Relationship Through Prayer - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Trinity icon by Andrei Rublev
There is a place at the table for you.

Luke 11:1-13

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ²He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. ³Give us each day our daily bread. ⁴And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” 

⁵And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 

⁸I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence (shamelessness) he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 

⁹“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 

¹¹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ¹²Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? ¹³If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

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If you would like to listen to this sermon (with infusions from the Spirit), you can find it at the link here. This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, on July 28, 2019 at Redeemer Episcopal Church. 

Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, who is so radical to invite us into relationship through prayer and allows us to be present in all of our human messiness. Amen. 

On Thursday evening this past week, I hosted a young adult gathering centered around the weird faith questions you sometimes feel too ashamed or silly to ask your priest.

In preparation for that gathering, I opened up my social media about a month ago to friends and my college students to ask me any religious or faith questions they’ve been wondering. It was anonymous and I was amazed by how many questions people had that they’ve never felt comfortable asking before!

I answered the questions as openly and honestly as I could and explained a little bit about why people might ask questions like that. Conversations like these are some of my favorites. It’s what we do with our college students in campus ministry every week— we ask big questions and we help one another sort them out. It is some of my favorite ministry.

After a few days, another question came in.  

“I don’t understand prayer,” it said, “I pray, but I feel like God already has a plan or answer so what’s the point? How am I supposed to pray?” 

And I let that question sit in my inbox for two days before I finally replied and said, “I promise to answer this question. But… I just don’t have a good answer. I don’t know.” 

And then I let that question sit there for a month. And I never replied to my friend. But I’ve been thinking about that question for an entire month until I opened up the gospel reading for this Sunday and I sighed with frustration, thinking, “Well great, now I’m going to have to try to answer this question.”

So that’s what I’ll do this morning with you all. I’ll attempt to answer this question about prayer that has been asked since the beginning of time, and a couple of other burning questions about prayer, like the ones the disciples had for Jesus in the gospel text this morning: How do we pray? Why do we pray? What’s the point? 

Do you ever think that the disciples got tired of Jesus never giving them a straight answer for anything? They ask him seemingly important and direct questions and he says, “let me tell you a story…” I imagine the disciples turning to one another after most of Jesus’ stories and going, “did you understand any of that? No? Okay great, me either.” 

Jesus does answer the disciples at the very beginning of this passage though. They say, “teach us to pray” and he recites a prayer for them to use each time they talk to God. And it’s the same prayer, more or less, that the church has been using for thousands of years. 

So, good for Jesus for finally giving them a straight answer. But then, because of course he can’t just stop with a simple answer, Jesus goes on to tell this story of a man and his sleeping neighbor. And the reason Jesus tells this story is that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, they weren’t really asking for a prayer they could recite. What they wanted to know was about their relationship with God. 

Before then, if a person had the good fortune to encounter God, they were known to drop dead immediately. But somehow Jesus had this sort of normal, casual relationship with God and the disciples were curious about it. And as Jesus tells this story, he invites the disciples into an intimate relationship with their creator— that must have sounded blasphemous at best and downright ridiculous at worst.  

In this text, Jesus tells the story of a visitor has just arrived at a man’s house and he has nothing to feed him. So this man walks over to his neighbor’s house in the middle of the night, wake him up, and asks him for some bread. The text we read says that because of his persistence, the man gets up and gives him whatever he needs. But a better translation would be shamelessness. Because this man is so shameless in coming to ask for bread in the middle of the night, the neighbor gets up and gives him whatever he needs. 

And it *is* shameless isn’t it? Imagine the kind of relationship you must have with your neighbor to go pounding on their door in the middle of the night? I know people who have been living in the same house their entire lives and they don’t have that kind of relationship with their neighbors. It’s shameless and vulnerable to go to a person in the middle of the night and ask for bread. 

You see, I don’t think Jesus is teaching his disciples about what kind of prayers to pray, or even the frequency or urgency with which to pray. Jesus is telling a story about the kind of relationship we are invited into by the Holy Spirit. Unlike ever before, the disciples were invited to be vulnerable and shameless before God. 

When the disciples say, “Lord, teach us to pray,” what they are really saying it, “tell us about our relationship with God.” And Jesus gives them the most well-known prayer in all of Christianity, a prayer that begins with “Father.” Not “Lord,” or “Almighty” or any other number of names for the our most holy and ever gracious God, but Jesus invites his disciples and invites us to call God “Father,” “Abba,” “Dad.”  

We are called into a relationship with God that is more than an almighty ruler and servants. Even more than creator and created. We are invited into a relationship so intimate that Jesus says we can ask anything of God. And God says that this relationship is so good and wonderful that God will not only gives us everything we need in this life, our daily bread, but God will also give to us the Holy Spirit. 

You see, prayer is not about how, or why, or when we pray. The invitation to prayer is an invitation into a relationship with the Trinity, an invitation into a relationship with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

It is the same invitation that allows us to come to this table and eat the body and blood of Christ Jesus. It is the same invitation that dips us into the waters of baptism and renews our spirit. And God in Christ has already accepted this invitation for us, we don’t even *have* to respond. 

But we get to. We have the incredible privilege of reaching out to our creator, the one who was, and is, and will be forever more, the one who created the interstellar workings of the entire universe. And more than that, God listens. God wants to be in relationship with us and even more, the only reason we are able to reach out to God and be in this relationship is because God first began this relationship with us. In the very beginning. And continued that relationship despite our nonsense, when God sent God’s very self in Christ Jesus to be with us, journey with us, die on the cross, and be raised again for the forgiveness of our sins. That God— our God— as ridiculous as it sounds, wants us to be in relationship, to talk, and listen, and converse with us. That’s wild and full of grace and mercy and it truly doesn’t make much sense, but it is true. 

God created you and adores you and wants to be in relationship with you. 

So I’m sure I didn’t answer the question of prayer any better or more clearly than Jesus did, but I hope that you hear prayer as an invitation into a vulnerable, shameless, and holy relationship with our God, who created the entire expanse of the universe and cares enough about you to call you beloved and be present with you in all things through the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

No guilt

Today I woke up around 9am when my FitBit started buzzing on my wrist. My husband asked if I wanted breakfast, I mumbled "yes," and I rolled over and went back to sleep until noon. And I don't feel guilty about it at all.

It has taken me a really long time to be okay with taking care of myself. I used to feel guilty for wanting to stay home when others went out (especially in college). I used to apologize when people asked me out to lunch and I didn't want to go. In fact, most of the time I would go anyway, even if I didn't really want to just because I felt guilty about it.

We are so conditioned from an early age that we must put our family first, we must put our husband first, we must put our children first. And if we don't we are "bad" in any (or all) of those roles. The Bachelor recently showed a clip of Amanda (single mom) talking about how difficult it has been to use the last few weeks to take care of herself because she's not used to focusing on herself since she has two daughters. She feels guilty for pursuing something she wants and for taking care of herself.

There's a lot of guilt that surrounds self-care nowadays. I don't know if it was always there, but I have noticed it a lot as I have become older and more comfortable in my own routine, my own skin, and with my own needs. It seems that a woman, especially a woman with a husband or children, is not supposed to take even a few minutes out of her day to care for herself.

I first recognized this guilt and judgement in myself my first year of seminary. I had a really hard time figuring out if I was in the right place during those first few months. I was missing home, missing my friends, and the novelty of a new place and new people had worn out. So I got back into my routine of running. I'd often run during our chapel and lunch hour, enduring glares and comments from people on their way to chapel. I made excuses, I apologized, and I felt super guilty about it. And then I thought, you know, this is how I am taking care of myself. And even though other people might not be okay with it, I'm sure God understands.

Since then, I have had a long uphill battle with self-care. But I no longer apologize about weekly (or daily) milkshakes with my roommates. I no longer feel guilty about sleeping in when I have nothing to do. I don't judge myself for seeking refuge in my bed for several hours at a time, binge-watching a horrible Netflix series (looking at YOU Vampire Diaries). When someone asks me to lunch and I don't want to go, I simply say, "no thank you" with a smile and don't give it a second thought.

It has taken a lot of self-discovery to be okay with self-care. The more I learn about myself and the more in-tune I am with my body and my needs, the easier it is to not only care for myself, but translate that to others. I'm an introvert through and through so my self-care often looks a bit lonely, a little quiet, and sometimes awkward - sitting in the same room with my husband without speaking. My parishioners (and husband) joke that I nap a lot, but I don't feel guilty about it anymore. I need a three hour nap after Sunday's service.  Without sleep I'm grumpy, unproductive, and not a fun person to be around.

Self-care is vitally important to me because it not only allows me to care for myself, but it gives me the energy, patience, and courage to care for others. And with service to others being my love language, it is important that I have the energy to do it often and well. Not to mention, self-care is biblical. There's a reason Jesus went into the wilderness and into the mountains to pray.

I'm also learning that it's important that my self-care be public and unapologetic. I have so many friends who struggle to take care of themselves and continuously "pour from an empty cup" until they are exhausted, burned out, and bitter. Not to say that this hasn't happened to me (to the point of panic attacks and total withdrawal), but if I am able to be a positive example for self-care even half of the time, I am inadvertently giving other women permission (something we so desperately seek) to also care for themselves.

Although the guilt and judgement associated with self-care is something I'm still struggling with on a daily basis, I'm being encouraged by women and pastors who view self-care as not a "treat yo self" kind of splurge, but a daily, precious, and necessary part of our vocation. And I hope to pass that encouragement on to others and my ministry continues, by not feeling guilty, being unapologetic, and napping to my heart's content.

Why Malaysia?

I've gotten a lot questions lately.  They usually follow some comment I make about moving to Southeast Asia for the next year.  So here are a few of them and here are my somewhat vague answers...

So, why Malaysia?

Well, to answer "why Malaysia," we need to ask a few more questions before that.

Why are you moving at all? 

I'm in seminary and it is my third year as a Lutheran student.  In our third year (or sometimes our fourth), the Lutherans are sent out to do an internship for a year.  It is used as a learning experience so that we are able bring those experiences back to seminary for a year and mull them around in community, or go directly into a parish and use those experiences to be better pastors.  We, of course, aren't able to learn everything we need to know, but as we walk alongside a congregation who has a lot of experience forming, nurturing, and teaching future church leaders, we are hopefully a little more prepared for parish ministry.

Why did you choose Malaysia? 

I didn't choose Malaysia, to be quite honest.  No one gets to "choose" their internship.  There is a lot of planning, discerning, and praying that happens before anyone is assigned to an internship site.  We have a director for internship who works with our paperwork and his colleagues in order to place us in the best place for our specific needs and learning goals.  All of my Lutheran colleagues at Southern Seminary were given assignments within the United States- some of them in the Southeast and some of them as far away as California.

What's so special about you? 

Nothing. There is certainly nothing special about me.  I prayerfully decided (with Daniel) to apply for a different internship program that is run by the Global Mission division of the ELCA.  The application process started a few months before the domestic internship process and was a little more extensive.  There was probably ten times the amount of paperwork and an interview in Chicago with the Director of Global Mission.  I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into at the time, but I knew I wanted to take the opportunity of internship to experience Church in a (very) different context.

Will you be doing missionary work?  Working in an orphanage and building houses? 

Not exactly. Actually, not at all.  My internship will be very similar to all of my other colleagues' internships.  I will be working in a Lutheran church with a supervising pastor.  I'll have all of the usual duties: preaching, teaching, counseling, and visiting.  I'm sure there will be some opportunities in which we might be able to go visit places outside of the city, but that is not what I will be doing regularly.

But seriously, why Malaysia? 

God is calling me to Malaysia for many reasons.  The first one being (I think), is that it isn't going to be easy. The other reasons will reveal themselves over the next year (or several).  But I believe God is at work in this unique opportunity and I could not be more excited about it.

Energizing yet Crazy

It feels as if I haven't stopped moving in weeks!

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks and so much is going to happen in the next few months.  It amazes me that I have been able to keep my head on straight.  Everything is spinning at a rapid pace and it has been energizing yet crazy.  I'm exhausted, but I get a couple of weeks to relax and reboot before it gets insane again this summer.  So here is what has been happening and what is happening soon:

Last month: I have been in the process of filling out mountains of paperwork for my internship year.  Turns out that moving to a foreign country for a year is kind of complicated!  It has been hard to even think about moving to Malaysia since I have been so consumed in school work, but now that school is over, it is really starting to sink in and I am very excited about it!  

Last week: I finished my second year of seminary!  It was definitely my hardest semester yet.  I don't know how I did it, but I actually managed to pull out better grades this semester than last semester.  Actually, I do know how I did it.  I did it with the help, love, and support of my friends, professors, and family.  But I am delighted that it is over and I am excited to move along with the next part of seminary.

Last week: I also moved last week.  I put 90% of what I own in a storage unit and took the rest up to Durham.  I spend a lot of last week packing but I also spent a lot of last week saying "see you later" to everyone at seminary.  It was crazy and wonderful and bitter sweet to move away from my seminary family, but I am excited about being in Durham for a while and being adopted into a new family at St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

This week: I am relaxing!  I have been going to the gym almost every day and laying by the pool.  It is wonderful.  I am so happy.  I'm also going up to Virginia to spend some time with my second family and see some of my girls! It is going to be wonderful.

Next week: My mom comes to town! Oh AND Daniel and I are having out first bridal shower! It is going to be the best week.  Hooray!  St. Paul's is throwing us a wedding shower and it is bound to be incredible.  We are so thankful to have such a beautiful church family here.  And I couldn't be more excited to have my mom here for a week.  We are going to get so much done for the wedding and it is going to be wonderful to spend time with her.  I miss her like crazy!

Next month: I get to go to Cuba at the end of June! My theology professor asked my roommates and me to go to Cuba with a Methodist group and it is going to be incredible.  We will be working on a seminary building while we are down there.  It will be my third country in two years (with Malaysia being my fourth).  It will be super exciting to spend another week with Megan before spending a year apart.  It should be a wonderful week!

So if you haven't noticed, I'm describing most things happening in my life as "wonderful," because I could honestly not be happier.  There is a lot more happening after June, but I will leave that for another post.  I can't wait to keep in touch with everyone over the next couple of months through this blog (I'm hoping to keep up with it more regularly).  So keep an eye out if you're interested!