One of the restorative delights of our time away was the opportunity for conversation with close colleagues and friends. Sharing stories, hearing challenges, experiencing a different perspective, laughing together - this kind of intimacy and connection is so important for our emotional health and well-being. We are people created to be in relationship with God and with one another. Deep and healthy relationships are impossible without the sustaining connection of conversation, shared experiences, and trust.
When’s the last time you had a really fulfilling conversation with someone you care about who also cares about you? What was that experience like? How did you feel while you were talking and listening?
In our closest, most healthy relationships, when conversation and mutual sharing are at their best, we walk away from that time together feeling heard; cherished; safe; at peace; strengthened. In our closest, most healthy relationships, we feel empowered to ask for what we need, and to share our deepest longings and fears and questions without embarrassment or worry, because we know that we are loved and valued.
This is the kind of relationship our creator God desires with each of us. The conversation that fosters intimacy and connection and strengthens this relationship is prayer.
There are lots of ways to pray - hands folded, or open, or on the steering wheel of your car. Spoken, unspoken, sung, or simply breathed.
While prayer includes praise, and thanksgiving, and confession, and lament, the focus of today’s Gospel reading is on prayer as petition - asking for something from God.
We ask God for many things - to bless our food; to watch over our families; for strength and health; for good weather; for safe travels; for a close parking space; to ace the test; to win the lottery.
Certainly God can handle any of our prayers, however benevolent or selfish they may be. The struggle lies perhaps not in praying, then, but in our expectations for how our prayers are answered. There is a risk in viewing God as the giant vending machine in the sky, who dispenses what we want if only we’re able to provide the correct currency.
A few thoughts - To view God in this way is to place ourselves above God. The vending machine, after all, only does what it’s told. When the ten commandments remind us “you shall have no other gods”, that includes ourselves. Do you have any relationships where the other person only ever does what you tell them, in the way you tell them? I hope not! An important hallmark of close relationships is their mutuality - a time to give and a time to take, a time to speak and a time to listen, a time to support and a time to challenge.
Our relationship with God is no different. We are wise to pray for God’s will, and not our own, to be done. And also, there is a place for our challenges, and questions, and lament, and disagreement.
This morning’s reading from Genesis provides a beautiful example of this kind of interaction. Abraham is dissatisfied with the thought that the righteous ones living in Sodom and Gomorrah would be punished alongside the wicked. What was the sin? Ezekiel 16 describes it in this way: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.”
Abraham, trusting the deep relationship he shares with God, offers a prayer of challenge and questioning not once or even twice but six times! Abraham is not punished, or laughed at. God hears his pleas and responds. The relationship shared between Abraham and God is not static, but dynamic.
This dynamic relationship is one that each of us also shares with God. Your prayers are heard by the God who created you and called you good. The God who desires wholeness and abundant life for all of creation listens to the joy and sorrow that fill your heart.
At times it may be difficult to accept that God hears our prayers and indeed wants to hear them. We may feel selfish when we pray for the seemingly small things on our hearts. We may be angry or hurt because of prayers that seemed to go unanswered, or at least were not answered in the way we would have liked. We may think of our own unwillingness to respond to the needs of others, or of our disdain when others talk about what seem to be petty wishes in the face of our own heavy problems.
But God isn’t like us. God is bigger and different and more than we can understand. God has space for all of the things that burden and excite us. God wants to be engaged in conversation with us, to have the kind of trusting, close relationship that allows us to share about and ask for whatever things, big or small, are taking up space in our minds and hearts.
I think all of us know from experience that our prayers don’t always receive the response we hope or ask for. But in telling us to ask, seek, and knock, Jesus doesn’t promise a favorable response.
Instead, Jesus promises this good gift - the Holy Spirit. The very presence of God within and among us. The fire that rouses us to action, the wind that propels us forward, the voice that intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence helps us bring about the answer to our prayers. Sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence comforts us when the answer to our prayers is not the answer we wanted. But regardless of our prayer or the response, the Holy Spirit is with us and we are not alone.
What a good gift it is to rest in the closeness and comfort of relationship with the God of the universe. What a good gift it is that God hears our prayers. What a good gift it is that God the Holy Spirit is with us and for us.
When’s the last time you had a really fulfilling conversation with someone you care about who also cares about you? What was that experience like? How did you feel while you were talking and listening?
In our closest, most healthy relationships, when conversation and mutual sharing are at their best, we walk away from that time together feeling heard; cherished; safe; at peace; strengthened. In our closest, most healthy relationships, we feel empowered to ask for what we need, and to share our deepest longings and fears and questions without embarrassment or worry, because we know that we are loved and valued.
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| Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash |
This is the kind of relationship our creator God desires with each of us. The conversation that fosters intimacy and connection and strengthens this relationship is prayer.
There are lots of ways to pray - hands folded, or open, or on the steering wheel of your car. Spoken, unspoken, sung, or simply breathed.
While prayer includes praise, and thanksgiving, and confession, and lament, the focus of today’s Gospel reading is on prayer as petition - asking for something from God.
We ask God for many things - to bless our food; to watch over our families; for strength and health; for good weather; for safe travels; for a close parking space; to ace the test; to win the lottery.
Certainly God can handle any of our prayers, however benevolent or selfish they may be. The struggle lies perhaps not in praying, then, but in our expectations for how our prayers are answered. There is a risk in viewing God as the giant vending machine in the sky, who dispenses what we want if only we’re able to provide the correct currency.
A few thoughts - To view God in this way is to place ourselves above God. The vending machine, after all, only does what it’s told. When the ten commandments remind us “you shall have no other gods”, that includes ourselves. Do you have any relationships where the other person only ever does what you tell them, in the way you tell them? I hope not! An important hallmark of close relationships is their mutuality - a time to give and a time to take, a time to speak and a time to listen, a time to support and a time to challenge.
Our relationship with God is no different. We are wise to pray for God’s will, and not our own, to be done. And also, there is a place for our challenges, and questions, and lament, and disagreement.
This morning’s reading from Genesis provides a beautiful example of this kind of interaction. Abraham is dissatisfied with the thought that the righteous ones living in Sodom and Gomorrah would be punished alongside the wicked. What was the sin? Ezekiel 16 describes it in this way: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.”
Abraham, trusting the deep relationship he shares with God, offers a prayer of challenge and questioning not once or even twice but six times! Abraham is not punished, or laughed at. God hears his pleas and responds. The relationship shared between Abraham and God is not static, but dynamic.
This dynamic relationship is one that each of us also shares with God. Your prayers are heard by the God who created you and called you good. The God who desires wholeness and abundant life for all of creation listens to the joy and sorrow that fill your heart.
At times it may be difficult to accept that God hears our prayers and indeed wants to hear them. We may feel selfish when we pray for the seemingly small things on our hearts. We may be angry or hurt because of prayers that seemed to go unanswered, or at least were not answered in the way we would have liked. We may think of our own unwillingness to respond to the needs of others, or of our disdain when others talk about what seem to be petty wishes in the face of our own heavy problems.
But God isn’t like us. God is bigger and different and more than we can understand. God has space for all of the things that burden and excite us. God wants to be engaged in conversation with us, to have the kind of trusting, close relationship that allows us to share about and ask for whatever things, big or small, are taking up space in our minds and hearts.
I think all of us know from experience that our prayers don’t always receive the response we hope or ask for. But in telling us to ask, seek, and knock, Jesus doesn’t promise a favorable response.
Instead, Jesus promises this good gift - the Holy Spirit. The very presence of God within and among us. The fire that rouses us to action, the wind that propels us forward, the voice that intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence helps us bring about the answer to our prayers. Sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence comforts us when the answer to our prayers is not the answer we wanted. But regardless of our prayer or the response, the Holy Spirit is with us and we are not alone.
What a good gift it is to rest in the closeness and comfort of relationship with the God of the universe. What a good gift it is that God hears our prayers. What a good gift it is that God the Holy Spirit is with us and for us.
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