How do you pray when you don’t know how to pray? …when you can’t find the words or the pain you feel is intense; you are exhausted, or at the end of your tether … the problem you face seems too much, too big, too hard? How do you feel when the bad news you feared proves to be true…it is hard to get up on a morning and there seems to be no hope? What would you do if your world collapsed around you…your job, your home, your reputation, your family and friends…gone?
This week the CMS magazine (Church Mission Society) dropped through the Vicarage letterbox. I am never sure what to do with the myriad of mailings that land on the Vicarage doormat. This one, and that from USPG (the United Society Partners in the Gospel) I bring to church and leave on the ‘Mousey Thompson’ table to the right of the organ. If you are ever in church for some peace and quiet do pick them up and have a read.
This quarter’s magazine speaks of the Christian Community in Lebanon – we have our own connection to the Lebanon through Harriet in the choir here. Apparently a fifth of Lebanon’s population has now been displaced. Those that try to return to their homes in the south find that their villages have been destroyed -everything has gone, they have nothing. Add to this sense of loss the needs of refugees from Syria (who have also lost homes and loved ones) and the economic crisis that preceded the latest conflict (do you remember the huge explosion in the port at Beirut in 2020?) and it is no surprise to read ‘We are living between gratitude and grief. Grateful to be alive but grief because of the deep loss all around us.’
According to the article, members of the Christian community has attempted to respond with a deliberate choice to serve all people (in a country divided by sectarianism) with ‘radical compassion. Local churches and institutions have opened their doors to host dozens of displaced families, providing warm rooms, safety and hot meals.’ The community ‘lives with an acute awareness of the uncertainty of tomorrow, knowing that any conversation could be their last opportunity to offer comfort’ to their neighbours. Amid destruction and devastation ‘the things people once trusted in have proved to be so fragile. But Jesus never leaves us.’
Over the last few weeks we have been working our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans, but you may also have noticed that our Gospel readings have had a common theme running through them. At this time of the year – as the harvest starts to be brought in across Europe- our lectionary offers us a few weeks’ worth of readings about seeds and growing: the parable of the sower, the parable of the wheat and tares; the mustard seed that grows into a tree to shelter all the birds of the air. Each parable gives us an insight into the nature of the Kingdom of God, but they all suggest that the kingdom requires ‘patience’ from us. The kingdom has come…but it must be given time to grow. We are in a time of waiting. There will be a harvest…but not yet.
That’s where we are in the verses from Romans chapter 8 this morning. We are in an in-between time. It’s not an easy place to be. Look at the list of difficulties in verse 35: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or the sword. Sat here in one of the most wonderful places in the country these things seem lightyears away, they are from a different world. But that’s not so for our fellow believers: the tiny church in Iran, the Christian communities of Sudan, the Spanish speaking churches of the USA (not sure whether their members will be picked up from the streets or dragged from their church buildings by ICE, the immigration enforcement officers who are happy to use their weapons without asking too many questions), or the church in Lebanon or Palestine.
Our problems tend to be internal and personal to us. For the churches that received Paul’s letters problems were felt and shared by the whole community: a community of believers who were increasingly not welcome in the Jewish synagogues, but who were also suspected of treason by the Roman authorities because they refused to acknowledge the Emperor’s divinity. No wonder then that some Christians may well have wondered what on earth God was up to: when will the kingdom come?
Paul reflects this in the quote he gives us in verse 36. The quote occurs twice in Psalm 44 – ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ There’s a general rule of thumb that if a bible writer quotes from the scriptures then we (as hearers) are also meant to hear) the rest of the bible passage that surrounds the original quote. Psalm 44 is a lament in which the people of God complain that God seems to have forgotten them although they have remained faithful to Him. ‘Rise up’ says the writer, ‘Rise up to help us and redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love’.
Paul’s message to the hard-pressed Christians in Rome (and to us) is one of challenge but also of comfort.
The challenge is to recognise that our faith in Jesus does not promise us an easy life…far from it. Jesus never promised us a rose garden! Discipleship involves ‘taking up our cross’ and following Him. We don’t escape the world either in thought or deed. We are in the mix (like the salt of the earth or the seed in the field). To the problems that face all our neighbours we might even add the specific problems of faith: trusting in the goodness of God even when this is hard to discern and we might be tempted to give up. We might feel small and hopelessly inadequate, downtrodden and overcome by the cares of the world that press down on our shoulders. So, we remember Jesus words from the Gospel a few weeks ago: ‘Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laded and I will give you rest.’ We hear again the apostle’s call to ‘run the race’ so that we ‘win the prize’. We’re reminded every week that we join with angels and archangels and all the company of the heavenly host, the church triumphant in heaven who cheer us on as we seek to be faithful to Jesus. It’s hard but keep the faith. God has not forgotten you. Stay faithful, pray, hope, serve.
And secondly, some words of comfort: remember (as Psalm 44 did) the ‘steadfast love of God’ for us. Remember that this love is utterly faithful. Remember that God has shown us the extent of this love in the person of Christ Jesus our Lord. God’s love is not just an idea or a theory it is an act: a man who opens wide His arms for us on the cross. There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from this love: death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, power, height, depth…illness, addiction, anxiety, depression, (you fill in the blanks ) none of these things can get in the way of God’s faithful love His people and for each one of us here.
We don’t know how to pray: but God’s Spirit prays for us and through us. We don’t know what to pray: God knows us from the inside out. We don’t feel we can carry on: Jesus walks beside us. We’re overwhelmed by all that life throws at us: He is present with us to share the load. The kingdom is coming. You can do it. I am with you come what may and never forget the central truth of the crucified Lord: ‘God’s glory is revealed in weakness’ and ‘the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you.’
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