Sunday 7 December 2014

Living a simpler Christian life (3) A four part sermon series looking at the Jesus Prayer

The simplification of prayer is something we can barely achieve ourselves. It is something that is given to us at various junctions. In that respect I would commend to you obtaining a spiritual director, easily attained by a phone call to the diocesan office who’ll provide you two local names for you to follow up. Some of us get spiritual direction when we go to confession before major Feasts and that opportunity is before us this afternoon as part of the Advent healing service.

As a spiritual director myself I’m privileged to accompany a number of people on their journey of discipleship and this gives me insight into the rich variety of aids to Christian devotion beyond the basics of reading your Bible and attending the eucharist. The Jesus Prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’ is an aid to prayer that I have commended over the years but although I said it on occasion it had not grasped me until I received it as a gift from God seven years ago.

I am telling my story about the Jesus Prayer this Advent because our thoughts determine our lives and they are influenced by where and how we direct them. Whether we like it or not there is a battle on for minds all around us. That conflict has power to engage or deflate our spirits depending on our vigilance on that battlefield as well as the power of our spiritual weaponry. It has been my experience over the last seven years that taking my thoughts ‘captive for Christ’ is greatly assisted by the practice of praying the Jesus Prayer. Some thoughts that formerly preoccupied me are hardly able to gain purchase through the shield I am given in unceasing prayer. In God’s presence moreover, or even in God’s mention, there is a joy that in contrast does gain purchase as well as spreading out to others.

The young man on the bus seemed particularly cheerful. We were on a pilgrimage in Jordan. Johann and I were fellow passengers with Christians of different denominations to a number of biblical sites but there was also space to meet one another and learn more about how we kept close to Christ. Johann’s faith journey had been from Swedish Lutheran to Syrian Orthodox and in the course of that journey he had learned to say the Jesus Prayer. Over the week of our pilgrimage I learned something from him of how purposeful repetition of this prayer could bring you to ride on God’s waves of love to attain more of the momentum of the Holy Spirit.

It became clear to me that Johann’s enthusiasm for the Lord was nourished by his commitment to pray unceasingly and I had never met anyone so young who had accepted that invitation from Jesus.  Our common desire to build our lives on the faith of the Church through the ages led to an openness between us in which my own rather cerebral insights were exchanged for his practical hints about praying the Jesus Prayer.

Comparing notes with Johann I established that the Jesus Prayer was unlike other devotions that could be taken and left at will. This devotional practice was an invitation from the active faith and prayer of the Church through the ages to leave a lot more of myself behind and to seek God more seriously. 

I recognised it came down to how I was living my life. Yes I celebrated and attended the Eucharist, said the daily prayers obligatory for a priest, interceded, went on pilgrimage and so on - but! That ‘but’ was about lack of cohesion and integration and it reflected failure to make Jesus Lord of my life and ‘take every thought captive to obey Christ’. (2 Corinthians 4:5b) There was an awful lot of John Twisleton in the gaps between my worship and prayer - was I up to addressing this afresh using the Jesus Prayer? I felt I was and I wouldn’t be speaking to you now otherwise!

How then do you say the Jesus Prayer?

The first necessary clarification is that this prayer is said in both formal and free settings, which is of course part of its very power. Simple, memorable and short it is a form of words that can be made part of one’s formal devotional time whilst being offered in freer fashion as you get on with life outside set prayer times.

I have an Oratory or prayer room in the Rectory where I spend the first hour of the day. Half of that time I use for reciting the Jesus Prayer and in the other half say liturgical Morning Prayer, which includes psalms and scripture readings, and make intercession for my family, for the parish and for the world.  I start my daily prayer by repeating  the Jesus prayer under my breath continuously for half an hour. Whilst seated I tend to breathe in for ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’ and breathe out for ‘have mercy on me, a sinner’ which means saying 10 prayers a minute or 300 over the half hour prayer time. This advice from Bishop Kallistos Ware helped me get going, ‘When you first embark on the Jesus Prayer, do not worry too much about expelling thoughts and mental pictures... let your strategy be positive, not negative. Call to mind, not what is to be excluded, but what is to be included. Do not think about your thoughts and how to shed them; think about Jesus’.

It makes sense that prayer should be neither gabbled nor offered in too intense a manner. To help focus the body’s engagement in the exercise prayer ropes of 25, 50 or 100 woollen beads are available. Kept in a pocket these are also good reminders to engage in the free use of the prayer during the day. I’ve got some at the back for a fiver from Crawley Down monastery.

In a recent booklet Bruce Batstone describes how he says the Jesus Prayer in his set prayer time. 'To pray the prayer I find that it is best to sit or kneel in a place where you are comfortable and try to relax. Focus your attention on your breathing, and as you breath in say the words 'Jesus Christ, Son of God' and as you breath out 'have mercy on me a sinner'. Do this gently and you will find that your breathing will slow. If you use a rope, touch a knot as you say each prayer.' Batstone addresses how best you deal with distracting thoughts, recommending you attach your mind to the words you are repeating in prayer and recall your physical grasp of the prayer rope. He also makes it clear 'these words are more than a mantra, they are an evocation of the name of Jesus and he is present with us as we pray.'

‘Rejoice always’, Saint Paul says, ‘pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you’. The Jesus Prayer is a proven servant of building such a positive and prayerful attitude by which we can rise above the heaviness of our human condition into the joy of the Lord. 

Into that joy, the joy of Sunday eucharist, we are now drawn through the magnetism of word and sacrament taking the Lord at his word.

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