Prayer

Proper 25C 2019: Wisdom v. Reaction

October 27, 2019 by Cam Miller

From: Documentary Portraits of Mississippi: The Thirties, Selected and Edited by Patti Carr Black

I am going to zero in on something
I almost never talk about.
See if you can figure out what it is before I get there.

When I read that poem, “Hitchhiker”
a dozen contradictory voices
immediately echoed in my brain.
Don’t pick up the hitchhiker!
Okay, but don’t stop feeling badly about not picking up the hitchhiker.
Okay, but don’t live your life based upon feelings.

And the same thing happened
when I thought about Jesus’ parable
pitting the Pharisee against the Tax Collector.

Even though he is the foil in the story,
I think most of us would prefer
to FEEL like the Pharisee, who after all,
was quite pleased and at peace with himself –
even grateful for his well-being.
Isn’t that what we seek on some basic level:
to feel right with the world
and grateful for our blessings?

And yet, we need a good, loud tax collector inside
to rend us from within
and beg for mercy
because we also know
that our lives have tipped the scales of justice
against us,
and in ways we do not even recognize.

We want to feel like the Pharisee
but we need the agitation of the tax collector.
There are all these competing voices
inside our heads
and rummaging around in our poor little hearts,
and there are also plenty of live voices
filling the air around us
with ideas, accusations, admonitions, and cautions.

For many of us,
the hard part is not hearing voices,
rather, the hardest part
is not reactingto the voices.

Each voice wants us to react,
to respond and conform
to whatever he or she is espousing.

And yet, the wisest response
is not to react
to any voice.
…So many voices.

We hear the mom and dad voices
that live on in echoes
decades after mom and dad are dead and gone.

We hear the various voices of authority
that have steered us wrong in the past,
and we know it,
but still our knee-jerk reaction
is to follow them, at least at first.

We hear the voices of our professional training
that tell us the way the world is
and ought to be,
and we follow those voices
like a horse led with blinders
and so miss all kinds of other ways of seeing.
We get fitted with that professional training
and even long after we stopped doing that work,
we first and foremost we are
the banker
the accountant
the doctor
the lawyer
the professor or teacher
the musician
the therapist
the Ironworker
the social worker
the cop…and that is the way
we are trained to see the world.

We hear political voices,
religious voices,
ethnic and racial identity voices,
gender and sexuality voices –
all kinds of voices.
And often, perhaps most of the time,
we react to those voices
and our reactions lead our action
instead of our wisdom leading the way.

Having quick and precise reaction-time
is a good thing
when we are driving along
and another car runs a stop sign.
Quick reflexes
and automatic response
is a good thing
in an emergency
when immediate action save lives.

But in the everyday,
standing amid the myriad voices,
being reactionary will kill us –
maybe not immediately but slowly, over time
it will take us down
and fragment us.
At the very least, being reactionary
to all those voices
will repress our wisdom
and quite literally, depress us.

From where is wisdom to come?

What is the wisdom
that is the more trusted guide
than reaction
to the voices?

While I am just another voice to you,
the voice that I want to guide me
is God’s best dream for us.
Surrounded by the swirl of many voices,
each with its own neediness
and each with its own great ideas,
we need a filter:
one through which we can empty all those voices,
and in the end hear the voice
in which we recognize
God’s best dream for us.

It is in that voice we can be led by wisdom
instead of reaction.
At least, that’s been my experience.
When I am fortunate enough to be on top of my game
and the voices are coming at me fast and furious
and my reactions to them
swirling with chaos within me
and causing great turbulence,

I somehow find a way to step back
with a kind of gentle detachment
and allow wisdom
to filter all those voices.
Then – when I am at the top of my game –
I can let go of all my internal reactions
and be led by wisdom.

So, that is how I describe prayer.
And that, by the way,
is what this sermon is about – prayer.

In the last two weeks the Gospel of Luke
has supplied us with three models of prayer.
Last week was the feisty,
persistent,
even aggressive pray-er
who grabs hold of God
and won’t let go.

This week there is the supremely self-confident
Pharisee who approaches God
with the mindset of a well-trained professional
who believes that spiritual wellness
is an equation:
break it down into the right parts
and the sum of the whole will follow.

In contrast to the Pharisee,
there is the Tax-collector.
His strategy is to throw himself
on the mercy of the court –
believing and hoping
that even more than justice
God loves mercy.

Each of these is of course a caricature,
a kind of cartoon exaggeration
of different personalities
and what we are like when standing on the cliff
of our common brokenness
and looking down.

Personally, I do not look at prayer
as some pristine form into which we can slip
and suddenly all become of one nature –
a perfect little Jesus
or Buddha
or Catherine of Sienna.
We come as we are
and pray as we are.

We drag our rumpled old personality
with us into prayer,
and that shapes our praying –
and that is as it should be.

What is most important
is not how we pray
but that we do pray.

Prayer is what distills the voices
so that we can follow our wisdom
instead of our reactions.
Prayer is the process of discernment
in which we listen
for God’s best dream for us.

We think that prayer is about telling God
what we want
and what we think
and what we wish.

There is nothing wrong with telling God what to do,
but petitionary prayer
represents our reactionary self.
Our petitions are frequently our reactions
to things that are happening all around us.
There is nothing wrong with sending them up
like helium balloons
in hopes that God will hear them –
and do something about them.

But then…it is time to listen.

The kind of prayer I’m urging here,
is the process of listening
and eventually,
if we listen well enough,
hearing the wisdom that can lead us
through our reactionary-ness.
If we listen well enough
we will discern God’s best dream for us
for this time,
and in this place,
and for this particular circumstance.
Wisdom is never for-ever and all time;
like manna,
it doesn’t store or keep.
It is renewed in each new dawn.

So whether we are the tough and belligerent widow
from last week’s story,
or the Pharisee
or the Tax Collector –
and in truth we are all three –
the act of prayer
allows us to distill those voices
and be led by wisdom
instead of reaction.

Having a sense or inkling about
God’s best dream for us,
means that we don’t have to be led
by what the person sitting across from us
happens to like or not like,
or by what some other voice
thinks are good or bad.

Rather, we will have a sense
of God’s best dream for us
in that particular situation or concern
and we can be led by that instead.

Prayer it is not about the voices,
of our desires,
or our reaction to all the voices,
whether within or among us.

Prayer is the act of listening
and figuring out God’s best dream for us
here
and now
and in this place.

It is how we become led by wisdom
instead of reaction.

If that sounds good to you,
then you may want to know how to pray like that?
I really don’t know.

There is no gimmick.

There is no how-to.
There is no one-size fits all formula.
Walking,
sitting,
laying down,
slow yoga
fast running,
hands folded,
eyes open
eyes closed,
music,
no music,
deep breathing
big sigh.
The form is not the prayer, the process is.
THE FORM IS NOT THE PRAYER.
It is a listening process
and whatever helps us to listen
is the best form.
And the prayer is not completed
until we hear
or imagine
or somehow apprehend
a sense, or even an inkling,
of God’s best dream for us.
That means our prayer
may last hours, days, months
or even years.
Whatever sustains our ability to listen
is the best form for us,
and then doing it.
Just doing it.

So next time those voices are raging inside,
or coming at you fast
from all around,
it is time to pray.
That may mean getting quiet
and still – if
that is how you listen best –
it may mean going and getting a milkshake.
Hey, there are weirder things.

But whatever, doing what helps you listen
and then listening
is what prayer is.
I commend it to you.

2 Epiphany B, 2018: Falling Into the Stars

January 14, 2018 by Cam Miller

2 Epiphany, Year B, 2018

Some people love the night sky, some people do not.
Those that do, can look above to darkened dome splashed with glitter
and feel invited to wonder.

Those that do,
can fall into the vastness
of interstellar space
and feel their nerve endings incited by their own insignificance.

Those that do,
can free their imagination to spacewalk. Untethered from anxiety or dread their wonderment is a tiny probe, free to explore every nook and cranny of meaning in the universe.

Meanwhile, there are those
that walk along underneath
all that nocturnal enchantment
never inclined to look up, and rather,
pleased to see what is before their feet
so as not to stumble.

Still others huddle against the darkness,
fearful of what they cannot see, knowing
dangers lurk at the end of their vision.
To look up, to really gaze into the night,
is to know there is no end to the distance
and no protection from anyone or anything.
The stars offer only anxiety
and so they look away.

For some, the vastness
is a come-on, for others it is ghastly.

For some, the darkness
is a warm pool, or others a prison.

A complimentary phenomenon is also true.

Some people love
the slender silhouette
of aloneness, some people really do not.
Sometimes the very ones who would bravely
explore the vastness of the cosmos above,
become timid and feeble
at the doorway of self or soul.

There are those who could sit all day
in the blessed quiet of the self,
rendering it a garden of delight
where distractions are few and peace
the hedgerow of safety.

For others, the prospect of sitting within,
where no voices other than one’s own
interrupt the conversations,
is terrifying.

For some, aloneness
is a nurturing freedom,
while for others it is an hourglass prison
dripping a single grain of sand at a time.

Religious spiritual traditions
tend to be dominated by monastic practices,
and not just in Christianity.
The presumption of prayer
is that it is a quiet, stationary activity
of sitting alone and communing with God.

For some, that idea makes them want to puke.
Likewise, meditation and contemplation
are assumed to be confined
to solitary activity, to which
there is a single entrance.

We have developed a kind of either/or
caricature of spiritual practice,
with introverted prayer
and extroverted worship.
But as with all things,
binary choices are a straight-jacket for the crazy.

Like most things in life,
nurturing a balance gets us farther,
and deepens our wellness.
When we can value the things we struggle with,
and work on them a little – even when it is hard –
we will discover
it strengthens muscles we didn’t know we had.
Likewise, when we go with our strengths
and use them to power us through tough times,
we will be energized and buoyed.

So, here’s the deal.

Centering prayer or meditation
is not for everyone,
any more than yoga or tai chi
will appeal to everyone.
But quiet, contemplative prayer,
or breath-meditation with a mantra,
is something that can be practiced by everyone.
They are tools to be used.
For some folks, they will be a utility tool
whipped out and used daily.
For others, they will be a specialty tool
only worth it in particular situations.

But having the tool,
being able to use it for suitable purposes,
is a vital practice.

There is not a single way to pray.
Not everyone has to be Thomas Merton
or Basho,
and can instead, be Tevye
from Fiddler on the Roof.
But having facility
with several different kinds and style of prayerfulness,
will strengthen and deepen our spiritual practice.

In times of grief, for example,
quiet contemplative prayer is simply too painful
for most people to practice.
Then rote prayer –
the prayers of childhood that roll off the tongue,
can become life-savers.
In the midst of personal turmoil and crisis,
sitting and simply taking five slow deep breaths
at morning, noon, and night,
may be all we can do.
The tormented mind
may not be able to gather itself
around the sound of a mantra
in periods of struggle.

That is okay,
so using a partial technique might be enough.
But having alternative options may be even better –
things we would not normally do,
but which might work well in that circumstance.

Walking a labyrinth, which would seem
painful and confining in one circumstance,
may be the only thing tolerable
in another.

Or swimming laps
while contemplating a gnarly conundrum
may be exactly what the doctor ordered,
but only at certain times, under particular circumstances.

Having an array of tools
for practicing our spirituality,
is a simple, homely wisdom for the 21^st century.
We are not monastics,
and one kind of prayer does not fit all.
Nor will we continue to grow
if our spiritual practice is limited to corporate worship.
We need to get comfortable enough
with starring into the vast darkness of the universe,
and with entering the silence within,
that we can do both.
We probably will not do both equally well,
or with equal comfort and facility,
but we need to learn to do both.

That is why, unlike the Book of Common Prayer,
we have begun to use things
like prayer stones and candle lighting
without spoken prayers,
as forms of intercession from time to time.
Some like it, some do not,
but whether we happen to enjoy it or not
is really beside the point.
Our corporate worship should not merely comfort us,
it should push us and challenge us as well.
Likewise, music
and movement,
and sermons and affirmations –
should stir us up as well as nestle us in.
Spiritual practice is not a methodology for digging
better and more foxholes,
rather, for building a diversity of tools
and strengthening our endurance
so we can advance across the field.

So, let’s drill down to the bottom of this well.

You and I, most of us here anyway,
have been baptized.
We got sprinkled on the head as an infant,

or dunked under water as a youth,
or in some other way,
we were brought into this practice ritually.
The question now is,
are we going to practice our baptism or not,
and how well are we going to practice it.
I hate to say this,
but church-going is not the practice.
Coming to worship on Sunday is not the practice.
Saying prayers at night or mealtime is not the practice.

The Christian spiritual practice of baptismal ministry
is a multi-faceted engagement with the world around us
and participating in a spiritual community
strengthens us for the practice.

In other words, this is not the practice,
it is a piece of it.
It is the place we come
to be with people we know love us,
and find strength and solace in the arms of community.
It is the place we come to get armed
with ideas and methods and opportunities
to become more skilled practitioners of baptismal ministry.
But church is not our primary ministry.
No program we do with or from church
is our primary ministry.

Our primary practice for baptismal ministry
is among the people with whom
we live, and work, and play.
Church should strengthen us to do that,
and church should make us better at it.
But church is not the ministry.
Rather, our spiritual practice
in the context of our lives,
is our ministry.

We have inverted it over the years.
Baptism became about belonging –
affiliation with a particular kind of church,
instead of a spiritual practice.
It became about what we did in church,
and with church-people,
instead of about how we lived and practiced our spirituality
where we lived.

I can’t believe Jesus risked torture
and execution by the State,
so that we could create a church
in which we found comfort and people we agree with.
Jesus gathered friends and students
and sent them out to engage with people,
and change the world
as they shared the love of God.

Our task, together,
is to continue building a spiritual community
that enhances the tools and means
by which we practice our baptismal ministries.
We do that with one another,
but we also do that alone or in pairs,
and among those with whom we live, and work, and play.
We also do it by comforting one another
as we create a safe place like church.
Safe, so that we can be challenged,
and grow, sometimes even against the grain.

The poet, David Whyte, says it well:

“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.”

That goes for church as well.

But the psalmist adds the other dimension:
God has “searched us out and known us…”
and God has “…traced our journeys and my resting-places,
and is acquainted with all ours ways.”

In other words,
whether we free our minds to plumb
the depths of interstellar space,
or walk down the narrow steps
into the basement of the self,
we are not alone –
whether we know it or not.

Our baptismal ministry
is to carry the knowledge of that abiding love
and complete presence,
to those with whom we share the world daily.
Stay strong.

Jesus rides rodeo on sacred cows

June 25, 2017 by Cam Miller

Texts for Preaching
Jeremiah 20:7-13
“How to be a Poet” by Wendell Berry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/41087
Matthew 10:24-39

SERMON

“…Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.”
(Excerpt from “How to be a Poet” by Wendell Berry)

That is to say,
make a poem from God’s prayers for us.

Well, if only each of today’s readings were so gentle.

There is no doubt Jesus was considered “evil”
by the mainstream culture.
Have you ever been called “evil?”

Have you ever done anything
or said anything
that someone else would have, could have,
labeled as “evil?”
Not just bad.
Not just derelict.

Not merely negligent, maleficent, or stupid;
but “evil?”

As polarized as we are
as a culture and religion,
it would not be surprising if you had been.
No matter what perspective you have about abortion,
someone is going to think yours is “evil.”
No matter what your perspective on war
or The United States prosecution of war in Iraq,
Afghanistan, or anywhere,
someone is going to think yours is “evil.”

Even if you somehow got to this point in life
without forming or holding a strong opinion or two,
the absence of opinion could be considered “evil” –
a kind of studied avoidance and neglect.

So we can bet that Jesus was regularly called “evil”
by those that clung to and lived by
the mainstream culture around him.
That’s because Jesus was downright subversive,
and actively sought to corrode many of the values
that propped up people in power
and institutions
that he considered “evil.”

Now let’s stop right there and define “evil.”

Evil is a special category of bad.
Many people define it as a spiritual noun
that creates despicable and degenerate adjectives.
In other words, a mythical spiritual entity named “Satan”
or some other boogiemen of the soul,
infects and directs otherwise good people
to do horrendously bad things.

I am not a big fan of the Satan legend
or devil myths,
because being in recovery,
I know my own capacity for really awful behavior,
and it has nothing to do with spiritual forces beyond me.

Take a stomach-turning peek at genocide
as it has unfolded anywhere in the world.

In Nazi Germany or Cambodia or Rwanda,
we will not find nasty spiritual genies at play;
instead, we will witness
the ordinary human capacity for evil
when there has been a deep societal descent
into self-orbit.

Evil is the natural consequence
when the core value
and principle motivation
of individuals or societies
is pure self-interest.

If you have a friend or family member
who is an alcoholic or drug-addicted user,
then you have seen up close,
someone who lives life in the shadow
of self-orbit.
That is the nature of the disease.
You cannot be an addict
without having been captured
by the raw obsession
for that thing you want and need and must have.

A person’s orbit around their lust or thirst or desire
will eventually become complete,
and anyone else’s need or wellness or concern
simple will not matter.

The self-orbit of the addict is the perfect image of evil;
and it is available to all of us
when we fall so far into our self-interest
that our perspectives turn singular.

You, my friend, are capable of odious, heinous evil,
and when you imagine that you are not,
that is precisely the moment
when you become most susceptible to it.
No dark figure,
no devil or bad spirit;
just us, with an infantile obsession for our own way,
the satiation of our own desire,
a death-grip on what we want or believe or must have.

Even though that is not a description of Jesus,
many thought he was evil.

That is why Jesus warns his friends
that they will be tarred with guilt by association,
and in fact, even those in their own households
will get blasted simply because of being related to them.

But let’s be honest.
We do not have a smooth and comfortable relationship
with Jesus either.
Most of us sitting right here today,
in this Church and many others,
do not really know what to do with Jesus.

He embarrasses many of us.
Many of us do not like the issues he drags up.
Many of us wish we could just be Christians in a gooey, amorphous kind of love-theology
without all the hostile and nasty rhetoric Jesus mutters.

Frankly, he is a stumbling block
and a source of division.
But even so, smiley Christians everywhere
just want us to love him.

Millions and millions of Christians
just know that we would love Jesus too,
if we would only take him into our hearts
and proclaim him our savior – whatever that means.

I call this kind of Christian religiosity “The Eggplant Syndrome.”

You may have noticed this food malady
in people around you, or you may have it yourself.

There are some people who just love eggplant,
like those Christians that just love Jesus.
They are so passionate about eggplant
that they cannot imagine there would be someone,
anywhere in the world,
that would not love eggplant.
“Just try MY recipe,” they sparkle with hope,
“you’ll love my eggplant.”

But so far, nothing and no one
has given me a taste for it.
On the other hand, I do love Jesus.
Not in the way that gooey-eyed Christians
“just love him.”

I love the guy who comes through the ancient text
of the Gospels – not in every word,

but in the amazing wisdom and insight
that breathes through even the blanket
of centuries and cultures and doctrines
that has been placed upon the Gospels
by time and intention and bad behavior.

Sometimes, when reading about Jesus
in those ancient texts,
I can get that feeling that comes
at the end of a terrific lightening storm,
when the air is clean
and everything around us still in tact.
Suddenly the atmosphere is clear
and colors vibrant
and everything is so much what it is
it is as if we can see it all with new eyes.

Jesus does that sometimes.
He gets in our face
and rattles our cage,
and if we do not reject him out of hand
we may just get a small moment of clarity.

Check out that hard-edged reading from Matthew.

The first thing Jesus attacks is “Family Values.”
He goes for the jugular of first century Judean society,
which was organized around
a rigidly stratified family structure.
Men were at the top – grandfather, father, son;
women were next – grandmother, mother, and daughter;
and at the bottom were children – oldest to youngest.

It is not difficult to understand
the value of such a rigid hierarchy.

It was a system that gave stability to life,
and it provided for economic transition
from one generation to the next.
At the same time, it also kept everyone in place,
from richest to poorest.

The family values Jesus railed against
were not unlike the family values proclaimed today:
they enshrined abuses with godly authority.
Men could harm women with impunity,
and adults could abuse children without thought,
and authority could not be questioned,
and so change and transformation
were shackled to resistance.

Jesus attacked it.
Jesus raised questions about it.
Jesus warned that he was there to crack it open.
Likewise, Jesus takes aim at us, today.

Jesus attacks our mind
when we over-identify with our children
so that our sense of self and self-worth
is enmeshed with what they are doing
and how they are doing.

Jesus attacks our mind
when we over-identify with our spouse,
or family name, or family reputation
so that it becomes the primary filter
for our own worldview.

Jesus attacks our mind
when nationalism and patriotism
bend our outward reaching compassion
until it curls back toward a tribal orbit
around me and my own.

Anything can capture us like that:
our job or profession,
our race or ethnicity,
our gender or sexuality,
our success or possessions,
our religion or ideology.
Jesus attacks it.

When any of these things become ultimate for us,
and begin to serve as the singular
or even most powerful filter
for our sense of identity and self-worth,
we are being drawn into a sneaky self-orbit
that we imagine
is bigger than ourselves.
It is not.

It could even be the beginning of evil,
because that is where evil begins:
turning the less-than-ultimate
into the primary and core belief
through which we filter all other perspectives.

Only God
has a god’s-eye view.
The rest of us are peeking through a pinhole.

Even Albert Einstein, the Dali Lama, or
whomever you consider a most insightful genius,
has only managed to push away a little bit more film
from the edges of the pinhole.
If or when we forget that,
and wrap our arms
around some tiny pillow
like nationalism
or family values
or religion –
and treat it as the standard of Truth
and the definitive filter through which to see –
we will be descending into self-orbit.

The alternative
is to allow Jesus to rattle our cage
and push us up against our prejudices and fears.

The alternative
is to allow Jesus to ride and break our sacred cows
like a quarter horse
so they can be ridden and not ride us.

The alternative
is to allow Jesus to get in our face
and instead of being repulsed or angered
by something we did not want to hear,
we listen;
we breathe deeply and listen;
we stop and notice the clean, clear air
that follows the lightening strike.

And that brings me back to Wendell Berry.

Many people,
maybe most people,
if they pray,
are asking for things.
It is understandable, because
when we come to the edge of our powerlessness,
there is nothing to do but ask, “Anybody up there?”
But that very posture
simply brings into prayer
our propensity for self-orbit:
I want,
I fear,
I need,
I want you to do for me…

There is nothing wrong with that;
we need daily bread, and forgiveness
as we forgive others.
Jesus recognized that also.

But such petitioning
really ought to be a secondary or tertiary
kind of prayer.
The first kind
probably ought to be the listening kind.

“…out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays…”

Our primary prayer should be the kind that listens for
God’s prayers for us:
A listening prayer;
a listening to the silence, kind of prayer.
The prayer I am talking about is a
listening for the god’s-eye view-kind-of-prayer.

I commend that kind of prayer to you,
even as an extravert,
not normally the kind of person that loves silence.
But if we want to catch a glimpse of a god’s-eye view
then we need to be listening.
We need to listen to God’s prayers for us
more than speaking our prayers to God.
And, as it turns out,
sometimes what God has to say to us,
that god’s-eye view,
comes to us through Jesus’ snarling and barking
and downright subversive rants.

Proper 15, Year C, 2016: Praying with the Nazi Within Me

August 14, 2016 by Cam Miller

The Liturgical Reading

“The Nazi within me thinks it’s time to take charge.

The world’s a mess; people are crazy.

The Nazi within me wants windows shut tight,

new locks put on the doors. There’s too much

fresh air, too much coming and going.

The Nazi within me wants more respect. He wants

the only TV camera, the only bank account,

the only really pretty girl. The Nazi within me

wants to be boss of traffic and traffic lights.

People drive too fast; they take up too much space.

The Nazi within me thinks people are getting away

with murder. He wants to be boss of murder.

He wants to be boss of bananas, boss of white bread.

The Nazi within me wants uniforms for everyone.

He wants them to wash their hands, sit up straight,

pay strict attention. He wants to make certain

they say yes when he says yes, no when he says no.

He imagines everybody sitting in straight chairs.

Are you ready? He asks them. They say they are ready.

Are you ready to be happy? He asks them. They say

they are ready to be happy. The Nazi within me wants

everyone to be happy but not too happy and definitely

not noisy. No singing, no dancing, no carrying on.”

by Stephen Dobyns

In 2007, Katy and I took a trip
to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

We rented, sight unseen,
a cabin without electricity or running water
that sat near the edge of a dramatic cliff
on the far tip of the last gravel road
before there was nothing but wilderness
and no more roads.

The cabin did have propane lamps and a stove,
as well as water from a gravity system
from a nearby creek.
Otherwise this cabin had all the comforts of home.
It was awesome actually.

It had two rooms downstairs
and the upstairs was one room,
a kind of widow’s walk
with glass windows on all four sides
looking out at the ocean.
I guess the toilet and shower
might not have been like home
but since I don’t remember them all that well
they must not have been too horrible.

Anyway, you might remember the summer or 2007.

Looking back now
we know it was the gathering of a horrific storm
with a great sense of dis-ease all around.

It was the end of the Bush era
with presidential campaigns underway
and all manner of nastiness let loose in all directions.
While it may seem tame from where we bask
in the current political climate,
at the time it seemed quite fierce.

And then of course,
it was the beginning of the crash that would come,
with a sudden implosion in August
of a world-wide credit crunch.
For reasons that I never knew, then or now,
I had decided in advance of that vacation,
that I would engage in daily intercessory prayer.

Now you need to know
I am not a prayer-warrior.
I’m a pray-er in fits and starts, often crisis-oriented.
But even when I pray
it is typically the contemplative kind:
less words, fewer thoughts
and aimed at centering and listening
more than asking and petitioning.
So the idea of sitting on a cliff
engaging in intercessory prayer
was just plain weird in terms of my norm.

But somehow,
the idea of it took on the force of a mission,
a secret mission.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to be praying for
until one day it hit me:
a new wind to come and sweep the nation.
Honestly, I had no idea what that meant
but I decided that it was going to be my prayer
and I was going to pray it daily
out there in the middle of nowhere
on the tip of the continent.

Looking back on it, what an ego-prayer it was!
Praying for a new wind to come sweep the nation
as if I knew anything about what the nation needed
is ego-prayer at its most grotesque.
It’s like praying for our side to win the war
as if God is will be happier with more dead bodies
on their side than our side.
But in the summer of 2007
it sounded right to me
and I prayed it with earnestness.
“Come, Holy Spirit,” I prayed,
“and sweep this nation with a new wind.”

Well as arrogant as that sounds now,
it started with a good heart.
It even began as a generous, hopeful kind of prayer.

But as often happens,
it wasn’t long before the “Nazi within me”
got a hold of that prayer
and I found myself praying it
with all kinds of my own assumptions in the background,
like who was and wasn’t going to get swept away!

The “Nazi within me” knows who has been good
and who has been bad
and who should get coal in their stocking
and whose fortunes should be reversed,
and as I kept praying those same words
a malevolent spirit crept in.
No longer was it God’s wind
I was praying for
but God’s wind to do my bidding
that I was praying for.

I should not have been surprised
about how it would turn out though,
because our dreams often turn into God’s dream
at least in our own heads;
and our prayers
somehow become God’s prayers.
We begin with an earnest desire,
and maybe even some true humility
that understands the extreme distance
between our own agenda and God’s agenda,
but before we’re done, doggoneit,
those dang agendas get merged.

That’s what I did anyway,
took an open, generous, and hopeful prayer
and turned it into a command
for God to do what I wanted God to do.

Then an actual storm hit the little house
where we were staying.

It began late one night with a wind;
an honest-to-god wind.
The wind came in from the ocean.
Before the rain
and before the thunder
and before the lightening came the wind.

Now if you remember your geography,
that part of Nova Scotia juts out at the very end
of our continent into the ocean
so it is the bulkhead meeting the storm.

I have never felt such powerful wind.
It shook the cabin.
It bent tall trees.
It churned the ocean until waves
frothed like steamed milk.

Then the rain came
and it pounded the roof
and pelted the windows,
but the wind roared even louder.
I went up into the second floor conning tower
thinking it would be cool to watch the storm
from up there only to get unnerved
by how vulnerable we seemed.

All day long the wind blew
and all day long
wall after wall of waves
crashed the cliffs below the cabin.

At the golden hour the rain stopped.
The clouds broke
and parted into crowds of white
surrounded by a spread of blue.
But still the wind raged on.
We had been inside all day,
reading and wondering how terrible
and how long
the storm would be.
But now we could venture out.
I sat on my stump at the edge of the cliff
and felt the remnants of rain against my face…
and I went to say my prayer.

But now, after the storm,
the prayer for God to sweep our nation
was frightening,
somber,
and felt deeply unwise.
Allow me to leave my stump for a moment
and say something parenthetically about praying.

First of all, I am no expert on prayer.
And guess what?
There are no experts on prayer and praying.
There are all kinds of ways to pray
and teachers and techniques out the wazoo,
but no right way
and no one way
to pray.

But here is a little something about prayer
that may or may not be helpful to you.
Take it for what it is worth.

We witness the landscape change with the seasons,
and if you practice a continuous prayer,
the kind of single-focused prayer
like I was praying,
or any routine intercessory prayer
for people and events,
there are also seasons.

You, the pray-er, and the prayer itself,
will have seasons that change over time
even if it is exactly the same prayer
prayed every day.

Praying the same prayer
over and over and over again
is not redundant
or futile
or childish.

Such a prayer,
if it is an authentic prayer of the heart,
will change like the seasons.

Even the same words,
said over and over and over again,
will change meaning
as the seasons of the soul
moves through its cycles.

To pray a prayer,
the same one over and over and over again,
will change even when the words do not.
“The Nazi within us” comes and goes, hopefully,
and new characters and thoughts,
angels and demons of our variety of natures
arrive and disappear;
and then sometimes,
another voice,
one more trustworthy, whispers through the noise.
And then it starts all over again.

If you have never prayed the same prayer
over and over again for a long time,
especially a prayer that is not a prayer for yourself
or for someone else you know,
then I highly recommend it.
Such a prayer can worm its way into your soul
and ripen and in ways that will amaze you.

But now, let’s go back to that somber moment
with me on my stump praying in the wind.

I was afraid to get too close to the edge of the cliff
for fear that a sudden gust would send me to my death
in the churning ocean below,
and then it hit me in my gut
what a terrible, fearsome thing
I had been praying for.

A new wind,
I realized,
no matter how good or righteous in the end,
sweeps away the beloved along with the loathsome.

We cannot invite God to change us
without placing ourselves,
and all that we know,
at great risk.

We like to think of the “peace of God”
as a calm,
serene moment in which we feel held
and safe
and loved
down to our deepest roots.
And indeed,
such a warm encounter with the holy
can engender a sense of peacefulness.

But more often than not
such moments are preceded by crisis.

We associate the calm at the end of the storm
with God,
but we neglect to perceive
the intrinsic relationship
between the storm and the peace,
or between the crisis and God.

The “Nazi within us”
prays for the good guys to be rewarded
and the bad guys to “get theirs”
and all our pals to be healed.
But that is not how the planet
or the universe or the cosmos works.

That is how we want it to work
but there is no evidence whatsoever
that that is how it works.
Instead, the evidence suggests
that we are intimately connected to one another –
the good and the bad,
the right and the wrong,
the loved and the hated,
the just and the unjust,
and the wind that sweeps us clean
will sweep all of us
into a new order when it comes.

To pray for justice,
to work for equity,
to demand a better world,
to ask God for thy kingdom come,
is to place us all at great risk.

And yet,
and yet,
that is exactly what we have been asked to do:
pray for thy kingdom to come –
not ours
by thy will be done.

If we have any brains at all
we should know,
especially most of us sitting right here,
that such a prayer
is a prayer against our own self-interest.
And yet, that is exactly the prayer
we have been asked to pray
over and over and over and over again.

“Thy kingdom come –
not ours,
but thy will be done.”

Ninety percent of the time,
six days out of seven,
we know that our will is not God’s will.
When the “Nazi within us” is not in charge,
we know darn well that praying
“thy kingdom come”
is praying for something
that will likely turn out
to be against our own self-interest.

And yet,
and still,
that is what we have been asked to pray.
“Thy kingdom come –
not ours
but thy will be done.”

Proper 12, Year C, 2016

July 25, 2016 by Cam Miller

More years ago than seems possible,
in another congregation,
in another town,
I knew an eccentric young man named Harry.

Eccentric hardly names it.

Harry dressed for Church in knickers,
a boller or straw hat,
and from time to time, if he felt the occasion warranted,
he added a Batt Masterson style cane.

To top it all off
Harry spoke out of the side of his mouth like W.C. Fields.
Although I knew Harry for two years
I could not venture a guess as to who the real Harry was.

Please consider as well, that I was a 29 year old rector
with only two years of experience as a priest
when Harry walked in one afternoon.
He told me in a long and involved way,
which was his custom,
that he was chasing the job of his dreams
that would relocate him to another state.

He apparently had a chance for this position
but said the competition was fierce
and thus his visit to me.
After describing his wish for the job of his dreams
he looked me in the eye and said with a straight face:
“Pray for me to get this job.
If your prayers are efficacious,
there’s a C-note in it for you.”

Well I didn’t even know what “efficacious” meant.
I felt deeply conflicted about praying for such things
– as if asking for a bicycle at Christmas –
and I felt ashamed of myself for hoping
he would get the job
so I would get a hundred bucks.

Well, Harry did not get the job
and I did not get the $100,
and to add insult to injury,
Harry went looking for another priest
whose prayers were more efficacious.

Today’s Gospel reading has a simple, earthy,
even sweet message about prayer that, surprisingly,
Harry would feel right at home with.

Let’s acknowledge there is a great deal in our tradition
written about prayer,
and these days
there is quite a lot of interest in prayer exotica:
Centering prayer,
Contemplative prayer,
Visual prayer,
Yogic prayer,
Mandala prayer…
And while all of that is good stuff if in your heart’s desire,
I think it is useful for us to listen
to what a First Century Palestinian rabbi named Jesus
had to say about prayer.

But first,
the parable about the late night knock at the door
has been made more complicated
by the fact that we cannot simply take what it says
and apply it directly to ourselves.
The reason we cannot be so direct
is that 1^st Century rural Galilee
and 21^st Century urban culture
are as far apart as ancient peasant subsistence farming
and affluent American consumerism.

So there are a few things we need to know
about Jesus’ world
before the wisdom rings through this parable.

First, hospitality
was the centerpiece of 1^st century Judea and Galilee
the same way consumerism is central to our culture.
Hospitality was even an engine of their economic life
just as consumerism has been for ours.

To undermine the strict and intricate rules of hospitality
would have been to unravel the whole social fabric
with severe economic consequences.

Second, anyone
who traveled overnight to anyplace
was utterly dependent upon friends or friends of friends,
for a place to stay –
an Inn was either a Brothel
or an otherwise impossible place
for an observant Jews to spend the night.

Third, if you did not welcome a guest into your home
you would face an intolerable shame
– a shame that could literally be carried against you
for the rest of your life.
And in that culture,
to drag an injured reputation was to be sorely disabled.

But at the same time,
while the door to your home was always open
during the day,
it was always closed and locked at night.
To disturb the rigidly held privacy of the home at night was to risk a different kind of disabling shame.

So with that information,
we can see that this parable Jesus told
was really about how a neighbor
risked shame for the sake of hospitality.

That is the subtitle of this parable:
Risking shame for the sake of hospitality.

Here is the scenario behind the parable:

The first neighbor had unexpected guests,
apparently at night.

The first neighbor was unprepared for guests
and had nothing in the house to feed them.
Left unremedied he would have been shamed.
What to do?
Dare he add more shame upon himself
by disturbing his neighbor at night
in the hope he could barrow some bread?

The second neighbor
was then faced with a different dilemma.

Should he answer knock on the door at night or not?
And if so,
should he then save the neighbor from his shame
by giving him some bread,
or add to his shame by giving nothing
in addition to being offended
for having his nighttime privacy disturbed?

We can see how complicated this gets,
and how far away from it WE are
in the absence of shame as a social regulator
in our culture.
Our sense of hospitality and privacy are wholly different.

It is also interesting to note
how this intricate protocol for hospitality
required an intense sense of inter-dependence;
something that was born of both economic need
and religious values.

Anyway, here is a slight re-working of the parable
that makes clear what the issues are:
Jesus asks his disciples,
“Which of you will go to your next-door neighbor
at midnight and ask to barrow bread
for an unexpected guest,
and then be turned down?”
And his disciples answered him,
“Why, none of us.
We do not have unresponsive neighbors.

It is unthinkable that a request like that would be denied.”*
*Texts For Preaching, Cousar, Gaventa, McCann, and Newsome

Jesus’ response to them would be,
“Well, if perfectly ordinary human beings like yourselves would respond to a neighbor’s need late at night,
how much more generous will God be with your needs?”

What I hear in this parable
is a challenge and a promise:
While we so often operate out of guilt, social obligation, and self-interest,
God operates out of absolute compassion and love.

The punch line of the parable is this:
There is no risk involved in asking God for anything. Forgiveness, bread, joy, healing, a new bicycle for Christmas…anything!

Feel free to ask for anything
no matter how selfish or silly.

The punch line of this parable
is then sewn into the lining of the model prayer
we call The Lord’s Prayer.

Jesus begins, “Our Father” –
but literally “ABBA”.
Some scholars have argued that “Abba”
in ancient Aramaic
translates better in our parlance
as “Daddy” or “Mommy.”
Others have argued against this transliteration
but in either case, “Abba”
is a title more intimate than formal;
more personal than corporate;
more colloquial than liturgical.

That Jesus prayed to God as Abba
and invited his friends and students to do the same,
suggests to me that God need not be approached
in the way that Dorothy and the Scarecrow
groveled before the Wizard of Oz.
And yet, unfortunately,
that is how many of us learned to pray.

We were only taught the formal language
of corporate worship
but nothing of prayer
as a private language of holy intimacy.
Big mistake.

The other element of this model prayer
we need to observe
is that it is exclusively a “gimme” prayer.

Five times
Jesus asks God to do something for him –
“gimmies” to meet actual, basic needs.

Here is what Jesus’ model prayer asks for:

Daddy, keep me in awe
and inspired by your magnificence.
Mommy, I need you
to get more active in this crazy world
and bump these power-mongers out of the way.
Daddy, I need you
to help me get my basic needs met
– and maybe you could throw in something beyond subsistence too.
Mommy, I need you to forgive me for my failures and my evil, and I need help forgiving some of the people whose failures and evil have done me-and-mine wrong.
And Daddy, please, whatever you do, do not keep testing my character – I’ve only got so much character!

Amen.

Here’s the deal.
The idea of a model prayer
is not that we are supposed to
ask for these five gimmies all the time;
you and I have different gimmies
we want and need.

We do not copy how Jesus dressed
or how he wore his hair
or limit ourselves to what he ate,
so we need not be so simplistic
about getting the words or petitions
he might have used just exactly like him either.

The model is this:
God is Mommy or Daddy
– intimate, immediate, safe, present, trustworthy.
Ask for real needs
– basic, sensual, earthy, real needs.
Look for a kind and generous response
– healing, hopeful, appropriate, and genuine.

That is all we hear about prayer when we listen to Jesus.

There is no particular technique mentioned.
There is no one methodology offered.
One kind of prayer
is not stressed as more efficacious
than another kind of prayer.

Efficacious prayer – effective prayer that is –
does not depend upon whether we stand or kneel
or think or speak
or meditate or contemplate
or anything that WE do.

Efficacious prayer is not influenced
by who offers the prayer
– Pope, priest, Dali Lama, or you.
Prayer depends upon a listening
and responsive God.
That is all.
Prayer depends upon a listening
and responsive God…
and our willingness to pray.

But here is the thought I want to leave you with.

If we do not pray
then we are wasting our time trying to know God.
Praying is how we come to know God.
Prayer is not a method or technique,
it is the expression of our relationship.

If we feel dissatisfied
in our relationships with God,
then we simply need to try changing the way we pray.

The little parable we heard today,
and Jesus’ model prayer,
leave us with three very basic, concrete,
even diagnostic questions
that may help us gain a closer relationship with God.
First, what is your name for God?
Is it intimate and personal or is it formal and public?

Secondly, what do you ask God?
Is it for the same old things
that don’t really inspire you
or for the gimmies of your heart
that keep you awake at night?

Third, and finally, how often are you with God in prayer?
Just at the dinner table or
before drifting off to sleep,
or more frequently throughout the day?

Really, this is not rocket science.

It is not the Three-fold Blissful Enlightenment
of a Kung fu Master.

It is just prayer.

Amen.

Proper 25C 2019: Wisdom v. Reaction

2 Epiphany B, 2018: Falling Into the Stars

Jesus rides rodeo on sacred cows

Proper 15, Year C, 2016: Praying with the Nazi Within Me

Proper 12, Year C, 2016

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