Ask

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 12, Year C (July 24, 2022).

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Proper 12C (Track 2)

Preached at Christ Episcopal Church, Jordan, New York

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Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here, and only truth be heard: in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I invite you to be seated.

In the beginning of his book The Liturgy Explained, Professor Jim Farwell, (who's a professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, which is a great place for Episcopalians to learn to become clergy)… He tells this medieval legend.

And it starts like this, a boy falls in love with a girl. And the problem is that this is a very nice girl. And the boy is not a very nice boy, he kind of has a bad reputation in the village. So he comes up with this plan. He gets a mask, a very realistic mask of a saint. And he puts it on his face. And he says, I'm going to wear this mask. And I'm going to act like that saint. And she'll fall in love with me… little does she know.

And so he wears the mask. He acts like the saint, and the girl does fall in love with him. And things are going really well. And this guy's friends, first they thought it was kind of funny that he was fooling this nice girl. But now things are going so well, that they feel jealous. And they want to spoil the fun. So they say, you know what we're going to do? The next time he's spending time with her maybe in public, we're going to take that mask off. And then she's going to see who he really is.

And that's exactly what they do. They come up to him while he's in conversation with the girl he loves and they take the mask off and he covers his face, because he doesn't want her to see the bad person that he really is. But when he takes his hands down, he has the face of the saint. Because he's worn that mask for so long. And he's done the deeds of a saint for so long, that he has become that good and holy person. So she never knows! They live happily ever after.

Professor Farwell tells this story as kind of a vivid and fun way to illustrate an ancient Christian principle which is very important for the Episcopal Church. And it's so old that it actually you can say it in Latin first: lex orendi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. Lex means law. That phrase translated is the law of prayer: orendi, prayer. The law of prayer is the law of belief (credendi—creed!) The law of prayer is the law of belief is the law of life—vivendi. In other words, the way that I pray, shapes what I believe which shapes who I am and how I live my life. And for Farwell, one of the things we do as we gather in communion, as we come together in community, is we sort of practice living the kingdom of God through our practice of Holy Communion and, and for him, it's almost like, every Sunday for a little while, we put that mask on and we practice being people living in the kingdom of God together, sharing in the body of Christ together. And the idea is, as often as we do that, we are actually becoming the people of God that we are practicing being.

And that is why Episcopalians will get so het up about what's inside the Book of Common Prayer. Right? The words between these covers matter, because, for us, the idea is that what we pray shapes what we believe and who we are. It matters very much how we pray. And so it would seem to be very useful that Jesus actually taught us how to pray and that we have a reference. So today, I just wanted us to take some time to look at: How is it that Jesus taught us to pray? And what do we take away from Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel today about how to pray, so that we may believe, so that we may be who God wants us to be.

But it's also going to be fun to look at Abraham's example, first. In our reading from Genesis, so on first glance, when I look at this text, it almost seems like, you know, I can't help but think of like Fiddler on the Roof, but it almost seems like Abraham is bargaining with God, right? It reads like a bargain. I read this text, and it seems like God is angry. God wants to destroy this city. And Abraham's we like, wait, wait, God, are you sure? Because what if there's like 50 decent human beings in the city? Do you still want to do it? And God's like? Well, okay, maybe for 50, right? And Abraham's all, how about 45. And so it goes, and they're kind of doing this little righteous-people bidding war. But if you look at it again, it's Abraham, who starts at 50, which is a pretty high bar for mercy. To have 50. I mean, this, this is a city a long time ago, there wouldn't have been that many people in the city. So 50 is a pretty high bar. And it's Abraham who bargains very, very slowly. 50. 45. 40. 35. And every time Abraham throws out a lower number, God’s like, Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's almost like God was already planning to be merciful.

And this prayer from Abraham to God is more about Abraham learning from God who God is, than it is Abraham convincing God to change? Look at it again. You see Abraham say, Oh, God, oh, don't be mad at me if I say this. But what if there were 25? Oh, God, don't be angry with me for talking to you. But what if there were 20? And God's never angry with Abraham, for talking. And God never says, Abraham, that's ridiculous. You know, God agrees to the number, and God isn't angry. But Abraham is approaching God as though God were going to be angry.

So this prayer isn't so much about shaping who God is. This prayer between Abraham and God, it's about shaping who Abraham believes God to be. And who Abraham is as a result of that. And Abraham grows bolder and grows closer to God. As in his prayer, Abraham realizes that God was already merciful. And God was not angry. It was Abraham who brought all that to the table.

Now, when Jesus is asked, “how should we pray,” I think his answer, the one takeaway he would want his disciples to leave with, is that first word of the prayer: Father.

Jesus is not so much teaching us exactly what words to say, as Jesus is trying to teach us: think about who it is that you are talking to. Abraham learned through prayer who it was that Abraham was talking to. Jesus told us: when you come to God, approach God as though God were your parent.

And by the way, he does it in this kind of humorous way. He says, you guys aren’t perfect, right? We're not perfect, but even we know that if our child asks us for an egg, I guess we won't give them scorpions. And, you know, he's kind of like exaggerating for effect. But I think he's also showing compassion. Because when he talks to us and says, treat God like your father, talk to God as though God were your parents, he knows that our own parents probably weren't perfect. And he knows that if we've had the opportunity to parent or to be involved in the raising of children that we ourselves have not been perfect. And yet, we know—without needing a ridiculous scorpion and egg example—we know what the good is, we know the desire to want to give the good thing to the people we love. And even if our own parents didn't measure up to that standard, we know what it feels like to seek something good from someone who loves us.

That's what Jesus wants us to do, when we come to God: to treat God as someone who loves us, and wants to give us what we need.

And so what Abraham and Jesus have in common, I think, is that they're both teaching us how to ask. And the asking isn't about, like, sort of divine slot machine, if you ask right and you ask in just the right way you will get what it is you asked for.

But rather, it's about training yourself, to become the kind of person, to put on the mask of the person, who trusts enough to ask God for what we hope for, for what we need.

It is not always easy to really ask for our heart's desire. It might be that we don't know what it is we truly desire. Or it might be that there's been a time in our life, when we knew what we wanted and needed, and we might even have gotten down on our knees to pray for it—and we were disappointed. Or even if we've never had that experience, we might be afraid that if we were to truly express what we desire, that we wouldn't receive it, that we'd be laying everything about ourselves out and making it vulnerable. And that we wouldn't receive that good answer.

So what Jesus is inviting us to do is to become people who little by little, become willing to ask God for whatever it is that we need. And that that practice of asking is going to slowly get us in touch with our own heart's desire.

St. Augustine said to God, famously, he said, God, we are made for you. And our hearts are restless, until they rest in you.

When I think about Jesus teaching us to ask and to keep asking to be that friend who's knocking on the door, even when we didn't get the answer. Jesus says, if you ask you will receive. He doesn't say when or how or what it will look like.

But that practice of persistent asking is a practice of getting in touch with who we are, with the desire for God, the desire for good that God put in us. And slowly that desire is going to draw us deeper and deeper to our true desire, which is that connection with God, which is that connection to love. All Jesus wants of us is that we trust the process and not not be afraid to ask God for what it is that we desire.

And so I invite you this week to experiment with what it feels like to really lay your desire out for God and let God know what it is you wish for, what it is you desire. Let God know because I don't know what the answer will be, but I know that the act of asking will draw you toward the God who loves you.

Amen.