Crumbs
[s3bubbleAudioSingle bucket=”sermons_asp” track=”20140817Proper15A.mp3″]
Lectionary readings:
August 17, Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 15):
Genesis 45:1-15 & Psalm 133
Romans 11:1-2a,29-32; Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28
To listen to earlier homilies click here.
Other Texts:
Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater: Spirituality and the 12 Steps
DRAFT text of homily—please do not cite without permission
“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
That’s a prayer known as the Jesus Prayer.
Or it’s one of the many variations of the Jesus Prayer.
I first encountered it years ago after reading a small book called, The Way of the Pilgrim.
The Way of the Pilgrim is a 19th century Russian text that follows an unnamed pilgrim across Russia while he practices this prayer of the heart.
The prayer itself comes from a much older—primarily Greek—text, the Philokalia, which is a collection of texts from the 4th through the 15th centuries.
Of course, it’s also directly related to the prayer the Publican prays in the temple in Luke’s gospel.
And I suspect it also has roots in the Canaanite woman’s plea today.
It’s one of the most basic, and foundational prayers.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
I read Way of a Pilgrim at a time in my life when things had stopped making sense.
I felt stuck in an unhealthy relationship.
Was anxious about whether working in a bookstore was a viable career choice.
And frankly, I was at that point in my life (my late twenties) when I was really grieving several losses.
The loss of my father.
The loss of the house I grew up in.
The loss of my childhood, really.
I was a wandering in the land of “adulthood.”
I might have been doing on OK job of pretending.
But that’s all it was…pretending.
I didn’t feel anywhere near as competent and confident as I imagined all of the “real” adults in my life felt.
I felt like I was part of a parade of the blind leading the blind.
So I started using the Jesus Prayer as often as I could.
Lord Jesus Christ.
Have mercy on me.
It provided some grounding.
Something for me to return to.
A crumb for me to cling to, and chew on, and savor.
There are many forms of it.
A full version is something like: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
But that’s always been too heavy laden for me.
I need something light.
Something more portable.
More reachable, and easily repeatable.
Like Anne Lamott’s three great little prayers: Help. Thanks. and Wow.
When I need the Jesus prayer, I need it immediately.
So.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Often I change it to, Lord Jesus Christ, fill me with your love.
Or fill me with your peace.
over and over and over until…
well, I’m not sure.
The Russian pilgrim begins practicing the Jesus Prayer in order to learn how to pray ceaselessly.
And maybe that’s the final point.
To pray ceaselessly.
To learn how to live in such a way that we no longer need to pray because we have become prayer.
Because we have finally been transformed into what we were always made to be—called to be—the body of Christ alive and acting and loving in the world.
I’ve never gotten to the point of praying ceaselessly, but I keep trying.
It’s been awhile since I used the Jesus Prayer.
But I returned to it again this week.
One day I just started repeating, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
“Lord Jesus Christ, fill me with your peace.”
In part because the woman’s plea reminded me of it.
And this Canaanite woman reminded me—as she always does—that none of us has a claim on God’s love and mercy.
We do nothing to earn it.
We certainly don’t deserve it.
And like the her, every Christian on the planet has been graciously grafted on to the branches of this chosen, beloved vine.
I returned to it in part because I was shocked and saddened by Robin Williams’s suicide.
And I’ve spent a lot of time this week reading about and thinking about and talking to people I know who live with the demon of depression and who are wrestling with addictions of all kinds.
I’ve wondered if Jesus were to update that list of things that defile if those incessant dark voices of depression and shrill controlling voices of addiction wouldn’t also be on that list.
I’ve known too many people who have chosen to end their own lives (maybe you have too), and earlier this week they all came to visit.
And the waves of grief began to swell once again.
I returned to it in part because the waves of sadness, and anger, and frustrated helplessness at hearing the news from Iraq, and Israel, and Ferguson, and a dozen other places seemed to crest this week.
And other than holding tight to the crumb of knowledge that no matter which side, God is in and with those who suffer I’ve been at a loss for what to do…so I returned to prayer.
And then came the news of Donald Teeters’ natural but sudden and very unexpected death.
And the waves of grief swamped me.
I am still stunned and numb.
And so I returned to chewing on that crumb.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus Christ, fill me with your peace.
There’s a prayer way towards the back of our prayerbook—part of a General Thanksgiving—that has the line: “We thank you for setting us at tasks that demand our best effort, and for leading us to accomplishments that satisfy and delight us.”
Isn’t that lovely?
It’s wonderful being able to give thanks for accomplishments that satisfy and delight.
The prayer goes on…
“We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.”
That’s the part that’s harder to be grateful about.
But that’s the crucial part of our faith.
I don’t know why God created the world this way.
Why we have to struggle and wrestle with ourselves, each other and God in order for God to bring about God’s hope—God’s dream—for us all.
But I know through experience that God hides grace and faith and holiness in all of the places none of us typically choose to go.
Richard Rohr, who has done a lot of work on the spirituality of the 12 Steps wrote a book called Breathing Underwater, I highly recommend it.
In it he says that “until you bottom out…until and unless there is a person, situation, event, idea, conflict, or relationship that you cannot “manage,” you will never find the True Manager.
“So God makes sure that several things will come your way that you cannot manage on your own.” [Rohr, Richard (2011-09-17). Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Kindle Locations 288-290). St. Anthony Messenger Press. Kindle Edition.]
And it is in those places…under the waves of grief…in the turmoil of things we can’t control that God is revealed.
Rohr calls it, “God’s greatest surprise and God’s constant disguise.”
Faith and grace are gifts that fall on us repeatedly but often go unrecognized until they well up in us and spill out like Joseph’s tears.
Faith and healing both emerge from and are revealed in a mother’s plea for help…
in brothers falling upon each others neck weeping and reconciling…
in standing in solidarity with those who are fearful and oppressed…
in sitting in the ashes and mourning the gaping hole left by the loss of a dear friend.
At those times in my life, when I’ve hit my limit.
When I’ve needed to remember my dependence on God alone…
When I need to remember that I do know how to breathe under these waves of grief…
I return to this crumb
—this morsel of food dropped from someone else’s table—
And I give thanks.
And I pray…
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, fill me with your peace.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, fill me with your peace…