Go, Pray!

Sermon Mark 1:32-39 February 2, 2020 Communion Sunday

Go, Pray!

“And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” The words from the hymn ‘In the Garden’ written in 1912 by Austin Miles has the emotional twinge that draws us into the desire for a closeness with Jesus that we may never have felt before. It is a song that tugs at our hearts strings and gets us into a place of want, a place of falling in love. The verse of Mark 1:35 (which I think the NIV captures the Greek translation best) “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Jesus, in the middle of everything happening around him, took time away, to get up, to go to a solitary place, and pray.

He took time to get above the fray and go pray. We wish we could be with him in this moment. Jesus took time to pray. It’s what we wish could be the practice of our lives.

But, we have too many things that tug at us that are greater distractions than running to Jesus in the Garden for this apparent quiet, solace.

Yet, we are a people of prayer.

We do pray.

We do take time to think about the things that require God’s intervention.

We do seek God for guidance.

We do fall in love with Jesus over and over again.

Why do we kick ourselves so hard about our prayer life?

Let’s think about when we do pray. At meals-check; when we wake up-check; ummmm…

Before we go to bed…maybe.

Do we pray when we are thinking of our work, our friends, our circumstances?

Do we pray while we are standing in line at the post office, the grocery store?

Do we pray when we are riding down the road in the car, on the way to practice, in the halls at school?

AND…what are we praying?

Are we asking God for something,

are we thanking God,

are we praising God,

are we confessing something,

are we just talking to God,

processing our thoughts with God?

Prayer is something that eludes us.

Rabbi David Aaron, calls prayer an opportunity to invite God in to the intimate part of our world. He believes the Jewish holidays provide the space to call to God and to experience God’s love. He believes the different Jewish holidays provide us with an experience of God in the different ways we know God to be such as a judge during Rosh Hashana. 

During Yom Kippur we experience God as a forgiving parent and during Sukkot we experience God as our lover. He says that the life of faith teaches us that the source of true happiness is holiness. 

During the holiday of sukkot (the harvest celebration when we appreciate how God cares for the earth and we build our tents) we recognize how God is completely one with us even and especially when we are about the business of living-such as eating and sleeping.

We begin to realize that prayer is less about the actual words and more about the time of sharing who we are with God in our everyday world.

Our Christian holidays do the same for us to experience God through the moments of the holy days.. They give us a chance We have Advent to remind us that God is always with us. In Lent we come to God to discover forgiveness and healing. Easter we celebrate the new life we have forever with Christ. These experiences help us to understand God and to know him more closely. It becomes easier to whisper words of prayer, of our thoughts to share with God.

We look to Jesus in the Bible to learn about how he lived his life of prayer.

We really don’t know what he prayed.

We just know he got up to go and pray.

And perhaps that’s just it, to go pray.

The night before, on the holy Sabbath Jesus left the synagogue in Capernaum, and went to Simon Peter’s house. There Simon’s mother in law was ill and couldn’t show her usual hospitality to her family and guests. She had the gift of caring and sharing her home to frequent guests. Jesus witnessed her illness and healed her. Her healing was so miraculous that she returned immediately to doing what she loved, serving others.

As she fills her home with good food and fellowship there were many who came to her door seeking Jesus. They wanted him to heal them, to drive out the demons that haunted and filled their bodies with torment. Jesus attended to them, he healed them, he prayed for them, he touched them, and made them whole. The Spirit of God was upon him and when the day was done his body was exhausted and spent. He spent the night there with Simon Peter and some of the disciples.

Jesus then gets up very early, while it is still dark and goes to a solitary place to pray. After a crazy busy day, Jesus gets up early to pray. He pauses in the middle of everything that has to be done to save the world and he prays. He takes care of what is most important, his relationship with God. Prayer is most important.

St Augustine says, “True, whole prayer is nothing but love.” Jesus wants to spend time with the one who loves him, the one he loves.

Richard Foster says, “To pray is to change. To pray to God is to find a path that leads us toward love.” The Rabbi says, “Prayer is not a passive supplication to God. Prayer is a powerful force. Prayer hooks us up to the motor of our lives: Our willpower.”

It just seems that Jesus needs a strong force of prayer to keep him going as well as anyone else. He needs the power of God within him to be able to face the challenges before him every single day.

He grabbed the best few moments of his day and chose to spend them with the intimacy of the One who sent him to be among the world.

Perhaps, that’s why its such a big deal for us to

grab a few precious moments of our day

to be in the intimacy of the one who calls us his child;

to recognize the God who reaches out

and touches us with the breath of life.

Perhaps, its less about the words we use,

or the amount of time we spend and

more about our awareness of

the fullness of God surrounding us.

If we wake up in the morning, with the alarm and say a breath prayer, “Good morning Lord, it great to see a new day again.” We are already starting our day with God with our first breath. A solitary place provides the opportunity to regroup, to recharge, and mostly to reconnect uninterrupted with our Lord.

Many of you have described God through the devotional that was put together during Advent.

The phrases expressed there are really important.

Why, because they give the rest of us a glimpse into who God is through your experience.

We all learn from each other as we ponder God together.

Many of you talked about how you felt close to God in nature. Your pictures showed about how it reminds you of the hymn “This is my Father’s World.” Others experienced God through the moments on a bus. Others have said you feel God’s presence in church. I also, have loved the questions you ask God. I do hope these questions have been asked, because they are questions we all have, ‘are there aliens’, ‘, how many animals has God created’, ‘what is heaven like, are our loved ones there’ really important questions that guide us to knowing God more and feel close enough to share our intimate thoughts.

But, we discover Jesus didn’t stay long in his solitary space, because the disciples came seeking him. And so he got up and went to work. We can’t all be in a solitary space for as long as we’d like, because there’s always an interruption, someone seeking us to be with them, to be about our work, there’s much to do. So we get up just as Jesus did without complaint but fully present with the ones seeking us. We go and proclaim as Jesus did. We go and we heal, we go and spread good news.

“And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”

Let’s Go Pray! Amen.