Thinking About Prayer by Pat Groves (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

When I knew I was going to be doing this sermon while Cheri is gone, I asked myself, “what have I been thinking and praying about?”  I looked up Biblical passages, and found the one you just heard in our scripture reading.

In it, Jesus says that some things are so complex, we just have to give them to God.  In the scripture, the demon was driven out and the boy was cured. No matter what, God can make something good from the bad.  Jesus faced painful death: God brought resurrection.   Jesus goes on to talk about his death and resurrection.  The disciples had no idea what he was talking about, didn’t know what to do.  They didn’t understand.  We still don’t really get the resurrection.  It takes a long time for us to really understand what resurrection means.  I think many times in our lives, God acts that way.

We often decide what we think God should do.  But very often God does something strange and miraculous, and it takes a while for us to see that something good has happened. Give it to God and let God make something good.  Maybe not what we want or expect, but something good.

I am person of action.  I face things head on and come up with a solution.  If God would just do the things I think should be done, this world would be awesome.  I have to remember that God is in charge.  God will make it good.  If I sit back and zip my lip, God will take care of it.  When opportunity comes up and looks good, I take it.  I may be missing out on what God actually intends for me. 

What would our world be like if we took less actions and prayed more? 

I was at Lakeside last week and met a 14-year-old girl.  She knew about the children’s hospital in Haiti and discovered the hospital was completely leveled in the earthquake.  She has spent much of her time raising money to rebuild the hospital.  She listened to God and did what God called her to do.

One of my heroes for many years has been Gordon Cosby, founder of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC.   He passed away in March at age 95.  He was a young chaplain in the trenches of Normandy during World War II.  He was counseling the young soldiers in the 101st Airborne who had grown up in the church. They knew they were likely facing death the next morning, and he was devastated as a spiritual leader to realize how inadequate our mainline churches — Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, and all the rest — had been at preparing these young men to face death. Their church homes had failed to nurture them to become mature Christians.

He vowed that if he got home, he would do better.

He was “ . . . feeling that denomination and race were artificial constructs and that people should live in regular life as they would in war — willing to lay down their lives for their neighbors, viewing their faith as an urgent tool to change the world.”

The Church of the Saviour was never a conventional church. It has no pews, no Sunday school, not even a Christmas service. Instead, for 60 years this small, unusual group based in Northwest Washington has quietly fueled a revolution in faith-based activism. 

Thousands of people are served by dozens of organizations started by the church, part of the intense social justice work mandatory for members. One of its programs found jobs for 800 people last year. Another provided 325 units of affordable housing. There's Columbia Road Health Services; Christ House medical services for the homeless; Miriam's House for women with AIDS. There’s a coffee house where people can gather and pray and support each other.

News focuses on outcomes of this ministry. But what has struck me is that the process gives us a more important lesson: when Cosby came back from war, he gathered a small group of seven committed people. They prayed for 15 years before the Church of the Saviour actually came about. They didn’t tell God what to do, they had no idea what to do.  They listened to God, and eventually this small group of highly committed people began to grow through a mix of prayer and action.

Pastor Cheri and I heard the following story at the meeting in Lakeside.  It is a story about a pastor who was very busy, but he was in the habit of clearing away his schedule one afternoon a week, so he could go to a local monastery and spend the afternoon in prayer. Then, a new project started taking up most of his time, so he decided he needed to spend not one, but two afternoons a week praying.  Cheri and I looked at each other. Who does that?  

I don’t expect us to do that, to be Gordon Cosby, but what would happen to us as individuals and as the Village if we did less and prayed more?  If we stop and listen to God?  We can pray on our good intentions and let God lead us to act only when the greatest good will come of it.

If we wait for God to speak to us and lead us, the outcome will be wonderful.  Let’s bring God into our lives.  Let’s wait for God to speak to us and lead us to prayerful action.