Do More
Proper 10
Luke 10:25-37
This past week,
many people have publicly urged us to pray.
I hope you didn’t
need to be urged to pray.
I hope you pray
even in weeks when the news is not quite as bad as it was this week. There are always things in the news
worthy of prayer.
Our President
has urged us to pray. Our
Presiding Bishop has urged us to “deep” prayer. Our own Bishop, Jeff Lee, has urged us to pray.
We’ve been asked
to pray for justice. For the
dismantling of systemic racism. We’ve
been asked to pray that hate may be disarmed, both literally and
figuratively. We have been asked
to pray for the police officers brutally and senselessly killed in Dallas and
for their families and for everyone in law enforcement.
And we should
pray. We should fill the world
with prayer. Fill the world with
prayer so that maybe there is a little less room for violence and hate.
Into this
context of constant requests for prayer and frequent affirmations of prayer, a
Christian blogger posted a reflection that generated some interest. It was titled “Why Christians Need to
Stop Praying.” You can imagine
that it generated some heated comments!
But I think most people who criticized it had probably only read the
title, which was meant to be provocative.
It’s by a pastor named John Pavlovitz. (You can read it HERE.) I don’t know much about him except his posts show up from
time to time on the Facebook feeds of friends of mine.
I would never
discourage you from prayer. Never.
There are many
reasons to pray and many benefits of prayer. The point of the blog is to say that, within the context of
social justice, prayer without action is a cop out. If we are praying for social justice, prayer without action
is a cop out.
He imagines God
is tired of hearing us…
Praying
for hungry people instead of skipping our second latte of the day and buying
them lunch….
Praying for families of murdered black men instead
of speaking directly into the institutionalized racism [that pervades our
society.]
He also says:
Stop
feeling so stinkin’ good about yourself for feeling bad.
Praying
for God to move and sitting still isn’t redemptive. It’s empty religion.
This is
not about passing the buck to God.
The collect
appointed for us today in the Episcopal Church gets to the same point.
“O Lord,
mercifully receive the prayers of your people,” it begins. Lord, hear the prayers of your
people. If I only knew that
opening phrase, I might imagine several ways the prayer might continue:
--O Lord, receive
the prayers of your people, and come to help us, fill our need.
--Receive the
prayers of your people and shed abroad your strength. In your mighty power, act.
--O Lord, receive
the prayers of your people and fix all those things we want fixed.
We do have
collects along those lines, although the language is more elegant. But that’s not how it goes.
O
Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand
what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully
to accomplish them
There is one
thing I would change about the collect.
I’d change it from third person to first person. Lord, receive our prayers as we call
upon you and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do,
and give us the grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
I talk about the
collects from time to time. This
is one of the ancient ones. It
comes from a Sacramentary, a medieval worship book, in Latin. The earliest manuscript is from the 8th
century. A modern commentator on
our Prayer Book writes: “It
summarizes succinctly the two-fold meaning and purpose of prayer: to perceive God’s will, and to seek the
strength which is necessary for the accomplishment of it.” Help us, O Lord, to perceive your will
and give us the strength to accomplish it.
The Gospel
appointed for today speaks to this as well. It is the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan.
I’ve recently
been reading Amy-Jill Levine’s book on Jesus’ parables (Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi). She is a Biblical scholar who happens
to be Jewish. She has a particular
interest in restoring a more authentic Jewish context to the accounts of Jesus’
ministry. Writing about this
parable, she stresses that the meaning is all in that last line where Jesus
says: Go and do likewise. Go. And do. “Loving
God and loving neighbor cannot exist in the abstract; they need to be enacted.” Go. And do.
During the
course of our Christian history this parable has often been used to condemn or
criticize the Jews, to foster division.
Commentators disparage the Jewish priest and Levite who passed the
injured man by. But Levine
stresses that it is primarily a parable about an interaction between two
people. Two fierce enemies.
In Jesus’ day
Jews and Samaritans were enemies.
Divided by religion.
Divided by geography.
Divided by history. Divided
by conflict. Many of the things
that continue to divide us today.
And in this
parable, those divisions are stunningly bridged. It’s about the meeting, the interaction, between two
enemies.
Levine suggests
that if Jesus were to tell this parable today within a Jewish context, he might
tell it as: The parable of the
Good Hamas member.
Or we might
imagine that if he were to tell it in an American context, he might tell it as: The parable of the Good ISIS member.
If you follow
the blogger Pavlovitz to the end of his piece, he does offer a prayer. He prays that we who follow Christ as
Lord will begin to emulate him. He
prays that we Christians will do what Jesus did.
My version of
that prayer this week is that God will help me be a better neighbor. Help me be a better neighbor to people
who are different from me. Help me
to understand what I can do and give me the strength to do it.
Not to pat
myself on the back, but to give just a few examples.
A few weeks ago
I had the opportunity to attend an iftar.
I had to look it up. It is
the name of the meal when Muslims break their fast at sundown during
Ramadan. The Mosque Foundation, a
large mosque in Bridgeview, holds an interfaith, community iftar each year. They invite their neighbors.
I’m not usually
looking for additional things to do in the evenings. Especially a Tuesday evening, my day off. I’m not usually excited about an event
where dinner won’t start until 8:31.
But I went. And I’m very
glad I did, and I’m looking forward to additional opportunities to join with
our Muslim neighbors here in the south and southwest suburbs.
And within the
context of the racial issues that are so important in our society today, I’m
trying to listen. I can only speak
as someone who is white. But I’m
trying to listen to the voices of people of color. Even the particular voices I would really like to shut
up. To listen to their words and
their descriptions of their experiences.
It occurred to
me this week that my own life would be much happier… that I would feel restored and peaceful… if I just turned off the news. It also occurred to me what a
monumental privilege, luxury, it is that the only thing I am assaulted by is
the news.
All of us need
to do something more than what we are doing now. I am absolutely certain that the status quo is not God’s
will for us. The current state of
our society is not the fullness of God’s will for us. So we need to do more.
Do more to love our neighbor as ourselves.
O
Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and
grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also
may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.
Amen.
