Psalm 4
1Answer me when I call, O God of my right! You
gave me room when I was in distress.
Be
gracious to me, and hear my prayer.
2How long, you people, shall my honor suffer
shame?
How
long will you love vain words, and seek after lies? Selah
3But know that the Lord has set apart the
faithful for himself;
the
Lord hears when I call to him.
4When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it
on your beds, and be silent. Selah
5Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in
the Lord.
6There are many who say, “O that we might see
some good!
Let the
light of your face shine on us, O Lord!”
7You have put gladness in my heart more than
when their grain and wine abound.
8I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for
you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.
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The
sermon series we’re doing right now is about becoming the church. We started
that broad topic the week after Easter by reflecting on how the disciples
recognized the risen Jesus when he broke bread, and how we still meet Jesus in
the sacrament of communion. Last week we looked at Jesus’ time with his
disciples after he rose from the dead. He taught them how to understand the
scriptures so they would be ready for their mission to share the good news of
God’s love with the world.
This
week we’re talking about prayer, both how we connect to God on our own, and how
the church as a community connects with God to strengthen it for its mission.
First, a little background for our passage.
The
story of Acts starts right where Luke’s Gospel leaves off. Jesus has risen
meets his disciples. He gives them a mission to proclaim the good news of God’s
love to the whole world. Then he rises into heaven and the disciples return to
Jerusalem to wait for the Holy Spirit. Fifty days after the resurrection of
Jesus the Holy Spirit appears in the room where they are praying and fills the
disciples with power. They minister to those around them, telling the good news
in every language. As people hear the story of God’s love in Christ, they join
the disciples in following Jesus.
While many believe, not everyone is
happy with this new movement of faith. Like with Jesus’ teaching, many of the
religious leaders are not comfortable about what the disciples had to say. They
thought with Jesus’ death they had finished with his disturbance, but as the
disciples keep preaching about Jesus, it’s clearly not done.
One
day Peter and John were walking into the temple when they saw a man who
couldn’t walk begging for help. They healed him in Jesus’ name and the man not
only started walking, he also ran and jumped with joy. A crowd gathered to hear
how this miracle had happened. Peter explained that it wasn’t because they were
more holy or wise than anyone else, but because of the power of Jesus Christ.
As
the crowd gathered, the religious leaders noticed what was going on, so they
arrested Peter and John. The next day they interrogated them about what had
happened. Peter told the story of healing the man through the name of Jesus and
went on to proclaim how God’s love was working through Jesus even though the
leaders had killed him.
The
leaders weren’t thrilled with that accusation, but they also couldn’t think of
a way to punish Peter and John since they had just performed an obvious miracle
in public. The situation was difficult because they couldn’t deny what had
happened, but they wanted to minimize the impact and keep people from talking
about Jesus. So they ordered Peter and John not to talk about Jesus anymore.
Now,
Peter and John were like most people. They preferred not to be beaten and
threatened, but they also had a clear calling from Jesus to spread the word,
and God’s power was working through them so they knew they were on the right
track. So they were honest with the leaders. They told them God had commanded
them to keep preaching about Jesus, so even though they heard the leader’s
command, they had to follow God’s calling instead. With that, the leaders beat
them and sent them on their way. That’s where our story for today picks up.
Acts 4:23-31
23After they were released, they went to their
friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24When
they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign
Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them, 25it
is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant:
‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? 26The
kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered together
against the Lord and against his Messiah.’ 27For in this city, in
fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of
Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, 28to
do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
29And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant
to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, 30while you
stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the
name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31When they had prayed, the place
in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with
the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.
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There
are times I have a hard time relating to the early church. There’s a power in
their faith life that I have never experienced. I’ve never prayed and felt the
Spirit shake the room. I’ve never healed anyone through prayer, at least not in
such an obvious way. It’s easy to feel a great distance between the power of
the early church and the lack of drama in my own spiritual life.
At
the same time, what I love about this passage is that the disciples are honest,
humble and very clear about their role. They look right at the threats against
them. They know that the religious leaders can kill them or beat them or lock
them in prison. They don’t ask God to protect them from danger. Instead, they
ask for boldness to speak God’s word courageously in the face of danger.
They
don’t ask for eloquence, or persuasiveness, or church growth. They don’t ask
for fame or comfort or long life. They know what their mission is: their
mission is to share the story of Jesus and the love of God with the world. They
don’t know how the story is going to go from there, but they are open and
available to God’s plan.
There
are a lot of things we can focus on when we talk about prayer, but today I want
to look at prayer as openness to God in word and action. We don’t have to know
where we’re going as a congregation or as individuals, but if we want to be
faithful to God’s calling, we need to be open to God’s leading along the way.
Part of how we do that is with specific moments of prayer. It’s helpful to set
aside periods of time to talk to God and to listen to God.
Often in my own life that’s
frustratingly quiet. I don’t hear God’s voice or see visions of where I’m being
led. But when I make space to quiet myself, sometimes I find that I just know
things. Sometimes one path I’ve been thinking about feels right. Sometimes in a
conversation I find myself saying the right words, even if I didn’t know they
were right before they came out.
Other
times our prayer is more the spirit with which we approach life than specific
times of prayer. If we approach our life as ministry and with a spirit of
prayerful openness, we’ll often find doors opening that we didn’t expect. The
trick here is not getting too caught up in our own plans.
At
the same time we open ourselves to God and loosen our hold on our own plans we
also need to trust ourselves. That seems like a paradox, but it isn’t. If we’re
open to God, God uses every part of us for ministry. Sometimes we over think
spiritual life. We imagine it’s difficult to figure out what God wants us to
do. We say we long for more clarity or we wish God would speak to us the way
God spoke to the early Christians.
The
truth is we usually know what we’re supposed to do. God has already showed us
by teaching us about faith and scripture throughout our life. When we get to a
specific decision we usually know what is the right decision. Call it intuition
or moral instinct or God’s guidance, the truth is the same. Many decisions are
pretty clear when we really look at what’s happening in a situation. Sometimes
we make a decision more complicated because we aren’t sure we want to do what
we should do. We know deep down, but we subconsciously don’t want to know.
Sometimes I discover that clarity
through reflection, but more often through action. When I go through the day
open to God’s plan, I find opportunities to share God’s message of love. A few
months ago one of my patients looked at me in the line at the emergency room at
Rochester General. He was lying on the stretcher and we were waiting our turn.
I don’t remember what we were talking about but he suddenly asked me if I was a
Christian. I said I was and he asked me to pray with him. So I took his hand
and we prayed out loud right where we were. A few years ago that would have
terrified me; it still makes me a little self-conscious. But the truth is that
God uses our openness for ministry even when we least expect it.
Other times someone else will give
me exactly the message I need to hear, not because I’m looking for it, but
because my ears are open. Sometimes it’s a line from something I’ve read, or a
voice on the radio. Sometimes I’m looking for something one place and it shows
up somewhere else. The key in listening seems to be openness: letting enough
space into our plans for God’s unexpected wisdom to show up.
The key in speaking is what the
disciples prayed for: boldness. In our words we can go wrong in two different
ways, we can be so sure we’re right that we aren’t open to an unexpected truth,
we’re not open to someone else’s perspective. On the other hand, we can be so
afraid of being wrong, so unsure of ourselves or so afraid of upsetting someone
else that we keep the truth we know to ourselves. Either way we fail to be the
best we can be. We fail to be the person God made us to be.
Sometimes the whole Presbyterian
sermon thing seems too cerebral. So let’s bring this down to earth with an
experiment this week. Each morning when you wake up this week pray this prayer:
“God, guide me to love, openness and boldness today.” Then pay attention as you
go through the day. Notice opportunities you have for sharing God’s love in
words or actions. Notice things people say that might open you up to new
possibilities. Notice chances you have to tell the truth and notice the fears
you have that try to hold you back. Try that experiment during the week. As you
do, I’d love to hear any reflections you’d like to share.
So what does this have to do with
prayer? Prayer has two sides and both are crucial. We see the disciples praying
a great prayer, a prayer to follow their calling. That active talking and
listening to God is one side of prayer. The other is behind the passage itself
and that’s prayerful action. When the disciples go about their daily lives they
do it with a prayerful openness. Maybe that’s what Paul means when he tells the
Roman church to pray without ceasing. Prayer isn’t just talking to God, it’s
also living with openness. Our prayer experiment is designed to tighten the
connection between our prayer and our action.
The other experiment in prayer
we’re going to do is about bringing more openness and participation into our
prayer in worship. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. There’s a disastrous
myth in our church and culture that you have to know how to pray. The truth is
that we all know how to pray, even if we don’t know we know. The one prayer
almost everyone knows is the prayer we say together each week, the Lord’s
prayer. In it we pray for the things we need. Most importantly, we pray for
God’s will to be done. On the surface it seems strange to pray for God to do
what God wants to do. In practice, if we pray that seriously we are aligning
ourselves with God’s purpose in the world. We’re not just praying for God to do
what God wants to do, we’re also praying to become part of God’s will coming
true in the world.
And when we join our actions with
that great prayer we are living the life we were made for. We make our life a
great cycle of prayer and action where our active prayer time shapes our
decisions during the day and our actions feed back into conversation with God
in prayer. There’s tremendous power in that prayer cycle because, like Jesus in
the Garden of Gethsemane, we give up our plans and take up God’s plan. Some
parts of that are scary, some are exciting and many are joyful. So God, give us
boldness for our journey with you.
Thanks be to God.
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