Because We Need to Say It--August 6, 2020

Because We Need to Say It--August 6, 2020

"The angel of the LORD came to Elijah a second time, touched him, and said, 'Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.' He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spend the night there.  Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?' He answered, 'I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking y life, to take it away.' He said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by'." [1 Kings 19:7-11]

It's a humbling reality I am brought face to face with all the time to realize that God doesn't need my praying--I do.  God doesn't need my praise or compliments to prop up the ol' divine ego, because God is not insecure like I am.  God doesn't need the conversation to vent things on God's mind, like I do.  God doesn't even need the conversation to happen in order to know what things are on MY mind, because God already knows what I'm going to say before I say it--and for that matter, God knows what I actually need better than I do, too.  I'm kind of the weak link in this whole scenario... and yet God invites my prayer, God calls us into the conversation, because I need to pour out the things on my heart, even when God already knows what is churning inside it.

I heard a story from a church member some time ago about how he had once been on an elevator with several other people in a big building, and the elevator got stuck.  And after some awkward looking around at one another as they waiting, wondering if anybody knew they were stuck, someone suggested that they should pray about it.  That seemed agreeable all around, and so one woman starts praying, "Dear Lord, we're stuck on an elevator here and we need your help!"  And at this point in the storytelling, the church member looks at me, shaking his head, and says, "Now I was thinking, Come on, lady, God already knows where we are--you don't have to tell him you're in an elevator!"  And of course, that very practically-minded observation from the church member was correct--God didn't need to know where the prayer was coming from.  But it occurred to me, too, that maybe when you are trapped in an elevator, even if it's obvious that the thing you need is help getting out of the elevator, sometimes anxious hearts need to say it out loud.  Maybe God didn't need the new information, but the woman had to say it.  Maybe (by which I mean "certainly") God was already aware of the situation and on it, but the nervous people in that tiny metal box needed to know that this was being lifted up to God's care.  In any case, it can be true that God doesn't need the information we supply in a prayer, while at the same time we find ourselves needing to put things into words.  Sometimes something weighs so heavily on my heart that I can't carry it by myself anymore, and praying is how I unload the weigh I didn't need to be bearing alone anyway. It's not new factual information offered to heaven as a public service to God--it's because I need to say it.

That's what I find so beautiful about this scene from the story of Elijah.  Poor Elijah is feeling worn.  Weary.  Exhausted and exasperated.  And desperate.  He's ready to die, because he feels like every relationship in his life has been cut off, and the people he had been sent to with God's message are all out to get him, too.  He's kind of throwing himself a pity party here, but to be honest, it's probably fair to say he's earned the right to mope some.  And God knows it.  God knows he is at his lowest, and so God bears with Elijah's need for the drama.  God arranges a conversation with Elijah, and even nudges Elijah along the way to make sure he can handle getting there.

For some reason, Elijah seems to think he has to go somewhere special for this conversation with God.  He's on the run from the authorities for getting into too much of what the late John Lewis called "good trouble," but Elijah is headed in particular for "the mount of God," to Horeb--which is another name for Mount Sinai, where the old stories say that Moses met God and got the commandments on tablets of stone.  Elijah is going to "the place you to go to meet God."  Of course, from God's perspective, you can have the conversation anywhere. And for that matter, God already knows what Elijah wants to say.  But this is like being stuck in an elevator and praying--it's not about new facts for the divine but bringing relief for the desperate.  So, even though Elijah seems to think the conversation can only happen at "The Holy Mountain," God sends messengers--sometimes described as an angel, sometimes just mysteriously as "the word of God"--who prime Elijah for the conversation.  They make sure he's eating enough so he can get where he needs to go.  They tell him that, indeed, God is going to pass by," and they tell him that the conversation will happen.  And at each point, of course, Elijah starts his sob story all over again.  He vents to the angel.  He vents to the voice of "the word of the LORD" that comes to him.  And then eventually when God shows up in a sound of sheer silence, Elijah vents it all of it all over again.  Clearly, this is not about a lack of knowledge on God's part--it's about Elijah's need to speak... and to know he has been heard.

Now, here's the thing: this part of the process we call "praying" is as essential and life-giving as what we usually call "the answer to the prayer."  We often think that "the point" of prayer is when we either get what we asked for or have to take a hard no from God, and that praying is simply a matter of learning the correct technique to get God to give us the things we need.  This colossally misses the point.  Because to be honest, a lot of the time, we aren't looking for a "thing" that can be given, or a one-word "yes" or "no" answer like we're consulting a Magic Eight Ball.  We need to speak... and so God listens.  We need to vent... and so God takes it all.  We need to be freed from the burdens we carry... and so God bears.  God even goes to special extra trouble to make sure we get to the places we think we have to go to in order for the conversation to happen.  But to be clear, all of it is God's graceful choice to create the space and time WE need to talk, not that God was previously unaware of what we had to say, or that God needed us to say some magical pious words in order to activity divine power.

But once we get that, then we can see with a whole new clarity (and humility) that God is always doing things to bring us more fully to life than we ever realized.  If my picture of prayer is that I have to do enough of it, or say enough of the right words in order to finally persuade or cajole the Almighty to start acting for my welfare, then I'm going to face most of my days feeling alone like Elijah here, thinking that I'm on my own and have to do something to get God's attention or earn God's help.  But if I can see that even the conversation in the midst of struggle and heartache and depression are places where God is already helping me, well, then that means God is already working to bring me to life before I'm aware of it!  It means that God is present when I'm at my lowest, not just that I have to find a way out of the pit to a high enough elevation where I can get a cell signal up to heaven.  It means that God is already helping to enliven me in ways I am not aware of, and that God puts up with my drama and my redundant prayers (and the sometimes bad vending machine theology I bring along as baggage), even when I don't realize what God is doing.

It's almost like when you're in the Emergency Department waiting to be seen by a doctor, and they've already started you on a IV and start getting fluids into you.  And you can be impatient and upset and still very much hurting or sick, and you think that the "helping part" doesn't really start until someone with "MD" on their name badge walks in the room.  But already, the nurses and aides and staff have begun helping you before that "official" moment when The Doctor appears and starts the Official Conversation with "What seems to be the problem today?"  Even getting the saline solution in advance begins helping when you are dehydrated.  Even the preliminary questions and vital checks are all part of how you get well--we just often assume that the healing can't start until someone in a white coat walks in to the cubicle.  Maybe that's how it is with God, too--maybe we bring these expectations that God can only start working to heal and restore us once we've had an Official Prayer Time about it, but maybe even the struggling that leads up to it is God, too.  Maybe the people God puts in your life who say the things that stick with you and push you to pray are part of God's work, too.  Maybe the questions you can't shake at night, or the worries you can't let go of, that you then bring to God in the moment you call "prayer," maybe God is in all of them, too.  And at every turn, the mysterious voice comes and says, "Keep going.  Don't forget to eat.  God will meet you on this journey.  Just keep going."   Maybe at some point we just finally come to the realization that the voice on the journey was God's voice all along, too.

Today, let's bring what we have on our hearts to God, not because God needs it, but because we need to say it.

Lord God, help us to unburden the things we are carrying today.  We know you know it already.  Help us to see the ways you are leading us to speak what is on our hearts.