Forward with Faith: Revealed in Prayer (Part 3 in a 4 part series)
While the rest of the world makes the transition from
Halloween clearance sales to blow up yard decorations and twinkle lights for
Christmas, the church is called to rest in days of remembrance. Days in which we remember all who have come
before us, all who have left us…those we knew and love. Those who shaped those we knew and
loved. Those who came so far before us
that we don’t really know them…but they have something to do with who we are.
Halloween emerged, in part, from a celebration in the church
– All Hallow’s Eve – the evening which began the feast of all saints. It was a time to recall all of those who had
passed before…to recognize that there are saints with a capital S but also
saints with a small s. Those simple
folks whose lives touched others and we are who we are because of who they
were.
In the midst of a change of seasons, when we are losing
minutes of daylight each day along with degrees of temperature, the sweet
growth of summer is fading and browning and crisping and falling away.
And as we watch the leaves come off the trees, we see bare
branches and bare dirt.
Things around us are doing their seasonal dying. Death is
afoot.
And in the midst of all of that, it seems appropriate to
recognize those bodies and souls once with us that have passed from life to
death….and from death to new life.
At the
same time, we are in the third week of a sermon series that focuses us on
generosity. First we talked about being children of an abundant, generous God. Then we talked about how our gratitude for
the abundance that surrounds us calls us to live our lives differently. And today, assured of God’s abundance,
grateful for the gifts of grace in our life, we are called to turn and ask God
some important questions in prayer.
If last
week was a focus on naming the things we are grateful for, this week is about
letting that gratitude carry us to the next step, letting our sense of
generosity lead us to God, asking the question, God, in light of all that you
are and all that I’ve received, what is it that you would have me do?
And as I sat with these two themes, themes of recognizing
what has been and passed away alongside themes of how we receive and are called
therefore to give, I realized that they are quite closely aligned.
This community, this Faith church has experienced incredible
loss in the past year. There is
something particularly holy about the season of shift and change you are living
through. I am grateful for the grace
with which you bear your grief…grief for saints who have been long-standing
members of this community, and grief for the loss of a very new pastor. Grief for the way things change. Grief for that which slips away, leaving us
forever changed. I am grateful for the
call to stand with you in this season.
In so many ways your personal losses here at Faith shed
light on other losses – systemic losses, communal losses, loss of the way
things have been. Loss of things that
are comfortable, familiar.
A shrinking number of familiar faces in the pews.
A shrinking choir.
A shrinking budget.
A shrinking preschool.
Loss creates grief.
And it creates anxiety.
And there is something about being willing to look our
losses in the eye and ask God to help us make sense of it all. When we can do that, when we can ask God to
help us make sense of it all, there can be something vital and renewing and
lifegiving…
Let me be clear that we are not called to shove away our
grief, because grief has an important place in helping us understand love and
loss and change…but All Saints Day reminds us to sit with those losses…and to
place them in context of all our loss.
And to look for and to God.
And when we are ready, we step through grief to give thanks
for the ways that we have been shaped, molded, changed by all that has come
before us. I think it was just a few
weeks ago that I quoted the Broadway musical Wicked – because I knew you, I
have been changed for good…
As death slips past us and we realize what we’ve lost, at
some point we also realize what we had, and what we’ve become as a result.
Thanks be to God for the way my dad shaped me as a person
who reads maps, who understands cardinal and ordinal directions, as a person
who oozes when merging on the interstate, as a person who tries lots of new
foods and takes risks.
In a few moments, we will speak the names of those dear to
us and we will remember and give thanks for the ways they have shaped us. This is an act of thanksgiving and
remembrance. And it is a gateway to what
God is doing and calls us to do.
Just two weeks ago, we began this series remembering that
each of us is created in the image of a loving and abundant God. Then last week we talked about
how gratitude for the abundance that surrounds us calls us to live our lives
differently. And today, assured of God’s
abundance, grateful for the gifts of grace in our life, we turn to asking God
some important questions in prayer.
So…place
that against this backdrop of All Saints day for a moment.
If last
week was a focus on naming the things we are grateful for, this week is about
letting that gratitude carry us to the next step, letting our sense of gratitude
lead us to God, asking a generous question:
God, in
light of all that you are and all that I’ve received, what is it that you would
have me do?
In light of all those who have loved me.
In light of all those who have shaped me.
In light of all of those who have poured into me.
In light of all that has happened before this moment.
In light of all of the seasons of program and mission and
outreach at Faith church, in light of the rise of big churches in seasons, and
in light of dwindling numbers of folks showing up inside the building we also
call the church,
what, God, are you calling me to today?
What are you calling me to do with my gifts and my
graces?
What are you calling us to do as a community of Faith?
What are you asking of us…of me…
Let me repeat a few lines from Paul’s letter to the church
at Ephesus…
“In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been
destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according
to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on
Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him,
were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of
our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his
glory.
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love
toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for
you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as
you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may
know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness
of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
Our call is to receive Paul’s prayer…
that we might have a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we
come to Jesus so that we may know the hope to which we are called.
…that we might know the hope to which we are called…
….that we might see and know how to share that gift of love
and grace we have received with those around us.
…that we might see and know how to do that differently in a
changing world.
Because God is part of the changing world, too. We can’t just pretend it is not happening.
God, in light of all of this….
In light of what has been
in light of those who have shaped us
in light of what is happening in the world around us today
in light our zip code
in light of our gifts and graces
what would you have us do?
How would you have us serve?
How would you have us share light?
What do you want ME to do God?
And then we listen.
I listen, you listen.
And prepare for what shows up.
Because when we ask for guidance, we ought to be ready to
act.
Then do…
This prayer thing isn’t for the faint of heart.
God, in light of all of this…in light of who you are, in
light of what has been and what will be, what would you have me do?
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Amen.
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