Some words we just heard from the letter to the Ephesians Chapter 3 I pray that you may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Our life is this prayer and this prayer, this looking to Jesus is our life.
The Lord wants a deeper place in our life and that of our church because Christianity is always about getting more of Jesus Christ into our lives and shedding self-interest.
I want to look this morning at six aspects of prayer, of looking to Jesus: listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection, and lastly empowerment.
Prayer, looking unto Jesus, is listening. You can’t look to Jesus unless you give ear to him, unless you attend to him. Our whole life depends on right listening – to other people and to ourselves at times – but chiefly to Jesus.
Through prayer we hear from God. We catch his inspirations for our life and for the world.
How do we look to Jesus in listening?
A discipline of time offered to attend directly to God.
Michael Ramsey’s quote – he prayed for 2 minutes but took 30 minutes to get there.
Scripture is a means of looking to Jesus through listening to his Word. The Word of is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
There is great power in imaginative listening to scripture as in, for example, eg. the reading through of a scripture passage and using your imagination to enter into it. Take today’s Gospel from Chapter John 6 which we’ll be following through on Sundays over the next month. Imagine you’re in the crowd, seeing Jesus satisfy your hunger, moving deeper to your inner hunger for God, preparing for the eucharist and so on. Why not take away today’s reading and dwell upon it, or open your bible and resolve to meditate upon the whole of John 6 to help the Lord speak to you over the coming month.
Yet another way is to let the words of scripture become more personal by changing the case of the pronoun in the passage. Take that Ephesians passage and make it into a This is the Word of the Lord about John or whoever you are. May God grant that John may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in John’s heart through faith, as John is rooted and grounded in love. This sort of exercise is about experiencing what we already possess as Christians, seeing ourselves as God sees us in his word. You read through prayerfully until God touches your Spirit and then hold yourself at that point once such a prayerful impulse has been given to you.
Prayer, looking to Jesus is secondly about friendship. We seek our friend’s attention and he seeks ours.
When friends meet they light up and so it is with Jesus and ourselves as we come before him in contemplation.
When did you last sit in quiet before the Lord? What is it that keeps you from doing so? Could you imagine Jesus your friend doing you any harm?
Contemplative prayer has been described as ‘spiritual radiotherapy’. St Augustine once said that the whole purpose of life is the healing of the heart’s eye through which God is seen.
Heart surgery of the Holy Spirit: the melting of coldness within cf heavenly microwave
Once again you could use the same Ephesians 3 passage as a way into quiet adoration if you read it through slowly and rest in the words so to speak.
A major barrier to contemplation is the way our minds get so distracted which hinders our hearts from contemplation. This is where the repeating of short words that engage and focus the mind can be helpful as in the Orthodox Jesus prayer. This involves repeating again and again the gospel prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner. The value of the Jesus Prayer mentioned on is commended all through the Christian tradition as in the writings of early Christian writer, Hesychius of Jerusalem who captures something of the positive, joyful goodness that seems to flow from this discipline even if such graces are inevitably sporadic. The sun, passing over the earth, produces daylight; the holy and worshipful Name of the Lord Jesus, constantly shining in the mind, produces a measureless number of sun-like thoughts.
Please don’t hesitate to talk to me or Fr Christopher if you want guidance on the Jesus Prayer or indeed any other of the forms of prayer. Not that we’re experts - our expertise is primarily to know that when it comes to prayer we’re all on the bottom rung of the ladder!
Looking to Jesus in prayer is about building friendship, about lighting one another up so that in the words of Nehemiah (8v10) the joy of the Lord [becomes] our strength.
Looking to Jesus is thirdly warfare against the deadening spiritual impact of the world, the flesh and the devil. Prayer is warfare because Jesus calls us to a fullness of humanity that involves our shedding constraints, shaking off what Hebrews calls the weight and the sin that clings so closely (12v1b).
He who is in you, St John says, is greater than he that is in the world. 1 John 5:4
In prayer we see ourselves in a true light and take action against the dark forces that impel us. Self-examination has been described as being like going under water. You experience an upthrust, an opposition.
There is a power at work totally opposed to self-knowledge. Satan is fearful of both our knowing God and our knowing ourselves. He wants us to live in ignorance so that we can comply with his schemes!
Did you know any Anglican Communicant can find a spiritual director through their clergy or by a phone call directly to Diocesan Church House? It's also possible to approach your priest for one-to-one confidential help in knowing the assurance of God’s forgiveness. We have a saying about use of this ministry of confession among Anglicans: ‘all may, none must, some should’. Sometimes making a sacramental confession can refresh your prayer - ‘Square with God and he will square with you’.
Prayer is warfare. There is a power at work opposed to self-knowledge and we need courage to battle against it, holding to faith God always has our best interests at heart in the costly business of facing up to ourselves, warts and all.
Looking to Jesus fourthly is benevolence, the capacity to enter the good will of God for all people, especially in intercessory prayer.
Christianity is not merely a doctrine or a system of beliefs Thomas Merton wrote, it is Christ living in us and uniting people to one another in His own life and unity. For Merton a hermit monk there is only one true flight from the world; it is not an escape from conflict, anguish and suffering, but … flight from disunity and separation to unity and peace in the love of other [people].
The prayer of intercession is true to the invitation to benevolence in Galatians where St Paul invites his readers to bear one another’s’ burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ. 6:2)
We look to Jesus to be with us as we intercede. He lifts us up into His Perfect Offering. In intercession we come before the Lord with people and needs on our heart to entrust them to him with confidence.
Here’s one suggested method used by Dorothy Kerin:
By an act of the will place yourself in the presence of Our Lord.
With an act of faith ask him to empty you of self and of all desire save that his will may be done and that it may illuminate your heart and mind.
Then gather to mind all those you are to intercede for and hold them silently up to him.
Make no special request but just rest with them in him.
Desire nothing but that Our Lord may be glorified in them.
In this simple way of approach Our Lord makes known his will and gives himself to us and to those for whom we intercede – in quietness.
Through intercessory prayer, in the words of Professor Hallesly we couple the powers of heaven to our helplessness…the powers which can awaken those who sleep in sin and raise up the dead … that can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible.
Fifthly looking to Jesus is prayer of recollection, prayer that takes stock of your life and celebrates what God has done and is doing and, looks forwards to what God is going to do in us and through us.
The value of prayer journaling. Tis grace both led me safe thus far … and grace will lead me home.
A good exercise is to look back over your life and recollect with Jesus the five biggest spiritual milestones along the way, your five most powerful desires, your five worst fears.
Recollection is about such reminiscing or calling to mind.
It is also about ‘collecting again’ or recovering control of oneself. Through looking to God we gain self-possession.
Attention to God, mindfulness of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian life.
The recollected woman or man inhabits her or his words, is able to be present to Jesus at all times so that Jesus can be in them and show through them.
The Name of Jesus present in human heart, communicates to it the power of deification … shining through the heart, the light of the Name of Jesus illuminates all the universe. Bulgakov
Prayer, looking to Jesus is lastly empowerment. You will receive power he said, when the Holy Spirit comes Acts 1v8.
Well he has come, at baptism and confirmation, the birth of our Christian commitment and in the receiving of Holy Communion - but we need to invite him by praying regularly for the Holy Spirit.
Prayer is an empowerment especially by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As we pray we can at times feel God’s touch upon our heart, see some sort of vision or be led to some particular scripture verse as we look to Jesus. This is charismatic prayer, literally graced or given prayer in which our looking to Jesus and waiting before him is answered by a heavenly gift.
Looking to Jesus in prayer then is listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection and empowerment.
May the Lord turn our eyes more and more upon himself so that our earthly pursuits may lose some of their enticement as we see more of him as we seek him in prayer. I pray that you may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So be it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment