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I don’t need the words. You don’t need words. All you need is intention and love and hope and good will and breath.

7/28/2019

TEACH US TO PRAY
Sunday, July 28, 2019
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Luke 11:1-13

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:

  Father, hallowed be your name.
  Your kingdom come.
  Give us each day our daily bread.
  And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
  And do not bring us to the time of trial.’

And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’

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Walter was a member of my church in Manhattan – a very colorful member.  And Walter had lived a very colorful life.  As a young man, he had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and then spent the better part of his adulthood traveling the world, learning languages and cultures that he then taught to others.  Of all those cultures, Walter was especially proud of his own African American culture.  And he was quick to tell you, despite his impressive life and resume, that his Christian faith was really nothing more than slave religion.  In other words, Walter connected most powerfully to the divine through the stories and music of his people and their search for freedom and dignity.

Walter helped me to understand that we all do that.  We all connect to God through our experiences, through the people who raised us and the communities that formed us.  And if Walter was right about that, then my religion is mountain religion. And part of that religious tradition is a dedication to a life of prayer.

As a child, prayer was all around me. My paternal great grandmother used to spend hours on her knees in prayer every day – this despite her severe arthritis. Her daughter, my grandmother, was also a person of prayer – sometimes very dramatic prayers.  When grandma felt she needed to repent of her sins, she would sometimes take on the air of an Old Testament prophet: dressing in tattered clothes, letting her hair fall down around her face, and throwing dust and ashes in the air.  My parents are a little tamer than that, but they pray for me and Marcos and this church every day – sometimes more than once a day.  And when my people pray, they actually believe that God hears each word they utter; and that God answers prayers in ways that are observable and verifiable.

Earlier in my adult life, I too prayed often and earnestly.  I used to carry around a list of people - dozens of names – that I prayed for every day. But over time, I found that these intense daily prayers often seemed to be more of a burden than a blessing.  And over time, I began to wonder if my endless shopping list which I called daily prayer, was really the kind of communication God desired to have with me. It seemed to me that at least some of my prayers were an attempt to convince God to do what Ithought best. And I started to wonder if perhaps the great Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard wasn’t on to something when he said: “Prayer does not change God, but it changes (the one) who prays.”

One day Jesus was praying, as he often did.  His disciples must have been eavesdropping because when he finished, they asked him to teach them how to pray.  And here we should pause for just a moment.  There is in modern American piety this notion that one should automatically know how to pray.  “It’s just like having a conversation with a friend,” people say.  Well, not quite.  Most of our friends aren’t invisible.  And most of our friends say something to us in return. So, prayer is notjust like having a conversation with a friend.  Prayer is something that even the disciples of Jesus needed to be taught how to do.

And so, Jesus taught them, using words we now call the Lord’s Prayer.  And while it is a beautiful prayer to recite, what we should also see in it is a pattern forprayer.  It contains certain elements that are building blocks of prayer: praise, petition, confession. And notice that our beloved ending: “For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever” is missing from this version, because it’s missing from the most ancient and reliable manuscripts of the Gospels.  It’s probably a later addition because a scribe didn’t like the abrupt ending.

So Jesus gave his disciples a model upon which to hang their words.  And then he told them a parable about being persistent in prayer.  And Jesus ends that parable with these memorable words: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

And that, it seems at first glance, is an invitation to ask for whatever we want, as if God is some sort of Santa Claus, dispensing wishes to those who haven’t been too naughty.  And that, I suspect, is how many folks think of prayer.  It’s asking God for what we think we need and then waiting to see if God will grant our wish.

But if that is your approach to prayer, then when you are in real need, when illness or loneliness or unemployment come to call, and you don’t get what you pray for, then the logical conclusion is that God is capricious and temperamental… or maybe even cruel.

Some of my biggest struggles with prayer have been the uneven ways in which they seem to be answered.  Some people get well, many don’t.  Some poverty is relieved, most isn’t.  God seems to favor one part of the world or one religion over another.  And that process of asking and waiting and hoping and being disappointed has disillusioned a good many people and helped to swell the ranks of the atheism.

But a closer examination of this passage leads us to another conclusion about the aim and purpose of prayer.  These verses don’t end with a promise that if you are good, then God will give you whatever you ask for.  Instead, Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask!”  What you are promised when you pray is not everything you ask for.  But it is everything you need.  The answer to every prayer is more of God – deeper understanding, further revelation, intimacy, belonging, trust, peace.  It doesn’t mean that we cannot ask God for what we think we need or others need.  After all, the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to ask for our daily bread.  But the measure of an answered prayer is a deeper communion with God.

And one more thing about prayer: I no longer think of it only as verbal.  I also think of it as an intention.  Prayer is an attitude.  Prayer can manifest as words spoken, but prayer can also manifest as a fond wish or a heart’s desire.  Prayer can be as simple as our breath.

A few weeks ago, I was at the Chautauqua Institution for some continuing education.  I listened all week to Father Richard Rohr, a man whose work I have read and admired for years.  Rohr is a Franciscan Catholic priest whose life work has been the integrated spiritual life. Rohr is all about breaking down the divisions of dualism and trying to get us to see God at work in everything and everyone.  He said lots of very interesting things, but the most profound for me was the way he ended his final lecture of the week.

Rohr spoke about the practices of prayer and contemplation, and many people’s struggle with them.  And then he told us this story that he had learned from a rabbi.  The rabbi said that the Jewish name for God – Yahweh – is not spoken, but rather breathed. “Its correct pronunciation is an attempt to imitate the sound of inhalation and exhalation.” (Yah – weh, Yah –weh…) And if that is true, Rohr continued, then with every breath, we are saying the divine name.  And with every breath, we are praying, as St. Paul put it, “without ceasing.”   That means that we actually pray as we emerge from our mother’s wombs.  And as we die, our very last act will be a prayer.

Well, when he said that, I cried like a child in spite of myself.  I cried because I long to have communion with God.  But sometimes I don’t have the words.  But I don’t need the words.  You don’t need words.  All you need is intention and love and hope and good will and breath.

“Lord, teach us to pray.”  Amen.

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This week is going to be whatever it will be: stressful, busy, burdensome, challenging. We can’t really change that. But we can choose “the better part.”

7/21/2019

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THE BETTER PART
Sunday, July 21, 2019
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

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Back in 1994, I was living in Cleveland, and I was in the midst of a very important decision. I was trying to decide if I was going to move east to go back to school and then seek a career in academia and leave the pulpit behind.  It was a huge decision and so I figured some dedicated time in a retreat setting was an excellent idea.  And so I set off to the Abbey of the Genesee in western New York state.

This famed abbey is a Trappist Monastery, meaning, among other things, that a general silence is observed all day, except during worship when the monks chant the Psalms. That is the only time words are spoken. Now, all that silence seemed like a great idea in theory.  But in practice -  it just about drove me crazy.  It was hard to share meals with other pilgrims and not make small talk – to say nothing of trying to get someone to pass you the salt.  And it was far more difficult that I had anticipated to spend all those hours in my room, reading and sleeping and praying and listening and journaling… in silence.

But just like a good, long, hard work out, when it was all over, I knew that it had been worth it. I came away from those five days with a renewed sense of purpose and direction for my life’s work.  I did move east.  And when I look back on that experience 25 years ago, I see a direct thread between those five days at Genesee and this day of standing before you. That strange experience of quietude literally brought me here.

So if that is true; and if I now look back upon my time at Genesee with fondness, if I can see how God’s spirit was at work in the midst of that forced downtime, then I have to wonder why I work so hard at avoiding that kind of silent downtime today.  I have to wonder why I seek busyness above all else.

We Protestant like to be busy. We call it the Protestant work ethic.  We believe in being busy because there is a lot of work to do in the world.  Our pilgrim forbears came to these shores to work – to build a new world, a city set upon a hill.  Now our Pilgrim forbears didn’t have any patron saints (they didn’t believe in such things), but if they had, then Martha would have been an excellent choice for them.

One day, Jesus was invited to the home of his best friends, siblings named Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.  And Martha was a bit like me when I entertain – she felt all the pressures of getting everything just right.  On any other day, her sister Mary would have been in the kitchen with her.  But on this day, Mary was acting very strangely indeed.

Instead of being in the kitchen, she was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him teach. That was odd, not just because Martha needed help, but because by sitting at the feet of Jesus, Mary had assumed the position of a male in that society.  Only men sat at the feet of a rabbi and absorbed his teachings.  Perhaps more oddly still, there is an intimacy implied in the Greek text.  The word construction implies that Mary sort of wrapped herself around Jesus’s feet; not wanting to let him go.  Maybe that upset Martha too.

And so Martha bustled in and out of the room, sort of slamming the plates down on the table and sighing dramatically.  She wanted someone – anyone - to ask her what was wrong.  But no one did.  Finally, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she did the unthinkable and brought the dinner guest into the middle of the argument. Instead of whispering in her sister’s ear: “Get off your butt and get into the kitchen” she addressed the guest: “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left all the work to me?  Tell her to help me!”  But Jesus answered her: “Martha, dear Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; (but) there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

“The better part.” Well, what could that mean?

The most common way to interpret this story is to say that Jesus is making a clear distinction between the contemplative life and the life based in activity, and implies that the contemplative life is far superior.  It’s the better part.  And I’ve heard a lot of sermons like interpret this passage just like that.  These preachers often laud Mary and chide Martha, as if the sum total of Christian duty is to sit around and think about Jesus while the world goes to hell.  But that interpretation is problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the story that directly precedes this one is the story of the Good Samaritan.  And the story of the Good Samaritan is all about doingthe right thing – not just thinking about it.

So if this is not a story about the superiority of the contemplative life over the life of good works, then what is the point?  Well, notice that Jesus never actually chides Martha for being busy.  Jesus doesn’t tell her to come and sit down and listen for a while.  Somebody has to make the meal and that too is worthy work.  So Jesus doesn’t disparage the work itself.  Instead, Jesus takes notice of Martha’s state of mind.  He identifies her problem like this: “Martha, dear Martha,” he says to her, “you areworried and distractedby many things.”

“You are worried and distracted by many things.” The Greek word for distracted has the connotation of being pulled apart or dragged in different directions all at the same time, like being drawn and quartered.  And don’t we all know what that feels like!   When I get like that; when life and its worries start to pull me apart, then as much as I love you and love this work, there is no joy in it. I can’t keep my focus.  I don’t remember my purpose.  I’m prone to being overwhelmed and depressed.

So Martha’s problem was not that she was busy.  My problem is not that I am busy.  My problem, on any given day, is that the “push me, pull you” of life distracts me from the very things that Jesus taught: love of God, love of neighbor, justice for all people, peace and love and laughter and plenty.  I forget “the better part.” I forget what it’s like to sit and listen to our rabbi teach.

And I think that what is true for individuals is also true for institutions.  How often does the church collectively listen for the voice of the Spirit?  Instead what we do when we feel afraid is ORGANIZE.  But what we don’t often see about ourselves is how worried and distracted we really are by budgets and buildings and endowment figures and membership rolls and growth projections and key indicators.

But it doesn’t have to be like that here either.  At Old South Church in Boston – a venerable UCC congregation, every Board meeting, every committee meeting begins with 30 minutes of prayer and Bible study and human connection.  Now, when I read that, I could hardly believe it so I emailed their pastor, Nancy Taylor, who didn’t know me from Adam.  We set up a phone call and I asked her if it was really true.  And Rev. Taylor told me that people in that once moribund congregation are actually clamoring to serve because for the first time ever they understand in a visceral way the connection between worship and work; between stillness and purpose.

This week is going to be whatever it will be: stressful, busy, burdensome, challenging.  We can’t really change that.  But we can choose “the better part.” We can choose to stay close to Jesus and all that he taught us.

This summer we’ve been trying a little stillness after the sermons; a time to reflect upon what we’ve heard.  We’ve been sitting in silence for 90 seconds or so.  But today, we’re going to go a little deeper.  Today we will sit and be still for three minutes.  There are no assignments during this time.  You don’t have to close your eyes.  You don’t have to strain to hear.  You don’t have to think of something holy.  If someone makes a noise, let it roll right over you. Just need to breathe and be present and let whatever happens, happen.

And this is what I hope will happen: that if you’re anxious and worried, you will feel the everlasting arms under you.  I hope that you will be able to breathe - deeply.  I hope that your shoulders will relax and your brain will quiet down.  I hope you will have a glimpse of the nearness of God and your dearness to God - something Jesus once called “the better part.”

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What's your secret? What’s the one thing you don’t want anyone else to know?

7/7/2019

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I’VE GOT A SECRET
Sunday, July 7, 2019
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

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What’s your secret?  Not the kind that you might reveal in a parlor game or at a cocktail party.  I mean – what’s your secret?  What’s the one thing that you don’t want anyone else to know? Is it a treasure or is it a curse? And if it’s a curse as most secrets are, have you ever wondered what it might be like to be free of it?

Silence keeps a lot of our secrets, but not all of them.  Some are more difficult to conceal.  They’re visible if we’re not careful.  And so we smooth our wrinkles with fancy products.  We wear slimming devices to give us the illusion of health and beauty. We hide scars and blemishes with clothing and make-up.  And it can be expensive to keep those kinds of secrets.  Dolly Parton once famously quipped about her so-called eternal youth: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!”  Indeed, it does, Dolly.

Once upon a time there was a high-powered Syrian general named Naaman.  General Naaman commanded the army that had defeated Israel.  And 2 Kings reports, rather surprisingly, that God actually favored Naaman over God’s own people.  So this man was a well-placed mover and shaker in the ancient world. But despite his success and wealth and power, Naaman had a terrible secret.  He had leprosy.  Now when the Bible speaks of leprosy, it’s often a general reference to any skin disease – not just Hansen’s Disease where people loose fingers, toes, and nose.  Naaman’s condition might have been something like severe psoriasis.  But whatever it was, skin diseases were highly feared in the biblical world.  They were all thought to be contagious.  So having a skin disease put you on the outside.

Maybe Naaman’s leprosy was in a place where he could hide it under his clothing.  But folks in his household knew what he had, because they had seen him in various stages of undress.  Those in the know included the little Jewish servant girl who had been kidnapped away from her family during a raid into Israel and given to Naaman’s wife.  This little girl had seen Naaman’s shame and suffering. But she also knew of a prophet back home named Elisha.  And she knew that if Elisha prayed for Naaman, his leprosy would be healed.  So she told Mrs. Naaman all about it, who told her husband all about it.

I imagine at first he resisted the idea.  Who wants to go to your enemy for help?  But in the end, Naaman’s secret made him desperate enough to try.  He asked his king to write a letter to the king of Israel describing his desire to meet the famous Elisha.  At first the king of Israel thought it was a trick – setting up an impossible to meet demand - meant to humiliate Israel all over again.  But the prophet insisted that he would help this foreign general. So Naaman set out and took gifts for the prophet: one-thousand pounds of silver, six thousand gold coins, and ten sets of the most beautiful garments you’ve ever seen.

The great general arrived at the house of the prophet and expected to be greeted for the great man that he was. But instead, Elisha didn’t even come out to say hello.  He sent out a messenger to tell Naaman to go and wash himself seven times in the muddy, unimpressive Jordan River.   Well, this was too much!  Not only had General Naaman gone to his enemies for help; not only had he been met by a messenger and not the prophet himself, but he had been told to strip down and humble himself and wash in this sorry excuse of a river.  He was furious and began to storm off.  But just before he left, his own servants intervened: “Sir, you would do much more than this to be cured.  All you have to do is go wash yourself.  What do you have to lose?”

And that made sense, so Naaman relented and walked down to the river.  He removed his clothing piece by piece.  Maybe in doing so he revealed diseased parts of his body that no one had ever seen before.  And then he walked into that muddy water and dipped himself seven times; a biblical number that always implies “completeness” or “wholeness.”  And each time he came up out of that water, his skin looked better until at last he was restored.  And his terrible secret, once exposed to the light, completely lost its power over him.

This story is notable for all kinds of reasons, but one of the most striking is its bold upsetting of the social order.  Jesus makes reference to this story in Luke chapter 4 as an illustration of how the Gospel upsets the social order; God’s love and care is for all people – not just us so-called chosen ones. Naaman: a Syrian, a pagan, an outsider, and an enemy of Israel was the one upon whom the favor of God rested.

So that upsets our understanding of the way things ought to be.  But so does this: the Word of the Lord came through the lowly ones no one paid any attention to.  It was through the mouth of a female child and a slave – a nobody - that the word of the Lord came to the mighty general.  And instructions for his healing were delivered by another nobody – a mere messenger of the prophet. And then it was Naaman’s own servants who implored him not to storm off, but to at least try the muddy Jordan to see if it would work. Healing and wholeness were facilitated by those whom we ignore. And if you read the Bible carefully and fully, you will see that this pattern repeats over and over again. And we’re still learning the lesson to listen to those no one else hears.

This is a story about how much those things, by which we stratify society, don’t matter to God at all.    This is a story about how our social stratification keeps us trapped by our secrets. This story is about pretending to be perfect as we compete for social acceptance.  And the Good News of the Gospel in this story is that our salvation is found in the very thing we run from: our commonality with everyone born.  Standing naked in the world makes us free.

Once while at my church in New York City, I had taken ill and was in and out of the hospital several times over a number of weeks.  The leadership of the church knew about it, but I had sworn them to secrecy.  I didn’t want anyone else in the congregation to know that I was sick.  But the people of my church were not idiots.  They saw my pale face and need to sit down during worship.  They saw my occasional grimaces of pain.  I insisted to keep up this ridiculous façade up until one day one of my leaders – a New England Congregationalist by the way - called me out on it and told me that I was being silly by trying to hide my illness. She told me I needed to trust the community to do for me what I could not do for myself.

And so, I let them care for me and comfort me and worry about me.  I took off my armor.  And I stopped pretending that I was different just because I had a title.  I stopped keeping that secret.  And once exposed to the light and to the water, it not only lost its power over me, but it served as a bridge between me and the people of that church.

Today little Cecilia was washed in the waters of baptism - her skin fresh and beautiful like any child’s.  That’s also what happened to Naaman.  But those waters of grace are also available to any of us who are tired of hiding and longing for a new beginning.  From these waters we all rise, healed and made whole.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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I don’t need the words. You don’t need words. All you need is intention and love and hope and good will and breath.

This week is going to be whatever it will be: stressful, busy, burdensome, challenging. We can’t really change that. But we can choose “the better part.”

What's your secret? What’s the one thing you don’t want anyone else to know?

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