It’s Spring Break week here in Fort Wayne. At least our end of town. Gray and cloudy and 35 degrees at the moment, Spring Break. No wonder a lot of folks are heading out of town this week. Going to search for a Spring in which to break. Which also leads to the other designated nomenclature for this weekend: Low Sunday.
Some argue that the designation “Low Sunday” comes from the usually low attendance on the Sunday after Easter. One online dictionary actually stated that it was called Low Sunday because of the relative unimportance of the day after the grandeur of Easter Sunday. Seriously? There is a kind of let down after major celebrations, isn’t there? A “now what” feel to it. A shrug of the shoulders and a same old, same old back to the treadmill kind of vibe. Attendance will be lower than the heights of last Sunday, there won’t be as many musicians, not as much celebration, the smiles will be even rarer, the glad to see you’s more infrequent. Low Sunday.
We’re kind of feeling low this week at Aldersgate. We had an intense and powerful Holy Week with the highs and lows of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, accompanied by stellar performances by our choirs and musicians, from a deeply moving Good Friday cantata to a cheer producing Easter celebration. I am so grateful for the commitment and dedication, not to mention the abilities and gifts of the Aldersgate Music Department. But we weren’t allow to rest in that high point for long. We had three funerals in succession in the week following Resurrection Sunday. Three grieving families, surrounded by a church who was grieving too, three funeral dinners served three days in a row by another amazingly dedicated group of Aldersgate servants, served with compassion and precision and love, comforting families who had traveled for long distances to grieve a loved one. I am grateful for the service of our funeral dinner women. But it was tiring work, hard work, and wearing on grieving hearts.
In addition, we have a long time staff member, who served Aldersgate, from children and youth to the whole family, served well and with love, going above and beyond her job description in ways that most don’t even know, who decided that she needed to enter a new season in her life and concentrate on home and family in a deeper and more profound way. I was, needless to say, shocked by her decision, and I must confess didn’t handle it well. I was more focused on the loss to the church and staff and less on the celebration of her changing focus of personal ministry, more on fearing how to fill the gap and less on respecting her decision. And our communication in those last few days did not go well and she felt cut off and abandoned, misunderstanding some of my words. I deeply regret the exchange and would give anything to be able to redo those conversations. Low Sunday.
We have those moments, don’t we? Where communication seems difficult, if not impossible. Where what is in our mind and our heart seems stuck there because of the words we choose and the emotions we wrap around them. It’s a delicate thing, something we take too much for granted, this communication thing. How many movies do we watch and think if only they would talk to one another? How many books do we read and find the plot is entirely based on a false assumption that never gets corrected because people won’t talk, and people won’t listen. Our political process these days is more about talking about or talking at and hardly ever talking with. And almost never listening. Marriages suffer when communication lacks, long term friendships whither and die when the conversation dries up, teamwork is impossible when the willingness to speak and to listen is lacking, when hurts are nursed privately and misunderstanding is compounded by repetition with those other than the principal parties. A difficult, delicate, yet oh so important thing - communication.
And we struggle with it. No wonder prayer is so hard for us. Oh, not the formalized, ritualized, reading the lines in the bulletin, repeating the words we have memorized since childhood. We can do that, we can pray. But can we Pray? Pray like Paul, as the song goes? Pray like our lives depended on it? Because they do. Our life anyway, the life we were created to live, the life we long for in the depths of our hearts. The life that begins when we speak a word to the Word, when we say yes to Jesus, the resurrected one, the living one. When we start a conversation that literally changes our lives for the better. For eternity. The conversation that saves us. Redeems us. Reclaims us from the brokenness that we’ve become used to, from the way things are to the way things ought to be. We’re created to be. It starts with a conversation.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-25 But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; 13 esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. 15 See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise the words of prophets, 21 but test everything; hold fast to what is good; 22 abstain from every form of evil. 23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. 25 Beloved, pray for us.
Did you know that First Thessalonians is considered to be the first book of the New Testament written? Some of the first words that got written down were about this conversation we’re supposed to be having with God, but also with each other. There is a whole lot in this passage, most of which we are simply going to set aside for another time. So that we can concentrate on the one part, the conversation.
We are launching a prayer series for April here at Aldersgate. There is a series of videos as companions for the series and can be found on the Right Now Media site that everyone at Aldersgate has been invited to be a part of (if you haven’t gotten your invitation yet, let me know and I’ll get you hooked up). But videos are actually a youth series with a variety of young people talking about this conversation that they are trying, sometimes not so successfully, to have with God. And Francis Chan, the author of Crazy Love, is the Bible study leader. There are four videos in the series and the first is “The Purpose of Prayer.”
Why pray? That’s the question that is before us this first week of our prayer series. What’s going on here, in this act of praying? And how in the world does one do it “without ceasing”? That seems insane. JD Salinger wrote a book in which one of the characters tries to follow this instruction literally, and even when she is in conversation with someone else, her lips are moving to the words of the Jesus prayer, over and over and over. Needless to say it is ... annoying, to say the least.
What did Paul mean? In this passage we have a description of the Christian life as lived in community. This is how we treat one another, this is how we keep focused on God, this is how we climb to the heights Christ calls us to climb as His followers. And it begins and ends with a call to pray for others, for those in leadership, those in servant roles, those who help us reach for all these aspects of love and life. And in the middle is the injunction to pray without ceasing. Meaning that we are always on. We are always trying to connect, trying to communicate, trying to love. To love God and love neighbor, you know, the easy stuff. Always. Prayer is communication, prayer is entering into the presence. And it reminds us that we are always in God’s presence. Without ceasing. Our whole lives - the highs and the lows, the successes and the failures - are lived out within conversation distance of God. So, keep praying. Even on Spring Break. Even on Low Sunday.
Low Sunday isn’t low because it is unimportant. It is actually Easter again, the Second Sunday of Easter. In the Catholic tradition it is called Octave of Easter. Eight days later. Octave. The Anglicans changed it to Low. Maybe thinking it was an octave lower! They were singing in a lower range. I don’t know. In 2000, John Paul II changed it to “Divine Mercy Sunday” which maybe sounds better than Low Sunday. Any of us, all of us could use a little more mercy when we pray, when we communicate, when we talk to God and one another. Mercy, forgiveness is one of those things only happens when we care enough to communicate, care enough to talk, care enough to pray.
Open those lines of communication, even when it is hard, even when it needs to begin with an apology, even when your heart is broken and you are full of shame, even when you have been wounded and wonder if you’ll ever walk without a limp again. Pray without ceasing, to and with God, with one another. Pray. Don’t stop. Please.
Shalom,
Derek
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