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August 12, 2007

Our Day as a Prayer to God

Our Day as a Prayer to God
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20, Psalm 50, Luke 12:32-40

Isaiah was a prophet in the southern half of the Promised Land in the area called Judah. He proclaimed the word of God in Judah just after the Northern part of the country was annexed to the Assyrian empire. Essentially, this little country of Judah lived in the large shadow of the raging Assyrian empire, waiting and wondering when they would be the next conquered country. The prophet Isaiah used what happened in the north to warn the people to turn back to God. And today’s text is one of his many oracles against the people’s current lifestyle. As you can hear, he sternly reprimanded them. What were they doing?

One of the main sins was their offering sacrifices to the pagan gods while continuing to offer sacrifices in God’s temple. It’s as if they were playing both sides of the fence or hedging their bet by worshipping both God and Baal (the pagan God). The thought process was if they offered sacrifices to both gods’ surely one of them will save us. This really made the God of Israel mad, as we remember the first commandment is, “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other God before me.”

Offering sacrifices in worship was part of their order of worship, much like we have an offering prayer and sing the doxology while we bring forth the offering plates. For the Israelites, your particular situation dictated which kind of sacrificial offering you would bring forward.

Listen to how Eugene Peterson interpretation of these texts from THE MESSAGE: “Why this frenzy of sacrifices? Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of the blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?...Quit your worship charades…I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning…

We must remember how shocking it would have been for the people to hear a pronouncement against the sacrificial system. Isaiah is trying to shake the people up, to remind them that their entire life is about the sacred, not just their time in the temple. They belong to God and they are to live as if they did, not just offer sacrifices and then when they leave temple revert back to the ways of everyone else around them. They are to be different, to stand out as people of the Living God.

We see a similar message in Psalm 50. This psalm is attributed to Asaph, a priest during the time of King David—long before Isaiah’s time. Hear it again from The Message, “I don’t find fault with your acts of worship…but why should I want your blue-ribbon bull, and more and more goats from your herds? … Every creature in the forest is mine… Do you think I feast on venison?…What are you up to quoting my laws, talking like we are good friends?...Time’s up for playing fast and loose with me…Spread for me a banquet of praise, serve me with a feast of kept promises, and call for help when you’re in trouble—I’ll help you and you’ll honor me.”

The people have brought sacrifices in abundance, but this is not what God wants. He’d rather have thanksgiving and prayer from the people. He’d rather have an open, honest relationship with them over one of pious talk and hard hearts. He’d rather their lives were works of art, proclaiming his praise.

The intent of worship is to remind us to align our daily life and behaviors with God’s standards and expectations. Some of us might be nervous to go before God because we feel as if God will only see us for the mistakes we’ve done or for the imperfect person we know ourselves to be. Both Isaiah and Psalm 50 remind us that while God sees us as the imperfect beings that we are, God desires that we lay ourselves before him in all humility and openness.

Our corporate confession before communion is one way we are reminded of our imperfections and that God desires that we open ourselves before him during this holy time so that we can be made whole again. God has a passion for those who will elevate love, mercy, and mutual care above the observance of religious rituals or regulations. What God is asking from us is that we not forget our relationship with him when we go back to our individual lives. (pause)

Jesus gives us some insight into how to do this in this the Luke 12 passage. We remember last week’s parable of the rich fool precedes this morning’s reading. Jesus teaches us that we are not to focus on our possessions. As followers of Jesus, we must be willing to share what we have been blessed to receive, in material possessions but especially in riches that cannot be measured.

Today’s scripture text tells us not to be afraid for God will give us more than what we need. Put your efforts in those things that do not wear out and that cannot be taken from you. Don’t waste time worrying or hedging your bet as the people of Isaiah’s time were doing. Depend on God, or as the psalmist like to say, Rest in God.

Simultaneously, Jesus instructs us to be ready for the unexpected. Life is a series of unexpected events and things happen that we cannot know will occur. But if we seek God in the unexpected times of our lives, both in the joyous and the difficult, we will be blessed by the presence of the Holy God.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus will come again, but we cannot wait for the end times to be faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus instructs us to look to each moment, expecting to see and experience the holy presence of God.

As I reflected on these passages I wondered about our ability to do what is being asked of us in these passages—don’t just talk the talk of being a Christian, walk the walk; rest in God’s desire to take care of us; be ready for whatever comes our way. It occurred to me that one way we could do all this is to work on our communication with God. Communication with God is commonly referred to as prayer.

So I wondered…what would my life look like if I thought of it as a prayer offered up to God? That seemed too overwhelming so I narrowed it down. What if I thought of each day as a prayer that I offer up to God? My entire day as a prayer to God. What would that look like?

Think about yesterday. What was your day like? Is it possible for you to offer yesterday to God as a prayer and feel good about it? Or are you like me and find parts that are not worthy of God? I didn’t wake up in the best mood and my attitude needed some boost. After some quiet prayer time, my focus moved beyond myself and I was better. It occurs to me that this idea of offering God our day as a prayer would take work, wouldn’t it? It would take focus because of all the distractions that life brings. It’s not easy to focus our entire life on God each moment of every day. I guess the question is twofold. Would we want to do this—strengthen your communication with God? And if so how could it be done?

If our life is to be a prayer, it could take on many forms as there are many models of prayer. An important one is called centering prayer. The purpose is to put God in the center of our life. Centering Prayer is done at the first part of our day. Maybe we have a quiet, beautiful place in our house or garden where we sit with God. Maybe we get up before everyone else so we have some “Me” time. Some of us leave the radio off as we drive to work and we take that time for God.

Some people can pray while they run or participate in a repetitive exercise. I can’t focus on two things at once, but if you can do it great. The question I would ask is this, “Are you giving God 100% of your focus when your main prayer time is while you are doing something else?”

The important thing is to set aside time for you and God. It takes work to do it every day and some days we don’t get the time or depth we do other days, but we continue to work at it. We continue to put ourselves in a position to receive a word from God. We continue to reach out to God knowing that God is constantly reaching out to us.

A good example of centering prayer is our Sunday worship. When we first gather we remember to be thankful for all that we have received. This sets us in a good attitude. Especially in difficult times, it is so important to find something to be grateful for. Even if it seems small and insignificant to us, it’s the focus on being grateful that God desires.
In worship, we spend some time listening to God, through scripture reading, the music, and the sermon. In our personal centering time, we could have a daily meditation book, read our Bible, look at a picture--anything that helps us to remember our God in Jesus Christ and all he gave for our sake. When we remember this love, it reinforces our desire to follow him.

In worship we have a pastoral or community prayer. We pray for others, think about other people and places in our lives that need our love and prayer. We pray for ourselves—for those challenges we know are coming in the day and to be ready for the unknown too. We respond to God’s love with our own gifts of self and possessions, both in the time of the offertory and during communion, then we step out into our day. Our personal centering time can consist of this too. What will we offer to God each day as we step into it? Will we work on our anger today? Will we smile at people we meet as we are walking to work?

Gathering for worship always makes the day better doesn’t it? There is something about centering our lives on God that makes the day go better too. The same is true with centering prayer. When we take the time to center ourselves in the morning, our day goes better.

The problem is that one centering prayer is not enough to make our day a complete, beautiful prayer to God. We often need more or we slip back into the habits of the people of Isaiah’s time where we say one thing and then find ourselves doing things that don’t please God.

Breath prayer is an old tradition mode of prayer. We breathe in positive, life-affirming energy and breath out anxiousness, anger, frustration. I think of the old adage that when we get upset we should count to 10. While counting to 10, you could take 10 breath prayers, breathing in God’s positive life affirming energy and breathing out whatever is causing the personal commotion.

Another way to work on constant communication with God is to have something that reminds you of God that will draw your attention back to Her. Catholics have their rosaries. Some people have a prayer bracelet or prayer beads. I have a little metallic angel that someone in my last church gave me. It’s on my key chain and it makes a tinkling sound when I’m driving as it hits the keys on the ring. Now that I’m driving more in city traffic, the tinkling sound is a good reminder to slow down, take it easy. Offer the drive up to God in prayer.

Memorizing a short prayer or a particular scripture verse is another form of prayer. A very popular short prayer is the Serenity Prayer. It was written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930’s, not St. Francis of Assisi as some have indicated. The prayer goes like this:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. We ask God for serenity, courage, and wisdom to know his will for us and the ability to carry that will out. It’s a powerful prayer and a good one to strengthen our communication with God.

A popular scripture verse is the Psalm 23 or Romans 8:35-38, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, on nakedness, or peril, or sword…No in all these things we are more than conquers through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

When we work on communication with God, we are on the lookout, we are watching, for various ways God can speak to us throughout the day—a sign of some kind, a word or smile from a stranger, getting a email from a friend you where thinking of the other day. If we watch, keeping our eyes, ears, and heart open—if we expect that we’ll see God somewhere in the day—we often will. These moments serve as reminders to refocus on God. They help us let go of our own agenda or self-centered focus.

The last prayer I suggest is the practice of daily self-examination. We do this at the end of the day. This prayer offers us an opportunity to evaluate our day. Some traditions suggest you go through the seven deadly sins, the beatitudes or the 10 commandments. Our final prayer of the day could be a simple as asking ourselves a few questions. What did I do well today? What could I have done better? Where did I see and experience the presence of God? Did I do something to someone in such a way that I need to speak to them about it? We work on our relationships with others to keep them healthy. When our relationships are healthy and life-giving, our conscious contact with God is better. Why? We aren’t focused on our unhealthy relationships with the people in our life.

Prayer is a huge subject and not one that I could capture in a 12 minute sermon. One important aspect of prayer is that it takes work and a spirit of expectation. Expect that God will respond to you in some way when you tune into the messages that God has been sending all along.

It’s like taking the time to purchase a cell phone and learn how to use it. The airwaves are there ready to transmit the messages. We’ve just got to turn on our phone to receive what’s being sent. God loves us. God is not expecting us to be perfect. But God does want us to continue to improve our relationship with Her—to make that relationship the number one focus of our life.

So remember Jesus’ words, while we are living in this world, try not to be consumed by it. Keep the focus, keep the lines of communication open to the one who will provide us salvation—God. And may we offer up the only sacrifice that God desires, not pious words or the blood of animals, but ourselves fully and completely, warts and all.

Posted by vickie at 10:00 AM