Praying for the Revival of God's People

                                                                   Lent 1B 2015

                                        Gen9:8-17; Ps 25; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15

Father Adam Trambley

Feb 22, 2015 St.John’s Sharon

Revival of God’s People.  Our prayer theme during this first week of Lent is Revival of God’s People.   This theme comes out of the Seek God for the City prayer booklets that you should have received in the mail, or are at the entrances to the church.  We will look at these weekly themes throughout Lent because they focus on areas that require transformation as we prepare our hearts, our churches and our world for the return of Jesus.  We want our world increasing to reflect the Kingdom of God so that everyone can live lives of love, joy, peace and justice, and that the world will embrace Jesus fully as our Savior and Lord.

The first step in praying for the light of the gospel to reach the whole world is to pray for the full appropriation of that light by those of us who are already Christians.  The revival of the world starts with us, and so we begin our Lenten prayers by praying for ourselves and the church.  We see this same movement in our Gospel this morning.  Jesus comes to be baptized and receives an experience of God’s overwhelming love and power.  Then Jesus is driven into the wilderness where his own heart and soul is seared against sin and temptation, so that he is ready to do the work God has in store for him.  After that fortifying, Jesus goes out and proclaims the good news, calling people to repent and recognize that the Kingdom of God has come near.

Our prayers this week are that everyone who understands themselves as Christian will have an experience of God similar to the one Jesus had at his baptism.  Through that experience, we pray that they will be cleansed of sin, fortified against temptation, and prepared to do God’s work.  Many people have had such a profound experience. Yet some Christians have not, and some who have had encounters with God have become distracted or filed them away amid the clutter of daily life to be brought out on special occasions and forgotten about otherwise.  So our prayers at the beginning of this Lent begin with a longing for a revival in our own hearts, with a desire for God to touch our lives in overpowering ways that breaks us down, shake us up, and draw us into his heart. We want our prayers to lead us and all God’s people deep into the fire of God’s presence where we are transformed.

Experiencing the truly awesome love of God is where we are shown our own sinfulness and failings in ways that they can be cauterized and purified.  God’s glorious light illuminates our own darkness.  We are forced to let go of our deep-rooted pride and self-sufficiency because we understand who we are as beloved, yet compared to God tiny, children of God.  As we let go of our need to justify ourselves and to justify our actions in the abundance of God’s love, we can be open enough to see the effects of our sins on ourselves and others.  We can see how we set up barriers between us and God.  We can see where our lives lead us along paths to death instead of paths of life.  Part of our fervent Lenten prayer is to encounter God with such power that we and all God’s people become so clearly aware of where we are failing that we truly repent.  We pray that God submerges us so fully in the fire of his glory that all our sinfulness is illuminated and then burned off.  We pray not only “lead us not into temptation” but also for the flame of God to purify our desires and the imaginations of our hearts that too often draw us away from loving God with our whole heart and mind and soul and strength.  We pray that God would come to each and every one of us in this church and in every church this Lent to purify us from sin and fortify us for his ministry.  These prayers are the prayers we pray through the Seek God resource, but they are also some of the first prayers in the Great Litany we have just prayed together.

Then, as we have encountered God, we pray that God will lead us into increasing encounters with him through persistent prayer and passionate worship.  Maybe it sounds odd to pray to be drawn into prayer and worship, but as anyone knows who has intended to pray and then found themselves dealing with all the other things around the house, or who intended to get up and come to church but somehow didn’t make it, we need God’s help to attend to prayer and worship.  We especially need God’s clear call for us to respond to him at the levels that bring us to the kind of passionate intimacy that God wants all of his beloved children to know.  We want God to draw us into regular prayer for his people throughout the world that are broken and to whom our prayers can bring God’s love and healing and power.  We want God to draw us into passionate worship such that our experience in church is an outpouring of the love that God has for us, or of the overwhelming gratitude that we have for God, and of the joy overflowing our souls through the tears and songs and profound silence that come when we feel ourselves in the presence of God.  Maybe sometimes these experiences come at the altar rail, or during a hymn or at some other time, but we pray that we will look forward to every experience of prayer and worship because we recognize that God is going to show up and do something amazing.

When we experience God regularly in prayer and worship, we open ourselves up to God’s Spirit flowing out of us.  We live into that promise of Jesus that streams of living water will flow out of those that believe in him.  We pray this Lent that we will become so seeped in the God’s presence, that the waters of his life will flow from us and provide healing and relief for the dry, desolate, and barren places around us.  We look to those times when in our prayers, in our words, and in our deeds, others will experience the light of God’s love and presence radiating out of our lives.  We pray that husbands and wives, parents and children, grandparents and aunts and uncles and all family members would be so filled with God’s love for one another that the families of God’s people would be strengthened.  We pray that members of the church, the household of God, would nourish and build each other up with the gifts of the Spirit so that God’s people would be knit into the Body of Christ.

Finally, we pray that God would come and dwell in this place.  We pray that God’s glory would fill this sanctuary.  We pray that God’s people here would be so transformed and holy and loving that the world around us would recognize that God is present here and come and see. 

This Lent, we are praying for nothing less than the transformation of the world into the Kingdom of God.  Our prayers start this week with our revival and the revival of the entire people of God.  

Transfiguration Preparing for Lenten Intercession

                                                            Last Epiphany B 2015

                                        2 Kings2:1-12; Ps 50; 2 Cor. 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

Father Adam Trambley

Feb 15, 2015 St.John’s Sharon

Today is the last Sunday before Lent.  The readings all speak of some kind of experience of the glory and presence of God made manifest to human beings.  They are a preparation for us to recognize what we are striving for during our Lenten devotions.  We, like Elisha, like Paul, like Peter, James and John, hope that we and those around us have an experience of the blinding radiance of God’s light.  When we enter Lent on Wednesday to follow Jesus to the cross, we do it with the faith that the resurrected, transfigured Lord Jesus will come to encounter us. 

In the Gospel, Jesus takes his three closest disciples, Peter, James and John up to a high mountain.  The disciples get a glimpse of Jesus arrayed in his glory.  Whether Jesus is revealed as he was in heaven or as he will be after the resurrection or both or something else is hard to say.  Mark is trying to write down something that is probably indescribable.  All he can really say is that Jesus’ clothes became whiter than anybody on earth could bleach them.  (I’ve actually thought Transfiguration Bleach would make a great fundraising product.)  Once Peter, James and John have seen Jesus transfigured, Peter babbles a bit because he doesn’t know what to say but he feels a need to say something. Then the disciples get their instructions in a voice from the cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”  They have this amazing experience of Jesus and are told to go out and do what this brilliantly radiant Son of God tells them to do, which is to be quiet about what they have seen until after the resurrection.  Implied is that after the resurrection, they should probably tell some folks. 

In the first reading, Elijah is being taken up to heaven.  He isn’t transfigured himself, but his assistant Elisha is able to see God’s heavenly radiance in the chariot that comes to take Elijah into heaven.  Elisha babbles a bit, too: “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” whatever that means.  But Elisha has asked for the right thing.  He told Elijah that he wants a double share of his spirit, or a double share of the Spirit of God that has come upon Elijah and given him the ability to prophecy and do other works that proclaim the power of God to his people.  No voices tell Elisha what to do, because he has already asked for the gifts needed to go out and do God’s work. 

Then in Second Corinthians, Paul is talking about how  the evils and the distractions of this world are pulling veils over the minds of people who are not able to see God’s glory in Jesus Christ.  In Paul’s time, people in the Middle East would have worn veils to protect themselves from the brightness of the sun or to keep from being seen.  Today, we might imagine sunglasses as a modern American equivalent.  Imagine Jesus standing here, transfigured, blindingly white, illuminated like the sun bouncing off all the snow and ice we have around us, with every sparkling ray not only filling our eyes with light, but also our hearts with love and our minds with truth.  Then imagine people putting on huge wrap-around sunglasses, dark and polarized, so they can look straight at Jesus and not even see anything interesting.  Their eyes are shaded from the light.  Their hearts are hardened to the love.  Their minds are oblivious to the truth.  The sunglasses can represent any number of sins, compulsions and distractions that make us oblivious to the miraculous power of God all around us.  We all have our own favorite lenses that we put on from time to time.  The goal, however, is to keep our own sunglasses off and help others remove theirs, as well.

Helping people take off their sunglasses is what Jesus wanted his disciples to do after the resurrection.  This work is what Paul spent his life doing.  This work is what Elisha begged Elijah to be able to do.  This work is our work, and it has two components.  One component is evangelism.  We are to tell people how beautiful, how brilliant, how warm, how loving is this person Jesus who is waiting for us to turn toward him.  We are to describe the miraculous work of Jesus in our lives and the lives of those around us in such compelling ways that people want to take off their sunglasses and see.  Sharing our enthusiasm and genuine excitement for seeing Jesus transfigured is the work of evangelism. 

The second component of our sunglasses-removing work is intercessory prayer.  Since we can’t go around and rip people’s sunglasses of their heads, God has to be working in and through them, as well.  In prayer we pour out our hearts in love for other people to have the kinds of experiences of God that will change their lives.  We pray that Jesus Christ will make himself present in all his glory to individuals and groups of people and communities and nations.  We pray that God will stir people’s hearts to make them bored or unsatisfied with the drabness of the world they see through their sunglasses.  We pray that rays of God’s glory will shine so brightly that their eyes will recognize shimmers of something brighter.  We pray that they will encounter those who can describe the radience of God’s world to them.  We pray that people will be willing to keep their eyes open as their lives adjust to living in the brightness of God’s light, and that they will be able to make the necessary changes in their lives.  We pray that our hearts will expand in love for people so that we see each and every person as Jesus sees them, lit up by God’s love, with any of our own shades removed.  We pray that everyone will come to see the transfigured, resurrected Lord Jesus on the mountain and want to live according to his very good instructions.

This Lent, as a parish, we are sharing a tool to help us to pray in this way.  The booklet, Seek God for the City, provides a number of ways for us to focus our prayers from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday to help people remove their glasses, open their eyes, and experience the fullness of Christ’s radiance.  Everyone should have received a booklet in the mail, but if you didn’t or if you need another, there are some at the tables near the doors.  You can also download a smartphone app for 99 cents that has the booklet and other resources, including an alarm you can set to remind you to pray. 

I’d like to highlight a few ways to use the booklet.  First each week has a special theme, and each day has a focus within that theme.  There are two short scripture passages for each theme – one from the Old Testament and one from the Gospels.  After those readings are some specific prayers.  Going through these passages and prayer themes is similar to other Lenten booklets with short meditations and prayers that we have used in the past.  The only difference is that these prayers guide us toward the coming of Christ as King on Palm Sunday with ourselves and all people experiencing the glory of God in that encounter.  Weekly themes include the revival of God’s people, the awakening of lost and broken people (or helping them take off their sunglasses and open their eyes), transformation of our communities, evangelization of every people, and reconciliation among the peoples.         

We can also pray for every nation in the world to experience Jesus’ radiance and glory with this resource.  In the corner each day is a list of countries to pray for.  Praying daily will take us through every country in the world during these forty days.  If you download the app, you can also click on each country to learn more about them and what specific prayer needs they have.  These prayers could also be opportunities as a family or group to learn something about countries being prayed for that week.

Along the sides of the pages are also a specific group of people that can be prayed for, such as men, government leaders, children, gangs, business people, prisoners, or physically disabled people.  These include a short scripture verse that can be used to pray for the group, and a great Lenten discipline would be to memorize these verses each day and then be able to use them to pray whenever is appropriate.  A few specific prayer requests for each group follow.  Then finally we are given some ideas for praying for that group while prayerwalking.  Prayerwalking is probably not our priority when it is below zero, but we’ll talk more about it in the coming weeks as things thaw out. 

If you have questions or want to pray through these items with others, please let me or Deacon Randy know.  This Lent, we hope that everyone in this parish has a deep experience of the radiance of the risen and transfigured Lord Jesus, and we hope that our prayers bring that experience to others in our community and throughout our world.

A Day in the Life of Jesus: Mark 1

                                                               Epiphany 5B 2015

                                 Isaiah 40:21-31;Psalm 147; 1 Cor 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

Father Adam Trambley

February 8, 2015 St.John’s Sharon

Today’s gospel provides us with what we might call “A Day in the Life of Jesus.”  Walking through the day with him offers us insight into how we might follow him in the various aspects of our own lives. 

We start today with a summary pointing backwards to what we read last week.  Jesus spent the first part of the day in the synagogue teaching.  Then a man with an unclean spirit showed up, and Jesus cast out the spirit and healed the man.  What an unclean spirit is doing in a synagogue, or in a church, is a sermon for another time, but today we start by recognizing that when it was time for synagogue, Jesus showed up and offered his gifts.  Sometimes the use of these gifts was planned, like his teachings might have been.  Sometimes the use of these gifts was unplanned, like when someone showed up with significant needs who demanded attention whether Jesus or anyone else was ready to help. 

Now most of you could probably write the next paragraph of the sermon yourself as you think about implications for us today.  As much fun as it might be, though, I won’t randomly call on people to preach a sentence or two, but I’ll just offer a few reflections.  If we want to follow Jesus, we need to come and join our faith community for worship.  Now it probably didn’t snow six inches with an inch of sheer ice underneath it in Capernaum that morning, and, since God made freezing rain, I’m sure he understands that sometimes we don’t make it.  On those days we can reading the Bible and saying some prayers.  In general, however, we as a parish need people present offering their gifts in ways both planned and especially unplanned.  Everybody has some role to play in keeping the life of our parish going, whether in worship, in social events, in outreach, in prayer, in generosity, in music, or in any number of others ways.  The body of Christ needs all its members engaged or it can’t function properly in the same ways that our bodies can’t function properly if our heart is bad, or our kidneys are weak, or our arm is broken, or our eyes are closed. 

Equally important, however, is our presence for those unplanned needs that arise.  Probably the most powerful opportunities for ministry, and the times when miracles flow most freely, is when people just show up and demand our love.  The more of us that can say a kind work, can offer a prayer, can get someone a cup of coffee, can give somebody a ride to where they need to be, or can stop and actually listen to them, the more people will experience the love of God here, and for some of them that may be the first time they will have experienced that love in a long time.  Our prayers to touch lives are being answered – people are showing up to be transformed on many different levels – but we need to be present to offer whatever gifts we have if we want to reach the number of people God wants us to love.

From the synagogue, Jesus goes home with Simon and Andrew.  Simon’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever, so Jesus heals her, and then she gives them dinner.  This miracle is a little bit funny – if you want dinner, heal the cook’s fever.  But this passage has two take-aways for us. 

Most importantly, when we are home, we are still ministering.  Granted, Jesus isn’t with his parents, but we can imagine this is his best friends’ house that is like a second home to Jesus.  Jesus is in the personal sphere where he should be able to eat, rest, let his hair down, wash his feet, and kick-back.  But if somebody needs him, he loves them and does what they need.  Personally, I think this is one of the hardest examples of Jesus to follow.  He doesn’t wait until after he’s had a snack, or after his show is over, or after he’s checked his email.  He finds out she’s sick “at once”, and he goes and heals her.  When we get home, is our thought, “at once,” to see what the needs are of those around us and meet them? 

The other piece worth mentioning is that Jesus allows Simon’s mother-in-law to serve everybody after she is healed.  Even though we need to start off by reaching out to others, love and loving service is reciprocal.  We need one another.  Even Jesus doesn’t do everything for everybody that night.  Those people who don’t have a hard time focusing on others first need to remember that they need to stop sometimes and be ministered to, as well.  Receiving love can be a loving act.  We all need to love and serve, but we also all need to be loved and to be served sometimes.              

At sundown, when the Sabbath is over and people were allowed to go about their business again, the whole town comes to Jesus to be healed and to have their demons cast out.  Jesus is offering us an example here for how we act in our more public lives.  For some of us this is work, for some it is school, for some it might be the shopping mall or senior center, for some it might be the table at Panera or McDonalds or Tic Toc when everyone gathers for their morning coffee and to solve the world’s problems before lunch.  Here again, we see Jesus ministering.  Since he is out and about interacting with people, he is interacting with them in love.  Interestingly enough, these aren’t people he expects to be disciples.  These crowds he is healing aren’t made up of folks he who will fund his next ministry, or read his next book, buy his next CD.  They aren’t going to come to church with him.  But he loves them anyway, and his impulse is to reach out in love to them.  Everyone in those crowds experiences Jesus, even if they don’t understand who he is or do anything else with that experience. 

In our public encounters with people, we are also called to let people experience the love of Jesus through us, regardless of whether or not they will really understand, or even care.  As Christians, as followers of Jesus, we are called to do things like build loving relationships and meet people’s basic needs, and to give people a true sense of how Christians love and care for others.  Sometimes this means that we are focusing more about meeting people’s needs than about getting the best deal, or making the most money, or being the center of attention, or any of the other things that our ego likes us to worry about.  Instead, we want people to find healing, or freedom, or love, or an experience of God because they interacted with us, even in those instances where the folks involved make it difficult for us to love them, and you all probably get to interact with some of those folks from time to time.   We want everyone who meets a Christian to walk away better for the experience, just like everyone who met Jesus that night was blessed by him.

Artwork by Elizabeth Wang

Finally, Jesus goes out very early in the morning, at oh-dark-thirty, to a deserted place to pray.  Why does he have to get up so early to pray?  Because there is too much to do and people won’t leave him alone otherwise.  In the midst of all of his responsibilities, and as Savior of the world his responsibilities were fairly considerable, he not only takes, but he makes the time to connect with his Father.  He needs to spread the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand.  Crowds want to be healed and have demons cast out and to be fed.  His disciples are hunting him down because they have the crowds asking them for help and they want don’t want to disappoint all their friends and neighbors.  But Jesus knows that he can’t do what he needs to do if he doesn’t go and pray, and he knows the demands of being the Messiah well enough to know that if he doesn’t go pray before everyone else gets up, then he isn’t going to get the chance. 

Again, you all probably know where I’m going.  If Jesus is the Son of God who is without sin and loves everybody and he needs to go and pray, how much more do all of us need to take time to be with God in prayer if we have any hope to live a life that isn’t a selfish disaster with emotional, physical and spiritual wreckage piled up in our wake.  Prayer isn’t any easier for us than it was for Jesus – we have plenty of duties and distractions to pull as away.  But God still calls out to us to have the intimate relationship of prayer with him, and he longs for us to respond to him.  We need to sit down with our calendars and block out the time, in ink, or we need to set our alarms and our coffee pots twenty minutes earlier, or we need to set an appointment with a family member or friend to meet frequently to pray together.  If we just pray when we feel like it, we’ll miss praying when we most need it, and if we can’t find a way to pray when we are tired, a lot of our prayer time will be God watching us sleep.  God is alpha and omega, not A for awake while we Z-zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

So come to church.  Get involved and use your gifts to build up the Body of Christ in expected ways, and always be ready to make a difference in someone’s life unexpectedly.  Love and serve those in your home with your first efforts, and then be willing to be loved and served, as well.  Ensure that everyone you meet encounters Christ and his healing and his love through your actions.  Then make time to spend with God in prayer, which strengthens us to accomplish all of the other works which God has given us to walk in.  So have a good day – a Jesus’ good day.