PRAYER

I saw a cartoon recently in one of my "church" magazines in which the pastor was standing in the pulpit. He has his head bowed as he says, "Let us Pray. (a pause) Please allow six to eight weeks for delivery."

So true, isn't it? When we pray, you and I, we so often pray for something that needs an immediate response. We have a need, not just a want, a real need that needs to be addressed right here and right now. And we can't wait six to eight weeks for God to do something -- to deliver on Jesus's promise to be with us always, not in six to eight weeks.

But prayer is a two-way street. In that same magazine I found a quote (the source of which I have lost) that really hits the nail on the head, and is a gentle reminder about prayer. "Nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except what lies outside the will of God."

Accepting the truth of that statement often takes six to eight weeks for delivery. If you're like me, you want your will to be God's will and not the other way around. Yes, I pray every day, many times every day, "your will be done on earth as in heaven." And I am sincere. I am my most sincere when God's will is being done for someone else. I am least sincere when my prayer concerns my needs/wants/desires. It is then that I so desperately want God's will to conform to my will. Perhaps the saving grace at those times is that, again, if you are like me, we are at least honest enough to admit to God while in prayer that we do want him to make our will his will. We won't lie about that.

But not lying is not the same as liking the result. We may be honest in making it clear in prayer that we do want God to answer our prayers the way we want them answered. And we may be quite aware that God will answer our prayers in God’s own way and in God’s own time – be it six to eight seconds, six to eight weeks or maybe never. And sometimes an honest answer is "no."

The struggle that we all have when we pray – and it is the struggle with life itself – is, as Isaiah reminds us, that God's ways are not always our ways and God's thoughts not always our thoughts. To put it bluntly: we are not God, much as we would like to play God, especially at those times when life is out of our control. That's when the struggle over whose will will be done gets rough.

And it is indeed a real struggle. The struggle is to understand why, why God's will is different than our will. After all, we know what we would do if we were to be able to play God. Why can't God see it as clearly as we see it – whatever that it is?

If it is any consolation, and it probably isn’t when we are struggling, it is that Jesus had the same struggle in the Garden just before his death. He couldn't understand why his Father would allow his Son to suffer such a cruel death. What loving father would allow this to happen, especially if it could be prevented? Jesus's reluctant, "nevertheless, your will be done," doesn't make our own acceptance of God's will any easier. Sometimes we struggle for six to eight weeks. Sometimes longer. 

PRACTICING ON THE JOB

I saw a cartoon recently in which an obviously-upset boss was confronting his secretary saying, "What's this I hear about you practicing Christianity on the job?"

We can smile. But have we ever been accused of practicing our faith while on the job? Has our faith ever come into conflict with the demands of the job? Have we ever been forced into making an ethical decision: do I do what my boss wants even though I know it is wrong (maybe even immoral) or do I stand up and refuse, perhaps at the risk of losing my job?

My suspicion is that we have all at times in our lives been confronted by a situation where we must decide between the demands of our faith and the demands of our family: putting bread on the table, paying college tuition, etc.

We do not live in a Christian world. Business ethics and Christian ethics are not one and the same. What we say we believe on Sunday morning is often sorely tested on the job come Monday morning. On Sunday morning we can find a strong support group for our beliefs, our ethical practices. On Monday mornings there are times when it seems as if it is "me against the world."

And if we are not faced with such dilemmas, I dare say we are either most fortunate or we have our eyes, minds and consciences quite closed. The temptation is to keep them closed because if we see no evil, hear no evil, then there is the presumption that there is no evil, that all is well in the world, or at least in our world.

That attitude is precisely the reason why we are in the mess we are in as a society. Our political candidates certainly recognize the mess. Unfortunately, their solutions don't and won't and can't work because they can’t even agree what the solutions are or even if there are any given the political climate we are now living in. In an age of sound bites and tweets, whatever sounds better or best is deemed the solution. And if we can put the right spin on a problem, maybe it will simply whirl away and be no more – or at least become someone else's problem. That's called "passing the buck" – from federal to state to county to local to personal. It always comes full circle.

That's why the cross has always been a symbol of our faith. It is never easy, given the nature of humanity – sinners all of us – to be a Christian, to practice Christianity. Of course, that is exactly what we are doing: practicing, hoping someday to finally get it right all the time. (That day is called "eternity.") We will always be tempted to sell out to expediency. What makes a Christian different is, first of all, that one does admit to one's sell-out in the name of a higher good – family, job, whatever at the moment is front and center; and, second, we at least feel guilty when we fall short of the ideal.

There is also a third difference, and that is that we try to make amends for our shortcomings and try to address the wrongs we have done and the problems that confront us to the best of our ability. It won’t be easy. But then, Jesus never said it would be: the cross, again!

 

INTERBEING

While reading a reflection the other day I came across the concept of interbeing. It is the Buddhist principle of an awareness of the interrelationship of all things. Take the slice of toast I had for breakfast this morning. How did it arrive on my plate? What was its journey from its inception to that peanut-buttered creation that awaited my ingestion? It didn’t arrive there out of nowhere or nothing.

Seeds were planted in the ground to nourish it with sun and rain in order to grow into wheat then harvested by the farmer who planted; then loaded unto the truck by a driver who took it to the refinery that made it into flour; then off to the bakery that made it into bread, to the store at which I purchased the loaf, to my toaster and finally to my mouth. That was only for starters in reflecting about everything and everyone involved in that slice of toast I had for breakfast this morning. And let’s not forget about the peanut butter that made its own interbeing journey, if you will.

All creation is tied together, somehow in some way. It is simply far beyond our understanding but it is also quite true. We can get a slippery handle on that notion when thinking about a piece of peanut-buttered toast, but that understanding only takes us so far and, even worse, allows us to take it all for granted, if we even begin to think about it in the first place, which, if you are like me, rarely happens.

What is true about a piece of toast is even truer about our relationships one with another. We absolutely could not exist in this world without one another. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the home we live in, the car we drive – it’s limitless – are the product of countless others, of the interbeing one with another. And yet like that piece of toast, how often do we stop to reflect on this interdependence, let alone be thankful for it?

If we want to go even deeper and really get personal, how often do we reflect on how important we are and have been in our being part, and a very important part, of this interbeing? It is impossible to know the influence we have had on others, their dependence on us at moments in their lives when we were the person needed at that moment in time and we did what needed to be done.

When we reflect on our own lives, there are those who stand out as having been so influential and important; but there are, I dare say, thousands who passed anonymously through our lives who were just as important, like all those who brought that slice of toast to my breakfast table this morning.

The principle of interbeing is a reminder of how much we need one another because we cannot go it alone. Nor were or are we supposed to. Isn’t that the message of the Gospel? Jesus came to remind us that we are all brothers and sisters one to another, a world family, and that we need one another to live in this world: interbeing at its fullest.

IS GOD PLEASED WITH ME?

At the very beginning of his ministry Jesus arrived at the Jordan River in which he was baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist, who, at first, protested. He thought it should be the other way around. Nevertheless, John consented and baptized Jesus. As Jesus came out of the water, “a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:17)

Reflecting on this event, my first human reaction is: “Wow! Jesus hasn’t done anything yet as far as his ministry is concerned and God is well pleased with him. What gives?” Well, what gives is we realize and understand that God is pleased with each and every one of us because we are all God’s children, and no one, including Jesus, is more important and more loved than another. That may sound heretical, but I believe it is true. God is truly pleased that we are God’s children, no exceptions.

What is also true is that when we come to the end of our life and meet God in person in eternity, we hope that God greets us with “You are my beloved child. I have been well pleased how you have lived your life.”

Frightening, isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but when I think back on my life, I can honestly and humbly say that there is much for which I think God – and I – can be pleased. But there is also much for which I am not pleased in the least. My guess is that I am not alone with such thoughts. God is pleased with us most of the time but not all the time. That should concern us as, I assume, it concerns God.

Unlike Jesus we have never heard a voice from heaven telling us that God is pleased with us. On the other hand, we certainly don’t want to hear a voice telling us that God, at the moment, is not very pleased with us. Either way hearing a voice from God it would be very, very frightening. Thank God, we don’t.

But we do. We really do. We are children of God meaning that God lives in us whether we realize that or not. Because of that we are godly, of God, knowing right from wrong, knowing what we say and do is pleasing or not pleasing to God. We don’t need a voice from heaven to tell us this. We hear it inside our heart and our head. It won’t go away because it can’t go away even as we sometimes try to ignore it or silence it.

It would be wonderful, would it not, if somehow each morning as we awaken, we hear a voice saying, “You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased”? Then, at the end of the day, as we lie in bed reflecting on the day that has passed, how we have lived our life, how we have used the gifts and talents with which God has blessed us, especially to help those who have been less blessed, we will honestly, humbly know that God could say to us, “My child, I have been well pleased with you today.” God could and would, but it is up to us to make that happen by the way we have lived the day that has passed.