Saintly Prayer
Every two years, the great “family
reunion” known as the General Assembly of
the Christian Church converges on some otherwise disinterested convention
city, and around the edges of all the inspirational worship services, business
on which surely the second coming of Christ depends; in between all the
educational workshops and engaging meals and service projects, clergy friends
from seminary reconnect. Sometimes in
coffee shops around the corner, or in the exhibit hall among the books, we catch
each other up on our family lives and tell lies about our churches back home
(for some, about how stiff-necked and recalcitrant they can be in the face of their
leadership genius and prowess; for others, how glorious it is and how
exponential has been the growth since their arrival in the pulpit, hoping
against hope that the listeners won’t bother to check the Yearbook Statistics
for verification once they get back home.). Just for the record, you always get glowing
reviews.
I thought of those conversations
while reading these few verses from Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian
Christians – how Paul “boasts” of them “among the churches of God” for their “steadfastness
and faith” during all the persecutions and afflictions they were managing to
endure. It’s not easy, after all, to
maintain your spiritual “center of gravity” when all the sticks and stones of
life seem to be incoming. But the
Thessalonians seemed to be succeeding.
Indeed, writes Paul – enlarging his compliment – not only are they
“hanging in there,” their faith is growing exponentially, as is their love for
each other. Those, of course, being not
uncommon fruits of shared struggle and endeavor: new strength, and bonded affection. But to hear that your mentor and guide is
proud of you – indeed brags about you to others – has got to feel good.
But of course Paul isn’t merely
writing a love letter. He is also
writing to call the Thessalonians to the spirit and practice of thanksgiving,
even in the midst of their hard times.
“Thanking God over and over,” Eugene Peterson translates it, “is not
only a pleasure; it’s a must.” I can’t
help but think that Paul is speaking as much to himself as the church. It wasn’t, after all, only nascent Christians
and congregations that were having a hard time.
Paul, to put a finer point on it, wasn’t having a smooth road of it,
himself. Constantly met with suspicion,
always having to defend himself and justify his authority to both insiders and
outsiders; weighed down by some unspecified but chronic physical affliction;
relentlessly moving – traveling, preaching, reporting, counseling, dodging,
writing. Clearing the spiritual and
psychological space in his own life for pure thanksgiving couldn’t have been
any easier for him than for the Thessalonians.
Or us, for that matter: taking the time, in the midst of frantic time
or scary time or simply no time, to give thanks, as does Paul, for significant
people and the encouragement their faithfulness inspires. I like to think that’s what we are doing this
All
Saints Day: stopping in the
midst of our own busyness – we do, after all, have a stewardship campaign under
way, a mission trip in the planning, a building project simmering, and a new visioning
process on the drawing board, in addition to the varieties and vicissitudes of
our individual lives – to wrap our arms, again, around some of the pillars of
our faith.
But then how could we neglect such
thanksgiving?
Y Where would we be, after all, if
Mary Wiese hadn’t, almost by the sheer strength of her faith and determination,
willed us as a congregation into the 21st century?
Y Where would be if Jeanne Paschal
hadn’t quietly and diligently assumed personal responsibility for maintaining
the integrity of our collective memory?
Y Where would we be if Shirley
Henderson hadn’t steadfastly attended to the quiet and relational work of
everyday hospitality?
Y How much smaller would our view of
the world be had Tom DeHaven not consistently and with his very person woven a
connection through us to Ramsey Home up the street and Jackman Memorial
Hospital on the other side of the globe?
Y How much blinder would we be to the
value of small and seemingly insignificant acts of kindness and welcome and
humor if Carl Bobenhouse had not moved effortlessly among us with a goofy hat
and a handful of candy strawberries?
Y How much thicker and more careless
would our thinking have remained had Kathleen Bullington not been among us
asking challenging questions we hadn’t considered, and drawing new
connections?
Go on down the list – Jane Albaugh, and
her journalist mind and heart for justice; Charlene Newberg and her diligent
embodiment of shalom; Iola Washburn and her ever busy, ever generous hands;
Elma McClelland, Helen Pritchard, Margaret Berkey and Ed Langwith. Think how much smaller we would be in spirit
and imagination and experience and grace had they not stretched and infused our
discipleship with the breath of their life?
As it is, we stand in this present
moment drawn inexorably and insatiably toward a holy future that has taken on
color and shape and character precisely because they and so many others have
stood in our past, imperfectly but determinedly pointing the way. It isn’t hard to be grateful.
What their legacy is helping us
comprehend is that it isn’t what is swirling around us that determines our
character and direction – the obstacles and turns in the road; the slippery
patches and dead ends – but rather what is welling inside of us – grounding us
and informing us; animating us and reminding us who and whose we are. And so it is that we stop what we are doing
and give thanks – offering our own “saintly prayers” as it were; gratitude that
is both obligation and sheer pleasure; prayers that ultimately turn to the
lives of those little ones we named earlier, and countless other ones like
them, who are looking to and learning from and depending on us, saying to them
as did Paul:
… we pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for
what he's called you to be, pray that he'll fill your good ideas and acts of
faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something. If your life
honors the name of Jesus, he will honor you. Grace is behind and through all of
this, our God giving himself freely, the Master, Jesus Christ, giving himself
freely.
Prayers – of gratitude, and also
intercession. Prayers for those who have
blessed our lives with theirs, and prayers for those we hope our lives will
bless. And prayers of awe for the grace
that is behind and through it all. Thanks
be to God. Amen.