Episodes
Sunday May 27, 2018
Spiritual Work and Spiritual Rest
Sunday May 27, 2018
Sunday May 27, 2018
Spiritual Work and Spiritual Rest
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, May 27, 2018, the first Sunday after Pentecost. A Tempo sermon series.
Texts: Psalm 40, Philippians 4:4-9
A tempo is a phrase used in music to indicate a return to the original tempo, or pace, of a composition. As we move out of the Easter season and cross over into early summer we’ll spend some Sundays reflecting on spiritual practices that help us recalibrate our own pace, that connect us to the always present rhythm of God’s mercy, grace, and love. In many ways, the heart of all our spiritual practices is prayer. Concerns and confusion about prayer also land on my Frequently Asked Question lists. So—except for next Sunday when we’ll hear from Pastor Dawn as she preaches her last Sunday at Foundry—throughout the month of June, we’ll reflect together on various aspects and practices of prayer.
What is prayer? Prayer is being in relationship with God—not just talking to God, but also being with God, listening to God, arguing with or giving the silent treatment to God, rejoicing and lamenting with God, being confused by God, playing and going on adventures with God—basically all the things that are involved in any relationship…broadly speaking, all of that is prayer. And, as we know, in order for any relationship to remain healthy it requires time, commitment, honest communication, listening, and patience. A healthy relationship requires work. Prayer requires some work.
But before we get into that, I want us to look at the line from our text from Philippians that says, “The Lord is near.” Paul is the author of this letter to the church in Philippi; in the book of Acts, he is recorded as saying that “in God we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) This helps us make a subtle, but important distinction. When Paul says “The Lord is near” he isn’t saying that God is “out there somewhere” and chooses to draw near; rather, Paul is saying that the created world is literally IN God. In other words, God isn’t in the world, the world is in God. The Lord is near because we exist in God, we swim in God, we breathe God, God is the shimmering presence and pulsation of life and beauty and strength that infuses, enlivens, and holds all things.
The late Anglican spiritual master and teacher, Evelyn Underhill, says that, within this context, prayer is “That part of our conscious life which is deliberately oriented towards, and exclusively responds to, spiritual reality.”[i] (God) She says prayer “entails…a going up or out from our ordinary circle of earthly interests. Prayer stretches out the tentacles of our consciousness …to that ‘Eternal truth, true Love, and loved Eternity’ wherein the world is felt to be enshrined.”[ii] What a wonderfully visceral image—“the tentacles of our consciousness” stretch out in prayer toward God’s loving presence that is everywhere.
So there’s a broad context and some nice imagery for prayer. But what in the world are the “tentacles of our consciousness” and how do we actually pray?
Underhill systematically describes our human faculties of thinking, feeling, and willing (or acting) as the “tentacles” of our consciousness that reach out and connect with other selves and other things. She says that reaching out and connecting with God—prayer—will require “the highest exercise of these powers.”[iii] Yep, prayer is spiritual work.
To pray will mean first using our thinking faculty, making an “intellectual adjustment” through meditation of some kind—that is, through turning one’s attention toward God and spiritual things through use of images, music, scripture, or other writings. This re-orientation of our thinking might also be as simple as making a decision to think of God or to look for the shimmers of God’s presence all around. Think about the things of God (“think on these things”) That can happen while walking to work, it can happen in set-aside time, it can happen really anywhere and any time. But it takes intention to shift focus from the things of this world toward the things of God.
While our thinking work is absolutely necessary, Underhill goes on to teach that our feelings and our will “are the true explorers of the Infinite.” These are the “tentacles of our consciousness” that “do work.” She writes, “Reason comes to the foot of the mountain; it is the industrious will urged by the passionate heart which climbs the slope.”[iv] In other words, we can think about spiritual things all day long, but if we stop there, we’re missing the heart of prayer—because relationship involves not just your head but your heart. Relationship with God is not just about thoughts and ideas and concepts, it’s about love and trust and mutual forgiveness and desire to know one another more. As one old mystic said, it is “by love…God may be gotten and beheld; by thought never.”[v]
In the excerpt of the letter to the Philippians we read today Paul encourages us “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving [to] let your requests be made known to God.” This is an admonition specifically focused on prayer in the context of worry and distress—and the encouragement for these times of struggle is to bring your needs before the God who loves you. But the broader implication of Paul’s teaching here is “in everything” pray. In any state of joy or sorrow, of anger or anticipation, of fear or assurance, you are encouraged to simply bring it to God, to hold nothing back. As I’ve said for years, no matter how raggedy or upside down we turn up when we manage to consciously reach out to God, God can take it! Whatever is going on in your life, God can take it—and, in fact, God already knows and is holding you and with you.
The ways or the “how” to bring ourselves to God through prayer are many. As I’ve intimated, it’s not just about talking to God—though that is certainly part of it. God wants to hear from you! I’ve shared with you before the way one of my spiritual teachers, Fr. Tom Ryan, talks about entering into prayer: “Bring yourself to be before the One Who Is in full, loving attention.” Anything that helps you do that, that helps you focus your attention on God is prayer. And that might be journaling or reading poetry or staring at art or hiking through the woods or watching the tides roll in and out at the beach or meditating on scripture or doing yoga. Fr. Ryan, both a Catholic Paulist priest and a yoga teacher, reminds us that the practice of yoga is really geared toward making your body ready to be with God in “full, loving attention.”
There may also be times when you bring your attention to God through the laser focus of rage—letting God have it for all the hurts and wrongs in the world and in your life. God can take it…and God can simply hold you in that space as long as you need to be there. God can help you move through rage or despair to a place where you see not just red or gray, but a ray of hope. The Psalms show us this pattern of prayer again and again, as the words of the Psalmist begin in despair or rage and move into a proclamation of hope or gratitude or peace.
Paul wrote to the Philippians, “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” This is part of the movement and reality of prayer. The peace of God will “guard” or “keep” you. The Greek word used here has military overtones—as in guarded by a sentinel—so the image is that God’s peace will watch over you and keep you safe. Remember that Paul writes these words from prison—and he’s suffered all sorts of things as he’s spread the good news of God’s love. So the point here is not that you will pray and, as a result, never undergo suffering or pain. The point is that as you stay in an ever-deepening relationship with God, you can rejoice even in difficulty, because you will trust—through experience—that God is with you in that place of challenge or pain and that God “has your back.” You will be able to rejoice, not about the difficulty, but that God loves you and will stay with you no matter what.
If all of this sounds like hard work, well, I’m not gonna lie. It can be. Relationship is work! But be encouraged because that’s not the whole story. Evelyn Underhill writes that what is too often forgotten about prayer is “the priceless gift of spiritual rest.” I will never forget my very first week-long silent retreat; I was all worked up and focused on the spiritual work I’d come to do. In my first meeting with my spiritual director, she threw me a curveball. She said she had my assignment for my first day or two. I leaned in, journal and pen at the ready to take notes on her instructions. And she said, “Did you bring a bathing suit?” I nodded. She said, “Good. I want you to spend the rest of today and tomorrow at the pool as much as possible. Get one of the rafts and float. Imagine that the raft is God. Be held in God. Rest in God.” I was confused. Seriously? Floating in the pool is my dramatic entry to the Ignatian prayer exercises? Where’s the “exercise?” But being the dutiful student, I did what I was told; and it didn’t take long to realize how this was as challenging an exercise as any…to stay focused on God, to stop “working” on church stuff or worrying about family in my mind, to rest in God, to “bring myself to be before the One Who Is in full, loving attention” and just be held there. It was hard to let go of work, of producing things, to let go of any striving or trying to “think the right things” or to have the “right” images in mind and just be with God.
What I’ve learned is that much of the active spiritual work of prayer leads us to the place where we can truly enter into the spiritual rest of prayer. Both are deepening and life-giving. And the really good news is that, while it may take some spiritual work to trust God enough to rejoice in all circumstances and to fully rest in God without fear, no matter where you are on the spiritual journey, you can always find rest in God, you can always fall onto the raft and float in God’s love and grace. All that requires is to reach out the tentacles of your consciousness and remember what is real: that God is the One in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Do not worry. The Lord is near. Thanks be to God.
[i] Evelyn Underhill, Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals & Groups, Reichard J. Foster & James Bryan Smith, eds. (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 112.
[ii] Ibid., 113.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid., 115.
[v] Ibid., 114.
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