SUNDAY AUGUST 20
EPHESIANS 5:15-20
MEDITATIONS ON PRAYER AND SINGING
Rochelle A. Stackhouse
One of the great gifts of the Psalms to me personally has been to teach me that prayer is something that needs to come to God at all times in our lives. ItÕs easy to talk about that prayer in times of great joy or deep sorrow, but prayer is also like surgery to clear out the arteries that connect us to the source of our lives in God. Sometimes there is so much gunk in there blocking the path of God into our lives that we just need a vast purging. We call that Confession. I have to admit I have always struggled a bit with this, reacting, I think, against the stereotype of the Catholic confession booth. Then there are those Protestant prayers written in our bulletins where I used to say Ņhey, I didnÕt do that; this prayer isnÕt about me.Ó Two things have changed my mind about confession. One was working in a psychiatric hospital and realizing that on my ward of criminally insane men the thing that brought the most healing was giving the men the freedom to confess – usually not to the big crimes that brought them to the institution, but to the smaller things in their lives that had brought them to desperation to begin with (forgive me for how I treated my mother). The second thing was learning that sometimes the best way for me to confess is not to use the words of a written prayer, but to grab onto the ancient practice of singing a kyrie. The Greek words Ņkyrie eleisonÓ or ŅLord have mercyÓ have been used from ancient times as words beyond words to say to God that we know something is not right in our relationship and we want to get it right. Maybe you donÕt even know for sure where the blockage is, but you know itÕs there. When the specific words for a spoken prayer wonÕt come, there is always kyrie. IÕm going to pray some spoken prayers, then weÕre going to leave some silence after them for you to pray, then weÕre going to sing the response by using Kyrie number 752 in your black hymnal. If you canÕt find the words you need to say to God, let God say them. Kyrie.
Perhaps the most common spoken prayer for all generations of Christians is intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer means praying for someone other than yourself. ItÕs what we do most often here when we ask for prayer requests. Someone once challenged me on this kind of prayer, charging that the way we do it most often is arrogant in the extreme. ŅDonÕt you think God already knows about these people?Ó my interrogator said. ŅDonÕt you think it is a bit arrogant of you to be telling God what would be best for these folk, as though God doesnÕt know that better than you do?Ó Well, of course. Sure, sometimes when I pray I do hope that maybe I influence God to act in a certain way or a little more quickly than God seems to be acting. I remember doing a lot of that when I was waiting for my children to come home! But for me Ann and Barry Ulanov in their marvelous book Primary Speech describe what happens for us in intercessory prayer. ŅIntercessory prayer pulls us into the tow of GodÕs connectedness to everything. It means discovering we do not have to do it all or do it all alone.Ó (p.92) In praying for others, we draw ourselves into that great Gulf Stream of energy loosed in the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, we pray for God to do what God knows is best and we have to trust. That is hard. The gift is that in praying this way we open ourselves to become vessels of healing, hope, justice and love in how we become GodÕs servants to carry out prayer. So where does singing enter here? Intercessory prayer is not something we are called to do only alone, but in community. When we pray and sing together, that energy is gathered up and loosed on the world, on ourselves, powerfully. Even if we donÕt sing names and events, they are there in the song. After we pray, see if you can feel that in this wonderful song we will share.
A colleague of mine says that clergy are especially bad at three things: reading the Bible devotionally, worshipping uncritically, and praying for themselves. Supplication is praying for yourself. I donÕt think clergy are the only ones who have a problem with supplication. Oh, we may have our list of things we want for ourselves: the right job, the right partner, healing from illness, rescue from difficulty. But the deeper piece of supplication is a prayer that our desires may actually be in line with GodÕs desires for us, and that may be at odds with what we think we need. The more we open ourselves in prayer for God to act in our lives, the more God will. Again, the Ulanovs say Ņ we may discover desires we did not know about or knew only dimly. The voice that God hears in prayer gets louder and louder for us if we go on praying. It may come to speak of a truth and a way of life that break sharply with the life we are living.Ó (p. 17) True supplication means we stop trying to escape from the clear eyes of God looking at us, and the clear voice of God speaking to us. That can be scary. But if we sing this desire for connection with God, somehow it seems easier, more accessible, more possible. ItÕs like we merge into the song God is already singing and find the harmonies that fit with us so that we are singing the same song God is. IÕm not going to ask you to speak out loud for requests this time, because I want each of us to be praying for ourselves for a moment and not concentrating on each other. But IÕm going to leave a time of silence and invite you first to enter the silence with your prayers and then we will sing together this old song to remind us.
One of the most quoted lines from Alice WalkerÕs novel The Color Purple refers to the title. ItÕs a sin to walk past the color purple (as in flowers in the fields) and not notice it. IÕd extend that to say that itÕs a sin again not to say thanks to the one who thought it up to begin with. But that sounds so inadequate, doesnÕt it? Thanks, God. ThatÕs why from the very beginning of humankindÕs conversations with God through any faith, that thanks has come to be sung. It just feels like itÕs more, well, thankful to make that joyful noise and make clear to God that not only did we notice, we know where the blessing comes from. I wonder if the Ephesians were surprised that Paul ended his letter to them by saying they should give thanks to God at all times and for everything. They lived in the midst of persecution, of disease and war, where life was indeed nasty, cruel, brutish and short for all too many people. Paul also said elsewhere that all things work for God for those who love God, that neither death nor life nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. What greater thanks can there be? And some scholars think that was actually a song! WeÕre going to sing our thanks this morning as we do each week after the offering, but now I want to invite you to lift up your prayers of thanks in that joyful noise mode of the Psalmist, just speak or shout or sing or whatever you want to do, thank you God forÉÉ
Praise is telling God what God already knows, that God is great. We say it to God not because God needs an ego boost, but we say it the way we say ŅI love youÓ to our families or friends, just because itÕs true and it strengthens our relationship to say it out loud on a regular basis. Praise is a bit like thanks, but more general. There are a couple of kinds of praise out there. ThereÕs the HOORAY kind of praise that whips off our lips at things that strike us as so cool, so wonder-full that we just have to celebrate. All the clichˇ things: sunsets, puppies, you know. Then thereÕs another kind of praise. The Ephesians knew about this, too, for as I said, they and other early churches were often in danger, persecuted for their beliefs by the Romans. This is praise to God that there is a God and there is good after the experience of not good. The funky illustration of this I like is at the end of the Dr. Seuss book ŅHow the Grinch Stole Christmas.Ó All the Whos down in Whoville have awoken on Christmas morning to find that the Grinch has stolen all their gifts and decorations and food, even the roast beast! What happens then? The Grinch expects sobbing. What he hears, however, is singing. It begins softly, but grows as the Whos gather and know that ŅChristmas time will always be, just as long as we have we.Ó ItÕs the singing that surprises and ultimately converts the old Grinch. Praise in the midst of pain is a powerful prayer, a powerful expression of faith and also a powerful tool for strength.
So what I want to invite us to do now is to make a joyful noise here, first in words, then in this wonderful hymn of praise. I want you to shout out, or sing out if you like, your praises to God out of wonder or out of struggle, praises just because God is, just because we love God and feel loved by God. Just because it feels so great to do it. We probably need to warm up for this, cause it is a little different from the thanks noises we made, so in this great space, I want everyone to sing the first word of the Hallelujah Chorus together: Hallelujah! Now what do you want to say about God that is praiseworthy? ÉÉ.
LetÕs sing!