blind faith, god's grace

nothing else left to impart:

A sermon on the prayers of Peter and Cornelius:

We’re not told why, exactly, Peter went out onto the roof to pray that noon. Are we? However, we can guess. And if you haven’t already, let me just ask, when do you pray? 

And I mean really pray, too. Like, skipping lunch to pray. Like, clamber out onto a roof to pray! When do you pray like that?

Because I’d be willing to bet you don’t pray like that for fun. Do you? No, you only pray like that when you’re at your wit’s end! 

That sweet hour of prayer may sound like a nice IDEA. But it’s only that! Isn’t it? It’s just a NICE idea. 

Real prayer, on the other hand, isn’t an IDEA, nice or otherwise. No, prayer, real prayer, is born where all our nice IDEAS are laid to rest! REAL prayer is a messy affair. Real prayer is a matter of flesh and blood. And I bet you KNOW exactly what I mean. Don’t you?

It’s nice to think Peter climbed out on that roof to pray over lunch out of piety. BUT that’s not how it tends to go. Is it? No, more than likely, Peter took those rash measures because he was desperate!  He was desperate.

We’ll get to this in a bit. But all the evidence points in the direction that Peter crawled out onto the roof over that lunch hour to pray because he WAS overwhelmed, UNDER-rested, and in over his head. 

Peter didn’t pray because it was a good idea. Although prayer always IS a good idea. And Peter didn’t pray because he should have, either! Although we ought to pray without ceasing. 

No, Peter went to pray because he was driven to! Peter was hard-pressed. He was sore-afflicted! And that’s why Peter was in prayer that day the Lord showed him that enigmatic vision. 

…And that’s why we pray, too. Isn’t it? We don’t pray so well when everything is going just fine. Do we? No, in those times, our prayers tend to be limp and insipid. 

When we can’t catch a break, though, our prayers begin to burn hot with the heat of desperation. Don’t they? 

Truthfully, the most God-pleasing prayers are the ones that are the ones made in the most unpleasant circumstances. As Luther said, the more you feel damned, the closer you are to salvation! In other words, the more you feel like you’re losing your faith, the more faithful your prayers are bound to be! 

I know that goes against conventional wisdom, but the truth is, those miserable prayers are the ones that can only come from faith! Those end-of-your-rope prayers are the ones that are helplessly sincere, full of emotion, and devoid of all pretense and negotiation, too.

They also, as it should happen, tend to be short. Anguished prayers go like this: Help. Help me. Help him. Help her. Help them. Or they go like this: Please. Please don’t let that happen. Please let this come to pass.

Either way, though, those disconsolate prayers are never more than five words. And often, they’re even shorter.

That, by the way, is what we mean when we say God’s office is at the end of your rope! Truly, God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love! God’s perfectly happy to set up shop with you anywhere in all creation! It’s just a matter of you! 

And me, too. I’ll speak for myself here, but I don’t tend to turn TO God UNTIL I have nowhere else to turn! 

But I’d be willing to bet you’re no different, either! It’s an obstinacy we all carry with us. It’s a vestige of our oldest and most UN-original sin, the desire to play god for ourselves. That cursed mistrust of everyone else and foolhardy overconfidence in ourselves.

However, when we learn that hardest of lessons, that we CAN’T do it ourselves, we’re finally ready to truly turn to The One from whom all blessings flow! True prayers arise WHEN that fantasy of self-sufficiency is buried. REAL prayers come to life where dreams are buried.

…And that, I’d be willing to wager, means you’re MORE ready to pray than you know! Doesn’t it? 

You don’t need a stretch of uninterrupted time. And neither do you need lofty words! Why, you don’t even need a calm and quiet mind for prayer! In fact, it’s being robbed of all those things that really drive you to true prayer! 

As Luther said, prayer should be brief, frequent, and intense. Brief, frequent, and intense; I bet you CAN handle that! Can’t you?! Truthfully, you’re probably already doing that! Aren’t you?!

This is how the fruit of the Spirit grows, too! Fruit of the Spirit doesn’t sprout from a conscious decision. And neither does it start with an intentional action, either! No, fruit just blossoms! And it blossoms naturally! It blossoms of its own volition!

After all, an apple tree doesn’t resolve to bear apples. Does it? No! That’s just what apple trees do! Apple trees, good ones anyway, produce apples! And your prayers are no different! 

Your prayers, on account of the Spirit at work in you, are just what you produce! You pray because Christ HAS sent the Spirit to intercede for you with sighs too deep for words! Your prayers are full of the Spirit BECAUSE your prayers are the fruit of the Spirit!

Prayers don’t come from ginned-up spirituality. No, prayers, good ones anyway, just NATURALLY arise! HOWEVER, you should know the most fertile ground for the Spirit is the barren soil of burnout!

After all, that’s how it went for Peter! Wasn’t it? Peter wasn’t in Joppa for a vacation. NO, he was there because he was on a missionary tour. 

Furthermore, Joppa wasn’t even on his itinerary! No, Peter was summoned there! And if that wasn’t enough, Peter was only making the rounds to begin with because the Spirit had already started to bear fruit in the foreign territory of the Samaritans!

Peter, you understand, was on the move. He was out of pocket. And, more than likely, he wasn’t sure what to do next. In other words, Peter was driven to prayer. 

But, and here’s the rub, before that prayer was over, Peter would be driven all over again! And he wouldn’t be driven as in motivated. And he wouldn’t be driven back to the safe and familiar confines of home, either. Instead, Peter would be driven further into unfamiliar and uncertain circumstances! That’s why he was so bewildered by his vision! 

It’s easy for us to think Peter’s confusion is just one more instance of his impetuousness. Isn’t it? Of course, the prohibited food symbolized the mission to those previously out-of-bounds Gentiles, we think. But that’s to play just a little too fast and loose with it. 

I suppose, with the benefit of hindsight, it is a little more clear. But it’s hard for us to appreciate just how radical it was that the Good News of Jesus Christ would have had any bearing whatsoever on people who were not children of Abraham by birth! 

And anyway, Peter didn’t have the benefit of hindsight AT the time. Did he? No! That didn’t come until later!

…We expect, or at least want, prayer to make everything crystal clear. Don’t we? But that’s not what happens in today’s Scripture. Is it? No, on the contrary, prayer only leaves Peter more confused than when he started! 

And this is not just an accurate depiction of prayer; it’s also one that resonants with the rest of Scripture! After all, where does Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane get him? Does it get him out of trouble? No, it leaves him in it. 

And that’s not all, either. Is it? Does God speak up in response to Jesus’ prayer? No! The only answer Jesus gets in his hour of trial is the sound of his closest companions on earth snoring. 

True spirituality, at least Christian spirituality, is NOT an ascent into rarefied air. On the contrary, true prayer is a deeper dive into all that’s denying us tranquility and answers. As we like to say around here, true spirituality is life in reality! True spirituality is life in reality.

And while that may not be altogether welcome news, it is promising! It’s promising because God, in Christ, has promised to show up in the mix! Reality is the seedbed for faith BECAUSE, in Christ, reality is the meeting place of things human and things divine! God, in Christ, has really promised to get to work in the tight spot! 

And just to be clear, Christ doesn’t get after it in the squeeze because he’s some sort of saddest. No, Christ shows up in the fix because the fix is real! Isn’t it? 

What’s more, WE will all really find ourselves in a pinch a time or two. Won’t we? And when, NOT if, when we do, we’ll really need God! 

And not some imaginary god, either! No, when we’re in a jam, we need a real God. A real flesh and blood God! A God who’s really willing to get in the middle of the bind WE’RE really in! 

And Christ, by his cross, HAS planted his flag right there! Reality is the meeting place of things human and things divine because Christ, The One who is fully human AND fully divine, has made reality HIS staging ground! Reality, with all its imperfections, is just perfect for Christ!

If your life isn’t ideal, that just makes you Christ’s cup of tea! Or, cuppa, as Amanda, Marty, and all you anglophiles out there like to say.

…Now, on the one hand, it’s freeing to know we don’t have to have it together before we can really pray. It’s relieving to hear that it doesn’t mean we’re prayer-failures if we don’t have all the answers. Isn’t it?

However, it’s also a bit discouraging, too. Isn’t it? We don’t want to be told there’s no silver bullet for ironclad clarity. 

But you know what? That’s just magical thinking! And magic isn’t real. As we like to say around here, faith is for real life! Faith is for real people living real lives!

BUT don’t think that means nothing’s any different for you! First of all, you can finally begin to appraise things as they really are, not as you dream them! The beginning of true perception is the realization that we don’t see all that clearly! Paul nailed it when he said, “For now we see through a mirror, DIMLY.” Didn’t he?

And, before we move on, what do you see when you look in a mirror? Do you see what’s ahead of you? No! You see what’s behind you!

Paul’s statement is more profound than we notice! Paul isn’t just saying that we don’t see things clearly. He’s saying that the only thing we have any perspective on is the past! And he’s saying we don’t even have a clear view of that!

When you can finally see that you don’t see everything perfectly, you’ve really begun to grasp the truth. BUT you know what’s even bigger than that?!? Daring to call on God in the middle of all that ambiguity is so much more profound!

Genuine faith doesn’t wait for the answers! No, real faith calls on God when all the answers fall short! And that’s good, too. It’s good because God stands tall when all our answers fall short!

God is not dismayed by disorder. After all, as we see at the creation, God is perfectly capable of handling chaos! What’s more, as we see at the re-creation, at Easter, God is also handy with dead-ends! 

…And that, one way or another, is where you’ve been driven all week! Isn’t it? And while it may not be pleasant, it is where faith is born!

But that’s not all! It’s also where Christ has promised to meet you! When you’re down to nothing, CHRIST is up to something! When you run out of steam, you’re finally ready to be filled with Christ’s Holy Spirit!

Reality is ideal for Christ! When Christ made his last prayer a cry of dereliction, he made all your cries of despair your first words of true prayer! And when he harrowed hell, Christ made your misery the meeting place of your long romance with him! 

Your long romance that will not disappoint you. Your long romance that unites you, and will reunite you, too, with all your loved ones. And all those you had some much trouble loving, too! Your long romance with The One that turns the beating of your very heart and alights the sacred fire makes the cosmos itself smolder with holiness!

All this is to say, you’ve ALREADY got everything you need for a rich and full prayer life! In fact, you’re more ready than you know. You’re further along than you realize! And you’re bearing more fruit of the Spirit than you can imagine, too!

And that’s the way the Spirit likes it! God is perfectly happy to work on you as subtly as those verdant blades of grass gloriously poking through the soil right now! And yes, for now, it may be bewildering. BUT when Christ, The One Mary mistook for a gardener that first Easter, calls your name on your own personal Easter, it’ll be the definitive answer to every last one of your prayers!

For now, though, we do like Peter. We take the next step. We do the next thing. We don’t need to see what’s ahead. It’s probably a blessing we can’t. All we need is the promise that it’s all in Christ’s strong, capable, and pierced hands. And it is. It is. 

And that faith springing up in you that dares to cling to such a promise is just a taste of the harvest of faith! The faith that took root as a feeble prayer. A prayer that was cried when you were at the end of your rope. 

And if God can do all that with so little, imagine what God is doing right now with all this!

Words fall short. Don’t they? That’s why the end is all music! That’s why the native language of faith is song! 

Let’s sing!