This sermon was preached for "Peace Sunday," the seventh Sunday of Easter, May 12, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: 1 John 5:9-13, John 17:6-19, and Psalm 1.
In the hospital chaplaincy office where I worked one summer, there were two beautiful pottery bowls that sat on a small table by the door. One bowl was usually empty but the other right beside it was filled with smooth stones that were the exact right size to fit in the palm of my hand. The bowls and stones were pretty enough that at first glance they might appear to be an odd sort of decoration. But it wasn't a display - the bowls and the stones were an invitation to a particular kind of prayer practice for each of us chaplains. See, one of the hardest parts of serving as a chaplain is that you are most often with people for just one brief, intense moment in their lives - right after a birth or a death, right before a surgery or in the midst of a journey with cancer - and you so very rarely get to see the end of the story. So before leaving for home for the day a chaplain could take a stone out of one bowl and hold it, infusing it with all their prayers and hopes for whichever patient or situations were weighing on their heart. Then the chaplain would put the stone, and the patient’s story, down, placing it in the other, empty bowl as a physical reminder that the rest of that patient’s story belonged to God. It was a prayerful way of leaving work at work, but also a way to acknowledge the limits of our role. We did what we could in the moment that was given to us; the rest was entrusted to God.
Every Sunday, we remember and recite the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, the one that begins “Our Father…” But that’s not the only time Jesus taught us how to pray - in fact, I would argue he was continually teaching his followers what prayer looked like. Today’s Gospel is part of that teaching. It’s a deeply poignant passage from Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, the night before he is arrested and killed. In this section, Jesus is praying out loud on behalf of his disciples in front of them - showing them and us what praying for others sounds like.
What’s fascinating about this prayer is that it seems as though Jesus is outlining the limits of his role with the disciples, at least in his earthly form. He is about to be killed, but even beyond that, he knows that after the resurrection he will ascend into heaven to be with God. Jesus acknowledges that the disciples are ultimately God’s but that they were entrusted to him for a time. But now his relationship to them is changing, and he turns to God the Father to protect them, and God the Holy Spirit to empower them on Pentecost.
“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you,”Jesus prayed. “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me…But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” I have done what I set out to do, Jesus tells God. It’s up to you and them now.
Prayer is the practice of coming to terms with where we end and God begins. Reinhold Niehbur’s prayer, often called the Serenity Prayer, expresses this most simply. The Serenity Prayer is one of the most well-known and well-prayed prayers, forming the bedrock of spirituality for millions of people. It’s prayed at most Alcoholic Anonymous and other recovery meetings. We pray it as a sort of Confession of Prayer at Church Without Walls. It goes like this, and I know some of you know it by heart: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Sometimes I wish this prayer was called the Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom prayer, though. Because it is just as much about seeking peace with what is beyond our control as it is about finding the courage to faithfully join God in bringing about God’s reign of peace and justice.
When I hear anger directed at folks who offer thoughts and prayer in response to a preventable tragedy, I know it’s often because they are worried that prayer will be the only thing done in response - or that prayer inevitably just leads to an acceptance of the status quo. Angela Davis had a famous rebuttal to the Serenity Prayer: “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” I imagine many activists find this stance to be inspiring and empowering - maybe it is for you, too. At the same time, in my experience, and the experience of the many spirit-filled activists I’ve known throughout my ministry, prayer is the first step toward action. Prayer is the breath they take before they step forward, the deliberate pause they make to gather themselves, set their intentions, and focus on where the most impact can be made. Grant me the courage to change the things I can - and wisdom to discern them.
Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw’s prayer, often attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero, offers this insight another way: “We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.”
There are plenty of motivational speakers - even Christian ones - whose rallying cry is all about refusing to accept limits. Reaching for the sky. Taking on the world. This sentiment is energizing in the moment, utterly consuming and exhausting in the long-run. Only God is limitless. As we remembered this week on Thursday, even Jesus ascended into heaven. Even Jesus ended his earthly ministry to make room for the Holy Spirit and the early church leaders. In his farewell prayer, Jesus showed us what it sounds like to give things over to God in prayer.
This is not passivity. This is not rolling over and surrendering to the way things are. Starting from acknowledging our limitations - giving ourselves permission to have limitations in the first place - is exactly what allows us to move out of our paralysis and into the effective work God has laid before us.
If we are to talk about praying for peace in the world this Sunday - if we are to sing about peace on earth beginning with us - then we must be wise and strategic about what’s possible for us to do for peace, not just as individuals, but also as communities. You and I, we cannot take planes out of the sky, we cannot shield cities from bombs, we cannot have a heart to heart with war criminals and make them change their ways. But we can sway the institutions that depend on our financial support. It’s happening right now. We can examine our rhetoric and the rhetoric of our leaders and push back when they call for escalation, excuse collateral damage, and dehumanize whole swaths of people. It’s happening right now. We can stand in the way of violence unfolding in our local community, in our schools, and in our name.
We attend to the role we can have; we ask for the courage to act. We entrust the rest of the story to God.
Our music director, Sue Matsui, and I decided to dedicate this Sunday, the Sunday after the 79th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany, as a Sunday to reflect on peace. But it's also, of course, the Sunday most Americans set aside to honor mothers. The connection here is that prayer is the first step toward peace and it's also the most important tool mothers, fathers, any parent has for the same reason. Watch a newborn in the first year of life - waving their arms, squawking their squawks, learning to grip and grab - it's all about the baby figuring out where they end and their caregiver begins. Parents are doing the very same thing, too, figuring out where they end and the child begins, but that journey is lifelong. Parenting, as I have witnessed and lived it, is a gradual process of accepting new limits around your role in your child's life - how much of your child's story you get to impact or even know. How much you must entrust to God. And God knows that I've sat and prayed with parents for whom prayer is all they can do - the only way they have left to love their child.
Matthew Paul Turner's book, When I Pray for You, is a beautiful depiction of what prayer-infused parenting looks like. An overheard prayer on behalf of the child - just like Jesus' in our Gospel - it teaches the child what it feels like to be prayed for, what people mean when they say, “I'm praying for you.” Turner writes, “‘Cause when I pray for you, God knows this is true, every word I whisper is a prayer for me too…‘Cause when I pray for you, I imagine God’s view and pray that all God’s sees comes alive inside you.”
Part of my job is asking people, what can I pray for for you? But I've learned how to also ask my own pastors and mentors and friends, what do you pray for for me? Overhearing their prayers for me is a beautiful, moving experience. I hope it's what the disciples felt, too, that night, as Jesus prayed his hopes, prayed his faith, prayed his trust.
I wish the children huddled in war-torn cities and refugee camps throughout the world could overhear the prayers we have for them. Our longings for the rest of their story. Our dreams for peace. I wish our words in all their many languages could wrap all of God’s children in shining cocoons of safety that keep out every bullet, every bomb, every hateful word. I wish they would know only love. But I can't hold their small hands. I can't make promises I cannot keep.
This is the difference between prayer and wishful thinking: in prayer, I listen for the courage to change my own story and the wisdom to know my next right step for peace. The something I can do and do well. In prayer, I grapple with the power and voice I do have, but free myself from the impossibilities that belong only to God.
Our yearning for peace - may it be more than a song, a wish, a dream. May it be a prayer.
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| My handmade Bishops Against Gun Violence stole with Eric Carle children. |
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