Repentance Takes Practice. Practice Makes Perfect.

February 10, 2016 – Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-12; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

© 2016 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here.

 

Do you know what it’s like to sit down at a piano lesson and play through the piece that you have been working on for weeks and have your teacher look at you and say, “You didn’t practice that a single time this week, did you?” Although I enjoyed playing the piano, I hated practicing, and my instructor knew it. Thus, he knew that there was no future in piano for me. It’s funny how, even though a week passes by, you don’t get any better unless you practice.

Not everyone likes practicing. In fact, hardly anyone does. Unless you’re doing something you really love, practicing isn’t a lot of fun. Only when you’ve found your heart’s true passion does practice seem less like a chore and more like a gift. Even Foster, who comes to church six days a week to practice the organ and surely would have given it up a long time ago if he didn’t really love it, has moments when he doesn’t want to practice. We all do. You might remember Allen Iverson, the former NBA phenom, who, when asked about his practice habits at a press conference after the 76’ers were eliminated from the playoffs, replied over and over (22 times, in fact), “We’re talking about practice, man. Not the game—practice.” It turned out that he was inebriated during that interview, but he still got an understanding chuckle from the press: we’re talking about practice, man. If it’s hard to get an NBA all-star to enjoy hours of reps on the practice court, imagine, then, how hard it is to get people in a busy and demanding world to set aside time to practice their faith.

“Practice,” Jesus says. Actually, he says, “Beware of practicing your piety before others,” but, when I hear those words on Ash Wednesday, I am reminded that so much of what we do as Christians depends upon practice. Think about all that Jesus says in this gospel lesson: “Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you…But…do not [even] let your right hand know what your left hand is doing…Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…[but] go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret…And whenever you fast, do not look dismal…But…put oil on your head and wash your face…” All of that takes practice.

How do we get good at those things? More importantly, how do we learn to enjoy them? How do we get past the mundane repetition of showing up and saying our prayers and dropping a check in the offering plate? How can the practice of our faith become life-giving—something we’re passionate about? I think that Lent is the perfect time to discover how practicing our piety with a new objective in mind can transform it from obligatory drudgery to a joyful endeavor.

Yes, yes—I said “joyful.” I know this is Lent, and I know that all of us think that this is supposed to be a season of unbearable depression. (Just ask Foster.) It’s all about “lamenting our wickedness” and saying that we’re sorry for our sins. But repentance takes practice. And practice makes perfect. And perfect repentance is actually a very joyful thing, indeed. Here’s what I mean.

If this is the first time that you’ve come to church in a while, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that today is terrible. In this service, we spend most of the time on our knees, telling God that we’re sorry for what we’ve done (and even for what we haven’t done). No one would fault you for thinking that, whoever that God fellow is, he’s the kind of entity that insists that we, his wicked subjects, wallow in our own misery and shame (or at that least pretend to for an hour or so). That’s no surprise because that’s what most religious types tell us. It’s what the secular world tells us, too. So-called Christians around the world tell us that we are bad, and, if we want God to love us, we’d better say we’re sorry and sound like we mean it. Society teaches us that people who do bad things should be punished, and people who stay on the straight and narrow should be rewarded and emulated. And the result is a terrible and inescapable trap that says that God will only love you if you’re good and that, if you’re bad, you’d better make up for it or else you’ll go to hell. But guess what? You can’t ever make up for it. You can’t stay on the right path. You’ll always screw up again. And then what—more misery? No, thank you.

As we prayed in the opening collect, God hates nothing that he has made. I believe that with all of my heart. I believe that each and every one of us is totally and completely and limitlessly loved by God in ways we cannot even imagine. We are beloved. That’s what Jesus is all about. Jesus came to say that even the worst sinners among us are chosen by God to be his children—his sons and daughters. He shows the world that, no matter how terrible you have been and no matter how terrible you will be, God still loves you exactly the same. There is no sin, no wickedness, no mistake that you could ever make that could change that. God’s love is unbreakable. But that’s where today gets tricky.

If God loves us the same no matter what, why do we bother falling on our knees and confessing to him that we keep screwing it all up? Why do we fast? Why do we pray? Why do we bother to come to church—on today, of all days? If God loves us whether we’re sorry or not, why be sorry at all? Why? Because we need repentance. God doesn’t need us to be sorry. (God doesn’t need anything.) But, if we are going to appreciate the reality of his unconditional love, we cannot take it for granted. We must, instead, plumb the depths of our moral failure so that we can see just how bottomless God’s love really is. Repentance isn’t for God; it’s for us. And discovering that truth takes practice.

The word repentance doesn’t mean saying that you’re sorry. It means turning around. It means adopting a new life. It means changing direction. And that takes practice. We do those things—almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—not to make God love us but so that we will know God’s love. Those things? Those habits? That’s repentance. Learning to do them the way Jesus taught us—not for show but so that our hearts might conform to the unchangeable truth of God’s unbreakable love—that takes practice. You can’t learn all of that in one day. It takes time. It takes time for a life of faith to take hold in our hearts. It takes practice to learn that we do all of this not to achieve God’s love but to celebrate the love that he already has for us. Perfect repentance takes practice, but the joy that come with it is totally worth it.

Mardi Gras

Today's post is also the cover article for our parish's newsletter, The View. To read the rest of the newsletter and learn what's happening at St. John's in Decatur, Alabama, click here.

 

I had never heard of Shrove Tuesday until got to college. As a child of lower Alabama who grew up going to parades where the rowdiest display was the oversized plastic cigar hanging from the mouth of a moon-pie-throwing reveler, I knew that the last day before Lent was supposed to be a time for family fun. Even though we stayed away from Mobile, where the partying was more intense by at least one order of magnitude, those of us in L. A. knew where the celebratory pre-Lenten tradition got its first American expression. Before the Crescent City was even founded, French settlers on the shores of Mobile Bay were enjoying one last feast before the forty days of fasting began.

When I got to seminary, I discovered that many people in other countries have never even heard of “Mardi Gras” or “Fat Tuesday.” Instead, they call it “Pancake Day” and celebrate not only by eating stacks of cheap, syrup-drenched carbohydrates but also by running relay races that involve flipping and catching (and often dropping) pancakes. I suppose that a menu of pancakes lends itself to a series of short sprints. Now, I like a short stack as much as the next diner, but I would rather celebrate that last feast with a meal one cannot order at IHOP.

I get it, of course. In preparation for a season of simplicity and culinary deprivation, the tradition is to empty one’s larder of fat and sugar and whatever else one might be giving up for Lent. Given our hedonistic tendencies, it makes sense that on Fat Tuesday one might be tempted to overindulge on the specific things from which one will be abstaining during the forty-day wilderness journey—foie gras, for example. The link to the cupboard, however, is only secondary as the real focus of Shrove Tuesday is spiritual.

To be “shriven” is an archaic way of saying to make one’s confession and be absolved of one’s sins. The transitive form of the verb gets even closer to the meaning of the day as to “shrive” means to free someone from guilt. On the day before Ash Wednesday, we take preventative measures to free ourselves from the guilt that would arise if we stumbled on our Lenten journey and fell into the temptation that a box of Bisquick in the fridge might represent. Modern Mardi Gras celebrations are mostly a hangover from this purging of the pantry, but I want to invite you to consider what steps you might take remove some of the spiritual stumbling blocks that lie ahead.

Would you like for Lent to be a quieter time, when you are able to hear God’s voice a little more clearly? Consider blocking out thirty minutes for silence on your calendar every day. Do you feel a desire to get back to church as a regular, weekly habit? Start by making plans for an early bedtime this Saturday. Are you hoping to develop a daily pattern of reading from the holy scriptures? Go ahead and pull the bible down from its shelf and dust it off and place it in the chair where you like to sit each morning, or set missionstclare.com as your browser’s homepage. Would you like to reimmerse yourself in the Christian community and feel again like you belong to the Body of Christ? Pick up a copy of Forward Day by Day or our parish’s Lenten meditation booklet and read how other Christians are finding Jesus. Are you ready to care a little bit less about yourself and a little bit more about others? Set up an automatic daily bill pay of $10.00 to go to the Salvation Army or the CCC or, better yet, go to the bank and withdrawal forty ten-dollar bills and, each day, place another one in an old-fashioned pickle jar you have set on your kitchen counter for just that purpose.

 
Whatever you do, be proactive. Otherwise, the lure of ordinary things—things as common as pancake mix—will sneak up on you and threaten to disrupt your Lenten discipline. We are about to begin a forty-day journey through the wilderness. This journey could deepen your relationship with God, or it could end as soon as it starts. Make plans for the whole trip. Remove the impediments that might trip you up. If you stick with it, I promise that, when you come out on the other side, you will not be the same.

The Devil's Voice

What does the devil's voice sound like? Is it deep and gravelly--the kind of voice I use when I'm sneaking up behind my children to scare them? Is it soft and sweet--so appealing that one could easily mistake it for an ally's encouragement? Or is it altogether silent--only persisting in one's mind?

Although I'd read the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness many times, I had never considered what the devil sounded like until I was asked to sound like the devil. When I was a first-year seminarian, I was given the task of reading the gospel lesson for the First Sunday in Lent in the congregation where I was training. This was St. John's College in Cambridge, where traditions live far longer than even the oldest member of the college. Several students and a few adults encouraged me to continue the much-loved tradition of reading that particular lesson as the former Dean had read it--evoking the voice of evil when reading the words that the devil spoke: "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." I was terrified.

At first, I thought they were kidding. I thought they were trying to get me to do something that would make me look like an idiot. But as more and more and more people assured me that the Dean had always done it that way, it became clear to me that they were telling the truth. To my horror, it seemed that they expected me--a tenor who actually enjoys singing the alto line in many hymns--to boom the deep baritone required of Satan himself. What would I do?

I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but the Chaplain, my supervisor, encouraged me to do whatever I felt was best. That was a nice gift of freedom, but it didn't quite resolve the issue. I asked the Dean what he thought, and he asked me what I thought the devil sounded like. Looking back, I dream that there was a deep theological conversation that followed, but I probably just said something deferential like, "Oh, that's a good point. Thank you very much, Mr. Dean. I'll think about that," and walked away. Regardless, I did begin to think about it. A lot. What does the devil sound like?

Two weeks ago, in a bible study on Job, we read the part about Job's wife encouraging her husband to "curse God and die." Although it's clear that the tradition singles her out as the ungodly voice of that moment, I don't fault her for her words. That's what I'd want to do. The tragedy that had befallen Job by that point was more than anyone could bear. As we were considering why she said what she did, I asked the class whether hers might be the voice of Satan in the story. Remember, God gave Satan permission to torment Job to see if he would renounce his faith and turn away from God. Isn't that what Job's wife was asking? I guess sometimes the devil's voice is more familiar to us than we expect.

On Sunday, we'll hear the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. It's a story of hyperbolic proportion. Forty days of fasting and solitary wandering in the wilderness. The devil showing him all the kingdoms of the world and offering them to Jesus in exchange for worship. The devil taking him to the pinnacle of the temple and encouraging Jesus to trust that, as the scriptures say, angels would catch him if he jumped off. Maybe it all happened exactly like that. (It says so in the bible, after all.) But I'd like to think that the voice of the devil is a little less obvious than that. I'm no Jesus, of course, but, when Satan speaks to me, it's a lot harder for me to tell what I'm supposed to do.

If we overdramatize Sunday's reading, we run the risk of making Jesus' temptation unrealistic and easy to thwart. But it wasn't easy. It's never easy. Yet Jesus persisted where all of us fail. Let the devil's voice be a sultry whisper. When I read that lesson so long ago, I whispered the devil's part. All the choir boys started laughing because, well, it was pretty ridiculous. I stand by it, though. When the devil speaks to me, it's hardly loud enough for me to hear, but speak he does. May Jesus' witness give us strength to hear the faintest of tempting voices and turn them away.

Gift of Hope and Love

February 7, 2016 – The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

© 2016 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here.

What do you do when the road gets tough? What keeps you going when things get really hard?

A long time ago, back when I was a sophomore in high school, I got in big trouble. Until then, I had always been a pretty good kid. I never got caught with the wrong crowd. I always did what my parents and teachers expected of me. Sure, I talked my way into after-school detention a time or two, but my record was pretty clean. And then I screwed up in a big way.

I was out of town at a Key Club Convention. I had been elected District Secretary, and, along with a group of other state-wide officers, I was treated to a nice suite in a Miami Beach hotel. I was the only underclassman in the group, and I’d like to tell you that I protested loudly when the alcohol came out, but I didn’t. That first night was a lot of fun. It was the only night that was a lot of fun. The next evening, at the convention’s opening session, I looked up to see the chief disciplinarian pointing right at me and beckoning me to follow him out into the lobby. I never went back in. We were busted. I went all the way to Miami for a Key Club Convention and only saw the inside of the convention hall for about 15 minutes.

But the worst part was the phone call. Three of us had gotten in trouble, and we took turns dialing our parents to tell them what had happened. Much of that whole experience gets lost in my memory, but not the phone call. Left by myself, I dialed my parents’ number. When my dad picked up, I said, “Is Mom there?” Those were the last words I got out before the sobbing began. He knew instantly, of course, that something was wrong. Through choked tears, I explained to him what I had done. He listened as I blubbered my way through my confession. When I was finished, I went into the hall and got the chaperone so that he could fill my father in on the ugly details.

We didn’t actually go home after that. It was cheaper to leave us in a different motel in Miami until the convention was over than to change the airline tickets, so I had a couple more days to think about it. Unlike most of the kids who went to Miami for a week, I didn’t have any good stories to tell my parents. But the remarkable thing was that, when I got home, life went on. Sure, I had to resign from my position in Key Club. I had to meet with our faculty advisor and explain to her what happened. And she made me meet with the principal and the president of the Kiwanis Club that had helped pay for the trip. But, for the most part, that was it. I spent the rest of the summer as a free man—free to ponder two distinct truths: 1) I had screwed up in a really big way and 2) my parents had been remarkably forgiving. They never yelled at me. They didn’t tell me what a disappointment I was. Even on that dreaded phone call, my father was supportive instead of punitive. I had made the biggest mistake of my entire life, and parents loved me anyway. And I would need that forgiving love when I went to college, where even bigger trouble was waiting for me.

“Eight days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ of God, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.” Jesus and his disciples did that a lot—pray—but this day was different. While Jesus was praying, his whole appearance changed. His skin began to shine. His clothes became a dazzling white. His face beamed like the sun. Peter and the other disciples looked, and they could see two men standing with Jesus. One was Moses, and the other was Elijah. They were the Law and the Prophets—a clear and visible indication that Jesus was the fulfillment of both. Anything that had previously been hidden—anything that Jesus had kept under wraps—was now exposed for these three disciples to see. Jesus, their master, their rabbi, wasn’t just a remarkable teacher. He was God’s chosen one—the Christ, the one upon whom the hopes and dreams of God’s people rested.

But why that day? Why that mountain top? Why Peter, James, and John? Why not show everyone? Why not show the whole world who Jesus really was?

Eight days earlier, Jesus, again, had been praying. He stopped to ask the disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And they replied, “Some say John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, and still others say one of the prophets.” “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked them. And Peter declared, “You are the Christ of God.” He was right, of course, but that doesn’t mean that Peter and the other disciples knew what that meant. You might recall what Jesus said to them right after Peter’s confession: “The Son of Man must suffer and be rejected by the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day rise again.” That was the path that stretched out ahead of God’s chosen one. That was the future God had in store for his Son. But acknowledging that Jesus was the Christ and hearing him predict his own death is still very different from watching him nailed to a cross and hearing him gasp for his last breath and seeing him laid in a tomb and, through all of that, believing that there is still hope and trusting that Jesus really is the one God has sent to save the world.

What would it take, in your darkest hour, for you not to lose hope? What would you need to carry you through that place of deepest loss? What would give you confidence that someday, somehow the sun would rise again? Would words be enough? Or would you need something more?

In the glorious light of the transfiguration, Jesus gave to Peter, James, and John a great gift. He showed them what they already knew. He revealed to them his true nature in a way that transcends sermons and parables and even miracles. He showed them with the blinding light of God’s presence that he was who Peter confessed him to be—God’s chosen one, the anointed, the Christ. And, with that knowledge confirmed not only in their minds but also in their eyes and in their hearts, they were able to journey together down the road that led to Jerusalem, where, indeed, the Son of Man would suffer and die. And I wonder whether we might say that the seeds of hope and confidence that were planted in those disciples’ hearts on that transfiguration day were what it took for them and their faith to survive the horrors of Good Friday and sustain them until they could see the empty tomb. Could it be that the light of the transfiguration is the only thing that got them through the darkness of Jesus’ death and led them to the sunrise of Easter?

Sometimes the road is hard. Sometimes the darkness closes in. Where will we see light? What will give us strength? Believing something with your mind isn’t the same thing as carrying it in your heart. Before that fateful trip to Miami, if you had asked me whether my parents would love me even if I let them down in a tremendous way, I would have told you yes, of course they would. They are my parents. That’s what parents do. But, when I picked up the phone and dialed their number, I wasn’t sure whether it would be love that picked up on the other end. And it was. And I will carry that sense of belovedness with me for the rest of my life. But even my parents’ transformative love pales in comparison with the love that our heavenly father has for each one of us.

Don’t just hear that God loves you. Don’t just say the words with your lips. See that love. Look for that love. Sit in that love. Experience it and know it and carry it with you forever. Journey with Peter, James, and John to the top of that mountain where that love shines as bright as the new day. Race with them to the tomb where the stone has been rolled away. Come to the altar and receive the body that was broken for you and the blood which was shed for you. God’s love is more than words. We don’t just say these things about Jesus because someone wrote the words down a long time ago. We profess our belief in him—we give our whole lives to him—because we have experienced that love firsthand. That love is real. His love is real. Find it, experience it, know it, and let it carry you through whatever lies ahead.

The Next Day

Every year, on the Sunday before Lent starts, we read the story of the Transfiguration. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each recall the moment for us, and we read each account in successive liturgical years A, B, and C. This year, Year C, we have Luke's story. There are several subtle differences between the accounts, which allow the preacher to nitpick her or his way through a specific text. Often, I will use these differences to highlight some of the important themes in each version even if I leave those specific observations out of the sermon. This year, though, I'm making a pretty big preaching choice based solely on the way Luke portrays this encounter, and I think that it's worth exploring here.

This Sunday, in the Revised Common Lectionary, we have an option of reading Luke 9:28-36 or extending the reading to include the next episode, which concludes in verse 43. In the other two years, we aren't given the option of extending the reading, and, unless the preacher uses the rubrical option of expanding it, the gospel lesson concludes as Jesus urges the disciples to keep the transfiguration event to themselves. I find that bizarre. In fact, if I hadn't checked the RCL for the other two years, I would have assumed the opposite to be true because if there is any year in which the scene at the bottom of the mountain does not belong it is when we read Luke's version.

Matthew and Mark say essentially the same thing. They conclude the transfiguration with something like "As they were coming down the mountain..." and then immediately pick up the next story with "And when they had come to the disciples..." or "And when they came to the crowd..." In those two accounts, there's no break in the action. There is a real sense of immediacy to the encounter that awaits them. Not only is there no narrative interlude to split it up, but there isn't even the passage of time. It's immediate. When they get down the mountain, they are met by the disciples and a crowd who are waiting on Jesus to come and fix the problem that awaits them (see below). Luke's version is very, very different.

When Luke finished the transfiguration story, instead of depicting Jesus telling the disciples to keep quiet as they plod down the mountain, Luke offers an editorial summary: "And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen." That might not sound like a huge difference, but read the next verse: "On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him." That's a totally new story! There's not even an attempt to connect the two. Luke isn't interested in suggesting that one followed the other in quick succession. He wraps up the first with a transitional editorial remark and then lets a whole day go by before starting the next encounter fresh. I think reading them together in Luke's version is to make something out of nothing. Save it for Years A & B, when you can lengthen the reading and make the point.

And what might that point be? The encounter that waits for Jesus is the story of the father whose son is seized by an evil spirit. When Jesus is told that his disciples could not cast it out on their own, Matthew and Mark portray Jesus as making a connection with what had happened up on the mount of transfiguration. Mark has Jesus explain to the disciples that "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." Bingo! Prayer! And Matthew? His focus is on faith: " He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” But Luke? Luke gives us none of that. There is no explanation. There is no encouragement. There is no connection with the transfiguration.

I say leave it out. If you can't find anything to say about the transfiguration, go read it again. There's a dozen sermons at least tied up in this story. Don't preach the next day. Let the transfiguration tell its own story. If this were Mark or Matthew, I'd say that the following episode points clearly back to the transfiguration itself. But not this year. I say let it go.

Keep Watch!

Behind the altar in our church are three stained glass windows. Unlike many churches, we don't have a central window that features Jesus. Our large window represents our patron saint, St. John. I like to joke that we at St. John's think so highly of ourselves that we'd rather put our own face up there than Jesus'. Once you recognize who is portrayed in the other two windows, however, it all makes sense. Accompanying John are the other two disciples from Sunday's gospel lesson (Luke 9:28-36): Peter and James.

Peter, James, and John. Those three represent Jesus' inner-inner circle. Among the disciples, they are the three whom Jesus takes with him up on the mountain to pray. They are the only ones who see his appearance transfigured. They are the ones who recognize Moses and Elijah and hear the Father's voice. And, as they come back down the mountain, they are told to keep these things to themselves. They were entrusted with a fuller revelation of Jesus' glory and were trusted to keep it quiet until the time was right.

No one can know why these three were chosen. Peter, of course, is known as the first among equals--the primary disciple upon whom Jesus builds the church. It makes sense that he would be there. James and John were brothers. In the synoptic tradition, they were called into discipleship shortly after Peter and his brother Andrew, which suggests that these four are particularly important to the early Christian tradition. Then why isn't Andrew invited along? I'm not sure, but there's something about these three that helps this moment happen.

The line in this passage that catches my attention this morning is the narrator's description of the three disciples during the transfiguration event: "Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him." They were tired. So often, the disciples were tired. Jesus was a "prayer warrior," able to keep long hours in communication with his father. The disciples struggled to keep up. This time, though, they managed to stay awake. And their alertness was rewarded. Luke suggests to us, therefore, that they might have missed it. And, had they missed it, there would be no story to tell. This moment of Jesus' glory being revealed is shown to an audience--a group of three who can confirm this story later--much later, when things had fallen apart, when their master had been killed, and when rumors of his resurrection were spreading.

Fast-forward several chapters to Luke 22:39ff., and we find the disciples again struggling to stay awake. This time, Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and his companions are unable to keep watch with him. Unfortunately for the preacher this week, Luke doesn't identify which disciples he took with him into the Garden--presumably, therefore, all of them. But Matthew picks up the link and tells us that "Peter and the two sons of Zebedee" went with him. Regardless, in the later episode, we watch as the disciples miss the opportunity to see what is revealed in the Garden. What might it have been? What might they had seen if they'd kept awake? What sort of glory was shown in that place? Or maybe, even though they slept, the days that followed showed them the whole story.

The fullest epiphany will come at Easter. That's when the world sees what that three disciples saw on the mountain top. Jesus is the Son of God, whose glory cannot be hidden. This week, though, we are invited to keep awake and see with Peter, James, and John the foreshadowing of the Easter epiphany. Like them, we may be weighed down with sleep. The sermon may be boring. The lesson may be overly familiar. We may have stayed up too late getting ready for our Super Bowl party. Or maybe, and more substantially, our faith has gone to sleep. Maybe we've lost the ability to stay alert to the ways God is working in our lives. This week, we are beckoned to pay attention. Something exciting is happening. Jesus will show us who he really is. If we miss it this week, we may have to wait until Easter to see it again.

Prayer Changes Everything

Something happens when we pray. It may not be what we want or hope or even recognize, but something happens when we communicate with the Almighty.

I remember a Sunday school teacher from my childhood who taught our class how to pray. "It is talking with God," she explained. "Some people talk to God in a very formal way--like the prayers we say in church." That made sense. Why wouldn't one compose his words carefully when speaking to God? "Others," she went on to say, "talk to God as if he were a friend--the same way we talk with those we love." That was revolutionary for me--not because I was thrilled to know that I could talk to God in such a casual, chatty way but because I discovered that people would even think to do that.

Prayer is talking to and listening for God. For some, the radical part of that statement is found in the action. We are able to talk to God?!? And, if we listen to the sounds of our heart and the quietness of our mind, we might hear God speak back to us?!? Communicating with God is a remarkable thing. For me, though, the real amazing strangeness of it isn't found in the talking and listening but in the one with whom that communication is shared. Those who know me at all know that I take talking for granted. That God might listen and that God might invite me to listen is the revolutionary part.

When people tell me that they speak to God in prayer as if they were speaking to an old friend, I find myself baffled. Yes, I understand the premise of their statement, but I cannot identify with the experience. For me, there can be nothing casual about communicating with the Holy One. Although I trust that another opportunity will present itself, I approach prayer as if I were the visionary behind a techy start-up with a 30-second window in an elevator to make my sales pitch to Bill Gates, whose investment could transform my life forever. This is God! No, not every word is carefully composed, but, when I enter the presence of the Almighty in prayer, it isn't a casual chit-chat over a cup of coffee with Motown tunes playing in the background. Prayer takes every ounce of my heart and mind and soul. I want to give it my all every time--or else I'd better wait for that other once-in-a-lifetime chance to make my elevator pitch.

On Sunday we will read the story of the Transfiguration--the moment when, in mountain-top prayer, Jesus' countenance was changed to a "dazzling white" and he was joined by Moses and Elijah (Luke 9:28-36). We read this story all the time. Not only do we read it on August 6, when the story gets its own feast-day celebration, but we also read it every year on the Last Sunday after Pentecost--our final Sunday before Lent. In this encounter, we are invited to see the real power of prayer--not that prayer would change our circumstance but that prayer might transform us.

Jesus' face and clothes shone with dazzling white light. In the act of prayer, Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. They get to see how communicating with the Father can draw out evidence of Jesus' inner nature. In the act of prayer, Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah, who represent Law and Prophet--other means of divine-human communication. Eventually, the Father's voice speaks, confirming Jesus' identity as God's Son. And, in all of this, we, too, are invited into the life-changing act of prayer.

Prayer is communicating with God. The act of entering God's presence and being called on by God to speak is remarkable. Usually, in the holy presence of God, the whole world keeps silence, yet we have discovered in Christ that God invites us to speak. And then he deigns to speak with us in reply?!? This is remarkable indeed! This act of prayer, which we could easily take for granted, is powerful. It has the ability to draw out of us evidence of God's nature. It has the power to change everything because it has the power to change us.