This sermon was preached for Sunday, March 5 for the second Sunday in Lent. The text for this sermon were: Psalm 121 and John 3:1-17.
I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
During my internship with an intentional community a few years ago, we did some contemplative exercises that really stretched me spiritually. In one, we all sat across from a partner, facing each other. The exercise was very simple. Your partner asked you the question, “What do you want?” The first time I was asked it I had a pretty sophisticated answer, probably about my various goals for the future. But then our partners asked us again, “What do you want?” This time I dug a little deeper. The third and fourth times I was asked the same question, “What do you want?” something broke open inside me - and not just me. When we looked around the room, we saw that by the fifth time of being asked what we wanted, what we really wanted - and being earnestly heard - many of us had tears in our eyes. It was that rare chance to express the deep and true longings of our heart, without them being dismissed, downplayed, or problem-solved. What I found - what a lot of us found - was that by the 5th and 6th times actually exploring what we wanted our answers boiled down to just one or two words. Safety. Love. Trust. Hope.
One of my favorite Christian authors, Anne Lamott writes that there are really only three prayers we ever pray: Help. Thanks. Wow. In fact, she wrote an entire book entitled just that: Help, Thanks, Wow: Three Essential Prayers. All our prayers boil down to that.
Help - we ask for assistance from a power greater than ourselves. Thanks - we appreciate the goodness in ourselves, our lives, and each other. Wow - we stand in awe of the beauty of creation.
The part of me that’s been teaching the basics of the Episcopal faith and practice to children and adults for years wants to add a fourth essential prayer to that list: Sorry. Our Episcopal Book of Common Prayer teaches that there are four types of prayer - which it turns out can helpfully be memorized with the acronym ACTS. A-C-T-S. A is for adoration - the “wow” prayers of praise and awe. The T is for Thanksgiving - the “thanks” prayers of gratitude. S is for Supplication - the “help” prayers for divine intervention. That leaves C, for contrition. These are the prayers we pray when we confess our sins and ask God for forgiveness. Sorry.
Why do we confess, anyway? When we confess in prayer, we are practicing the work of reconciliation. Apologizing and really meaning it is essential to our spiritual well-being as well as the health of our communities. Apologizing and really meaning is a key part of the work of reconciliation, which is at the heart of the mission of the church.
Our Book of Common Prayer has a section called the “Outline of the Faith'' (page 845) where it asserts exactly that: reconciliation is our vital work as Christians. The prayer book asks itself: What is the great importance of Jesus’ suffering and death? Its answer is: “in him we are freed from the power of sin and reconciled to God.” It instructs us that the mission of the church “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” and the ministry of God’s people is “to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation to the world.” That is our sacred task. It all boils down to that.
There are some folks who like to point to John 3:16 - one of the verses we read from our Gospel today - as the essential summary of our faith. For God so loved the world, that God gave God’s only son, so that everyone who believed in God may not perish but have eternal life.
If you ask me to summarize my Christian faith, I would point to the words of Jesus from the very beginning of the service. "Jesus said, "The first commandment is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
Both these passages point us toward reconciliation: the reconciling work of Jesus Christ in his life and death and the reconciling work we continue on with him as the church. Reconciliation is love when it's difficult. Reconciliation is love wherever there's been pain or brokenness or isolation. Reconciliation is recommitting to love whenever it has broken down.
Maybe Anne Lamott is right, though, in a way. Perhaps we don’t need a “sorry” prayer category because a “sorry” prayer is actually just a “help” prayer and a “thank you” prayer wrapped up together. When we confess, we acknowledge that we need help to do better, to love better. When we confess, we gratefully trust that we can and will be forgiven.
In teaching my children to say sorry, I want to make sure they move beyond the automatic “sorry” because that’s what an adult makes you say when you do something bad. I want to make sure that I move beyond the automatic recitation of the prayer of confession because that’s just what we do each week. What I want to be really saying to God is this: help me learn from my mistakes. Thank you for another chance to repair my most essential relationships with my neighbor, myself, and you.
Like a lot of young women professionals my age, I’ve been told that I say sorry too much, too reflexively. Of course, every time my response to someone telling me this is to say… “Sorry!!” Lately, I've been trying to follow the advice a friend gave to me. Every time I find myself automatically saying “Sorry!” especially for things that aren't particularly my fault, I’m trying saying thank you instead, or maybe in addition to sorry. So instead of “I'm soooo sorry I was late!,” saying “Thank you for waiting.” Instead of “Sorry, I'm so confused about this,” saying “Thank you for your patience with me as I try to work to understand this.” Thank you is a step toward repairing the relationship, moving you and the other person on from being stuck in the past that you are apologizing for. Thank you for helping me become more of the person I want to be.
On the other hand, there are also folks who find it really hard to say sorry. Sometimes it’s because apologizing makes us feel weak or incompetent. Sometimes we worry that admitting fault will erode people’s trust in us or even that it will expose us to liability. The reasons we have difficulty saying or praying sorry are very similar to the ones that make it hard to ask for help. Perhaps you were taught that asking for help is shameful. Maybe it makes you feel like a burden or gives other people power over you. Or worse, it could be hard for you to ask for help because that time you did, that time you really really needed it, no one came.
I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
Here is what I know: It is never shameful to ask God for help. Neither is it shameful to accept the help God provides in all the strange and unexpected ways it comes.
Help is one of the most essential prayers we pray. The psalms teach us that. The psalms are basically a collection of overheard prayers by ancient people after all. Like a lot of scripture, they are filled to the brim with help, thanks, and wow. So if you're wondering how to pray, turn to the psalms. They start on page 585 of the Book of Common Prayer or if you’ve got a Bible handy, let it fall open at its center - chances are that will land you somewhere in the Book of Psalms.
Here is my challenge for you this week: If it is too easy and reflexive for you to say sorry, pray “sorry” anyway and pray “thank you,” too. If it is really hard and unnatural for you to say sorry, pray “sorry” anyway and pray “help me,” too.
Help us, God; we and the whole world are trapped in this tangled up web of hurt, cruelty, and indifference called sin. Thank you, God, for empowering us to try and try again.
As a priest, it is my honor and privilege to respond to you each week with God's reply. I get to put words to what God's reply to you will always and forever be: you are forgiven. You are loved.
Amen.
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