Sermons are better when you listen to them!
Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from the Holy Trinity. Amen.
On Wednesday night, I went to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra concert of music from John Williams and other movie composers. The second act was 6 songs from Star Wars, which was pretty epic in itself, but the conductor was dressed like Yoda. In between the cantina band song and Princess Leia's theme song, he rattled off a list of top 10 signs you might be a Star Wars geek. One of them was the following: "you're the drunkest you've ever been in your life and you still know that the chances of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3,720 to 1".
You may or may not be a Star Wars fan, but anyone can see those odds are not very good. Generally though, when playing games of chance, the odds rarely are in our favor. We're not likely to win the lottery or get rich from the slots, nor are we likely to get hit by lightning or become as famous as Madonna.
So in a world where chances are almost always stacked against us, Jesus' message in the Gospel story today of "ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you" seems like a pretty good deal.
And after reading the story, I spent quite a bit of time this week thinking about times when I've asked for things in a prayer and the results of those requests. Like the time when I spent a good portion of my childhood asking to not be gay, only to be disappointed every morning when I still had a crush on the hot football player. (and thank God that one didn’t get answered how I wanted) Or when I prayed really hard that I would get into one of the college theatre programs I applied to and really wanted to go to, only to get a rejection letter from the chair of the department. Or when I was a chaplain in a hospital and the grandmother of a young patient asked me to pray for her granddaughter to live when her heart stopped beating, and she wasn't able to be resuscitated. But then I thought about the time when I asked to be your vicar, and...well...here I am.
It got me wondering, what are the odds of asking for something in prayer actually being delivered the way we want. Looking at our Facebook page just this week gave me hope in prayer results, people who have been cured of cancer, speaking engagements that went well, interviews being successful.
So maybe there is something about House For All Sinners and Saints that makes us really good at getting our prayers answered ‘correctly’. But I know that success stories about prayer, while heartening, and joyful, still take a back seat to ones that are answered in different ways than we would like. The prayers of the people often lament at the death of loved ones, or challenge God to give an answer to why someone is not healing from their diseases, or why the asker can’t seem to hold a job.
It’s heartbreaking to hear these prayers not get answered the way the person wants, week after week...to the point where I occasionally want to interject in the middle of the prayers “we pray for the same things week after week, why don’t you do something about it, God?”
When it comes to our prayers being answered how we would like them to be, God seems fickle at best, and certainly nothing like what Jesus is appearing to tell us today in the Gospel story: Ask...seek...knock...and you’ll get it. Which gives us a view of God as a divine gumball machine, or a magician who does fancy tricks to appease us. But the resulting God is disappointing at best....much like a soda bottle that gets stuck in the machine, or Gob Bluth from Arrested Development.
This week, after reading and re reading this story, trying to find a way to get God off the hook, or explain away Jesus’ seemingly false promise with some fancy theological acrobatics, I finally just read the last sentence. Jesus tells the people he’s been talking to “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him”
And it hit me that Jesus doesn’t promise a new Lexus to his disciples, or perfect relationships with family members, or the dream job they’ve been looking for (other than being disciples, of course). What he does promise though, is the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks, or seeks, or knocks.
And I think that instead of getting God off the hook for not doing things, Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit totally turns our modern view of God upside down. The prevalent view of God orchestrating the entire universe, controlling our happiness and our sadness, controlling good things that happen and pouring out evil on deserving people gets thrown out the window. As does a view of a God that can be manipulated by enough people asking for the same thing. What Jesus tells us about God in this story changes the odds of prayers getting answered to favor us because he promises the Holy Spirit. When Jesus promises the Holy Spirit as the answer to our prayers, he shows us a God that exists to live with and care for his children.
Just like God showed up in the cross 2000 years ago, in the middle of torture, pain, and agony, God shows up in our vulnerable and painful moments. God shows up through the Spirit in our lives, being present with us in the pain we feel when yet another job opportunity falls flat. The Spirit surrounds us when we stand at the bedside of our parents, or our grandparents, or our friends, as their health continues to fail. The Spirit is present in us in the personal torments we have when try to tell God that we aren’t interested in the sexual orientation we have been blessed with.
In these moments, when we pray and ask God for whatever it is that we want, we receive the Spirit, which will hold us and give us a peace that passes all understanding. Those moments of prayer, when we are vulnerable and in pain is when God shows up to walk with us, carry us, and hold us in God’s arms. And so, prayer, while it might not give you what you want, can give you what you need. It can give you the presence of the Spirit through a group of people who hold you in difficult times, and promise to kick some ass for you if needed, or come and distract you while your family argues, or become a family when yours has disowned you. God’s gift of the Spirit to us can show up when we grieve the loss of employment on facebook and are surrounded with people’s voices of encouragement early in the morning. The Spirit can show up in a friend who makes us sit and breathe for 2 minutes when we are anxious about having to say goodbye to people and places we love.
And the Spirit shows up to rejoice with us in our joys. When chemotherapy works and doctors can’t find any trace of cancer left, we’re not alone in our rejoicing...God is present with us. When we get the chance to go back to college and follow our dreams, the Spirit is present in all the joy and anxiety we experience. The Spirit shows up in the waters of Baptism, joining our voices of praise when Rafi is named by God as one of God’s children. The Spirit comes to be among us at the table, where we are fed and nourished with the body and blood of Christ.
So try it out...ask....seek....knock...the odds are 100% in your favor that the Holy Spirit’s presence will be with you.
Alex, which scripture did you go from??
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