{"id":1315,"date":"2016-02-14T11:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1315"},"modified":"2019-10-08T11:25:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T15:25:30","slug":"the-practice-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2016\/02\/14\/the-practice-of-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Practice of Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Luke 4:1-13<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

Acquire, this Lent, a practice of prayer. \u00a0One of your own, some way to pray. \u00a0Make of this Lent a time for the practice of prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

A long, long time ago, in a land far away, and there within a small village school, 16 kindergarten students were guided into the merits of learning, the rhythms of education. \u00a0\u00a0Kristen George Kollevol. \u00a0Craig Risley. \u00a0Merilyn Loop. \u00a0Herbie Jones. \u00a0Robert Hill. \u00a0Jill Hance. \u00a0You could walk home for lunch, if you were in town, which many were not, coming from the farms nearby. \u00a0The day\u2019s highlight was nap-time, a most precious practice, as those of you know who have lived on the Iberian Peninsula. \u00a0A respite. (At 10 below zero you trudge to church. \u00a0You find yourself in a warm sanctuary, under a familiar altar, wrapped in a comforting liturgy, alongside loved ones. \u00a0The Scripture is read. \u00a0The sermon begins. \u00a0And in the warmth, let us say, in the sheltered embrace of a particular grace, you find yourself drifting, sliding like a sled downhill, deep in the arms of Morpheus, the God of sleep. \u00a0Following the sermon some arise inspired and others awake refreshed.) \u00a0Those 16 5 year olds found nap the zenith, nadir, apex, pinnacle and crown of the day. \u00a0This is in the last year of the Presidency of Dwight David Eisenhower. \u00a0This is ten years nearly before the first woman is admitted to Colgate University, the beloved college on the town\u2019s far hill. \u00a0This is in a land far away, a long time ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

February that winter brought its gifts, and every winter brings its gifts. \u00a0The peace of Groundhog Day. \u00a0The justice of Lincoln\u2019s Birthday. \u00a0The joy of Valentine\u2019s Day. \u00a0And a cherry pie for George Washington, the father of our country. \u00a0One other day that month, the 16 5 year olds were assembled on the street corner with Mr. Hess, to practice crossing Broad Street. \u00a0Mr. Hess was large man with a round face, \u2018duchy\u2019 face our great aunts from Cooperstown would have said. \u00a0He was a farmer who fell in a grain elevator, and was hurt badly. \u00a0He became the elementary school traffic guard. \u00a0There was hardly any traffic, then or now, on Broad Street, but he justly performed his duties. \u00a0One by one he marched the class across Broad Street, with the three cornered admonition: \u00a0stop, look, listen. \u00a0Come February, rehearse again, learn again, and practice again. \u00a0We have our guide, as well, not Mr. Hess, but a physician, if legend serves, from long ago and far away, the most compassionate of the evangelists, and also the most inclined toward prayer. \u00a0Luke. \u00a0Luke who teaches by precept and example that we are meant to develop a prayerful meditation, a prayerful observation, a prayerful audition. \u00a0Catch his tenor tone today.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lukan Difference<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Luke brings a different look. \u00a0Luke is our tenor guide this year. \u00a0He asks us, at virtually every turn, to find our way into a practice of prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, today in the shadow of our Lord\u2019s temptation, we are invited to a prayerful resistance to the blandishments of wealth, power and fame. \u00a0Perhaps you are not ready to resist blandishments. \u00a0Maybe though, say at age 19, or at age 79, we may be ready, for different reasons, to observe the limitations, the fairly severe limitations, truth to tell, of wealth, power and fame. \u00a0If nothing else, a worship service, on a sleepy University Campus, in the frozen month of February, as all year, is meant to ring this bell, sing this song, tell this tale, recall in prayer that we are utterly mortal and lastingly fragile.<\/span><\/p>\n

One shall not live by bread alone. \u00a0You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. \u00a0You shall not tempt the Lord your God.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

You have noticed that here, again, Luke has amplified the story of Jesus he inherited from Mark. \u00a0Mark has only a couple of lines about wilderness, temptation, wild beasts, Satan and Angels. \u00a0But Matthew and Luke have both added in another story within the story, a spiritual temptation to accompany the physical deprivation. \u00a0Jesus cites here Deuteronomy 6 and 8. \u00a0Jesus models spiritual dimensions of spiritual temptation and struggle. \u00a0Not bread, alone. \u00a0Not power, alone. \u00a0Not glory, alone. \u00a0Not the blandishments of wealth, power, and fame. \u00a0But the struggles, the spiritual struggles, the tragedy that lines its way through life. \u00a0The tragedy that so impersonally and unfathomably upends life.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example. \u00a0You could this Lent re-read Arthur Ashe\u2019s autobiography, <\/span>Days of Grace<\/span><\/i>, as you have this month the poems of Robert Hayden and the story of Jackie Robinson.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Religious Turn<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/span>Lent offers you a religious turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>S. Eliot: \u201c<\/span>It is in fact in moments of moral and spiritual struggle depending upon spiritual sanctions\u2026that men and women come nearest to being real. \u00a0If you do away with this struggle, and maintain that by tolerance, benevolence, inoffensiveness and a redistribution or increase of purchasing power, combined with a devotion, on the part of an elite, to Art, the world will be as good as anyone could require, then you must expect human beings to become more and more vaporous.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/i>After Strange Gods.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We turn this Lent to prayer. \u00a0To religion and not merely theology. \u00a0To religion and not merely administration. \u00a0To religion and not merely music. \u00a0To religion and not merely ethics. \u00a0We return this Lent to prayer. \u00a0To prayer, not merely theology. \u00a0To prayer not merely administration. \u00a0To prayer not merely music. \u00a0To prayer not merely ethics. \u00a0We turn or return this Lent to prayer. \u00a0A good thing: \u00a0it\u2019s later than you think\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Our attention can be quickened, in all this, by focused concern for hurt, for others hurt. \u00a0Syria, today, comes to mind. \u00a04 million immigrants. \u00a06 million re-located. \u00a0Tens of thousands killed. \u00a0Today, along the Turkish border, children, old people, women, the sick, all. \u00a0Without presuming to possess a solution, we nonetheless have every prayerful reason to lament the hurt, and to do so publicly, in worship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lent offers you a religious turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ernest Fremont Tittle: <\/span>The only way really to get Christianity across to the people is to act out in daily life the faith and compassion of Christ (40)\u2026Luke in particular emphasizes the inner life of Jesus, his habit of prayer, his experience of the presence and power of the Spirit of God.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Lent offers you a religious turn. \u00a0Said Wesley, <\/span>Preach it until you believe it. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0\u00a0We could add, <\/span>Practice it until you accept it. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0Sometimes the bending of the knee forges the turning of the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kate Bowler, Duke theologian, diagnosed with 4 stage cancer at 35, practiced prayer, to stop, look and listen, when she wrote, movingly, graciously, and personally, this week: \u00a0<\/span>The most I can say about why I have cancer, medically speaking, is that bodies are delicate and prone to error. \u00a0As a Christian I can say that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here, and so we get sick and die. \u00a0As a scholar I can say that our society is steeped in a culture of facile reasoning\u2026I can\u2019t help noticing the brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. \u00a0I find myself returning to the same thoughts again and again: \u201cLife is so beautiful. \u00a0Life is so hard\u201d (repeat). <\/span><\/i>\u00a0(NYTimes, 12\/14\/16)<\/span><\/p>\n

Lent offers you a religious turn, a return to the practice of prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Lenten Practice of Prayer<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

You have grown to practice prayer\u2014a quiet hour a day, a Sabbath day a week, a week of reflection a quarter, and a quiet quarter a year: \u00a07am, Friday, Thanksgiving\\Christmas\\Spring Break, and summer.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have come to pause before meals, to offer, if no other, the John Wesley table blessings, prayers before meals.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have pressed ahead to commit treasures to memory: \u00a0Psalm 46, the Commandments and Beatitudes, selections from Corinthians, Romans, Philippians and John, the Apostles\u2019 Creed, a modern (say the Canadian) affirmation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yours is a prayerful life, lived in the aspiration and expectation to become \u2018whole\u2019, made \u2018holy\u2019, perfected, if you will, through this life which is a valley of struggle, exercise, exacting and perfecting practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good.<\/span><\/p>\n

This Lent 2016, you might add a Marsh Chapel self-guided 7 stop prayer journey:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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