New Beginnings: Middle School Spring Retreat

Prayer: a talk for youth grades 6-8
Delivered Sunday, April 27, 2008, Gravatt Camp and Conference Center

Our Father, who are in heaven…

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

Dear God,

Now I lay me down to sleep…

(singing) Oh God, you are my God, and I will ever praise you…

Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God…

Sound familiar?

Prayer is an important part of our life and practice as individual Christians, and as Christians in community. But what is it? What is the purpose? What does it do?

Our prayer book describes prayer as “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”

What? I though the only way to pray was on my knees on Sunday morning hands together, eyes closed, memorized or otherwise…

Prayer makes itself present in many ways and in many places in our lives.

Some of you have memorized morning and bedtime prayers that you say each night before bed. Some of you pray on Sunday mornings with your congregation. Some of you might pray when you are doing other things like running, or knitting, singing playing an instrument, or a favorite sport, or working on a piece of art…there are many, many ways to pray.

What makes something prayerful, according to the definition that I said just a moment ago – is that it is about intentional – intended communication with God.

That can mean – starting an initial gathering with a prayer – to name to fact that God is present with us and we as a community wish to offer the joy and the learning that comes from being together to the creator who allowed us to gather.

It can mean taking time to be quiet, especially in times of high stress, or grief, or uncertainty – to be quiet and to listen for God, to give a little of yourself – your time, your attention to allow God to speak to you – your life your questions – your concerns.

It can mean flipping through the prayer book, or another resource and reading prayers in your head or aloud.

It can mean taking a pen and paper and writing a letter or journal entry in conversation with God.

Anytime that you take a moment to remember and recognize God’s presence in your world – in your life – in your gathering of friends and family – you are praying. Think about that the next time we sing the Johnny Appleseed song for a meal at grace – am I doing this for my own benefit, or am I doing this to honor God in thanksgiving for his presence at this meal and the food from creation that will nourish me today?

There specific types of prayer – and if you know the one that is most common to us, the one Jesus taught us to pray – the Lord’s Prayer – then you’ve got a great guide book to remembering the kinds of prayers that can be offered.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name… God – you are amazing, and your name is worthy of praise – of being honored above all names – because you are the creator God – source of light and life. Way to go! Good job! - that is called praise – giving God the thumbs up. (praise)

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven… God, you created us and you want us to live in the way that is best for us – help us to let your will for our lives and our relationships be the one that we follow – and not just our own – because following our own will gets us in trouble sometimes. Help us Lord to follow your will. This is a prayer of oblation – making our purpose to be in line with God’s. (oblation)

Give us this day our daily bread… God – we have needs – we need to be nourished, we need shelter and to be cared for – we thank you for providing us with those needs and ask that you help us remember the needs of others – after all – some of us have more than we need, and others don’t have as much as we do…help us to only take and use what we need, and help us to remember to share with others when we realize that they don’t have all they need. (thanksgiving)

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… God, sometimes we mess up – BIG TIME – be with us in the times when we make mistakes – when we let our desires get in the way of how you would have a be in the world – how you would have us care for one another. When our actions hurt someone we love, or someone we find very difficult to love – help us to make amends – and help us to do it better next time.

And God, when someone hurts us, when someone hurts a friend, when someone hurts you, help us to find a way to forgive them too. It’s hard lord – especially – when they don’t even know how much we are hurting, or we feel powerless to stop them from hurting us and others again – give us patience, and the strength to face them and to forgive them for the mistakes they are making – because we know that we too have made mistakes, and we too will make them again. (Confession/reconciliation/forgiveness)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

God, sometimes I have the chance to do something that I know you would not like. Sometimes my friends pressure me to do the things and sometimes I catch myself pressuring friends to do these things. Help me to make good choices, to walk a path that keeps me safe from hurting other people and from being hurt by others. (intercession/petition)

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.

God, sometimes I am amazed at how great you are – that you aer with me in all things, in all times and in all places. Help me to always remember that you are here for me and that I can share that love with others who do not know you, or how present you are in all things. (adoration)

The Lord’s Prayer, the pray that Jesus taught us, reminds us to be thankful, to seek forgiveness, to forgive others, to praise god, to adore Gods’ greatness and to form our own lives according to God’s will.

There are many ways to pray – you may have been a person of prayer in many ways all along without even realizing it. When you think of a friend in need and then reach out to them, offer their name to god. When you are hurting or sad, ask for God’s presence – remember God is there with you, always. All you have to do to pray is remember that and respond to god’s presence in your thoughts, words or deeds.

Amen.

I am the way and the truth and the life...

5 Easter, Year A, RCL

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14

I am the way and the truth and the life.

Anytime I hear a passage from the Gospel of John I am amazed at how this evangelist is able to pack a theological punch in just a few short verses. In this mornings passage alone – line after line of scripture challenges, the hearer to reflect on what it means to be a follower of Jesus – what it means to be a Christian.

Have you been with me all this time and still you do not know me?

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

If you know me, you know my Father also.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

My reflections on this passage led me to the realization that though I have been serving the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour for almost two years now – I have preached the gospel, celebrated the Eucharist, baptized children, and walked among you as a person of faith, a person of prayer, a follower of Jesus; but I don’t believe that I have told my story – the story of why I am a Christian.

Like many of you, I was raised in a church-going home – my family is Episcopalian and I attended several different Episcopal Churches through my childhood and high school years. I was trained and well practiced in the ways of Episc-aerobics – stand up to pray, kneel to pray, stand to sing, sit down in between, pick up the hymnal, pick up the prayer book, hands up, hands across the chest, hands together, etc. etc. etc.

Now, I’ll admit, my earliest memories of church as a child were of very, very cold air conditioning – (remember I lived in Arkansas until I was nine,) short sleeved dresses, and leaning into the warmth of my mother’s body. I also remember singing hymns – even before I could read – but thanks to the organ, always feeling the pitch in the center of my chest.

As a child I was formed to be an Episcopalian – so much so that when I visited other churches where communion was not the norm, and remaining seated – even during prayer, and the Gospel – things just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure I had “done church” not having received communion.

From the beginning being in church was a full body experience, and one that made sense – that fit me quite well. Much of my earliest formation was about being a part of a community, and its practices, so that I felt I had a place there; I knew how to act and respond to the cues of the liturgy. It had little to do with actual faith in God, or understanding who Jesus was – though I’m certain that I heard countless sermons and Sunday school lessons about Jesus – mostly I just knew I belonged there.

Have you been with me all this time and still you do not know me?

When I was nine years old my family moved from the home I had always known in Arkansas to a suburb of the twin cities in Minnesota. For both of my parents the move was right for their careers, education and a return to the upper Midwest where both of them were born and raised and where both sets of my grandparents were within an easily drivable distance from our new home. My older brother struggled more than any of us with the move – particularly as a Jr. High school student, dealing with adolescence and a new community, making new friends, trying to understand his place and way of being in an unfamiliar culture, and climate. We had a new Episcopal Church – and the worship experience and practices were enough the same that we knew what to do, how to act, how to function in that place. At least that experience was stable; there we knew how to be.

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

By the time I entered Jr. High school my brother had been in a downward spiral for several years – drugs, alcohol, you name it, my brother was into it. I lived in a house that was rarely peaceful, or happy. My parents worked, my brother partied, and I took long rides on my bike when the weather permitted my escape.

As with any child growing up – what I knew was normal – it was far from perfect, but it was my house, my family, and my situation to live with until something or someone changed.

My best defense-mechanism was invisibility – I would just disappear, and let the rest of them battle it out – it rarely had anything to do with me anyway.

I assumed that I was invisible to everyone… I assumed that no one could see or hear all that was taking place in my house – the struggle my parents had to care for and discipline their rebellious child – the difficulty of keeping up appearances, even when things seemed to be at their worst, and the fear of what it might mean to let a child fall hard enough that they might take responsibility for their own self, their own actions.

Meanwhile – I kept myself together reading books and being an escape artist. Until one day, someone invited me out to lunch. It was the youth minister at my church – someone who I knew through acolyting and some youth events that I had attended. It was summer time and we met up at a little restaurant in downtown.

Lord we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?

I thought we were just going for lunch. I thought we were just saying hello over the summer. I thought nothing much of it at all – until she asked me how I was doing… until she let me know that she could see me, and could see that things were not so great at home. I thought I was fine – but I wasn’t.

If you know me, you know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.

The day that I was saved, the day that I met Jesus, was the day that I realized I could be seen – and not only was I seen – and made real, special, important on that day – but I was seen for the simple fact I was a child of God.

And on that day a follower of Jesus, one who knew God’s love deeper than anyone else I knew at the time, did one very simple thing. She had faith in the Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Responding to those words on that day for her meant doing the work that Jesus would have done – reaching out to the lonely, the hurting, the vulnerable.

I don’t think we spoke a word about Jesus that day – except perhaps when we gave thanks for the meal that was before us. But as I have reflected over the years on how and why I follow Jesus – why I can stand here and uphold Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life” it relates back to that day – that moment in my life when I met Jesus at the supper table.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

On that day, through a deep connection with another human being, I was seen by and I saw Christ. I understood the words, “I am the way” because it was exemplified to me in the words and actions of one who reached out to me in my greatest need. As members of a Christian community, we are called to bear that story not only on our lips but in our lives. As followers of Jesus, we are called to care for one another and for those in need by being Christ for others, by being companions, and sometimes vessels on the way.

In theological terms we can discuss this passage by reflecting on it’s placement in the Gospel of John – conversation the Jesus had with his disciples at the last supper – described as the farewell discourse. Jesus’ laying the groundwork for our Trinitarian understanding of God as he describes the mutual indwelling of God in Christ, and Christ in God, followed by the next verses that describe third party of the trinity with the impending arrival of the Holy Spirit…

But in reality – in day to day language – in relationship with one another… the words, I am the way and the truth and the life – these words are alive in my life because someone who had faith in their strength, and meaning lived up to them. At my greatest moment of need – one spoke the truth, one valued my life and one invited me to join them on the way as a fellow member of the family of Christ, a community that was there for me outside of my small and struggling family system. On that day I claimed the birthright that I received at my baptism and began to own the teachings and the ways of a life of Christian faith and practice. My preparation as a church-goer was complete. My life as a faithful participant in the Christian community had just begun.

When the Christian Community is at its best – it has faith in and reflects these things in its words and deeds. When we as Christians are at our best – we know ourselves well-enough to know why we are here, why we do what we do, and as a result we are motivated to share that part of ourselves with others – through our words, through our actions, through our lives as they are lived out in the world.

Today I shared with you a portion of my faith story. This week as members of our congregation take the final steps to affirm their commitment to be active members of the Christian community through confirmation in the Episcopal Church, let us each reflect on why we are here, why we are called to follow Jesus, and are committed and practicing Christians – when did you find yourself on “the way” and where is it calling you to go? Who is it calling you to be, how are you articulating and sharing the parts of your story that allow you to have faith in the words of Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

April 20, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC