Starting over. A fresh start, a new start, a reboot. Lots of good in such an idea, such a possibility. On the other hand you can’t help but mourn what used to be. The familiar was ... just that, familiar. This new thing is scary, lonely, new. So, which is it? Which will we embrace, which will we encounter? Good or bad, happy or sad, gain or loss? Both? Maybe both. Some of both, that’s how life works you know. Take the bad with the good, they say. Take it all and turn it into something positive, someone powerful, something transforming for us and everyone else around us, everyone we encounter. Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s the brass ring to grab for. Make lemonade.
Except that recipe always escapes me. Just when it need it. Just when biting down on the sourest of lemons and I need to think of sweetness and light, it escapes me. And I’m stuck with the sourness. At least that is how it seems to happen to me more often than I’d care to admit. My memory isn’t good enough to look for the light in the midst of the darkness, the hope in the midst of despair. I mean sometimes I can do it. But other times, the worst times, I just can’t.
The good news here is that I’m not the only cook in the kitchen. I’m not the only stirrer of lemon juice and sugar. The best place to start any new thing is with prayer. Prayer based in panic perhaps, in the fears of the unknown or the self-doubts and sense of inadequacy. Prayer based in confidence and hope, on the other hand, in the joy and excitement of a new beginning, a new hope. Doesn’t matter really which it is. As long as it’s real. As long at it’s you. Prayer is the perfect place to start. It is ultimately the reminder that we’re not in charge. It is the opportunity to put everything, our lives, our hopes and fears, our doubts and our confidence, not in our own hands, but in the hands of the One who is faithful.
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.
I’m starting my ministry here in Southport with prayer. An admission that on my own I can do nothing. An invitation to partner with the community of faith in this place and to tap into the Source of all power, the means by which anything good might happen in this place, at this time. I’m starting with a conversation about prayer. So that we can both pray and talk about praying. Which oddly enough is the same thing. When we pray we are talking about what it is that is on our hearts, on our minds. It is a conversation with the Creator of the universe. Who, we’ve been told, is powerfully interested in us, in our hearts, in the depths of our souls. Prayer is a conversation with God and with one another. To pray is to talk about praying, and to talk about praying is to pray. And it is, says Paul in our passage this week, as necessary as breathing. As important and never ceasing as our heartbeat.
First Thessalonians is considered to be the first book of the New Testament written. This is where Paul chose to begin his ministry of writing. And 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. One small verse, “pray without ceasing.”
How does that work exactly? Can we actually pray without ceasing? Do our lips move constantly like some entranced shaman muttering an incantation, do we mumble under our breath as we go about the business of our day, forever disconnected from everything but the conduit of prayer to God? Well, of course not. Well, then, what in the world did he mean?
Look at the list. It’s like a lot of Paul’s lists. Complete. Daunting. Yet, exciting at the same time. It’s like he hints at a life that we have only barely tasted. Rejoice always, he says, like that was even within the realm of possibility for us normal human beings. Give thanks in all circumstances. All? Did you really mean all, Paul? Maybe you meant all good circumstances. Maybe you meant all holy ones, all Sunday morning ones. Maybe you meant ... But no, you said all circumstances. Incomprehensible. Do not quench the Spirit. Well, that sounds good, living at the level of spiritual excitement, power and glory, all the time. Can’t imagine it, but yeah, let it happen. I wouldn’t quench it, I wouldn’t pull back from that. Unless there were other things I needed to do, you know. I mean, it’s fine for a while, but really now. Do not despise the words of the prophets. What? Those guys? Come on! Test everything, hold fast to what is good, abstain from every kind of evil. Well, of course. As a general rule, that’s pretty good. That’s what we all want to do, plan to do, intend. All of us. All the time. Except ... when it is necessary to look at the greater good and allow a smaller ... well ... you know. Right?
Frankly, it’s beyond us. All of it, not just the praying without ceasing. I mean that’s impossible, we admit that. But the rest of it is just as impossible, just as outrageous. On our best days we might get close, for a while, a short time, in specific situations, grading on a curve, close, kinda. But, our best days are few and far between sometimes. It’s just simply beyond us. We might as well give up. But before you do, take another look at the list. The whole list. Paul wraps it up, as he does so often, with a doxology, an expression of praise. But it is more than praise. It is a promise. Take a look.
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.
It isn’t up to us. God will do this. God’s Spirit, God’s grace, God’s love will be at work in us. We are being sanctified. It’s a process, we’re on the way. Surrendering ourselves, bit by bit, inch by inch, until we hand our whole selves over to the One who is faithful. The One, the only One who will take what we give and make it holy. Make it precious.
That’s what prayer is, in essence. It isn’t asking for stuff. It isn’t following a ritualized pattern of magic words that will, by our own efforts, turn us into something better than we would be otherwise. It is throwing ourselves into the arms of the One who loves us as we are, who accepts us and claims us and then loves us too much to leave us as we are. Prayer is throwing ourselves into the arms of the One who will take out our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh, knowing all the while that we will suffer because of that love infusion, but in that suffering we will truly be alive. Truly alive. Like we always wanted. Like we hoped for. Like we prayed for.
But then, I added another short verse. Most will stop at verse twenty four. That finishes the theology, the exhortation. The rest is just extra, just salutations and closings, the rest is just ... necessary. Beloved, pray for us. Here’s real treat. Even the praying we don’t have to do on our own. The gift we were given is that we can pray for one another. We can lift one another up. We can lower one another through the ceiling into the very presence of the One who heals. Beloved, and we pray for one another because of love. Beloved, pray for us. Not a last resort, but a gift of power and grace. Beloved, pray ... for us. Please?
The best place to start. Shall we pray?
Shalom,
Derek
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