Sermon Luke
22:39-46 February 25, 2018 Lent 2
Moving in
Suffering
When there is suffering in the world and/or in our lives
we often wonder how this can happen. We
spend little time questioning how we can live and Move in Suffering or how we
can keep going in the midst of it.
Mostly we are consumed with the why of such things.
I find this a reasonable question.
Children are the first to approach us with the why of
things. They ask us why about the color of the sky, where the sun goes at
night, the reason we need water to live, and why do people hurt and die.
Most often our responses to those questions are explained
through the wonders and magical words of science. Or if these fabulous explanations
escape us, we respond to the why questions with, “Because God…”
When we seek to answer our curious children about why are
there mean people in the world…or why people hurt and die,
we like our children are lost in responses that truly
answer the why of it all.
We don’t even fully understand the why of our Savior who
died on the cross.
I honestly believe when we are caught up in the why-
when we allow ourselves to digress to the stories of the
fall,
or the ages of cruelty and pain of one person to another,
or as the prophets of the Old Testament preach the sins
of the people,
or the lack of prayer,
or the lack of love of God,
or worse the lack of obedience to the commandments,
especially the love of neighbor;
we lose out becoming actively involved in the suffering and
we deny the
opportunity of receiving what we need in the moments of hurting and grief and
pain.
The why often seeks to fix without investment.
The why often is someone else’s doing.
The why often results in lack of ownership for the cause
of things.
The why often keeps us stuck.
In A.A. Milne’s story Eeyore
Loses a Tail, Pooh comes across Eeyore who is out of sorts. Pooh discovers Eeyore
has lost his tail. Eeyore, made aware of the absence of his tail, responds, “That
accounts for a good deal.” Followed with a long silence,
Pooh not knowing what he could say that would be helpful,
offered to do something helpful instead.
I believe this prayer of Jesus in his suffering prior to
his arrest is
an offering of something helpful to us in times of
trial and temptation.
I believe this prayer is a response for the
‘how, we can move and live in suffering’ and keep going in the midst of.
The opening words of the choir anthem Compassion are: There is an everlasting kindness you
lavished on us. God has offered us love, kindness, and peace as we live
this life here and now.
Let’s look at this prayer and these verses. There are
seven points that are important to note for our own well-being.
In this prayer we enter into the humanity of Jesus. Luke,
the evangelist, points out several things as he writes this account for the benefit
of the future church. (One of which happens to that Jesus prays at the Mount of
Olives and not in a garden or at Gethsemane.)
The first note about Jesus was he went to pray, as
was his custom. Prayer throughout the gospel of Luke is central to
who Jesus is. Jesus stops to pray at all the key moments in his ministry. For
Jesus, prayer is an essential piece of how he moves through his life, even unto
his death.
Jesus has a routine for prayer.
We, too, can begin to examine how we can incorporate
prayer into our life. Perhaps, it is as simple as the petition five finger
prayer that I shared with the children in the our chat together.
Perhaps, it is a three-times a day prayer of beginning
the day with the Lord’s Prayer, praying the Beatitudes at noon, and going to
bed with the 23rd Psalm.
Perhaps, it is setting the timer on our phones to just
pause and pray.
Jesus got through his ministry with prayer as his custom.
Perhaps, this season we can begin a custom of prayer.
Second, he prayed through all circumstances.
Henri Nouwen wrote, ‘It can be discouraging to discover how quickly we lose our
inner peace.
People enter our lives and we suddenly have a
restlessness and an anxiety that appears. We thought we were at peace and
centered with God and a situation or a person cause us to feel insecure.
He suggests we befriend our emotions and then
little by little, in all circumstances we can come to sense the closeness to
God that we need and desire.
Jesus, chose to experience all the emotions within him
and trusting God to work through them with him. We, like Jesus, have the
opportunity to offer our prayers to God in all circumstances. And through this
sense the ever presence of the God who loves us.
Third, he kept those he loved close.
Notice the verse says, they were a stone’s throw away. Jesus, did not go
off alone, as much as he surrounded himself with those he trusted and those he
loved. He was there praying to the Father for guidance and direction, keeping his friends at his side. One
thing we can learn from this is our need to be at home with the people of our
faith.
Years ago, the Catholic church in America realized it was
losing its members at the same rate as the major protestant denominations. They
started an initiative called, “Catholics come home.” It was rather successful
as people who had been brought up in the church were stirred with a sense of
renewal and chose to return to being active in the church.
As Protestants, we too have sought a variety of initiatives
to not only invite those who grew up in the church to ‘come home’,
but to invite those who have never been at home in the
church to find a place to belong and call home, perhaps for the first time.
In all of life we have a need to be surrounded by friends
who lift us up and grant us grace, and offer us friendship.
When we come home to the church,
we come home to God,
and receive the faithful promise of God to love.
Home is where we are safe.
Let us keep church as that safe, sacred, space that Jesus
had when he prayed this prayer.
Fourth, Jesus, allowed the angels to give him strength.
There are those angels unawares all around us who provide
for us in ways we could never have imagined for ourselves.
Without going into a completely long tangent about
angels, suffice it to say, they exist in the spiritual realm as the Bible
teaches us,
and they exist in the realm of our living through those
inspired to offer kindness and hospitality.
Fifth, ‘in his anguish, he prayed more earnestly’;
Jesus, stayed the course in his prayer even through the
pain of it all.
When the pain and the temptation of the trial ahead of
him became too great, Jesus, remained in prayer.
He chose to be more vigilant in his relationship with
God.
He stayed with his pain in the very place where healing
could take place.
Jesus dared to stay with his pain, and his anguish of
what was about to occur. Dare to stay with your pain!
He didn’t sugar coat anything about his feelings or his
circumstances.
When we can stay with our pain and acknowledge it,
when we can own it for what it truly is
then we can be in full communion with our God.
In that giving of ourselves we are able to receive the healing
and the comfort we so need.
We have a tendency to seek out others or create fantasy
worlds where we can have things disappear or have others deal with it for us.
Yet, our reality is here with Jesus as we witness him owning
his own temptations to have what is before him removed. In his ownership of the
temptation he received the strength to give it up to God. We too have the
capacity to own our temptations and then give them to God to give us strength
to do what we must do.
Sixth, grief is exhausting. We
witness the disciples going to sleep. Luke is the only gospel writer to be gentle
with the disciples when they fall asleep while Jesus is praying. Luke says they
were filled with grief.
Anxiety, sorrow, deep sadness, are all energy drainers.
In times of uncertainty our emotions come out of synch.
The cross we bear daily can be overwhelming and it can
render us powerless.
These disciples were following Jesus into the unknown.
Perhaps, we too, need an evangelist like Luke to soften
the story of our life a little. Perhaps, we too, need an understanding that
sometimes grief takes hold and all we can do is sleep in that moment.
Sometimes, in the midst of it all, a nap is a good thing.
God is gentle and kind and offers us a place of rest and
a place healing. Be kind to yourself as God is kind to you.
Seventh, and final Jesus says to the disciples, ‘Get
up, and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.’
The instruction Jesus gives the disciples at the start of
this story he gives to them again. Getting
up is as important as staying vigilant in prayer.
Jesus, uses the term, ‘get up’, rise, throughout his ministry of healing.
When we get up and stand and face those with whom we travel this journey of
faith, we have the opportunity to speak and share, laugh and rejoice, be
comforted and renewed. When we get up we are able to give and to
receive.
When we get up we can see the community in
which we dwell.
We can act from our center and we
can live out the commandment of love one another as I have loved you.
How can we live and Move in Suffering in our times
of temptation and trial?
We follow Jesus and live into his example given to us
today. Amen.
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