{"id":1271,"date":"2015-12-06T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2019-10-08T11:39:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T15:39:42","slug":"a-life-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2015\/12\/06\/a-life-of-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Life of Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 3:1-6<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the sermon only<\/a><\/p>\n

Precursor<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Prayer is a precursor. \u00a0\u00a0Prayer is a precursor to learning, doing, and being. \u00a0The life of prayer prepares the future\u2019s way. \u00a0Precursors have powerful influence.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago we were invited back to the Cornell community, Ithaca NY, with whom we were in ministry 35 years ago. \u00a0The church there celebrated their 100<\/span>th<\/span> birthday, the anniversary of a community whose preachers had included John R Mott, some future deans and presidents of various schools, the husband of Pearl Buck, a former Cornell Sage Chapel Dean, and others. \u00a0Sometimes they got saddled with inexperienced young pastors, as well. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This community, called the Forest Home Chapel, in Ithaca, models one future route for northern and extended northern Methodism, in three dimensions. \u00a0The church is liberal, a reconciling congregation, something of a given, given its history. \u00a0The church is well led, and prizes ministerial excellence with strong preaching, now offered by the Rev. Rebecca Dolch, a preacher of the first water. \u00a0The church is low overhead\u2014no debt, modest building, adequate manse, and voluminous volunteer activity. \u00a0Theirs is the future–escaping fundamentalism, poor un-ordained leadership, and old, creaking, massive building structure. \u00a0In fact, they are a precursor, one route, one model for what will remain in the northeast in our tradition.<\/p>\n

After the service, about 100 of us enjoyed a meal and memories. \u00a0Jan remembered serving as an interim director of the Nursery School there, for which three mornings her husband had childcare responsibilities. \u00a0He would sometimes show up, she recalled, coming over from the parsonage next door, and asking \u2018what do I do now?\u2019<\/p>\n

As happens, that memory triggered the following: \u00a0here in Marsh Chapel, Boston, in 2010, I received a phone call from the New York Times. \u00a0That is not a daily occurrence. \u00a0\u2018Were you the minister in Ithaca in 1980?\u2019 \u00a0Who wants to know, I asked. \u00a0\u2018Was there a child care program in your church?\u2019 \u00a0I referred the reporter to the response given moments before. \u00a0\u2018We have a senatorial candidate, a republican in Illinois, a Cornell graduate, who claims a background in early childhood education, and when pressed identified the program in your church as his employer. \u00a0The current director looked through records and found no evidence, but gave us your name\u2019. \u00a0I will be sure to thank her, I replied. \u00a0\u2018But what did you say was the candidate\u2019s name?\u2019 \u00a0Mark Kirk. \u00a0I could give no evidence against or for his employment there, \u2018possible but not likely\u2019 I said in response. \u00a0So my sole offering, to date, to the New York Times, is the fairly lame phrase \u2018possible but not likely\u2019 or something similar. \u00a0(\u263a)<\/p>\n

This week you learned of a vote on gun control in the US Senate in which just one, just one member of Senator Kirk\u2019s party crossed the line to vote to strengthen gun controls. \u00a0That was Senator Mark Kirk himself. \u00a0I can imagine that his choice took some courage. \u00a0In that, he is precursor. \u00a0A precursor goes ahead, and has powerful influence on the future. \u00a0Kirk is one. \u00a0Maybe that Cornell education moved him. \u00a0Maybe he did work with kids in the church basement. \u00a0Maybe he heard something, inside or outside of worship, which stayed with him. \u00a0Maybe he remembered the primary precursor to the gospel, John the Baptist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lukan Baptist<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Dressed in camel\u2019s hair, with a diet of locusts and honey (though Luke omits to dress and feed him as Mark so does), John the Baptist is the precursor to Jesus. \u00a0You cannot get to Christmas without Advent. \u00a0You cannot come to Bethlehem except by way of the Jordan. \u00a0You cannot celebrate grace without hearing first the prophetic voice (though it is also good to be reminded that the prophetic is a part of the gospel but not the heart of the gospel (repeat)). \u00a0Every year, right now, the Baptist, out in the dark cold miserable mud-soaked Jordan River, stops us. \u00a0He stops you. \u00a0He says the one prayerful word of the precursor, the prophetic word: \u2018Prepare\u2019. \u00a0Then he calls the whole people to prayer: \u00a0to repentance for pervasive sin; to acceptance of pardon as the way out of evil and hurt; to assurance of grace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer is what comes before the rest, like Sunday morning is\u00a0<\/span>meant to come before the rest (of the week). \u00a0Are you getting off on the right foot week by week?<\/p>\n

John the Baptist would want to know. \u00a0Look carefully at what Luke says about him. \u00a0See the Lukan Baptist, different from John the Baptist in Mark. \u00a0\u00a0Mark, 20 years before, begins his gospel with the Baptist. \u00a0The gospel opens, \u2018the voice of one\u2026\u2019 \u00a0Not Luke. \u00a0Luke wants John put in particular context, 20 years later. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(We want to hear the gospel <\/span>in the gospels<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0Luke says something different from what he borrowed out of Mark. \u00a0That should give us confidence, as we preach, to take the gospel in hand, and apply it to our own condition, our own time, as, well, the first gospel writers all did.)<\/span><\/p>\n

So, Luke has a history that precedes the precursor. \u00a0This history, an orderly one, tells of the conjoint mysterious births of John and Jesus. \u00a0This history, an orderly one, gives singing voice to Zechariah (whose psalm we used today) and Mary (two weeks hence). \u00a0This history, an orderly one, acknowledges the days of Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. \u00a0This history, an orderly one, honors Joseph, and paints like El Greco shepherds in the firelight of the \u2018smoking cradle\u2019 (Barth). \u00a0This history, an orderly one, makes a little space for the childhood of Jesus, in woe and weal both, circumcision, presentation, growth in wisdom, and temple teaching. \u00a0Then, only, does Luke allow the Baptist to appear. \u00a0But even here, it is the orderly history that prevails: 15 years, Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod and Philip, unpronounceable regions, \u00a0eminently forgettable tetrarchs and priesthoods (\u2018a six-fold synchronism\u2019, as Bultmann wryly remarks (HST, 362)). \u00a0\u00a0Luke is making sure Jesus has his feet firmly planted in history, both of secular Empire and sacred Temple and an orderly history at that. \u00a0\u00a0So, for us, our engagement with history, under the influence of the Gospel of Luke, matters, counts, lasts, is lastingly real. \u00a0More on this in a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer as Precursor<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Our year at Marsh Chapel is given over to the theme of prayer, to the life of prayer, and we have spoken about what prayer is, and is meant to be for us. \u00a0But in the crusty spirit of the prophetic Baptist here in Luke, we might also want bluntly to say what prayer is not. \u00a0Prayer is not a substitute for work. \u00a0Prayer is not magic. \u00a0Prayer is not mindless, not rote or impersonal. \u00a0Prayer is a precursor to work, which shapes the worker, and makes work personal. \u00a0Prayer has the power, the influence of the precursor, like John the Baptist, out in the cold river mud.<\/p>\n

Our Boston University Personalist Borden Parker Bowne wrote (in 1910!) as our friend Mark Davies reminded us this month,<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a fancy that prayer alone is the great instrument of success. \u00a0This overlooks the true nature of prayer, and also the conditional form of human progress. \u00a0In all matters which God has made to depend on human action, that is not prayer, but irreverent impertinence, which pours itself out in verbal petition while neglecting to use the means which lie in our power. \u00a0To appoint a day of fasting and prayer to ward of cholera, while allowing the streets and houses and water-supply to reek with filth and all manner of insanitary abomination, would be more like blasphemy than prayer. \u00a0A farmer, lying on his back in the shade, while his fields remain unplowed and unsown, cannot truly pray for harvest. \u00a0In all cases where our activity is demanded works is a necessary part of prayer, or rather it is the form which true prayer necessarily takes one\u2026Heaven\u2019s ear is deaf to easy verbal petitions. \u00a0It is not until the whole soul is engaged that we can be said to pray. \u00a0Prayer in its purest essence is found in all action toward the desired object. \u00a0It is the pouring out of the whole soul, not only in word, but in act as well, for the attainment of what we seek (Bowne, <\/span><\/i>The Essence of Religion)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Prayer is not a substitute for work.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Paul Tillich wrote (in 1960!), as our congregant Dr. Kris Kahle in New Haven Connecticut reminded us this fall,<\/span><\/p>\n

God\u2019s directing creativity is the answer to the question of the meaning of prayer, especially prayers of supplication and prayers of intercession. \u00a0Neither type of prayer can mean that God is expected to acquiesce in interfering with existential conditions. \u00a0Both mean that God is asked to direct the given situation toward fulfillment. \u00a0The prayers are an element in this situation, a most powerful factor if they are true prayers. \u00a0As an element in the situation a prayer is a condition of God\u2019s directing creativity, but the form of this creativity may be the complete rejection of the manifest content of the prayer. \u00a0Nevertheless, the prayer may have been heard according to its hidden content, which is the surrender of a fragment of existence to God. \u00a0This hidden content is always decisive. \u00a0It is the element in the situation which is used by God\u2019s directing creativity. \u00a0Every serious prayer contains power, not because of the intensity of desire expressed in it, but because of the faith the person has in God\u2019s directing activity\u2014a faith which transforms the existential situation (P Tillich, <\/span><\/i>Systematic Theology<\/span><\/i>, loc. cit.).<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Prayer is not a magical contradiction of the laws of nature or the movement of history.<\/p>\n

Likewise, three days ago in this sanctuary we celebrated the life of Professor Abner Eliezer Shimony of Boston University. \u00a0He had been both a Professor of Physics and a Professor of Philosophy. \u00a0My, oh my! The music and memories of the day reflected a life of prayer, of mindfulness, embracing both physics and metaphysics, evoked these words from and about him:<\/span><\/p>\n

Ideas matter and there is a deep beauty in pursuing them\u2026The sense of wonder is the basis of learning\u2026With Thucydides we need to \u2018restore the sacred olive groves\u2019\u2026He worked both toward a peaceful coexistence of quantum mechanics and special relativity, and toward an understanding of the deepest secrets of the universe, to enhance a sense of wonder about the world, and sensitivity to the facts of the world. \u00a0Einstein and Whithead, science and spirit.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And a sense of humor: \u00a0\u2018the reasons for studying Latin are many and good\u2014but not easy to remember\u2019 (\u263a).<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Prayer is not mindless.<\/p>\n

Prayer is not a substitute for work. \u00a0Prayer is not magic. \u00a0Prayer is not mindless. \u00a0Prayer is a precursor to work, which shapes the worker, and makes the worker mindful. \u00a0Prayer has the power, the influence of the precursor, like John the Baptist, out in the cold river mud. \u00a0I ask you, seriously and respectfully: \u00a0is yours a life of prayer? Do you let the waking hour be a waking hour, a prayerful precursor to the work ahead? Do you let Sunday be Sunday, a prayerful precursor to the work ahead? \u00a0Do you let Advent be Advent, a prayerful precursor to the work ahead?<\/span><\/p>\n

Today<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

It is in this spirit that Paul can write, \u2018<\/span>I am confident of this, that he would began a good work among you will bring it to completion\u2019<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0His words, prayerful words, are themselves precursors. \u00a0\u00a0We come to church this morning drenched in sorrows, in the wake of terror east and west, Paris and California, and elsewhere. \u00a0We wonder how in the world honestly to face religious extremism and fully to stand beside our brothers and sisters of different faiths. \u00a0Some of us will gather tomorrow night at 6pm in the GSU to address just this issue. \u00a0We wonder how in the world to keep moving forward toward a public health cure for gun violence, when so little forward motion seems to occur, and the same blank stares and empty phrases follow yet another sordid, evil, awful slaughter. \u00a0Some of us will gather Wednesday evening at 7:30pm on December 9 at First Church Boston on Marlborough Street to address just this issue. \u00a0\u00a0Nor are these the only issues of our time. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the gospel, we remain hopeful. \u00a0Real change is real hard but it happens in real time when people really work at it. \u00a0This is Paul\u2019s commonwealth of the gospel, partnership of the gospel\u2014weakly rendered in our NRSV as \u2018sharing\u2019. \u00a0My goodness. \u00a0\u2018Sharing\u2019 \u00a0\u2018Sharing\u2019 is not the half of it. \u00a0It is Work! \u00a0Commonwealth! Partnership! Koinonia! You can if you think you can. \u00a0\u00a0For example, we can move toward reduction in gun violence in our time, and this hour of sacrament and sermon, is itself a prayerful precursor to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have seen change, good change, in these past few years. \u00a0I see unemployment rates now low. \u00a0I see two wars ended, with continued foreceful attention to containment abroad and protection at home (repeat last phrase). \u00a0I see the Gulf of Mexico cleaned. \u00a0I see Massachusetts style health care spreading out across the country. \u00a0I see Ebola defeated. \u00a0I see deliberation and d\u00e9tente with Iran. \u00a0I see civil rights for gay and lesbian people. \u00a0I see a global summit on climate change. \u00a0I see two vibrant Boston marathons since 2013, and another coming. \u00a0I see a growing awareness of the limits and perils of some newer technologies. \u00a0I see more and better conversation about race and injustice (it does matter what monuments you have on your campus plaza and lawn, and it helps to know their histories). \u00a0\u00a0I see optimistic 20 year olds who just have never heard that it couldn\u2019t be done. \u00a0It can be done. \u00a0Yes it can. \u00a0It just takes prayer as a precursor, and a prayerful human precursor or two. \u00a0Like that one lone Senator for Illinois, who got his start working in Methodist child care program\u2014or did he?\u2014high above Cayuga\u2019s waters, who stepped up and stepped forward and stepped ahead. \u00a0Senator Mark Kirk did something, and as his former pastor\u2014or was I?\u2014I should be able to do something too. \u00a0Our engagement with history, under the influence of the Gospel of Luke, matters, counts, lasts, is lastingly real.<\/span><\/p>\n

My grandmother in her eighties had a sign on her kitchen door. \u00a0It was her kind of prayer. \u00a0\u2018Do one thing. \u00a0There. \u00a0You\u2019ve done one thing\u2019. \u00a0Prayer is a precursor. \u00a0\u00a0Prayer is a precursor to learning, doing, and being. \u00a0The life of prayer prepares the future\u2019s way. \u00a0Precursors have powerful influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/a><\/p>\n

For more information about Marsh Chapel at Boston University,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For information about donating to the Chapel,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service Luke 3:1-6 Click here to listen to the sermon only Precursor Prayer is a precursor. \u00a0\u00a0Prayer is a precursor to learning, doing, and being. \u00a0The life of prayer prepares the future\u2019s way. \u00a0Precursors have powerful influence. A couple of weeks ago we were invited back to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1275,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}