The Angels Took Care of Him

A sermon for the first Sunday in Lent given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on February 26, 2012.

Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm 25:1-10

1 Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:9-15

I want to focus on the temptation story in today’s gospel reading.

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels took care of him.” (Mark 1:12-13) (NRSV spliced with The Message)

The angels took care of him.

While there are many ways we can take the story of Jesus’ temptation I want to focus on one particular part of it.

The angels took care of him.

Jesus was son of Man -- a human being and as a human being experienced the world just like we experience it. The word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

When we read how Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John, we saw a higher reality break open and God speak the words: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus was son of God.

Son of God, son of Man. The one who would be our Mediator to make peace between God and humanity and usher forth a new time where God would through God’s children make this peace known and realized throughout the world.

And here it starts: first a baptism, then a forceful driving into the wilderness.

Lent is a time of remembering our humanity.

In Marquand chapel at Yale Divinity School on Wednesday I went forward and received ashes upon my forehead in the shape of a cross. I was told, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”

We are all dust. We are all from the dust, like the first human beings we have the breath of God breathed into us and so we talk, we sing, we cry, we praise, we love, we laugh, we strive, we struggle.

And Jesus did too. Jesus was dust like us. The word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

And so we see Jesus baptized – identifying with us in our need for the washing and cleansing and newness of God’s water.

And we see Jesus driven into the wilderness, tempted and tried – struggling.

Life is a struggle. The wilderness follows the baptism very quickly – Immediately even.

We, like Jesus, have been commissioned for a new life, a ministry of our own. Our baptism is our entry into a life of following Jesus in this world – that we might know God and make God known to a world that needs to know God.

And as soon as we were commissioned for this ministry – immediately we found ourselves in times of hard struggle.

Perhaps you are the one lucky human being who has not struggled, who has not been tempted and tried and hard worn in a kind of wilderness.

But most of us have seen that wilderness, some of us are there right now.

At Bible Study last Sunday we talked about Jesus calming the storm and shared stories of various storms in our lives and how we reacted – take a moment and think of a wilderness time – a time that felt like great hunger, great thirst, great isolation, alienation. Remember and feel that struggle.

I took a year off after two years of college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. There was much uncertainty. The only thing I did feel certain of was that I was quite uncertain of everything.

And believe it or not, my faith was included in that “everything.” Sometimes the wilderness is a time of great doubt, the silence of God, the absence of the Spirit’s presence. We lose our confidence, our perceived control over our world.

I was working two jobs which combined gave me 62 hours a week. I waited tables during the weekdays and worked with a campus security weeknights and weekend nights.

At one of the jobs I worked weekend night shifts as a security officer at a liberal arts college. I would sit by myself in a lobby from 11pm to 7am and make sure that no suspicious characters tried to enter the dorm. Needless to say my social life suffered. I would go to bed at 7:30am and sometimes not wake up until 5 PM. I would eat a supper-breakfast, perhaps watch a movie by myself and then go back to work. Sometimes I would hear of a gathering that was happening somewhere and I would make it for a time only to leave early to go spend the night by myself once again in that dorm lobby.

I look back at this time as a dark and lonely time. I was unable to attend church – or if I did I didn’t get much out of it being so brutally exhausted.

I felt alone and in my loneliness I questioned everyone’s love for me especially God’s. I felt empty and like there was no way forward.

I’ll spare you more details but suffice to say it was a painful and certainly a kind of wilderness wandering for me.

I think as much as it was an incredibly difficult time for me, it was also one of the most important seasons of my life. I was forced to a place where I didn’t know, I wasn’t in control, I was forced to seek God and wrestle with how I fit in to this world – where was God? Where was I?

That was a time that formed my faith, my perseverance as a human being, my trust in God like no other time.

I remember the moment it ended. I was back in church for the first time in a long spell – perhaps forty days?

And I went forward to receive the bread and the wine and came back to my seat and cried at the beauty of God’s love, God’s care.

Many of us have been through times of silence, of emptiness, of loneliness, and some of us are there now. We remember how meaningful it is when someone comes alongside of us and shows grace and love to us.

Jesus was in the wilderness tempted by the great enemy of life—but the angels came to him and took care of him.

I remember in the middle of that time in my life – I was in uniform, it was about 9 o clock and I was at my friend’s house with a number of people who had gathered to watch a movie. I didn’t want to watch a movie. I could do that by myself. So I went to the kitchen and there I stood and hung out with a friend who would later become my wife. Rachelle listened to me as I complained about how lonely and empty I’d been feeling and she gave me a hug.

That was a light in the darkness of my wilderness.

At that moment she was the angel ministering to me in the wilderness.

She showed me the grace of God who comes alongside us in our struggles.

Have you struggled? Did someone come to you in that time?

Rachelle and I went to a dinner in Newton, Massachusetts on Friday night. It was foolish to go out with such omens of a coming snowy/icy mess. But I’m still new to this wisdom thing and so I drove us to Newton. On our way back the rain was heavy in Newton, in Lexington, in Derry, in Concord. And when we got to Henniker the sound on the windshield changed. The cars slowed down and we entered a train of a dozen cars going through icy/snowy mix on route 9, now spinning now swerving.

We left the train at the intersection of 123 and drove through Stoddard all alone. I was very concerned about getting up and over Pitcher Mtn. The only other real concern would be the final leg up hill rd. (I still don’t have snow tires).

I was praying hard as I made my way up Pitcher Mtn. Thanking God for safety as I slowed down and carefully made my way down.

Then we got to S. Acworth. There is no good way to get momentum from 123A up Hill Rd. I was spinning and swerving and getting nowhere up the hill. So Rachelle took over and I pushed. We made it passed the first steep part and had good momentum going up. When we saw a young man walking with a backpack on, covered in snow. Should we stop? We’d lose our own hard-earned momentum.

We decided to stop. He unsurprisingly took us up on our offer for a ride. Then we started to drive again and nothing but spinning.

He and I got to push again and we eventually got going again.

He had been walking since Green Acres and was going to Coffin Hill Rd. He also took us up on our offer to stay the night at the Parsonage.

We all are human beings, we are all God-breathed spirited dust. We are all on this journey together, at various times we revel in the sunlight at other times we spin our tires and swerve and give up hope for going forward.

Or perhaps we are walking a long dark and snowy road, cold and thirsty with miles ahead of us until refreshment.

Or perhaps we are experiencing the absence of joy, the silence of God in our lives.

Jesus was in the wilderness, alone, hungry, thirsty, tried and tempted, struggling. And the angels came to him and took care of him.

There is a song many of you know that I’ve sung many times in my life and always am moved by its words.

Brother, let me be your servant. Let me be as Christ to you.

Pray that I might have the grace To let you be my servant, too.

In this time of Lent when many of us are attempting to cut things out of our lives to be able to draw closer to God, we may find that especially at this time we need each other as angels to give care.

Allow yourself to be humbled and receive that care from others and as you receive that care, give that care on to others. We are servants one of another. We are God’s agents of care in a world where many are hurting, many are experience wilderness, difficult roads.

Brothers, Sisters let us be that sorely needed friend to those among us who need that comfort, and perhaps even the stranger we encounter on our various paths this week.

For we are all human beings, and just as Christ identified with our humanity and struggled with us, so let us struggle with others, bearing each others burdens and fulfilling the law of Christ.

Remember the wildernesses that you have struggled through and the ministering angels God sent and go out and be a messenger of God’s comfort and grace to those around you.

Amen.

Coming Down From the Mountain

A Sermon for the Last Sunday of Epiphany, Transfiguration Sunday given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on February 19, 2012.

2 Kings 2:1-12

Psalm 50:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

It’s like when good friends visit from far away.

It’s like when you catch a sunrise unlike any other.

It’s the moment of a first kiss, or a hug after a long time of loneliness.

It’s like a good conversation with a friend, an authentic, honest, refreshingly truthful time.

It’s like the moment when you feel like life actually is going to work out for the good.

It’s like when suddenly the world for a moment appears more glorious than it has -- like some underlying dimension, some beautiful coherence peeks its head out for a moment and gives you a feeling that all is right in the world. Feelings of hope, of joy, of peace.

It’s a revelation. An epiphany.

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany and today we go to the mountaintop with Jesus.

We travel the long trail with Peter, James, and John to behold the revealing of the Messiah.

Jesus changes before their eyes -- “his clothes became shining white—whiter than anyone in the world could wash them. Then the three disciples saw Elijah and Moses talking with Jesus.”

This was a glorious appearing, an epiphany of epiphanies.

We read that Peter “and the others were so frightened that he did not know what to say.”

We hear him perhaps stammering: “Teacher, how good it is that we are here! We will make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Peter and the others were frightened. They were filled with awe. They were seeing something they had never imagined seeing before. They were seeing a revelation of God’s glorious hope, God’s past, present, and future in the figures of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.

It’s good to have some context for this story.

Six days before Jesus, Peter, James, and John hiked up Mt. Hermon, Jesus was with his disciples and he asked Peter, “Who do you say I am?”

Peter’s response: “You are the Messiah.”

Jesus told him to not tell anyone what he just said and then goes on to tell them about what’s in store for him and for them if they continue to follow him:

“The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected.... He will be put to death, but three days later he will rise to life.... If anyone wants to come with me...he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. Does a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life?”

Here in chapter 8 we have a conversation where Peter’s words shine out as an epiphany, a revelation of God’s Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. But quickly what follows is the seriousness of the implications of such a revelation, of such a remark.

If we see the Messiah, we have two choices to-- follow or to stay.

On the mountain Jesus’ teaching is made real by a revelation of his glory as the chosen one, the Messiah who would fulfill God’s promises. He is revealed with Moses and Elijah and for a moment Peter, John, and James are thinking -- Yes! I knew it. Jesus IS the Messiah.

It’s as if Peter’s announcement of Jesus as Messiah is now being enacted. There is in my opinion certainly a parallel between the conversation in chapter 8 and the event in chapter 9.

Jesus is revealed by Peter’s words, Jesus is revealed in brightness on the mountaintop.

And the event continues with God’s own voice coming out of the cloud -- “‘This is my own dear son -- listen to him!’ They took a quick look around but did not see anyone else; only Jesus was with them.”

“Listen to him!” -- I don’t know what Peter thought when he heard these words, but we as readers of Mark’s gospel can’t help but think of the words that Jesus spoke to the disciples six days earlier.

“Listen to him” when he says: “If anyone wants to come with me...he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

Not if anyone wants to come with me he must make some nice tents to dwell with me in happy, exciting, good times.

Not if anyone wants to come with me he will have constant enjoyment of life, peace, and non-stop smiles and good feelings.

But the person who comes after Jesus will need to forget himself and follow Jesus down a road that’s difficult, certainly a road less traveled, a narrow way.

But the mountaintop experience is so nice. I want to stay there. I want to stay in the moment of revealed beauty where everything makes sense. Where life seems to be free of care.

I want to stay in my personal experience of God and of the beauty of the world and God’s mysterious activity in the world.

I want to stay in the moments where I feel God’s peace and presence, where I feel the joy of life, the joy of love, the inspiration of hope.

For some of us, maybe that is a Sunday morning. For some maybe it’s the time of prayer in the week. For some maybe it’s when you are out in nature, or reading a good book, or hanging out with a good friend or loved one.

We want to stay where life is easy and happy, we want to stay where it is comfortable and where we feel serene. Many of us strive for that above all.

But let us remember that when Jesus took time for prayer early in the morning, he spent the rest of the day attending to the sick.

Jesus and the disciples share in the mountaintop experience, the disciples revel in awe at the sight of the heroes of the past and a transfigured glorified revelation of Jesus Messiah.

But they don’t stay there. They’re told “listen to him” and they followed him down the mountain.

We can’t stay there, we weren’t meant to stay there.

Those times are necessary, those moments are important.

But those moments are not the substance of life. Those moments are not true health and wholeness.

Abundant life consists in giving of oneself. Whoever loses his life will gain it.

We are called to mission -- that is our purpose -- that is what will truly fulfill us.

to listen to the one who calls us outside ourselves, to lose our lives in order to truly live.

to come down from the mountain to follow Jesus.

So I want to call everyone here to remember that we come together for the sake of something more. I love Rev. Jim Brown’s picture of how we often treat faith.

We walk in the doors of the church put on our Jesus-coat and diligently put that coat back on a coat rack before we leave the door and enter the “real world.”

We must “come and see” the living God revealed to us in Jesus, the hope, the grace, the love of God and we are to experience that in worship, praising God and remembering the good things, the blessings of the new life we have received.

This, for us can become that moment when the picture of our life can make sense again, we remember the story of faith, of grace, and of God’s presence and we are renewed in hope.

In a moment we will sing:

Lord, lift me up and let me stand, By faith, on Heaven’s table land,

A higher plane than I have found; Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

How we need to go with Jesus to the mountain -- for renewed faith and hope and love.

But rather than pitch our tent right there and stay, we walk with Jesus down the mountain, “where cross the crowded ways of life.”

Plant my feet on higher ground. For my sake? For my own inner-peace? For own self-satisfaction?

Plant my feet on higher ground for the sake of the good news. For the sake of the peace of the world, the comforting of those who dwell in the valley of the shadow of death and darkness.

We may see much on the mountain, but we can only experience the goodness of God’s new life as we come down from the mountain and follow Jesus in giving to a world in need of God’s love.

The paradox of Jesus is that the way up is the way down, whoever loses her life will find it.

It is not for us to stay up on the mountaintop, we would become stagnant pools -- we are channels not reservoirs of God’s grace.

And as we follow in Jesus’ self-giving work, we will find true his words that to do the work of the Father is as life-giving as food.

For the sake of your own health as a human being and for the sake of the world who needs to know and experience grace, go to the mountain, revel in the glory of God’s goodness, God’s grace, God’s abundant provision and blessing, and then let us come down from the mountain and find with St. Francis that “it is in giving that we receive.”

Break the Plates

A sermon for the sixth Sunday after Epiphany given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on February 12, 2012.

2 Kings 5:1-14

Psalm 30

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Mark 1:40-45

We read that a “leper” came to Jesus begging for healing.

When I was young and heard about lepers I always had to do a double take – did you say “leopard”?

You have to understand, my earliest encounters with the stories of Jesus were in South Africa where such creatures do dwell.

Not a leopard, but a leper came to Jesus.

A leper is one who has the disease known since ancient times that is traditionally called leprosy.

Given all of the negative baggage that the term leper has come to bear, we now call leprosy Hansen’s disease or HD.

HD is a chronic infectious disease caused by a particular bacteria. “It primarily involves the nerves, skin, and mucous membranes. If untreated, there can be progressive and permanent damage to the skin, limbs, and eyes….Nerve injury leads to a loss of feeling in hands and feet, rendering them more vulnerable to repeated injury and infection. Nerve injury also causes muscle weakness and paralysis. Due to infection and other changes, bones are reabsorbed and fingers and toes become shortened. None of these disabilities need occur with early diagnosis and treatment.”**

The person with HD is a person who is visibly set apart from others. They feel the pain of isolation and being a stigma. While one who has Hansen’s disease in today’s world can get incredible support, others throughout history went without such understanding and support.

Communities that did not understand the illness and feared its spread made laws to separate “lepers” out and keep them from infecting others.

Scientists today are still unsure how HD is transmitted and why certain few individuals contract it while others don’t. It is not, as many have thought over the centuries, a highly contagious disease, rather it is considered only mildly communicable. Many who contract Hansen’s have no previous contact with another who had the disease.

People fear the unknown and people fear that which reminds of them of their frailty in life. Hansen’s scares people and has scared people and caused people in their fear to exclude the one who suffers from the disease.

Hansen’s is only fatal in rare cases. So individuals who have the disease will typically live long lives bearing the marks and scars, physically and emotionally of the disease.

Jose Ramirez Jr. has fought a life-long battle with Hansen’s disease.

Ramirez was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered in 2009.

There is moment in that interview that is particularly moving as Ramirez tells a story of his return home after receiving the diagnosis of leprosy.

Having heard all about the disease and having seen others at the hospital with disfigured bodies and faces, Ramirez felt a compulsion to prevent the disease from spreading to this family members.

He determined to mark off his own utencils and dishes so that only he would be the one using them. Ramirez took tape and marked them and other things as his so that they could remain separate from those of the healthy family members.

Ramirez chokes up in the interview as he recalls his mother’s reaction. His mother was cooking tortillas early in the morning and saw him marking the plates In anger she went over to him and broke the plates on the ground telling him “please never do that again.”

Ramirez’s mother did not want him to separate himself from the rest of the family, he was one of them and would not be a stigma.

We are challenged in stories like these to consider how we react when one among us, a friend, a family member, is set apart by society by illness, by circumstance. How do we react to the stranger in our midst? How do we react to the friend who has become strange?

Many of us know very well how to get along in society, how to survive in community by saying just the right things and doing just the right things so as not to upset expectations.

When the expectation is to exclude someone, do we go along? When the social norm is to separate ourselves from those who have been afflicted by circumstances beyond their control, do we separate?

Jesus’ response to the leper is not just another healing story – it’s a story on par with the Good Samaritan. Jesus is upsetting received wisdom and rules about how to deal with the unclean, the unacceptable. Jesus is breaking social norms in the name of love.

“If you will, you can make me clean.”

Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.”

It was expected that a person with leprosy would stay separate and that no one should touch that person.

Jesus, in compassion breaks that expectation, touches and heals.

Jesus’ compassion is real compassion. It’s the compassion that breaks through our constructed notions of who deserves God’s grace, who we should speak to, touch, associate with. This compassion breaks through and reaches out to help.

As we sit under the darkness and heaviness of the event at Walpole Middle School we think of how some individuals among us can become so overwhelmed with pain and brokenness – can be set apart by a darkness overtaking their mind.

Many of us don’t know how to handle difficult circumstances in our own lives and avoid thinking about our own pain – and consequently when someone else is suffering under the weight of the brokenness of this world, under depression or hatred or anger – we avoid that person like they carry an infectious disease.

We don’t see as Jesus sees. We don’t feel as Jesus feels. We think to separate, he longs to bring that one into the fold, we think to avoid, Jesus wills to make whole.

And we hear in today’s readings the powerful words of our Lord who does the unexpected and when the untouchable reaches out, Jesus reaches back and the words he says, “I will, be clean” resound like plates breaking into a thousand pieces on the floor. Love where we would have fear. Healing for a broken soul.

Break the plates, friends. Don’t follow the world’s logic of separation from the unclean, the broken, the least of these in this world. Let the love and compassion of Christ our Savior fill you with such a desire for wholeness and healing that you long to reach out and be a help, a light of hope to the one who’s suffering.

Break the plates. Don’t accept the lines of party politics and social association. Let the compassion of Jesus break through. Love transcends our group identification – let God’s compassion lead you to break out of comfortable corners into the open field where lie the wounded of the world.

Break the plates. Live a life that speaks to the reality that you yourself once were lost, but now you’re found.

Break the plates. Recognize that those people that you call “them” are just as loved by God, just as much recipients of God’s grace as those people that you call “us”.

Break… the expectations of those around you and march to a different beat.

Don’t be misled by superficial boundaries – don’t be cowed into following society’s demarcations of who is worthy or unworthy of time or attention.

I don’t know of any in Acworth who have Hansen’s disease but I can think of others who we’d rather not visit, rather not talk to. Some individuals, were we to be caught associating with “them” it would be “social suicide.”

But friends, “those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

What good is it to gain or maintain status in the town but forfeit your soul.

This boy in Walpole was reaching out – but we hear cries for help as complaints.

We hear cries for help as adolescent drama. We hear cries for help and we say not my job. May we hear cries for help and seek help for the one in need.

The person with the disease which made him an untouchable and a social outcast, which made him someone that no one would want to relate to – this person came to Jesus and said If you are willing you can make me clean.

Jesus reached out and touched the man and said “I will, be clean.”

Friends, Let us allow God’s radical compassion shown in Jesus change us, that we as community of Jesus-followers might truly be salt and light to this community, might show in our lives the kind of compassion that breaks the unwritten rules when those rules need breaking.

Fear is a paralyzing phenomenon. But, friends we are called beyond fear, fear of death, fear of people’s gossip or judgment, fear of people’s rejection, we are called beyond fear, to love – a love that gives life. Perfect love drives out fear.

Break the plates. Is there someone in your life who you’ve been avoiding or ignoring? Is there someone who’s become a stigma? Is there someone whose sadness makes you want to avoid them?

Break the plates. Show the love and hospitality of our great God and reach out your hand to them.

Break the plates. It will be a blessing to them and it most certainly will be a blessing to you.

God is calling us in the compassion of Jesus to remember our common humanity, our common plight in the road called life and follow Jesus in giving and showing compassion –the radical kind that breaks the plates of exclusion and isolation so rampant in our world.

May God so inspire us with love that we might be agents of his healing in this broken world.

Amen.

**excerpted from "Author Recounts His 'Journey With Leprosy'" at npr.org.

Busyness and Prayer

A sermon for the fifth Sunday after Epiphany given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on February 5, 2012.

Isaiah 40:21-31

Psalm 147:1-11

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Mark 1:29-39

Jesus had just finished a brutal workday.

After casting out an unclean spirit in a synagogue which we read about last week, he goes to Simon’s house.

“Simon's mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever….He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up.”

“they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door! He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits.”

We live in a broken world in need of healing and Jesus was bringing forth the healing power of God’s kingdom and oppressions of the body and soul, disease and demon were being cast out as the redeemer went forth making all things new.

What a day!

And so Jesus, being exhausted, went to bed at Simon’s place and slept in.

No.

That’s what I would have done.

Rather, we read that “While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.”

I think Mark is showing us the connection here between healing and prayer.

This brief picture of Jesus going out to a secluded spot to pray is sandwiched between two stories of Jesus going out healing all who came to him, casting out demons, and teaching about the kingdom of God.

Here is Jesus, no doubt tired, no doubt feeling the weight of the burdens of humanity, of the brokenness of human relationships, of the oppressions and ailments that beset human souls and bodies. Here is Jesus feeling the overwhelming sense of the need of this world.

What does Jesus do? Jesus prays, Jesus spends time, takes time to commune with God, to have real and authentic conversations with the one who desires for all things to be made new, for the creation to be made whole again and for all people to be restored and redeemed.

Who knows how Jesus prayed here? Who knows what Jesus prayed here?

All we know is that he prayed. That’s the point.

In Isaiah 40:28-31 we read:

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Jesus prayed. Jesus communed with the Father. Jesus sought renewed strength from the posture of waiting.

Oh there is nothing worse than the word “wait” for us modern Americans.

We complain that the “kids these days” can’t sit still – but we do no better ourselves.

We fill our lives with schedules and tasks and if we don’t fill them they get filled by someone else, family, friends, employers…

And, honestly, there is nothing wrong with activity. But busyness will drain us, distract us, overtake us, consume us, stress us out if we aren’t relying on something more than ourselves to sustain us.

I think it’s safe to say that if Jesus took time to pray and I would argue, needed that time to renew strength – we need it all the more.

Oh, but Joel, I’m too busy to take time to pray. No, friend, you’re too busy not to pray.

Wish I could take credit for that catchy phrase. But alas, it’s the invention of Bill Hybels, the Pastor of the Chicago area megachurch Willow Creek Community Church who wrote a book called “Too Busy Not to Pray”

Too busy not to pray.

I found a few quotes from the book – which I’ve not read but by the bits that I’ve read would recommend it to anyone interested in getting encouragement in this part of your spiritual life.

Here are some of the quotes I found:

"Most of us are far too busy for our own spiritual good."

"Busyness is the unrivaled archenemy of spiritual authenticity."

"Prayerless people cut themselves off from God's peace and from his prevailing power, and a common result is that they feel overwhelmed, overrun, beaten down, pushed around, and defeated by a world operating with a take-no-prisoners approach.”

"Perfect peace comes only through relating with the Peacemaker himself."

"If your life is rushing in many directions at once, you are incapable of the kind of deep, unhurried prayer that is vital to the Christian walk."

"Prayer is a bridge from despair to hope."

I want everyone to understand that the primary audience of this sermon is myself.

I find myself perfectly described as a life “rushing in many directions at once” and I certainly can resonate with the inability to have “deep, unhurried prayer, vital to the Christian walk.”

But oh do I want this. I want to go to a secluded place, to wait on the Lord, to be renewed in strength. I know from experience that this place of prayer can be a great place of empowerment, of renewed faith.

Many look at Sunday morning as the one place in the week when they can pray or hear scripture. I am so glad that we can have Sunday mornings to pray and read scripture – but we need, personally and as a group, much more than Sunday morning. We need more.

I want to challenge us (especially myself) to let the picture of Jesus going off before dawn to a secluded place sit in our minds.

And let us see this as a kind of healing, too. Where healing means to make whole, we can here see the healer being healed, being renewed, connecting to the source of strength, of peace, of wholeness by whom he will continue to cast out evil and sickness and death.

In this world of instant communication and incessant internet activity, and in this place where there’s always work to do and driving seems to take up half the day, it is so easy to become overwhelmed by busyness.

But let us consider how much more peaceful the rest of daytime might be if we have connected with the Peacemaker.

We are far too busy for our own spiritual good.

If you already are in the practice of taking time to pray (morning, evening, either, both, whenever…) I encourage you to see this as a time of healing – a time of reconnecting to the source of your existence, the one who made you and desires for you to become an agent of redemption in this broken world. Ask God to show you the places in your heart and mind that need healing and ask God how you might be an agent of healing for others.

If you don’t have a practice of praying and connecting to God or if you once did and have fallen out of the habit, I encourage you, join me in refusing to say the words “I’m too busy to pray” and rather commit these words to mind “Too busy NOT to pray” and “those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”