Change

My grandparents, William and Katie Belle, were remarkable people who lived in remarkable times.  Within their lifetimes the Wright brothers successfully flew an airplane at Kitty Hawk.  After thousands of years of human beings trying to do that, my grandparents were alive and read about it in the newspaper when it happened for the very first time.  My grandparents were still alive 65 years later when human beings set foot on the moon for the very first time.  And if they had stayed awake past 8:00 at night, which they did not, they could have seen two human beings walking on the moon via a live television transmission. 

Now as astounding as it is to have been alive for both the first flight at Kitty Hawk and the first landing on the moon, unfortunately my grandparents did not believe the latter had actually happened.  Their theory was that it had been staged at some remote location in Nebraska.  My grandparents, who never went outside the state of Georgia except the one time my grandmother went to visit her sister in Jacksonville, did not particularly believe in Nebraska either.  But they found Nebraska a whole lot more plausible than people walking on the moon. 

Within the lifetimes of these two somewhat skeptical farm people, the entire reality of the world was changed, both by the events they had seen happen, and even more by the rate at which that change had occurred.  Thousands of years to get to the first short flight at Kitty Hawk.  Just 65 more years to get to the moon.  It is no wonder at all that they didn’t believe it.
 

Whatever the rate of change my grandparents had to deal with, it is nothing next to the rate of change that our ancestors in faith must have experienced in Christ.  For century after century, the people of Israel had waited for the messiah.  And then, onto the scene comes Jesus of Nazareth.  It was a rate of change that made it difficult to believe.  And not surprisingly, as John puts, “although he had performed many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.”
 

We know something about so much change that it becomes hard to believe, even if we see the signs live on television.  When change comes at a rate so fast we cannot take it in, it makes us anxious, unsettled, and fearful.  One of the ways human beings cope with so much change so fast and the anxiety that comes with it is to cling to what has been instead of what is becoming.  It is the same with the great moon landing hoax brought to us live from the most remote parts of Nebraska as it is with Jesus and his signs brought to us live from the most remote parts of Galilee.
 

Any rate of change that any human beings have ever experienced, like going form Kitty Hawk to the moon within one lifetime or even having experienced the presence of God in the flesh in Jesus is nothing, absolutely nothing, next to the rate of change we must experience in Easter.  In the instant of Easter, everything, absolutely everything changes.  Death is changed for life.  Sin is changed for freedom.  Alienation is changed for reconciliation.  In Easter, everything, the whole creation, is made new.  The powers, the principalities, the forces that corrupt and destroy our humanity are defeated.
 

Jesus himself is changed.  Jesus is so changed in the instant of Easter that Mary, meeting him in the garden on the first Easter morning, mistook him for the gardener.  Jesus is so changed in the instant of Easter that some of his disciples walked the six miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with him and did not recognize him.  And even after the reality of the resurrection has begun to set in, Jesus is so changed that his closest friends failed to recognize him calling them along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  In the instant of Easter, everything, absolutely everything, is changed.
 

As much as the historical events my grandparents witnessed in just a single lifetime changed the very nature of the reality they knew, as much as the signs the people witnessed within the lifetime of Jesus changed the very nature of the reality they knew, the event of Easter changes everything of the reality we think we know in the twinkling of an eye.  It is a change that is too unsettling, too disturbing, too unnerving to believe in because it changes the very nature of reality as we know it.  Easter is intended to threaten our reality.  It is no wonder that it makes us fearful.
 

We must choose whether to allow our fear to stand between us and the resurrection.  We cannot proclaim the resurrection and cling to what is old, to a reality that no longer exists, to a reality before the resurrection.  What we have got to do is live into change because at least until the kingdom arrives, change is the only way God has to work. 

Peace,

+Stacy

A Matter of Trust

Yesterday was Good Shepherd Sunday.  We recited the Twenty-Third Psalm from the Hebrew Scripture, and also loved by Christians.  “The Lord is my shepherd.” 

The mystery to me is why we recite, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want,” and live as if we shall?  Why do we recite, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil,” and yet we do? 

According to the Twenty-Third Psalm, the freedom we seek, both from living in want and living in fear, comes primarily from trust.  The point of the Twenty-Third Psalm, it seems to me, is about trusting the shepherd, trusting God.  The author of the Psalm is speaking of trust.  Absolute trust.  Our freedom is in absolute trust.  But trust is a very hard thing for us to do. Still, the spiritual life, indeed human life, and not just that of sheep, is really mostly about trust.  Nothing else.  Really just trust. 

If anything ought to change the quality of the way we live, it seems to me, it ought to be that Jesus has risen from the dead and that death itself has been defeated and holds no power over us.  So why do we succumb to the power of death?  To the power of fear?  To the power of darkness?  To the power of separation?  To the power of division?  To the power of want?  It isn’t that we don’t believe.  It is that we have a hard time trusting.  

I don’t know anything at all, really, about sheep.  I don’t know much about animals.  But as many of you know, I have a Labrador Retriever named Annie, whom I love very much and who occasionally comes to the office with me (it’s looking like Thursday this week).  And I do know a little bit about Annie.  And I think I have learned a thing or two about life from Annie.  

Annie, I have noticed, never, ever lives in want.  Why is that?  It is because I feed her.  Unfailingly.  But even when her bowl is empty, Annie does not live in want.  Annie lives in complete confidence that I will feed her and that she will not be hungry.  I don’t think I have ever detected any anxiety whatsoever, not the least little bit, that she might go hungry.  Annie trusts me.  Her defense against living in want is not just that I feed her.  It is that she trusts.  

Whether or not we live in want has nothing to do with what we have.  It has to do with whether we trust.  It is not about what we have.  It is about trust.  One of the things I have noticed, somewhat paradoxically, is that it is those who have the most who often fall into the trap of trusting the least.  It is not a matter of having.  It is a matter of trusting.

Nor is it about what we know.  I do in fact know that one day I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death and I will not emerge.  It is a certainty.  The issue, though, is not what I know.  It is what I trust.  What do I trust in when it comes to death?  What I trust in is that when that day comes, I will be in the hands of a loving God who has promised that nothing will separate me from God’s love.  It is not a matter of what I know.  It is a matter of what I trust. 

The defeat of want is in trust.  The defeat of fear is in trust.  It all boils down to trust.  Both come from within ourselves as, in the end, freedom mostly does. 

Peace,

+Stacy

A Horrifying Part of the Story

The story of the evening of the first Easter begins in a horrifying way.  John writes, “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them” (Jn. 20:19).  At the time what was probably ought to have been so horrifying is that Jesus, whom they had betrayed and denied and abandoned, stood among them undeterred by locked doors.  What ought to be horrifying to us now, I believe, is the reference to the fear of the Jews.  Much evil has been wrought over those words, and others like them, in the Gospels, particularly in the Gospel of John.  It is important that we pause and say something about them from time to time.
 

For one thing, they do not mean what they may appear at first to mean.  They have a context, and context, as it always does, influences meaning.  For another, they do not give Christians license, as they may appear at first to do, for intolerance, bigotry, and hate-filled violence.  It is a serious scandal to us that we have often taken them so.
 

The context has to do with a very painful reality that was playing itself out at the end of the first century when John wrote these words, a reality that is not unfamiliar to us today.  It is the reality of communities separating.  In John’s day it was the separation of the church and synagogue.  We lose sight of the fact that Jesus was a Jew, an observant and devoted Jew.  He held his people in the deepest part of his heart throughout his life.  The Gospels would lead us to conclude, in fact, that he holds them there still.  
 

We also lose sight of the fact that the early Christian movement was thoroughly within the tradition of Judaism, and not remotely opposed to it.  We must never forget that the meaning of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus is revealed in its own context, the context of Passover, the feast of liberation.  The feast of liberation for whom?  The feast of liberation for the Jews.
 

Indeed, in those first years after the resurrection, the church grew up in and was indeed nurtured by the synagogue.  It was one among many acceptable expressions of Jewish faith.  Over time, however, that began to change as Christian teaching began to diverge, or at least appear to diverge, from standard Judaism.  Certainly it diverged from standard Jewish expressions of the tradition.  And as it did, a time for separation came when the divergence proved impossible to reconcile.  It is possible to point to hateful things going in both directions.  
 

And though the time came, the pain of it was intense.  What is being expressed in John especially is this sense of pain at separation from Judaism, which must be considered the mother of Christianity.  When John writes about animosity toward Jews, he is writing for himself and not for Jesus, and he is writing as a creature of his context.  When John writes about the fear of the Jews, he is speaking of his own fear more than he is speaking of the disciples’.  The polemic against Jews grows out of this pain.  That doesn’t mean it is excusable, but it does help us understand where it comes from and that it is limited to a particular context and not something to be universalized.
 

Nevertheless, we Christians have done just that over the years.  Even that might have been harmless if we did not, over those same years, become so powerful and so identified with secular, including military, power.  Untold evil has resulted.  The Holocaust is a direct result.  The things we Christians feel permitted to do when we get caught up in being the instruments of God’s judgment are a horrifying reality.   Intolerance, bigotry, and violence are not the way of Christ.  Ever.  And that is, religiously speaking, especially true about our attitude toward Jews, among whom our Lord is to be counted.
 

I once saw a woodcut at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem.  It shows a group of Jews being marched off by a squadron of SS soldiers toward a waiting train bound for the death camps.  In the foreground is the crucified Christ.  One of the soldiers has come back to remove Jesus from the cross.  He must go with the other Jews.  It is a very powerful image none of us should ever forget.
 

In fact, the only way the things John wrote about Jews make any sense to me is to understand that when John says “Jews,” what he means when taking the context into account is “the people.”  He is using the expression “Jews” as another way of saying “us.”  The only way the polemic makes any sense to those of us who read it 2,000 years later is to hear those words about the “Jews” and look into the mirror and realize that John is talking about us. 

                                      

Peace,

+Stacy

God’s Belly Laugh

Dan Daniel, the Bishop of East Carolina, is a very good friend of mine.  He is also perhaps one of the funniest people I have ever known.  While he was the priest at the Episcopal parish in Bristol, Rhode Island, he served as the chaplain to the nursing home.  One Christmas Eve the nursing home called.  One of the residents had died, and the staff had been unable to reach the woman’s daughter.  Would Dan mind going by the house and informing this person of her mother’s death?  “Of course, I’ll go,” Dan replied.
 

So off he went to the designated address, looking carefully at the numbers on the porches through the falling snow.  208-206-204.  204 Oak Street.  He got out of the car and knocked on the door to deliver the unwanted news.  A neatly dressed woman answered.  Dan introduced himself.  “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’m Fr. Daniel from St. Michael’s Church.”
 

“Oh, yes, she said, we haven’t met but I certainly know who you are.”
 

“Might I come in?”
 

“Certainly,” she said, “and Merry Christmas.”
 

“And Merry Christmas to you, too.”  They sat.  Dan declined the egg nog that was offered under the circumstances, and they made small talk for a moment.
 

“You must be wondering why I’m here,” Dan finally said attempting to broach the topic for which he had come.
 

“Well, yes,” his hostess said.
 

“I’m so sorry to have to be the one to bring you this news on Christmas Eve, but I’m the chaplain for the nursing home, and I’ve come to tell you that your mother has died.”
 

The woman, understandably, was stunned, and her eyes welled up with tears.  “I am just shocked,” she said.  “I was just with her this afternoon and she seemed fine.  We had a lovely conversation.  I never dreamed it would be our last.”
 

Dan handed her a hankerchief.  “Would you like us to pray?”
 

“Oh, yes,” she said.
 

“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Louise,” Dan began.
 

“Wait a minute,” the woman interrupted.  “Who’s Louise?”
 

“Why isn’t that your mother?”
 

“No.  My mother’s name is Betty.”
 

“Isn’t this the Andrews residence?”
 

“No, this is the Wilson residence.”
 

“Isn’t this 204 Oak Street?”
 

“No, this is 204 Maple Street.  Oak Street is the next street over.”
 

What I don’t know is what Dan said next and how, exactly, he extricated himself from the house, and how things went we he finally found his way to the right address.  What I do know is that Betty Wilson’s daughter, God bless her, had some experience of Easter that Christmas Eve, some small taste of what it is like to look for the living among the dead, some brief experience of death itself defeated.
 

What ought to accompany the defeat of death is laughter.  I’m not sure Betty Wilson’s daughter experienced Dan’s visit quite so amusingly as I do now, but I hope she has at least come to see the humor in this Christmas Eve visit from a hapless pastor who meant well.  And, once she got over it, at least, I hope she has told the story of her Christmas Eve experience of Easter around the family table on every succeeding Christmas Eve.
 

The best way to understand Easter, I think, is as the punch line in an utterly incongruous story that threatens to be overcome with seriousness.  Easter is God’s answer to the oppressive seriousness with which we so often take life—and ourselves.  Easter is God’s belly laugh at the seriousness of death itself.  Easter ought to be a day of great joy for us precisely because it is cosmically hilarious.  Easter is what turns human existence from divine tragedy in the inherent flaws of human nature into the divine comedy, that God redeems even our most tragic flaws, the things that lead us to death, the seriousness that threatens to squelch our joy in God.
 

I in no way want to suggest that death is not a serious thing, or that sin is not a serious thing, or that the human attraction to evil is not a serious thing.  What I do want to suggest is that when it comes to our salvation from all these things—sin and evil and death itself—God has already done all the serious work to defeat them all at the cross.  The only thing left to do is to respond with joy.  All our seriousness only tends to let them back in the picture.

Peace,

+Stacy

Breach of Protocol for Holy Week

A difference of living in New York from any other experience in my life is the amount of interaction I have with people before my work day begins.  Up until now I’ve gotten in the car at home and gotten out again at the office.  It’s just been me and NPR, and oh yes, Annie.  In New York, though, I have contact with scores of people, actually hundreds if not thousands, between my front door and the fourth floor of the Church Center.  I like watching people and wondering about their lives.  This morning a boy was studying, seemingly for a test.  I wondered what in.  There was a woman wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.  I wondered what that was about.  I saw a woman running as best as she was able on worn legs from down the block to catch the M4 at Amsterdam.  The bus driver waited for her.  How kind, I thought.  The bus got to the end of the block at Broadway just as I did.  And she got off.  I wondered what was up with that.

 

There is etiquette to interactions on New York subways and streets, though.  It is generally not considered polite to notice others, or at least to get noticed noting others.  One rarely speaks to a stranger during the morning commute.  It is not that New Yorkers are unfriendly.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  It is just that New Yorkers are not morning people.
 

Today, Monday in Holy Week, was an exception for some reason.  I had something happen to me on the way to work this morning that has never before happened.  And this morning it happened twice.
 

As I came out of the gate from the Cathedral Close, a woman, nicely dressed and a little younger than I, looked right at me and said, “Good morning.”
 

“Good morning,” I replied, a little startled.  And then she sort of bowed, almost a curtsy.  It wasn’t a subservient sort of gesture, more obeisant, respectful, and maybe slightly deferential.  I was really startled then.
 

At 96th street I transferred from the local to the express.  I was late this morning so it was crowded.  I found enough space to stand, and when I did, I was face to face with a casually dressed man, again a little younger than I.  He was with someone, another man, apparently the two of them on the way to work.  When I looked up after finding a space, he looked at me and with a slight nod of the head, something less than a curtsey, said, “Good morning.”
 

I was so startled this time that I didn’t even think to respond in kind.  Part of me thought he must be speaking to someone standing behind me.  I thought it would be truly rude to look and see.  So I just assumed this was directed at me.  “Hi,” I replied.
 

His smile assured me that I had correctly interpreted that the greeting was meant for me.  I thought about this all the way to Times Square, particularly the inadequacy of my greeting in response.  I resolved to correct that when I left the train.  “Have a nice day,” I said when we came to a stop.
 

“You, too,” he responded.  What I probably should have said, and may well have been expected to say, was “God bless you.”  I thought about that from Times Square to Grand Central.  Maybe I’ll get it right next time.  I can hardly wait for the trip home.
 

Now, what I wonder is why this breach in protocol today.  What made this day like no other day?  I can only speculate.  It was so different that it must be something important.
 

Maybe it is because I’m a priest, but I am particularly aware that this week is Holy Week and that yesterday was Palm Sunday (and I was surprised by the number of New Yorkers I saw out and about yesterday carrying palms).  Could that be it?  Was this obeisance directed to me as a symbol of something much greater than I?
 

The real thing I pondered was how, to the extent people know the story of this week, even vestigially, it touches something very deep inside.  Could it be, I wondered, that even long forgotten memories from childhood (I thought of the grandmother I saw yesterday at church lovingly whispering explanations in the ear of her very young grandson, pointing out the organ, and handing him a palm frond) are stirred by reminders during this week.  Could it be, I wondered, that even the church, which does not command the social prestige it once did (I thought about seeing the exhibit of the Lewis chess pieces yesterday at the cloisters and the explanation of why the bishops flank the king and queen on the board), perhaps this week the church is identified with the passion of divine love for the world, and that inspires something.  Perhaps this week, more than others, we remember our rightful place as servants of the one who came not to be served but to serve and those he loved to the end, especially the poor, the oppressed, the needy.
 

I will never know the answer, of course, but I hope it might have to do with the church’s identity with the Passion, with suffering undertaken for the sake of love, with the fervent hope that love endures even death, indeed defeats death forever.
 

We lose our way in that, not infrequently.  Perhaps the other 51 weeks of the year, we lose our way.  This week, though, calls us to remember who we are, servants.  And, indeed, how inherently, indeed unavoidably, attractive it is to the world when we do.  It is a powerful message when we actually live it out.  Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn. 12:32).  It is the passion for love, even the willingness to endure suffering on behalf of others, of which the cross is the symbol, that draws us and others.  This week we remember that.

Peace,

+Stacy

Trayvon Martin

In some ways I worry that I have no right to speak on the events of the last week in the United States, and especially in Florida, where I happen to be at the moment.  I am, after all, a white person, and the victim of this unspeakable event is African American.  I am also a white person who is the father of two sons who are not.  I am a white Southerner who grew up in a world where segregation was the law and learned over time while I was growing up that the way things were did not in fact speak to the way things had to be because, as a matter of faith, they did not speak to the way God wanted things to be.  I am a white Southerner who learned over the course of growing up that morality was a term that went beyond sex and had something to do with justice and peace.  Even then, I’m not sure I have a right to speak about this event.  But I am also a pastor, a minister of the Gospel.  And I am a bishop who has taken a vow to “defend those who have no helper?” (BCP, p. 518)  I have no right to speak, and yet I must speak. 
 

It seems to me there are four things that need to be said about the death of Trayvon Martin.
 

The first is that, regardless of anything else, a precious child of God has been lost.  Sadly, this is not a rare phenomenon.  Precious children of God are lost to violence in our country every day.  It is often related to drugs and human greed.  It very frequently has to do with being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Most receive nothing like the attention of Trayvon’s death.  Yet, they all deserve to.  It is truly an American tragedy.  And Trayvon’s death ought to grieve our hearts at the deepest level.  They all should.  Perhaps Trayvon’s death will also help us remember about all the children who die senselessly in our country.
 

The second is that one thing Trayvon’s death has brought to our attention in a forceful way is that every time an African American teenager, and indeed any minority teenager, walks out of the house, they are not as safe as a white teenager.  And part of the horrible reason why has to do with prejudice, stereotypes, and bigotry by people in power.  This ought to be a call to action to us.  It is imperative that we find a way to make this different.  I do not have the prescription for correcting this blight on America, but I am convinced that America is, in fact, filled with people of good will of all racial backgrounds, who can in fact find a way.  It is urgent that we pledge ourselves to be part of that effort.
 

The third is that one of the potential tragedies of this event grows from the fact that Trayvon Martin was an African American and George Zimmerman was Latino.  One of the so far (I think thankfully) unspoken themes of this event might have to do with pitting one minority group against another.  Nothing would better benefit oppression than placing one group of oppressed people against another.  We do not have time for that.  We only have time to be united for justice.  Otherwise, I guarantee, injustice will win in our day, even if not ultimately.
 

The fourth relates to the specifics of this case, a danger, and a note of hope.  This is the hardest thing for me to say, and the one I feel most unqualified to say.  I fear I say it because I cannot help but look at this horrible reality through white eyes.
 

What has come out so far seems to paint a relatively clear picture of what happened.  That makes it very difficult to see why action has not already been taken to arrest the shooter.  We cannot help but wonder if the shooter had been black, and the victim, white, would an arrest not have already been made?  At least I cannot help but wonder that.  And when I think about it, I find myself get angrier.
 

When I get less angry, I look at it a little differently.  One thing I have learned repeatedly in my life is to be suspicious of what appears to be clear particularly when there are other rational sources who are seeing it as not so clear at all.  When I get less angry, I look at some other facts.  One is that this killing is not only in the hands of the local police or even the State of Florida.  It is also in the hands of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  That assures me there are authorities involved beyond local politics and local prejudices.  In the days of the Civil Rights Movement in my native South, it was the involvement of federal authorities that was the guarantor of justice.  I am hopeful that will again be true.
 

I am also heartened that state and local authorities are taking some important steps in the right direction.  One was the voluntary stepping aside of the police chief.  His leadership was compromised, and he got out of the way.  That is good.  Another is that a special prosecutor has been appointed.  Another good sign and appropriate step.
 

All those things confront me with an uncomfortable reality.  Local authorities seem to be acting in appropriate ways procedurally.  The federal government, particularly the FBI, are involved and overseeing everything, which makes me more optimistic that justice will be done.  In light of the fact that those things are true and still no arrest has been made, might it be that there are some facts about this case that I do not know?  Might it be that things are not so clear after all, at least to those who know more than I do?  Could it be that people of good will committed to justice, particularly those without a local connection, know things not yet shared with the public that makes an arrest, at least at this point, unwise or even unjustified?  We simply do not know.  The question before us, though, is whether we are going to trust the system.  It is admittedly difficult, but I find myself reluctant to despair of it yet.  Thinking complex things are clear leads to tragedy.  In fact, that likely has a lot to do with what led to the tragic death of Trayvon in the first place.  We must not succumb to it.
 

There are two notes of danger here in something of a tension.  One is that we will be complacent in holding the authorities to account.  But another is that we will be cynically suspicious.  Neither is good.  I think one of the challenges for us spiritually is to be appropriately trusting and appropriately suspicious at the same time.  That, I think, is most likely to lead to the truth.  It is, though, a hard balance to maintain, especially when our emotions are otherwise.
 

And I’ll tell you why, and this is a major difference from my growing up years in the segregated South.  That has to do with my confidence in President Obama.  The President spoke these crucially important words, the significance of which cannot be overlooked.  “If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.”  Those are words that were inconceivable until quite recently, that the son of the President of the United States might look like Trayvon Martin.  And they are words that change everything.  What made the system so suspect to me is whether it was possible for those at the highest level of power in our country to see their own face in the face of Trayvon.  At the very least, the person of at the very top now can.
 

That gives me something that is even more important spiritually than being confident that justice will be done.  It gives me hope, hope that justice will be done, even when I cannot see clearly from my vantage point what justice looks like right now.
 

President Obama said one other thing that makes me hopeful.  He has promised that we will get to the bottom of what happened.  The fact that he can see his face in Trayvon’s may be just the guarantee we need that we have not had before.  For now, at least, I am inclined to trust the President and support him with prayer, as well as the people of Florida and, most especially, the family of Trayvon.  For now, I think, I am inclined to wait.  And I also think I have every reason to wait in hope.
 

God, I know, has promised that justice will roll down like mighty waters.  I am hopeful.  And I believe I have reason to be hopeful.  

Peace,

+Stacy

Prayer and Action

Lent is a season of prayer.  Perhaps that is why I have tended to view Lent as getting in the way of what I’m doing.  That, of course, is the whole idea of Lent.
 

I am admittedly no expert in prayer.  I’m afraid I have generally been one of those people who considers himself too busy doing to spend time praying.  I have come to find, though, that the two are not quite as distinct as I have sometimes thought.
 

Many years ago I learned something important about prayer from someone who was actually good at it.  It completely changed the way I thought about prayer, and it has shaped my practice of prayer ever since.  The most powerful intercessory prayer, he said, is to be willing to trade places with the one being prayed for.
 

Now, I pray for people all the time.  I have very rarely prayed, maybe two or three times, each involving my family, with the willingness, should God allow it, to trade places with the person I’m praying for.  Surely God is no less concerned with my prayers even when they lack the fullness of intercessory intention on my part.  The reason for that, I believe, is that whether or not I am willing to trade places with the subject of my intercessions, God has demonstrated in Christ that God is.  As always, Christ perfects our prayers in himself.  That is reliable.  I can only imitate it.
 

Still, what I have learned is that my prayer must be always connected with my action.  On rare occasion, I mean my prayers sincerely enough to trade places.  Most other times, I may not be quite that fervent, but I cannot pray with sincerity unless I am at least willing for God to use me as part of the answer to my prayers.  The sincerity of prayer has everything to do with the willingness to act on it.
 

When we pray for the sick, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with whether we are willing to care for the sick, to visit them, to wait on them.  When we pray for justice and peace in the world, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with whether we vote accordingly.  When we pray for the creation, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with how we are stewards of it.  When we pray for the poor and the hungry, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with whether we ourselves stand ready to clothe and shelter and feed those who need it.  When we pray in thanksgiving, the sincerity and power of our prayer has everything to do with what we are willing to share.
 

The primary Christian prayer, of course, is the Eucharist.  We pray our great thanksgiving in common remembering the ultimate act of love made on our behalf in Christ.  But once again, our prayers do not stand apart from our acting on our prayers.  The Eucharist is, of course, also known as the Mass.  Mass is derived from the Latin word for dismissal.  Referring to the Eucharist as the Mass connects our prayer and our action.  Our giving thanks is not to be limited to the ritual we observe inside the church building.  It is to be taken out into the world as we are dismissed to go and serve.  In fact, in this understanding, the whole focus of prayer is action.  Just as the faithful have received the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, with the dismissal the faithful become the body and blood of Christ in the world, Christ who came not to be served but to serve and to give his live a ransom for many.
 

Prayer and action go together.  Prayer is a way of acting just as much as acting is a way of praying.  One, it seems to me, necessarily leads to the other.      

Peace,

+Stacy

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