Praying in Sighs

1 Kings 3:5-13

Romans 8:26-39

We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit prays for us with sighs too deep for words. God is for us, and there’s nothing that can separate us from this love, not even our inability to pray. Pause from reading this and sit quietly for one minute, listening for the Spirit’s prayer on our behalf. Sighs of exhaustion, contentment, or boredom are all welcome. If your mind wanders—which it will—simply put a name to the thought that is passing through, and then gently return to the present moment, listening again for the Spirit. For example, you might say to yourself, “I’m thinking about food,” and then gently say to yourself, “return to the present moment.” Do this now.

“We do not know how to pray as we ought, so the Spirit prays for us.” Thanks be to God for that. I would guess that many people feel they don’t know how to pray as they ought. Perhaps we don’t pray as often as we’d like, or we find ourselves saying bad words about our enemies instead of good words. Or maybe we just find that despite our best efforts and intentions, we are still captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.

But we need to pray, and we can take comfort in the Spirit who helps us in our weakness. When we can’t, the Spirit can. When we won’t, the Spirit will.

Our prayer of quiet listening earlier was a Solomon prayer. Solomon knew about this need for prayer. He knew God would help him in his weakness, and would give him an understanding mind to discern between good and evil. We typically hear leaders boast about their abilities rather than their weaknesses. We typically hear about their unquestionable judgment, rather than their need for discernment between good and evil. If we only vote for them, so the message goes, we will surely see a new day dawn.

But God praises Solomon for his humility; he doesn’t ask for riches, a long life, or his enemies’ lives. Solomon even resists asking for a gerrymandered political district to ensure continued election. It’s as though Solomon has a friendship through time with Paul the Apostle. He knows that he cannot pray as he ought, and he also knows that the Spirit will pray on his behalf so that he can discern between good and evil.

When we pray the Solomon prayer of silence and stillness, we are more likely to overhear the Spirit’s gentle urgings, her sighs too deep for words, directing us toward what is good. When the world’s leaders pray the Solomon prayer, there will be less suffering for everyone. Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal put the sentiment this way four centuries ago: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

We desperately need leaders and citizens who know how to discern between good and evil. As the world heats up—both literally and figuratively—we need to remember how to pray.

Solomon asks for prayer-help from the Spirit so that he can govern Israel. He says, “Although I am only a child, I am in the midst of your people; give me an understanding mind to discern between good and evil so that I may govern your people.” What if all the world’s leaders prayed in this way?

Paul assures us that the Spirit will intercede for us, that God is for us. But this is no guarantee we will discern rightly. Many evil things have been done under the disguise of good.  As Paul says, “I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil is close at hand” (Romans 7:21).

We discern good from evil better not only when we ask for help, and when we sit quietly to listen, but also when we know who Paul was talking to. He writes, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No… for I am convinced that nothing in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul is writing to those who are experiencing these various sufferings. He is not writing to the Roman authorities. He is not writing to the powerful, but to the powerless.

He is writing for people who can’t afford lobbyists, for people who work three minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, for people who fear for their own safety when entering a public restroom that actually corresponds with their own gender identity. When we consider the reality of social privilege while reading the Bible, we are better able to discern good from evil.

But unfortunately, Paul’s words—particularly the words “God is for us”—have sadly been used as a justification by the powerful, instead of as a reassurance for the powerless, and this is problematic because it keeps us from our best discernment, and leads to great violence.

One example of how Paul’s words “God is for us” have been misappropriated is from the Kountze High School cheerleaders just outside of Houston. The cheerleaders made signs a few years ago for the football team to run through at the beginning of the Friday night game; one of the signs read, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” I doubt Paul had high school football in mind when he wrote to the Romans 2,000 years ago. Likewise, there were most certainly Christians on both sides of the gridiron those nights in east Texas. No, God is not a fan of the Kountze Lions, specifically. To claim that God is for us over and against others is one of the first steps toward genocide. And while it might seem like a long way between high school football and genocide, the distance may not be as far as we’d like to think.

For example, another misuse of Paul’s message is a bumper sticker I’ve seen that says, “God bless our troops; especially our snipers.” The problem with this bumper sticker is similar to the football banner from Kountze HS. It’s not that God does not desire peace and justice throughout the land; the problem is that the “us” is simply too small. Paul the Apostle was not from the United States, nor was Jesus a military leader. The way of Jesus undermines violence; it does not promote it. Heaven has no standing military.

Another, more horrendous misunderstanding of Paul’s claim that “God is for us” is the Pequot War of 1636-38 in present day Connecticut, nearly 150 years before the United States was the United States. To put it simply, English settler-colonists wanted land that was already occupied. The Pequot tribe was all but wiped out in the ensuing war, and the Pequot tribe had already quit fighting when the following scene took place. William Bradford wrote this account in his “History of Plymouth Plantation:”

Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie (emphasis added, from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States).

Where was the discernment on behalf of the Pequot? Where was the discernment on behalf of those experiencing hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and the sword? Where was the discernment on behalf of the immigrants who were suffocated to death in the back of a smuggling truck in San Antonio last week?

Until we admit (as Solomon did) that we are but children, until we admit that victory over our enemies isn’t the highest prize, until we admit that we don’t always know the difference between good and evil, we will continue to lead God’s people astray. Until we realize (as Paul realized) that we “don’t know how to pray as we ought,” we will continue to commit genocide and win football games in the name of God.

But when we pray together in silence, when we listen for the Spirit’s intercession, when we humble ourselves enough to ask for an understanding mind to discern between good and evil, we learn again the good news that God is for us. When we pray, despite not knowing how, we see again that the Spirit intercedes for us, and the “us” is everybody, and nothing can separate "the everybody” from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Slicing the Times

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

"I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a woman against her mother," says Jesus (Mt 10:34-35). Christians have a disruptive calling from God.

God’s call disrupts the world because God desires just a few things that are simple—but not easy—to obtain: good news for the poor, cures for the sick, release for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed. Instead, the poor get mostly bad news, the sick are denied healthcare coverage, the captives remain imprisoned, the blind are themselves unseen, and the oppressed are too busy working three minimum wage jobs to get out from under the hard yoke and heavy burden of this “healthy” economy. But God is not satisfied with this, and she’s ready to disrupt the world. The times they are a changin’.

The church exists as God’s longing for a just and peaceful world, and it is called by God to be a disruption for justice and peace. The Christian baptismal covenant explicitly includes a commitment to work for peace and justice (ELW, pg. 228, Rite of Baptism). We die in baptism to sin, and are reborn to grace. The church is God’s longing for a just and peaceful world. Chew on that for awhile.

It’s easy to hear in Matthew's text a justification for violence: I have not come to bring peace but a sword, to set a man against his father and a woman against her mother. Whatever cause you support, surely Jesus wants you to use whatever means necessary—even violence—to get it, right? Guess again. In a time of increasing extremism, it’s important to set passages such as these in their context.

First, Jesus calls us to love God with our whole selves, to love our neighbors as ourselves. He tells his disciple to put away his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane, that those who live by the sword will also die by it. When we read this passage in light of what we know about Jesus, we conclude that he is most certainly not justifying violent extremism.

Second, this gospel passage is part of Jesus’ first commissioning of the disciples. He is sending them “like sheep among wolves” and their task is to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, [and] cast out demons” (Mt. 10:8); they are to proclaim the good news that “the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt. 10:7). If they are not welcomed in a home, they are to move onto the next place, rather than force themselves on anyone. This sword that Jesus brings is powerful, but it is not a sword of violence.

Third, New Testament scholar Norm Beck notes that 2,000 years ago, when the church was just starting, Christianity attracted mostly young people, not older people of the establishment (Beck, New Testament, pg. 193). When people would convert to Christianity, it oftentimes meant splitting with their families. If you’re familiar with the story Fiddler on the Roof, you recall that the third daughter ends up marrying a Christian. As a devout Jew, her father says that she has crossed the line and has split herself off from the family. This is perhaps similar to the reaction people in Matthew’s community had experienced when they came to know Jesus. Matthew’s community was writing about what had happened, not necessarily what would happen. The sword that Jesus brings is powerful, but it is not a sword of violence.

You’ve likewise probably been—or heard of—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer people coming out to their families, only to be disowned; a daughter is turned against her mother.

You’ve likewise probably heard of a particular German youth who chose to be an Augustinian monk instead of a lawyer, much to his father’s chagrin; a son is turned against his father.

Jesus calls people, and people feel the sword of his call. Any time a person follows Jesus, disruption follows, because nothing stays the same when Jesus is involved. The times they are a changin’.

Jesus’ call doesn’t just disrupt nuclear families, it disrupts nations, too. This country is being disrupted in a subtle but profound way, and you might have noticed it. Jesus’ sword is reshaping how we tell our collective story. Not so much how we tell his-story, but her-story, our-story, their-story. Who would have thought that granting space for people’s stories to come out would be so threatening, so disruptive? For too long we have told ourselves that the United States is God’s country, forgetting the genocide, ecocide, and constant oppression that have paid the bill for this country’s expansion and “success.” But the times they are a-changin’.

Indigenous historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz summarizes the issue this way:

“Writing US history from an Indigenous peoples’ perspective requires rethinking the consensual national narrative. That narrative is wrong or deficient not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence… How might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society” (Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, pg. 3)?

The time’s are a changin’ because people’s voices are rising, stories that have long laid dormant are thawing in the spring air. Black lives matter. The Spirit of the Earth is alive. The United States has the power and wealth it has because that power and wealth was stolen from the Earth and the Indigenous people who have lived here from time out of mind. When Jesus calls, disruption happens.

But if justice is Jesus’ call, why don’t people just go along with it, instead of resisting and causing so much trouble? Following Christ may be simple, but it is not easy.

Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway

Don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There’s a battle outside

And it’s ragin’.

It’ll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin’.

If Jesus calls for justice, why don’t people answer? Isn’t it simple? Here’s a Lutheran answer: those who resist Jesus’ call for justice are reading and writing these words: you and me. We are the sinners who stand in the way of God’s longing for justice and peace. And at the same time, we are called to be this justice and peace together, as saints who are unconditionally loved by this self-same Jesus. We are called to be the change God longs for in this world.

Annual Eucharist Service in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez

Here is an image of Jesus’ sword of justice, working powerfully in our sinful, saintly hands. Jesus’ people wield the sword of justice as it slices through sin right along the border of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. Christians here gather together several times a year to share a holy meal across an invented political division that has torn families apart. "We did not cross the border," these families will say; "the border crossed us."

And now, God in Christ through the power of the Spirit slices a sword of love through that fabricated border fence. People come together to share a meal of communion across a fence, a communion that shines a bright light on our poverty of spirit. Jesus has not come to bring peace, but a sword. Let us wield this sword with courage, for the times they are a-changin’. Amen.