Sermon for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost (October 20, 2024) (Proper 24, Year B)
Sermon for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost (October 20, 2024) at St.James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
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Transcript
There is a line from one of Paul's letters that is so important for our prayer. St. Paul writes, we do not know how to pray as we ought. We do not know how to pray as we ought but, the Holy Spirit prays within us in sighs too deep for words.
We do not know how to pray as we ought. I have felt this often. Sometimes I don't have the right words. I don't have words to put to what's going on. Other times, I don't know what I should be seeking, what I should be asking for. There are so many times where my own prayer just doesn't quite seem like it gets it. And there's this reassurance that Paul discovered, which is, it's okay if you don't know how to pray because within you is the spirit of God and the spirit of God is praying within you to God in sighs that are too deep for words. So when my own words seem to fall short, there is this welling up, this deep sigh that comes from God within me, this connection between the spirit within me and the transcendent God that prays on our behalf. And I don't have to do anything. It's like breathing. We inspire, we are inspired, and the prayer within us is happening as long as we live, as long as we have breath.
Our gospel reading this week is, it's a great example of this idea that we don't know how to pray as we ought. What transpires between these two brothers, James and John and Jesus is kind of like a conversation that we have with God in prayer. They have an idea, they have something they want to ask for, and let's see what happens when they bring their request to God.
So they're walking along the road and one of them says to the other one, I think this is our chance. And so they go to Jesus and they say, Jesus, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. This is a formula that is familiar to us from other scriptures. This is what subjects do to a powerful king. Okay? We heard a little bit from the book of Esther. When Esther wants to save her people, she goes to her husband, the king, and she says, I want you to do whatever I ask of you. And he says, well, I like you. I will give you whatever you ask. You might also think of Herod and Solame. Solame does this dance for King Herod. Herod likes that. He says, I will give you whatever you ask of me. Even half my kingdom. That's how she ends up with the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
So it's this formula. We go to the powerful and we ask them to grant a request. So already we can see that James and John going to Jesus. They are anticipating his glory. They say, Jesus, when you become powerful, when you're in charge of all of this, because that's what they think is going to happen. He's on his way to Jerusalem to take over and they say, when you are sitting on the throne that Herod is sitting on now, you know what we would like? We'd like to be your guys, one of us on the right hand, one on the other. We want to be glorified with you. Whatever we ask, we want you to give to us. No better example of we do not know how to pray as we ought.
What they want is to share in that power and that status and yeah, get a chance to show how important they are. They see their chance. All the other disciples are distracted. They can ask. Jesus says to them, oh honey, honey, you do not know what you are asking for. You want to be glorified with me when I am glorified? You want to be on my right hand and on my left? Remember in the gospel of John, what does he say? When I am lifted up on the cross, that is the glorification. I will draw all people to myself. Who is on his right hand and his left in another gospel in the gospel of Matthew, two criminals. You do not know what you are asking. You do not know how to pray as you ought and yet. And yet he says, but listen, let me ask you a question. Are you able to drink the cup from which I drink and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And again, not knowing how to pray as they ought they say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll drink that. We'll drink the cup. We'll do the baptism. What is the cup? Is the cup of suffering that is in the prophet Isaiah, the baptism, which baptizes Jesus into the way of self- offering, self-sacrifice? And they say, oh, we'll do it. Yes.
And Jesus says, okay, alright then, if you'll share in this cup with me, and if you'll undertake this baptism with which I am baptized, then you will be with me. I will grant you the power to do that. James and John, they don't really get it, but they still say yes. And because the Holy Spirit moves within them, their prayer, their prayer to be at God's right hand and at God's left, their prayer to have power is changed. It's reshaped by their willingness to say, we will drink the cup. We will share in the baptism because they say yes. They do continue to follow Jesus. They accompany him all the way through, and they are apostles. They drink the cup. They are baptized.
They lay their hands upon each, upon the next generation. They baptized. They share the cup, they share the bread through them and through their brothers. Peter, James, John St. Mary of Magdala. The way of Jesus is transmitted from one generation to the next to be baptized and to share with Jesus and the bread and the wine, the breaking of the bread and the prayers to drink the cup that he drank on the night before he died. He said, drink this all of you. This is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. And when you drink it, do this in remembrance of me. Through James and John's, yes to drinking the cup, through their yes to receiving the baptism, we all are brought into that great communion, the body of Christ.
And they didn't know what they were asking for. They didn't know how to pray as they ought to, and the Holy Spirit could use it anyway. They found out through their lives and everything that happened to them, what exactly it was that they had asked for and what exactly it was that they had promised to do.
And that is true for us too. When we are baptized, when we receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the baptism which Jesus himself received and taught to us, we make these promises. We say, yes, we are able just like those guys, yes, we are able. We will, of course we say we will with God's help because we know that when we are brought into this sweet communion with God, when we belong to the body of Christ, that there is help for us to do what we promised to do.
We said we would continue in the breaking of bread. The apostles teaching and fellowship continue in the prayers that we, in every circumstance that we would seek and serve Christ in all persons, even the annoying ones. We said, we would uphold the dignity of every human being and all with God's help. It is one moment at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time, sometimes even one breath at a time that we stick with our promise, that we will share in the cup, that we will uphold the baptism that is the inheritance of all the saints of God.
And there's something that happens when we live this life. Even if we don't know in the beginning where it was going to bring us, even if we don't fully grasp what it was we promised to do or what it was we asked for. We turn ourselves into people. We become through grace. We become people who understand life is an offering. It is an opportunity to offer every moment that we have, every breath that we get to breathe, every hour that our eyes are open is a gift from God. And what have we been given this life for, this gift for, except as Jesus showed us to offer it back to God and to God's creation with all the love that God has poured into our hearts.
Our glory is not to be on one side or the other of some throne. It's not to win this contest or this dispute. Our glory is not to get to be somebody's boss. It's not to have my way. It's not my glory. Our glory is to get to serve, to get to be, to get to live a life of service where I understand that everything I have, every breath, every talent, every resource, every moment is something that I can offer back to God and to God's creation. St. Irenaeos of Lyons said, the glory of God is the human person fully alive. That is what it means to share in God's glory, to have received all of this that God has given us and to give it back with love.
And that giving, that exchange, it knits us together. It strengthens the holy communion of the body of Christ here on this earth and in the world beyond. It's okay that we don't know how to pray as we ought, because the Spirit within us is doing that work of knitting us together and of taking our own prayers as selfish or delusional as they may sometimes be and working with them, turning them into something that God can use for the full glory of God and for the service of God's people and this beautiful creation. So I think if I had to offer one invitation this week, it would be to pray even if you don't know how, even if you don't know the right words, because prayer is simply an offering of our heart to the one who gave us that heart in the first place. And that when you pray to trust that underneath your own prayer, there is a welling up of the spirit that boosts your prayer, lifts it up, offers it to God, and changes you into the person that God is calling you to be. All we have to be is faithful in our prayer, not perfect in our prayer, not having the right words. We can be like James and John Lord, I want you to give me whatever you ask, and God will use it, if you show up.
So pray and love one another with Thanksgiving to God who gave us this love. Amen.