What is prayer?

It is often silent.  It is a conversation often held completely inside your head.  It is chewing on preferred outcomes, wants and desires, hope and dreams, fears and expectations, disappointments and sorrows.

Sometimes, when you are able to tamp down the ego, it is an honest discussion about yourself and it isn't particularly pretty but it is totally truth filled.  Messy,  embarrassing .painful truth. Beautiful truth.

It has a direction although not necessarily a resolution. It is unlike ear worms, those repeating loops that tell you over and over again about your failures, shortcomings and missed opportunities.  It is not one of those mental loops that exhaust you and beat you up and beat you down and wear you out.  They do not enlighten the mind, enrich the soul or lift the burden.  They bring no relief; they are not prayers.  They are demons, for they never bring life to anyone.

Prayer is a conversation which brings you somewhere; not necessarily where you wanted to go, but no longer where you were. Deep within these (largely unspoken) words are truths. Some are buried deep and require a daily scraping away of layers of protective covering. Some lay right near the surface, waiting for you to stumble over them.  Whichever they are, they are precious because they are the pearls of your true self.

Notice I didn't say your perfect self, because your true self is not perfect; at least no in the eyes of this world. But it is you.  When you get there, you unearth the hidden gem that is you and you experience peace. Notice I didn't say joy (although sometimes there is that too) I said peace.  Because, having dug this far and this persistently, having approached from all angles and laid out all the arguments, because having piled all the lies and falsehoods on the rubbish heap, you arrive at the reality of what it means to be you, a singular human being. Even if it isn't what you imagined or wanted or coveted in your imagination, it is truly you and at last you can stop chasing after that which is not real and has no value.

What makes this any different from the incoherent musings of a mad woman? Or the ramblings poured out to the soft spoken, non-directive therapist?? What makes this different from the tear soaked or sigh driven wondering offered up over a cup of tea or a cold beer?  Often, nothing.  They are much the same; a cry for help; a confession of weakness; a striving after wisdom; a search for truth; a hunger for authentic connection.

No matter to whom it is spoken, it is all a search for love and a longing for peace.

Then whispers the Divine Creator "You are beloved. You are not perfect, but you are mine and I will not let you go."

Then you know: this is the answer you've been longing to hear; it is the only answer that gives life and it can only come from God.

What has you in a twist?

She was crippled, bent over, unable to stand straight. Luke 13.10-17
Life had twisted her in half; her best view was of her own feet.
You know her and so do I.

She's the single mother down the street whose teenager has gone off the rails.
She's the youngster ridiculed and bullied at school.
She's the elderly widow stretching peanut butter and jelly and white bread to last through two weeks because her social security doesn't pay her bills.

And she's not just a woman.  She is every man, woman and child who is bent over by the oppressive forces of this world: economic, cultural, physical, governmental.  On a good day, we find our posture and stand straight and take on the world.  On a bad day, we forget that we are God's beloved, that Jesus has the ultimate victory and the Spirit is moving and shaking and transforming this world.  On a bad day, we are twisted by this world and keep our head down and hope to get through unscathed.

Hear the good news.  No matter what this world throws at you, you are a child of God who loves you beyond all knowing.  Cling to that good news.

You are my beloved.....

 

Where do you have to go to remember that you are someone's 'beloved'?   A parent's lap?  A spouse's embrace?  A cup of coffee with a friend?  In your grandmother's kitchen?

Jesus was down in the water of the Jordan River the first time he heard God's blessing, 'You are my beloved.'  The second time he was on the top of a mountain.  I suspect that when he was on the cross he strained to remember those moments when God's love and embrace held him close. 

No matter our age, each of us faces a moment when knowing that we are beloved of someone calms our soul.  Never forget: you are always God's beloved.  Listen for God's voice calling you home.

You are my beloved

Sunday we will "remember our baptisms;" this should be a good and pleasant thing to do.

But why do it?

Why remember a moment that most of us slept through when we were splashed with water and claimed to be a child of God?

Why remember that once our name was presented to God and we were called one of God's 'beloved' ones?

Why remember that moment when water and a Word of grace, forgiveness and hope combined to put to death our old selves and join us to Christ's kingdom?

Why remember the parents who brought us, the fellowship of believers that welcomed us and the pastor who prayed for us?  Because the rest of life in this world is too often without praise, without forgiveness, without mercy.

Too often someone attempts to convince us that we have little or no worth in the big scheme of things.
 Too often darkness appears to swallow all the light in our world.

That's exactly when we turn to that moment when God claimed us, called us beloved, joined us to the resurrected one and before all the world called us worthy.  Some days, our baptism is the only thing we have left to which to cling. 

Come celebrate your baptism with us this Sunday, beloved of God.