Monday, February 11, 2019

The Way of Love 2. Learn and 3. Pray


Epiphany 5A 2019
            Rev. Adam T. Trambley        
February 11, 2019, St. John’s Sharon

This morning, we are going to continue to talk about the Way of Love.  The Way of Love is a set of practices for a Jesus-Centered Life that were introduced by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry at General Convention this summer.  Last week, we learned some hand motions to help us remember the seven practices in the Way of Love:
1.     Turn
2.     Learn
3.     Pray
4.     Worship
5.     Bless
6.     Go
7.     Rest

To summarize where we are so far, we talked about how a set of practices to keep our lives with Jesus on track can be called a “Rule of Life”.  A rule of life acts as a framework that gives meaning to our lives, and into which we fit the other tasks of life.  Most of our rules of life might already include prayer times, times with loved ones, acts of service and generosity. The seven practices of the Way of Love are designed as a rule of life to let us live into the fullness of a life in Jesus.

Last week, we also looked at Turn.  Turn involves our first big turn away from darkness, sin and a self-centered life toward a God-centered life of light and love and hope.  Turn also involves the daily decisions to get back on the right track after we mess up.  We may need to swallow our pride, to apologize, or just to recommit to Jesus.  Finally, Turn involves falling in love with Jesus more and more deeply; allowing Jesus to love us unconditionally and completely, and accepting that love; and allowing our longing to be with Jesus to propel us forward in the God-centered life of the Way of Love.

This morning, I want to look at the next two practices, Learn and Pray.  Learn and Pray are two ways to know Jesus more deeply, and they complement each other.  Pray gives us a deeper personal relationship with God, and between God, us, and others.  Learn helps us make sense of that relationship.  Learn also lets us draw on thousands of years of wisdom about how to develop that relationship.

Today’s scriptures talk about both Learn and Pray.  In our gospel reading, people come to learn directly from Jesus.  They gather around the lake, and he teaches them.  Then the disciples learn from Jesus in a more experiential way with their boats and nets.  While on the one hand they seem to be learning fishing techniques, they are really learning about Jesus.

Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians says, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received.”  Paul learned about Jesus, and he is teaching the Corinthians and us the core of the Gospel.  This good news is that Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead.  Just in case you have doubts about whether he really rose from the dead, Paul gives a list of the people the resurrected Jesus appeared to, including Paul himself.

Isaiah’s experience in the first reading is a good example of Pray.  Isaiah is caught up in this profound prayer experience where he is taken up into the throne room of God.  He has this vision with the Lord, lofty and uplifted, seated on his throne, with seraphim flying around in attendance, singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy” with loud noises, billows of incense, and live coals that cleanse and purify Isaiah’s lips.  In the prayer experience, Isaiah can respond to God with his “Here am I, send me.”

Much could be said about this vision, but right now I want to stop and recognize how Isaiah understood what was happening to him.  Isaiah was a priest.  He served in the Temple.  He knew his scriptures.  His may well have known as much about God as anyone in his day.  Without the real experience of God in prayer, of course, this learning may not have mattered much.  When he did have this life altering encounter with the living God, all of this learning helped him make sense of it.  Think about what Isaiah might have thought without the knowledge of his scripture and tradition.  He could have understood what had happened in bizarre, scary, or even demonic ways.  He could have thought somebody switched his incense for a more psychedelic substance.  He might not understood that he was encountering the personal Creator of the universe who loves us enough to make a covenant with his people, intervene in history, and call us as individuals to fulfill his purpose for us.  Isaiah had done the work to Learn, so he was ready to Pray when God showed up so vividly.

And Isaiah did pray.  He made time to be with God regularly, so he was open to this experience of God when it came.  When we Pray, we develop that relationship with God so that God can come to us however he chooses.  Most of our prayer experience aren’t going to be written in the Bible and preached on twenty-five hundred years later, but profound spiritual experience are not uncommon.  And the daily, seemingly normal experience of being with God in prayer regularly can be as transformative for us as some ecstatic vision.

The ways we Learn can be broken into three parts, and I’m giving you these in order of importance.  1. Scripture.  2. Liturgy of the Church and 3. Other Godly Study.

The most important way we can learn about God is by reading the Bible, especially the four Gospels.  The entire Bible is useful for learning, and different parts of the Bible contain essential instruction on different aspects of Salvation History and our life.  We give priority of place, however, to the Gospels as those books that provide the teaching and life of Jesus.  We give special weight to what Jesus said, and we take the accounts of his life, death, and resurrection as the core of our faith.  The Gospels may be a small section of the Bible, but we include a Gospel reading every day in the church’s daily prayers and every week in our Eucharistic celebration.

We can read through the Bible in any number of ways.  The church’s daily prayers, called the Daily Office, have an Old Testament, a New Testament, a Gospel reading and a number of psalms every day, and goes through the Bible in about two years.  Other apps and reading schedules can also work.     

Second, we Learn through the liturgy of the church.  Every week we hear the scriptures.  We profess our faith in the Nicene Creed.  In the Eucharist, we recount the passion and death of Jesus as we proclaim his resurrection and await his coming again.  Our liturgical seasons through the year help us learn from and live into Jesus’ life.  The sermon is also a time devoted to Learn in the midst of the liturgical context.

Besides the Bible and our liturgy, we have countless ways that we can Learn about God and our faith.  There are Bible studies, classes, podcasts, videos, and countless books on theology, scripture study, doctrine, and the practice of Christian living.  One good basic book, if people are looking for one, is Walk in Love by my friends Scott Gunn and Melody Shobe, which provides an introduction to Christian and Episcopalian faith and practice.  This book is especially good for those coming to the Episcopal Church from other faiths, and I have copies if anyone is interested. 

Of course, to Learn with our head is not enough.  We also want to Pray.  Pray means that we set aside time to be with God.  There are probably as many ways to pray as there are people, and many of us learned different types of prayer, including praise, intercession, thanksgiving, confession and adoration.  Knowing about different types and techniques of prayer can be helpful.  What is most important for our purposes today looking at the Way of Love, is that we make time and do it.  Just Pray.  Find a time every day and spend it with God.  Tell God what you need to tell him and spend some time being quiet so he can talk to you, too.  The goal is just to spend time with God.

Now, like spending time with anyone else, that time with God can feel different on different days.  Some days it may give us a sense of peace and feel fantastic.  We just want to keep praying forever.  Some days we are distracted or bored or feel like we are wasting time.  Either way, God is going to use the time, and he may even appreciate it and use it more when we don’t feel so good about it.  The point of prayer is not to have a warm fuzzy prayer time.  The goal of prayer is to let the Holy Spirit into our lives so that we bear more fruit when we are done praying. We Pray to be more loving people, not to become better at praying.  

The best way to start is to pick a particular time of day and set it aside for God.  Even starting with 10-20 minutes a day can be meaningful.  Ideas for our prayer time could include saying the Lord’s Prayer, or telling God what you are thankful for, or reading a piece of scripture slowly and seeing what God says to you in it, or asking God for what you and your loved ones need, or singing, or being quiet and just listening.  Some people find lighting a candle or lighting incense or putting on music to be helpful.   Sitting in the same place even time, or even creating a little prayer nook of some type helps us focus when we are there.  Experiment and see what works for you.  The Daily Office of the church is one way to pray that includes scripture, praise and intercession.   If anyone wants to talk more specifically about ways to pray or what they are experiencing as they pray, I’d be happy to have those conversations.

 Jesus loves us, and he wants us to make time to spend with him, like we would for other people that we love.  The details aren’t nearly as important as our desire to develop that loving relationship he offers us. 

Between now and the beginning of Lent, we’ll look at the rest of the practices of the Way of Love.  Let’s go over them together one more time:


1.     Turn
2.     Learn
3.     Pray
4.     Worship
5.     Bless
6.     Go
7.     Rest



Monday, February 4, 2019

The Way of Love: Introduction and 1. Turn


Epiphany 4A 2019
The Wayof Love: Intro, Turn (1 Cor 13:1-13)
            Rev. Adam T. Trambley        
February 4, 2019, St. John’s Sharon

This morning I want to talk about The Way of Love.  The Way of Love is a set of practices for a Jesus-Centered Life that were introduced by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry at General Convention this summer.  You may have noticed, if you saw his sermon at the Royal Wedding or have every heard him preach, that he talks a lot about love.  Bishop Curry talks about love because love is at the center of our Christian life.  Love is the core of what Jesus was about.  Love is the Way – the Way to a full, abundant life in God. 

We know the importance of love.  This morning we heard a beautiful reading from First Corinthians celebrating love.  Many of us have used this reading at our weddings, because we know that if we want a marriage to be happy and to last, our marriage has to be grounded in the kind of love Saint Paul talks about.  Patient, kind, not jealous, not envious, not rude.  Bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things.  It doesn’t matter how right we are, or how flashy, or how anything else – in the end only love matters.  And love endures.  When our marriage is grounded in that enduring love, we know it’s going to work.  In fact, when we love our spouse like Saint Paul describes, that love is going to endure even beyond our marriage in this life.  Because that love abides.  That love abides forever because that love abides in God.  We can anchor not only our marriages, but even our whole lives in that abiding, life-giving, liberating love that is nothing less than God.  God is love.

Living into such love is hard, though.  If it was easy, we wouldn’t have to read and preach about it – we’d just do it. The Way of Love is a set of practices so that we can live in to the fullness of life in Jesus.  Sometimes we call a set practices like this a “Rule of Life.”  A Rule of Life lays out for us a variety of things we do to orient our lives in the direction we want to go.  A Rule of Life has different components touching different aspects of our lives that we need if we are going to have the whole life we want.  Most of us have some sort of Rule of Life already, even if it is an informal one.  Our Rule of Life may include things like coming to church on Sunday, or saying prayers before bed, or making a weekly contribution to the church or to charity, or volunteering in a ministry, or eating dinner with our spouse every day, or going to visit our grandchildren every month, or taking a walk every morning.  These are all things that provide meaning to our lives as we fill in other aspects of life around them.  The Way of Love is a Rule of Life with seven components.  Exactly how these seven components look will be different for each of us.  A Jesus-centered life is going to include all seven in some way, however.

The seven practices of the Way of Love are:
1.     Turn
2.     Learn
3.     Pray
4.     Worship
5.     Bless
6.     Go
7.     Rest

Now, I know these can be a little bit hard to remember, so I’m going to help you in two ways.  First, there are trifolds that I hope you received with your bulletin that talk a bit about the Way of Love and each practice.  I’ll also have wallet cards next week that people can keep or give out to others.  Second, I’m going to teach you some hand motions for the Way of Love. 

(Do hand motions.)

The first practice on the Way of Love is Turn.  I want to talk about Turning this morning.  When we Turn, we pause, listen and choose to follow Jesus. Just like the first disciples who turned from what they were doing when Jesus said, “Follow me,” we stop what we are doing, listen to where Jesus is leading us, and follow.

Turn has three different aspects that I think are important: the first big turn away from sin and toward Jesus; the on-going course corrections that keep us heading in the right direction; and the falling in love again and again, more and more deeply with Jesus.

Our first Turn might occur at our baptism, or at some adult profession of faith, or at some time in our lives when we decided we were going to live for God.  This decision often happens when our lives are so out of control that we can’t handle them ourselves.  We have fear and hatred and sin swirling around us.  We feel oppressed and overwhelmed.  Nothing we can do seems to work and we want out.  Somehow in that moment we find a moment of stillness, like the eye of a hurricane.  In that quiet moment, the call of Jesus comes to us and he invites us to turn our lives to him.  Jesus invites us to accept him as our Savior – the one who can get us out of this horrible place we’ve ended up in – and as our Lord – the one who is able to order our life in the right way.  Hearing that still, small voice, we can choose to Turn so that we follow Jesus into a life of truth, love, hope, justice, and freedom.  This fundamental Turn is our decision to be on the side of the light, instead of the side of darkness; to be about God’s work instead of wittingly or unwittingly doing the devil’s work; to leave behind sin, hatred, and fear to be about the abounding love of Jesus Christ.

Once we’ve made that first Turn, however or whenever we made it, we have to continually reaffirm that decision.  Somehow, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves wandering off the road that Jesus wants to lead us down.  Maybe we tripped and found ourselves in the brambles on the side of the path.  Maybe we thought we knew a shortcut, but got lost instead.  Maybe we got tired or bored and wandered off to look for berries for a minute.  Maybe someone else on the path really hurt or annoyed us and we decided to try a different path for a time.  In reality, we find ourselves straying quite a bit.  In those moments, we are invited to stop, listen for Jesus, and turn in the right direction again. 

These on-going turns can be tough.  Pride and judgment both can get in the way.  We can be too stubborn to stop.  We might be afraid of looking bad if we apologize and turn around.  Nobody wants to have messed up.  Yet we all bumble around so often that stopping regularly, listening for Jesus, and making a course correction may need to happen multiple times a day.  And that is OK, as long as we are willing to do the work.  Put down the distractions, apologize to the people we’ve hurt and make it up to them as best as we can, and Turn back to heading in the right direction.  A few weeks ago, we talked about the practice of the Examen, which is just stopping at the end of the day and asking where we felt closest to God during the day and where we felt farthest away.  This practice is one way to stop and see how well we are following Jesus and decide to Turn as may be necessary.

The final aspect of Turn, that is also the most important, is what we are turning toward.  We are not turning just because where we are is bad, although it very well may be.  We Turn because we want to be with Jesus.  We want to fall in love with Jesus and live more and more deeply in his love.  Jesus loves us.  Jesus loves each and every one of us more than we can even begin to imagine.  The strongest human love we have ever known is nothing compared to the unconditional, unfathomable, unstoppable love that Jesus has for each and every one of us.  Jesus wants nothing more than for us to be following along with him on the Way of Love because he wants to be with us.  When we mess up, he wants us to turn back as quickly as possible.  He’s not waiting to judge or punish us for our sins and mistakes.  He just wants to overcome them so that we can go back to being with him.  When we Turn, we are turning toward that incredible love that we find in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the love that we long to see face to face.  Jesus is the love that we yearn to be fully known by.  Jesus lavishes his love on us, as much as we will let him.  To Turn is to follow the longing our of heart to abide in that radiant love of Jesus and to fall in love with him in return.  This desire to be loved more and more deeply by Jesus and to love him in return is the first step on the Way of Love.  This desire for Jesus’ love is what propels us forward into a Jesus-centered life.  And Jesus’ love for us is what calls us to him and gives us the strength and ability for the rest of the journey.

Turn.  The first practice for a Jesus-Centered Life on the Way of Love.  Next week we’ll continue looking at other practices.  Let’s close by reminding ourselves of all seven practices, using the hand motions.


1.     Turn
2.     Learn
3.     Pray
4.     Worship
5.     Bless
6.     Go
7.     Rest