like that… if not specifically a boat. No one wants to sing- I abandon my garden, my hiking boots, my dog’s leash…
The song isn’t about leaving behind pursuits that we love- per se. It’s about discipleship. It is about understanding that when Jesus spoke to the disciples, the fishing disciples, they left what they knew- essentially all that they knew- and followed him. We are called to the same kind of following. To let go of our insistence on perfect knowledge before action, on total agreement before prayer, on hours of study before acceptance… we are called into faithful living as a way of trusting that God’s kingdom is at hand and within us.
When we pray for God’s kingdom to come- what are we asking for? Are we prepared to have it come through us?
In the Large Catechism, Martin Luther writes about the second petition: But just as the name of God is in itself holy, and we pray nevertheless that it be holy among us, so also His kingdom comes of itself, without our prayer, yet we pray nevertheless that it may come to us, that is, prevail among us and with us, so that we may be a part of those among whom His name is hallowed and His kingdom prospers.
God’s kingdom will come, possibly despite our efforts and still- more possibly- through us. By trusting in God and the truth and power of the kingdom, we are more open, more ready for the Spirit to use us in the work of defeating death and sin here and now- being a part of the kingdom of heaven at hand. But there is no limit to whom God may use to bring about the kingdom.
In his 5/22/13 homily, Pope Francis said: “The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”… We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
Through Jesus, we trust that God is committed to creation and re-creation, to redemption and to perfecting, to wooing and to receiving, to welcoming and to reassuring. The Holy Spirit does all of that and more, through all kind of people. We who believe… we who are living through faithful action and trust… we are more ready to see how God is at work in all things (or we are supposed to be).
We are bold to pray…
This is why we say we are “bold to pray the way our Savior taught us”. When we say, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven”, we are asking to be part of the work that we trust God is doing in creation, in the world around us right now! It is not a pray that God do what God needs to do and we look forward to the results.
It is a prayer of power. A prayer that God’s will- to see an end to the destruction and separation of death and sin- would take effect in us and all around us and that we would be a part of how that happens. If we are not willing to be active participants in that work, if we do not believe it is possible, if we are not sure that God can do it… then we are not praying boldly. Our prayer is weak tea- at best.
Jesus is the pioneer of our faith (Hebrews). He teaches us to pray in this way because what we are asking for is not only possible, but is a reality within God and God’s work in the world.  The kingdom… a kingdom of life, light, and love… is at hand. It is a kingdom that welcomes all people, including us. And it is a kingdom within us, through Christ, and moving out of us by the Spirit.  Praying to be included in how heaven is experienced on earth is the privilege of our faith. Being included in God’s kingdom work is the freedom we have received through being saved by grace- God’s grace in Jesus the Christ.
Amen.

Lord’s Prayer: First Petition (+ Holy Trinity)

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I wrote this to be read by our congregational president when I was out sick on Holy Trinity Sunday, which also marked the start of our Lord’s Prayer sermon series. 
I am not with you because I am at home, sick. The illness is not a mystery. It is just something that I am waiting to finish. Being sick is a little like a puzzle. With enough information, we can solve the puzzle and, usually, things work out.
Of course, we know situations where people were sick and did not get well in the way we had hoped. Nevertheless, we almost always pursue the solution- the full solution, the answers to all our questions. No stones are left unturned. Questions are answered. Puzzles are solved.
We like solutions. There is hardly anything more aggravating than not being able to fix something or know an answer. In this room, right now, with the human knowledge plus the technological benefit of smart phones- there are many questions that could be answered, many problems that could be solved. Facts and figures and history and science- at our fingertips, in our minds, remembered and recorded.
Yet, there are two mysteries that remain here with us- two things we cannot solve, two puzzles that specifically do not have solutions. We cannot adequately explain the Trinity- the idea of one God with three expressions. And we cannot explain prayer.
Even if I were here in front of you, I could not solve these puzzles for you. And, frankly, Megan would probably rather be sick herself than to have to attempt it. The thing is… these are not problems. They do not need to be solved. The work of faith is learning to live both with God’s expansive nature and with the command to pray.
Oh, we do want to solve these mysteries. There are all kinds of object lessons about the Trinity- a three-note chord, an apple (skin, flesh, and seeds), water (ice, liquid, vapor). Ultimately, though, we cannot explain anything adequately. The faithful thing to do, then, is to stop trying. Stop trying to make sense of the Trinity. Stop trying to adhere to a specific kind of orthodoxy that will make it neat and clean.
Rest in the messiness of a God who is both Parent and Child, both enfleshed and ineffable, both eternal and resurrected, who knows all things and also experiences a thousand years like a day. God is bigger than we can imagine and yet we keep thinking we can solve God- like a Rubic’s cube. If we get all the colors lined up, then God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- will make sense, will be solved!
We do the same thing with prayer- except that we worry about getting it right. So much depends, we think, on being able to do it correctly, on solving the prayer problem, that we hardly notice when we’re praying all the time. We focus on the “how” and we forget the “who”.
            Jesus teaches disciples to pray, in Matthew’s gospel, by beginning, “Our Father in heaven, holy is your name.” God’s name is holy because it is the name upon which we can call for all things- for healing, in distress, in joy, for hope, for help. We begin by calling on the name of God because we can ask things of this name (and in this name) that cannot come from anyone or anything else.
            Yet, when people tell me they have a hard time praying, often they are concerned about “getting it wrong”. We want to have all our ducks in a row because, surely, if we pray in the right way, we will receive the thing for which we are asking. And that, right there, is the tough mystery of prayer. The part we want to solve. It is hard accept that a God who has made us, who has lived as one of us, and who sighs with us in prayer is present and at work in all things, even when our experience is bleak and dark.
            If things are not improving (in the way we expect), then God must not be listening (so we think) and if God is not listening (according to us), then we must be doing it wrong (it stands to reason). We are able to do so much, so quickly now and to know so many things… waiting with mystery is hard. What is hard is uncomfortable and what is uncomfortable is to be avoided. No one ever says, “Let’s go to the park with the hard benches! I love how uncomfortable we are there.”
            Part of living in faith, in trusting God, is learning to be consoled by the mystery of God’s relationship to God’s ownself (as Father, Son, and Spirit) and the mystery of God’s relationship to us- as we experience it through prayer- our prayers with words and our prayers with actions. God is bigger than our knowledge, than our imaginations, than our dreams. We cannot solve the mystery of God. That actually is good news. A puzzle has a solution. A riddle has an answer. But God, God is forever- and we live and rest, not through our own doing, in that eternity- even when we do not understand it.
Amen. 

Hope Looks like My Pruned Lilac Tree

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Job 14:7-9 (out of context) NRSV
For there is hope for a tree, 
Though its root grows old in the earth, 
If it is cut down- that it will sprout again, 
and that its shoots will not cease. 
and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth branches like a young plant. 
……………………………………


Interpretation:


The scent of hope is 
Water, wafts on the fragrant
Breath of the Spirit.



Monday Prayer: Hymn to Christ

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You who bridles untamed colts, 
Who gives flight to birds, 
Who steers ships along their course, 
Tame our wild hearts, 
Lift our souls to you, 
Steer us toward the safe harbor of your love. 
King of the saints, 
Invincible Lord of the Father, 
Prince of wisdom, 
Source of joy, 
Savior of our race, 
Cultivator of all life, 
Guardian of our desires, 
Whose sure hand guides us to heaven. 
Fisher of mean, 
You cast out the sweet bait of your gospel, 
You draw us out of the waters of sin, 
Shepherd of men, 
You call us with your sweet, gentle voice, 
You invite us into your eternal sheepfold. 
Fountain of mercy, 
Light of truth, 
Faith without limits, 
Love without end, 
Exemplar of virtue, 
Proclaimer of justice, 
Leader of men, 
Your footprints show the way to heaven. 
Mother of your people, 
Your celestial breasts give pure spiritual milk. 
You slake the thirst of all who have faith. 
Bridegroom of your people, 
Your celestial beauty inspires us to sing your praises, 
You lift our voices with hymns of everlasting praise. 
-Clement of Alexandria
cross-posted at RevGalPrayerPals