Prayer, Community, and the Holy Spirit

 

There are two occasions when I turn to the Lords’ Prayer faithfully. One is when I pray at the Eucharist, when we say the words of Jesus’ prayer all together, like we’ll do in our liturgy today. And the other time ... is when I’m nervous on an airplane! I’m a white-knuckle flyer, especially these days, with all the turbulence and near-misses I read about in the news. So when the air currents get bumpy, or the descent takes too long, or when I hear rumors of “weather” ahead, I close my eyes and obsessively recite the words that Jesus taught us to pray. Now, any kind of prayer is always a good thing. And repeating words of comfort is a wonderful way to calm the nervous system. But I’m pretty sure that Jesus’s teaching on prayer intends for me to go deeper.

In our Old Testament reading, we also have Abraham’s bargaining prayer. I’m no stranger to bargaining prayers on the airplane, either, I’m afraid. I’ve been known to scan incoming passengers during boarding, looking for cute babies and cozy families. When I spot them, I pray, “OK, God, you won’t bring down a plane with that cute child on it, will you?” Or, “Surely, you’ll save us so that nice family won’t perish ...?

Such questionable theology isn't what we’re supposed to take away from our first reading, either. Abraham has just welcomed God in the guise of three strangers, offering them model hospitality in his desert tent. He and Sarah have just received the promise that they will have a son in their old age. It’s God’s plan that the descendants of Abraham, a just and righteous man, will become a “great and mighty nation” that will, in turn, bless all the nations of the earth. So as our reading begins, God and Abraham are looking over at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the outcry of the people, the desperate outcry of the oppressed, has reached God’s ears.[1]

Sodom and Gomorrah are not wicked, by the way, because of the sexual orientation of their citizens! It is clear from the text that Sodom and Gomorrah are wicked because they ignore the most often-repeated divine law in the whole Hebrew Bible: their people mistreat the stranger, the sojourner, the foreigner, in their land. Instead of generous hospitality, they offer violent abuse to those who have come into their borders. Because of their repeated offenses, God’s justice demands that these unrepentant cities be destroyed.

Abraham, being the just and righteous man that he is, is concerned not only with his own family in Sodom, but with the fate of the whole city, good and evil alike. God and Abraham both seem to understand that goodness has to reach a critical mass in order for it to offset the evil around it. For the Jewish writer of Genesis, that critical mass is ten. That’s why Abraham stops his bargaining there. Ten is the number that constitutes a “minyan;” it’s the number that represents Jewish community.[2] Without a community to stand up to evil, to practice right relationship with God and with one another, evil tends to prevail. For Sodom and Gomorrah to turn from their cruel ways, it would have taken more than a couple of individuals—it would have taken a righteous community.

So Abraham courageously and persistently bargains with the Holy One, just as cleverly as he might bargain with a powerful spice merchant down at the local bazaar. What’s interesting in this prayer isn’t Abraham’s bargaining skill, though. What’s interesting is that God offers Abraham the opportunity to bargain. God knows that the innocent will be allowed to escape. God knows that the cities are going to be destroyed. So why tell Abraham about God’s plans? God wants to give Abraham a chance to demonstrate his own righteousness, by trying to convince God to save the whole.[3] God always wants us involved in doing justice and righteousness.

Jesus, too, encourages us to ask “shamelessly” and persistently for the salvation of the whole. He teaches us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth, for God’s rule, God’s dream for the world, to be made real in the world of humans. What’s that Kingdom like? It is a kingdom of right relationship with God and with one another, a kingdom where justice reigns, a kingdom where we all have the bread, the sustenance, that we need each day, a kingdom where we forgive one another like God forgives us, a kingdom without the burden of debt. Scholar John Dominic Crossan describes Jesus’ prayer this way: “The Lord’s Prayer is . . . a prayer from the heart of Judaism on the lips of Christianity for the conscience of the world . . . . [It is] a radical manifesto and a hymn of hope for all humanity in language addressed to all the earth.”[4]

When Jesus encourages us to ask, to knock, to persist—when Jesus promises always to answer our prayer, notice what Jesus promises to give us: Jesus doesn’t promise us a new house, a better job, a miraculous cure, or a safe airplane flight. Jesus promises to give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. “How much more your father will give the Holy Spirit from heaven to those who ask him,” Jesus assures us. Some ancient manuscripts of Luke 11 even add, “Your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us” after the well-known words “your kingdom come.”[5] The prayer would then read, “Your Kingdom come; Your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us. Give us every day the bread we need.” In other words, God’s Kingdom coming has everything to do with the Holy Spirit, with that Spirit that binds us together in Community, that Spirit that gives birth to the Church.

It makes sense: God’s Spirit—the Advocate, the Comforter—makes present in us the Kingdom of God that Jesus himself made present in his bodily words and actions.[6] Just like God visited Abraham, blessed him, and gave him a chance to speak out against evil, so too the Holy Spirit surrounds us, blesses us, and gives us the strength to speak out against evil. As we know from St. Paul, when we have the Holy Spirit, we have those fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.[7] In the Spirit, we form a beloved community that can withstand testing and trial, a community that can stand against evil.

A Roman Catholic friend sent me a newsclip yesterday as I was writing this sermon. The article described how Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami gathered with 25 Knights of Columbus on motorcycles to pray the rosary in front of “Alligator Alcatraz” last week. The Archbishop is concerned for the detainees because of the dangerously hot and unsanitary conditions that have made this camp infamous around the world.[8] The Catholic Church hasn't been allowed inside to hold mass for the imprisoned migrants there, but the Archbishop is determined not to give up. He and his fellow Christians showed up to be Christian community in the only way that they could--to face down evil, to bring the outcry of the suffering to God, to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us.

I had a mysterious prayer experience once as a teenager that’s etched in my heart and soul. I was on a school trip to Europe, a self-absorbed teen with a Peanuts quote on my bulletin board that read, “I love humankind; it’s people I can’t stand.” One afternoon, I was sitting on a hillside praying very hard for the health of our trip leader, a kind and loving teacher who had injured his back. I wanted God to heal his back, and probably to prove God’s existence to me at the same time. Some bargaining may have been involved. Suddenly, the sky above me turned tremendously and beautifully blue. I heard the words—not aloud but still clear as a bell—“I am Love, and I want you to love my people.” I’ll never forget that moment. You see, my teacher’s back was healed the next day. It might have been a coincidence; it might have been an answer to prayer. But the healing is not what marked my soul. In that prayer, I had glimpsed the Holy Spirit, and I had been called to love. I’m the one who was changed, empowered, and made whole.

There are all kinds of ways to pray—some more mature than others. But we know one thing for sure. Given all the evil in this world, God needs God’s righteous community to speak up without ceasing, to bang on the doors of heaven and earth, crying out for right relationship and justice for the whole of creation.

 

 

 

 

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[1] This noun is associated in the Prophets and Psalms with the shrieks of torment of the oppressed. See note for Genesis 18: 20 in Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 1 (New York: WW Norton, 2019), 58.

[2] Carla Friedman, “The Education of Abraham,” 2005. Found at https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary/education-abraham.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Quoted by Diana Butler Bass, “Sunday Musings,” July 26, 2025. Found at https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com.  

[5] Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, The Love that is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020), 45.

            [6] Ibid.

[7] Galatians 5

[8] Gina Christian, “Archbishop Wenski Leads Knights on Bikes to Pray Rosary at Alligator Alcatraz, in The Boston Pilot, July 25, 2025. Found at https://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.php?id=200365.

What Do We Do When Everything's A Mess?

 

Good morning! I’m a retired Episcopal priest from Boulder County, and am lucky to be part of a great clergy wellness group with Pastor Seth. I’m honored that he asked me to join you all today! I think, though, that Pastor Seth and the Holy Spirit have a sense of humor for sending me out to preach on today’s lesson from 2nd Kings. You see, I’ve been spending my time over the past year on a very frustrating medical journey with my husband. He has an illness that takes a lot of medical management, and that’s all I grumble about at our clergy group: Doctors, medicines, and exasperation. So I really understand poor Naaman from our reading.

Like many of us here today, I’m a person of relative privilege, a person used to nurturing the illusion of control over my life. I’m used to having my aches and pains treated and cured by top-notch doctors; I’m used to managing capably any bumps on my journey. I’m used to having things mostly turn out fine in the end. That is, until they don’t. At some point in our lives, all of us find ourselves stymied by life, whether it’s from chronic illness, or a broken relationship, or a natural disaster, or drastic changes in our country or our church. 

Look at General Naaman: he’s a person of wealth, power, success, importance. He’s used to directing troops, telling others what to do. But now he’s sick, likely with the disease of leprosy, a death-sentence in his day. Suddenly, he has the dreaded disease that turns kings into outcasts; the disease that turns beloved family members into shunned figures on the margins of society, their very flesh rotting on their bones. Naaman is used to top-notch treatment from the best healers that money can buy. He’s used to managing his cure. But this time, he appears to freeze in panic, unable to take any action.

Instead, it’s his wife’s Hebrew slave girl who puts things in motion for Naaman. Did you hear that? The one who offers help is a slave, a foreigner, and a young woman at that! And where is he told to go for healing? To the backwater country that he’s recently defeated in battle. Then, despite Naaman’s chariot-load of riches, the King of Israel is afraid to receive him. Instead, Naaman gets shuttled off to see some unknown prophet, and the prophet won’t even bother to come out and meet with him. The prophet Elisha sends out one of his servants, who tells the great general to go wash in the muddy waters of a second-class river. Oh, how I can feel Naaman’s desperate indignation! It’s like expecting help from a renowned specialist, yet only being seen by a medical student, who tells you to take a few Tylenol and rest for a week!

          Of course, the lesson here for all who seek healing is that God doesn’t need our wealth, our power, or our knowledge in order to make us whole. Instead, God tends to work through slave girls, obscure prophets, and muddy little rivers. God works through poor, unwed Mary, shepherds, and babies born in stables. God works through ordinary bread, wine, and a body broken on a Cross. Like Naaman, we’re expected to grab the hands of the people God sends us, no matter who they are. We need only to lower the barriers that we hide behind and allow ourselves to feel vulnerable, to listen, to let love do its work. And it’s the lesson that Jesus wants to teach us in today’s Gospel reading, as well.

          Jesus, too, strips his followers bare of all illusions of control as he sends them out on their mission of healing. I love how preacher Nadia Bolz-Weber paraphrases Jesus’ command: “OK, [she writes.]  The first thing you need to know is that we are under staffed. Second, there’s a high wolf danger so watch out for that. Third you can’t take any money or change of clothes or bag or even sandals. Forth, stay with whoever will share the peace with you and don’t try and trade up and if there are sick people around take care of them and fifth, the food might stink but eat it anyway.”[1] Jesus’s followers aren’t to demand or expect success. If they accomplish amazing things, they’re not to take the credit. There’s no promise of glory, no promise of nice church buildings, or financial pledges, or pews full of families with young children. There’s merely the command to show up and to heal the sick and broken in Jesus’ name.

          I can still remember having disdainful thoughts on my first day of clinical pastoral education in seminary. The hospital chaplain was lecturing us newbies on the importance of simply showing up in a crisis. We didn’t need the answers, he said. We just needed to be present. “What?!” I thought, “How dumb. Just stand there with no explanations while people are suffering?! What good does that do? That’s way too simple. Who wants to see a strange pastor-type they don’t even know lurking around in times of grief?” As I found out, that’s exactly what people want. Loving presence. Standing with. Vulnerability. Showing compassion, like a young slave in a foreign land helping the general who led the assault that likely led to her capture.

Between the Covid pandemic, the Marshall Fire in my town, traumatic events around the country, and my husband’s illness, the shield of my beloved privilege feels like it’s slipping. My certainty that everything will work out has been deeply shaken. In these recent turbulent weeks, I feel as if I need to do something as an American, and certainly as a priest. I want us to be healed of our collective leprosy. I want to fix things for those who are suffering. But everything that I can come up with sounds too weak and common, like trying to cure a deadly disease by bathing in a foreign stream, like holding the hands of dying patients in the hospital.

          Today’s readings reassure me that no act of love is too inconsequential. Jesus is asking us to show up, vulnerable and open, like Naaman, like sheep among wolves. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, “wolves” are symbols. They don’t just represent violence and danger. They are metaphors for corrupt and greedy religious and political leaders who devour the poor and marginalized. Jesus-followers are to enter their presence unprotected, vulnerable, dependent only upon God and the hospitality of Christian community. Indeed, the very Kingdom of God, that Kingdom that Jesus says has come near, it’s an image for how the brokenness of this world could be healed, if each of us would turn back to living for the God who is love.[2] Joining God in bringing about this restoration of creation through Love is our very mission as Christians.

So what do we do when our lives or our world seem to be going haywire? We sit and eat with those in need of good news, live among them, stay with them, listen to them, live regular lives together, don’t waste time in places we aren’t wanted, and let God’s healing happen. It’s not very flashy. But such is the Kingdom of God. May we find, like Naaman, true healing there, in spite of ourselves.

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[1] Nadia Bolz Weber, “Sermon on Naaman the Leper and How the Common Can Heal Us.” In Sarcastic Lutheran. Patheos, July 7, 2016. Found at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2016/07/sermon-on-naaman-the-leper-and-how-the-common-can-heal-us/

[2] Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, The Love that is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020), 30.

Seven Last Words: "My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me"

 

The afternoon sky has been dark for three hours, daylight overpowered by the strangeness of night. At the worst of his pain, alone in the darkness, Jesus groans, using the only prayer that remains: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” With these words, Jesus begins to pray Psalm 22, joining his voice to the psalmist’s witness, joining his voice to the anguished voices of all who feel abandoned, forsaken, and vulnerable.

Pain pulls us in on ourselves, doesn’t it? It isolates us from others, from God, from beauty, even from love. Poet Christian Wiman, a bone-cancer survivor, says that “pain islands you.”[1] Yes, it can be the bone-crushing pain of cancer or the dry burning of fever. It can be the emotional pain of grief and loss, or of a depression so deep that we can only curl our bodies around our own despair. It can be the pain we absorb from our radically suffering world—from war, from natural disasters, from injustice, from genocide. Deep pain takes up all of our attention and makes us feel, oh so alone.

Pain and suffering also rip us away from any sense of meaning. Jesus’ “WHY” isn’t an intellectual “why.” It’s a why that pleads from deep down in the gut. It’s the Psalmist’s “WHY” of agonized wonder, the cry of “how can this horror even be?” How can “my God,” the trustworthy God of my ancestors, seem to have disappeared in my time of need? How can all the narratives on which I’ve relied suddenly crumble to dust? On the Cross, even Jesus, who knows an unconditional intimacy with his Abba—even Jesus enters the empty pit of meaninglessness that comes with suffering.

I wonder how much of the Psalm Jesus is able to utter before his death. Is it just this first agonized line, given to us by the Gospel writers? Psalm 22 isn’t just a testimony to pain and meaninglessness. It’s a testimony that shifts rather awkwardly to end in praise—in praise of a triumphant, saving God. As the psalmist dangles from the horns of wild oxen, God suddenly appears to him, like sunlight through the clouds. It turns out that God was never absent, after all.

I like to think that Jesus, in his dying, finishes the whole psalm, embodying both agony and grace, witnessing to God’s faithful presence, even when we can’t feel it. It can sound puny and clichéd when we say to someone in pain, “Oh, God is with you in your suffering.” But in Jesus’ own anguished cry, I can feel and hear and see that place where God’s unfailing, ever-present love runs smack into unjust, isolating, meaningless suffering. And that meeting of love and pain--that’s where the power of compassion--the divine power of “suffering with”—can grow and spread. And it’s this power of compassion that brings life out of death.[2]

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[1] Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), 148.

[2] Wendy Farley, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster Press, 1990), 79.