Sermon
119 – “Go APE (Attentive, Persistent, Expectant) with Prayer”
Delivered at each of the Clarendon Team Parishes between 3/6/2018 and 8/7/2018
Delivered at each of the Clarendon Team Parishes between 3/6/2018 and 8/7/2018
1 Samuel 3:1-10; Luke 10:38-42
May
I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
This is the first of a series of nine sermons which are
being delivered to each and every one of the churches of the Clarendon Team
under the banner of Pray, Serve, Grow
– 3 on the topic of Pray, 3 under the
topic of Serve and 3 under the topic
of Grow. They are being delivered by each member of
the Clarendon Staff Team and I have been asked to preach one on the topic of Pray and one on the topic of Grow. This is the first of the three on Pray and is entitled “Go APE with Prayer”.
Why such an odd title with its association with Adult
Adventure Playgrounds where we are encouraged to go back to nature and the
survival of the fittest? Well, in this
case the word APE is an abbreviation for Attentiveness, Persistence and Expectancy
and today will shall be looking at each of these as a guide to our everyday
prayer with some biblical examples.
Why do you pray? A
question I am occasionally asked by non-Christians and when I pray what am I
saying or doing? Why do we need to pray
when we believe God already knows what is in our heart and finally what it is
we are wanting or needing?
Well, in short, prayer is or ought to be a two-way
process in which we not only seek God’s guidance or help or intervention but
also try to listen to what he is saying to us personally. His response may not come immediately or as
loudly and clearly as it did to Samuel in our first reading. Indeed, we read that God spoke out aloud
Samuel’s name on more than one occasion but he did not recognise it was God
speaking to him – Samuel assuming it was the earthly voice of his mentor, the
old priest Eli. How often might we hear the voice of God and mistake it for the
voice of another human or simply be heating our own thoughts?
The week before my licensing as a lay minister I, and my
fellow candidates for licensing by the bishop, went on a Quiet Day Retreat at a
lovely remote location in the Dorset countryside. We were given the day to wander around the
grounds of an old farmhouse (several
acres of lovely garden with a large lake and labrynth) and I found myself
sitting on a bench by the lake with moorhens swimming by at my feet. My thoughts came immediately to the passage
we read this morning and I reflected on why and how I had received a call to
ministry; something which I had never expected. Three times I had felt (I can’t
say called or heard in the sense of Samuel’s calling) a strong call to ministry
and like Samuel it took three attempts for me to be convinced that I was indeed
hearing or feeling God’s call. I had prayed about these feelings and had in
fact asked God, in a simple prayer of supplication, to give me a sign as I
couldn’t understand how a person in my current occupation – a busy company
lawyer – could undertake such a commitment as in licensed or ordained ministry. A few weeks later my prayer was answered when
my company was taken over and I was offered a severance payment on early
retirement which I couldn’t possibly refuse.
I then felt God smiling down at me saying – “There you are, is that enough to convince you?”
Samuel, also, did not recognise that he was being called
– indeed he was actually being called by God for a specific purpose - to give
his mentor, Eli, some very bad news.
Nevertheless, we must be attentive to God, to listen and to obey him
when he calls us even if there is a very difficult task he has chosen for
us. Jonah tried to run away from the
dreadful task which he had been given but God sought him out – even in the
belly of the fish; which leads us on the second element of APE, -
Persistence.
Our own persistence in our continued dialogue with God –
and I emphasise dialogue rather than monologue.
Jesus himself tells his disciples, and us – “do not heap up empty phrases for they [the Gentiles] think that they
may be heard because of their many words” [Matthew 6:6] but he does call
upon us to be persistent in our prayers. He cites the parable of the persistent
widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18 where Jesus explains that persistency in
prayer will be rewarded in circumstances where the petition is itself a seeking
of justice – something laudable, praiseworthy. As Jesus himself puts it “Will God not grant justice to his chosen
ones who cry to him day and night?” [Luke 18:7].
I expect most people (even those who would not profess to
being active Christians) will tell you that at times of extreme difficulty or
danger they utter words of prayer. I
doubt that there are few servicemen or servicewomen who do not pray for a safe
return to their barracks when on operations in those dangerous areas of the world
we hear about so many times. As
Christians, it is our duty to pray daily - not just for ourselves but also for
the others. Our intercessions are
specially structured so that we pray first for the Church – the bride of
Christ; then the World at large; then our ourselves and our local communities,
then the sick and then finally for the dead and dying and those who mourn. Christ also taught us how to pray and left us
with his prayer for us – the Lord’s Prayer – of which Debbie McIsaac will be
giving a specific sermon on as part of our series. Suffice it to say at this time that another
mnemonic can be applied to the structure of our own individual prayers – ACTS
which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thankgiving and then finally, and only
finally, Supplication. In other words
whenever we pray we should first of all acknowledge and venerate God – hence “hallowed be your name”, confess our sins
- “forgive us our trespasses” , give
thanks and be humble - “yours is the kingdom, the power and the
glory”, and finally Supplication – “give
us this day our daily bread”.
I was recently asked by one of our homeless service users
at Alabare, where I act as chaplain, to pray for him. My prayer was short but contained all the
elements which I have just mentioned.
His response was “Is that it?” to which I replied – yes! We have covered, in a very short prayer all
those issues which you wish to bring to God. Think, the Lord’s Prayer is not a
long rambling shopping list but contains within it all that we need to say in
acknowledging and asking God for his help.
Prayer can take many forms – it is not necessarily
intercessory prayer where we bring before God, in words, all those things on
our heart. In recent times I have found
contemplative prayer or silent prayer also of great help. That is not prayer where we say the words
silently in our head but where we actually let go of our false self – the
persona we put on in our daily lives – and sit quietly and try and listen and
understand our inner real self. There are a number of different techniques
which can be applied and the monks, Thomas Keating and Thomas Merton were much
influenced by the eastern practices of the Buddhists. I could spend much time
in describing their method – known as Centring Prayer - but will leave you to investigate
that further or talk to me later about it. Suffice it to say, it is a practice
whereby by knowing our inner selves better we can understand and get closer to
God – we being God’s creation and knowing that above all else God loves us.
In our second reading – another very well-known reading
which has inspired a number of famous paintings including my favourite one by
Diego Velazquez – Jesus, in a way, is comparing the true self with the false
self.
Our false self is very much concerned with outward appearances,
it is our ego – that part of us which motivates us and puts us in our place in
society. It is how most of us see each
other and it is important for structure and motivation; but there is also that
deeper inner self – the person God created us to be but which all too often we
do not give ourselves the time and opportunity to find. Martha represents that false self –
pre-occupied with making sure that everything in the house is just right for
their important visitor. “Martha was
distracted by many tasks” – just as we are distracted in our daily lives by
so many tasks. Each time I visit my
spiritual director I am acutely aware that I have let too many tasks squeeze
out my prayer time and the time when my true self can emerge. My false self, my ego has overtaken the
simple yet important task of spending time with God.
Jesus tells Martha that Mary “has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her”
meaning that Mary, unlike Martha has deliberately set aside time to come and
listen to Jesus – to be attentive and to be persistent and not let other more
routine tasks distract her.
We are now left with the third of our A-P-E – E –
Expectancy. Can we expect God to answer
our prayers?
The answer is a most emphatic “yes” – but with a caveat –
the answer is not always the one you might have expected! My children, throughout their lives have
asked me, Dad, for things – anything from an ice cream to more recently a motor
car! Sometimes my answer has been “yes”
– to the ice cream, and sometimes “no” to the car! They have always had an
answer but not always the one they wanted.
That’s because I have considered carefully their petition and decided
one way or another depending upon what I thought their need was at the time. Sometimes they’ve asked for something which
it was clearly not good for them to have!
God works in a similar way. What you ask for now may not
be what God feels you need right now.
Sometimes he will make you wait – as for the car or holiday – sometimes
he might substitute your request with something else. Throughout my life I can look back on many
occasions when I thought that God had not answered my prayers. Doors which I prayed to be opened have closed
– yet on every occasion when that has happened a new door somewhere else has
opened.
I am reminded of that movie “Sliding Doors” starring
Gwyneth Paltrow where the catching of an underground tube or not sets off a different train (sorry
for the pun) of events in the heroin’s life.
Yes be expectant – yes Jesus says open the door and it will
be opened, ask and you shall be given – but it might be a different door and it
might be something else he gives you.
Eli, not Samuel, knew that it was God speaking. Eli was a man of God, a priest and he knew
that God was addressing Samuel. The message
Samuel received, however, was not one which Eli had expected.
We must be prepared to expect the unexpected – but in our
prayers, however we might pray them – by reciting them, praying the words
silently, by contemplation or by communal or open prayer for each other, God is
listening. We can be confident about
“Going APE” – we should be attentive (listening out for God’s word); persistent
(praying continually – unceasingly as Paul puts it); and expectant – knowing
that God will answer although we must discern what God wills for us and
expecting the unexpected. That’s the exciting bit!
