February 24, 2013

Glynn Cardy

Lent 2 
    Luke 13:31-35


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Lent begins with the story of Jesus going off alone into the wilderness to confront the power of his fears, alone before God.

Giles Fraser writes, "The great Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury throughout the 1960s, was once asked how to pray. “I just get down on my knees and hope for the best," he replied. In other words, there is not much that you have to do other than make time for it. For Ramsey, prayer was not the heaping up of pious chatter. It was not a peculiar way of getting things done in the world. Rather, it was about listening and waiting – being attentive to that which is beyond oneself, a form of concentration on that which is other. The experts in prayer are therefore often strange misfits, otherworldly in so far that they eschew any practical calculation of utility. Prayer is like art; or rather prayer demands the sort of attention that art demands. It takes time. It requires silence.[i]

Like Jesus heading alone into the wilderness, what Giles is describing is solitary prayer – namely a way of prayer that is intensely personal and involves listening, waiting, wrestling and silence. Yet there is also another type of prayer, which I want to talk about this morning, called connected prayer which is way of relating to other people and life in general. It is through the relating, being connected, that God is revealed and known.

Recently Tui Motu published these words of mine about connected prayer:

Prayer is noticing how big and beautiful the world is, the significance of it all, and being swept up into it all.

Prayer is being aware of our links to one another. We are all cousins, for better or for worse.

Prayer is like thinking: I have no idea really when I'm doing it or why I'm doing it. Indeed prayer is more like 'being it' rather than 'doing it'.

Prayer is like dancing: a movement to match a rhythm. Prayer is not about achieving something but being in step, being in time, with no thing.

Prayer is like breathing: inhaling goodness and exhaling fear and enmity. It is an act of hope.

Prayer is about speaking up for what seems right, enduring criticism, and learning how to stand against the prevailing wind.

Prayer is about waking up and believing we can make a difference; then going and being that difference.

I think it is in being connected to one another that we understand a lot about God. Relationships are the site where we learn who we are, and who we might become. Those who think relationships are a distraction from the spiritual life fail, I think, to understand the nature of the Christian God. For the Trinitarian God is a way of connectedness that supports, transforms, and above all loves. Prayer is being in that connectedness.

This connected way of prayer reveals the nature of God particularly through our friendships. When two friends care about each other they manifest the Holy.

There is a children’s book called Crispin, the Pig Who Had It All by Ted Dewan. It tells of a teenage pig, Crispin, who always got the latest and greatest present for Christmas. But this year when he opened the large parcel addressed to him Crispin found, to his dismay, it was an empty box. 

Crispin cried and cried. Then he threw the box out on the street. There it was found and utilized by two neighbourhood kids who thought it would make a great hut. 

Well, to cut a long children's story short, in time Crispin played with these kids and discovered the gift of friendship – friendship that wasn’t predicated on what one owned but on the enjoyment of each other’s company. This story extols the gift of friendship.

Outside the West doors of St Matthew’s Church there are often groups of men who sleep rough. They have very little money and resources. A radio interviewer before Christmas spoke with some of them. “To live on the streets,” one said, “you’ve got to have friends.”

Outside the East door of St Matthew's another group of men meet over the road at the Atrium Gym. Many of these men are involved in business, and a number are now retired. The purpose of this gym is not primarily physical health, but the mental health that friendship can engender.

Friendship, no matter what our background or circumstances, takes some work. It involves keeping in contact, being generous when we can, and going out of our way for others. It entails forgiveness, patience, and self-denial. At times it also means making ourselves vulnerable, and able to be hurt. 

Friendship at its best is connected prayer, nourishing us and others, and revealing the God who is love. Friendship, like connected prayer, creates communion.

The Crispin story, with its empty box, also has something of an upside-down, reversal theme. When we are cluttered with things, the gift we need is to learn how to be ‘empty’. When we want more and more, the gift we need is less and little.

The pursuit of happiness and success involves learning how to live with sorrow and failure. When we seek strength we need to learn how to live with weakness, particularly the weaknesses we like to hide from others.

Lent, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, is one of those upside-down, stare-into-the-empty-box times. Categorizing Lent as being about prayer, self-reflection, and self-denial doesn't go to the heart of it. Yes it is about silent prayer, self-reflection, and self-denial, but they are the 'outward vestures'. The 'inward vestures' are acknowledging our mortality [‘from dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return'], and our experiences of suffering. These experiences of suffering might be due to anxiety, paucity of resources, isolation, the hurt of loved ones, or physical pain. The purpose of such acknowledging is not self-pity, but the opposite. It is to spiritually connect our suffering with others' suffering. It is to build solidarity, to engender compassion, and ultimately to foster the thankfulness that comes from being alive…

One quickly learns when one is sick that there are many who are worse off than oneself. They need our love and prayers. And the strange thing is when we extend our love and prayers beyond the compass of our own sickness and concerns, then something positive returns to aid our own healing. 'It is in giving that we receive'. Not that it is the reason we give. We give to express our connectedness. The power of intercessory prayer is connectedness. And in that connectedness we can experience both grace and healing.

The chief discipline of the Lenten season, rather than fasting or alms-giving, I think is practicing gratitude. If you don't usually say grace at meals try it - even, especially, if you don't feel thankful. Try opening your eyes in the morning and giving thanks that you are alive - even, especially, if you don't feel thankful. When you meet someone try giving thanks for the privilege of being able to communicate, and enjoy another's company - even, especially, if you don't feel particularly thankful for this 'someone'. 

Practicing gratitude releases a positive energy that assists both us and others. This energy seems to enlarge the circumference of our perception and vision. The purpose of practicing gratitude therefore is not to deny our places and experiences of pain and suffering. Rather it is, to use a religious word, to 'transfigure' it. Or to enlarge the circle in which we stand.

Connected prayer is a way of being in the energy love called God. It is manifested in the art, costs, and blessings of friendship. The practice of gratitude is one of the foundations of connected prayer. I close with a prayer from Michael Leunig:

Let us live in such a way

That when we die

Our love will survive

And continue to grow.

Amen.[ii]

[i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/belief/2013/feb/15/prayer-attentive-that-which-other

[ii] Leunig, M. The Prayer Tree, HarperCollins, 1998.