What Keeps Jesus Going--June 4, 2020

What Keeps Jesus Going--June 4, 2020

"Now during those days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God."  [Luke 6:12]

What brought Jesus to life?  Like in the sense of daily rejuvenating him, what kept Jesus--the actual homeless brown-skinned Galilean rabbi Jesus--going in his work?  What kept him able to face his dense and thick-headed disciples again after they did or said something stupid (again)?  What enabled him to keep facing hostile attacks from the Respectable Religious Crowd and to respond with a graceful truth-telling that neither let them off the hook nor gave into answer hatred with hatred?  What gave Jesus the strength to keep putting himself in those provocative situations where he ate with sinners, helped someone from a different nationality, touched the untouchable, engaged women like equals, or healed someone on the sabbath day? What fueled his righteous outrage when he saw structures and institutions meant for good--like the Temple itself--being used in ways that preyed on people? And what grounded Jesus, on the days he felt like the loneliest person on the planet, to assure him that he was and forever would be God's Beloved Child?

Quite simply, he prayed.

Jesus prayed, and it certainly seems that this regular practice brought him to life at those points he was running on empty and needed to be both filled and reoriented to face the world again.  He prayed--which is nothing more than saying he picked up a conversation with God and continued it right where he had left off--and it kept Jesus centered on what he needed to do, even when it was difficult, or unpleasant, painful, or demanded courage.  Praying, it seems, was a big part of how Jesus himself could keep on keeping on.

And I have to think that part of why Luke tells us so often about Jesus' habit of going off by himself to pray, even through the whole night, is that he offers Jesus' way as an open invitation for us as well.  I do believe that the Gospel writers think that praying like Jesus will have a way of sustaining us--of keeping us alive and renewing us--when the days are difficult to get through.  And they are, aren't they?  They are so difficult, sometimes it feels like we are juggling too many terrible things at once and are about to drop them all.  But Jesus always had a lot on his plate, too.  You never see Jesus twiddling his thumbs (or using them to scroll through the screen of his smart phone out of boredom) because he's got nothing to do.  And yet, for all the furious busyness and the weight laid on him, Jesus was brought to life with each new day in his regular practice of praying.

What if that gift really were there for us... just waiting for us to make use of it?

Because... it is.

Now, to be clear, praying isn't magic.  It wasn't for Jesus, and it isn't for us.  Praying doesn't make your troubles go away, and it doesn't work mechanistically.  Prayer isn't really even a means to an end, because the point of praying is--praying.  That is to say, prayer is conversation, connection, contemplation, and even communion with the God who is life.  So if you want to be more fully alive, yeah, it makes sense to be intentional in what the old saint called "practicing the presence of God."  It's not like a reward--God doesn't sit up in heaven promising good feelings as a positive reinforcement for every time you mutter the Lord's Prayer or for every five minutes you keep your eyes closed and your hands folded.  Prayer is connection with the living God--it is the being in touch with the very Source of Life.  

We don't get any sense that Jesus spent his prayer time just demanding things (or even wishing things) from God, so much as he spent his time listening, asking, seeking, and re-centering.  Those things don't usually take the form of, "God give me this thing and I'll be happy."  We have a way in our consumeristic culture of seeing prayer primarily as a way of "getting" things--and that's why there's a cottage industry of religious-people's books offering their proposals for how to get God to answer your prayers, or what words to use.  But that's not how Jesus used prayer.  It was his lifeline like drinking water from the canteen is what keeps a thirsty soul alive in the desert.  

So maybe it's not about getting the technique right, or the number of times a day we do it, or whether there is incense or candlelight in the background.  And maybe instead it is simply about facing the day with intentional invitation to the Source of Life, the God of mercy and justice, the Christ who claims us, and the Spirit of creation to speak... and to make us to listen.  Maybe the way you and I find the energy to keep going back into a world full of rottenness is to pray like we are picking up a conversation with an old friend.  Maybe the way we keep the resolve and courage to keep trying to be decent people in indecent times is to pray for God's presence to carry us through.  Maybe the way to keep our heads on straight when we feel like we are losing them is to ask God to keep turning us in the right direction.  And maybe the way we work up the nerve to do some honest truth-telling with ourselves about our failings is to come to the God who has already forgiven us.

The world is going to demand a lot from you today, just to keep your head above water.  But when we are on the verge of wilting in our souls, we are invited to be brought back to  life simply by opening up the conversation with the One who is our life.

May we take that time today, so that we may be made fully alive--and so that we may be ready to face what God will send us into.

Lord God, help us in this new day.  Ground us in your love.  Equip us with your gifts.  Show us your way.  Fill us with your life.