Let us let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer of our faith. Hebrews 12:1
Our whole life as Christians is a looking to Jesus. 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.
Our individual prayer time is foundational to this along with our gathering Sunday by Sunday on the Lord's Day, in the Lord's House, with the Lord's People. This is why we’ve all got an invitation to join our School of Prayer this week at St Swithun’s.
One of the most important things about our daily prayer is the time we give. Whatever we feel or don't feel at prayer it is the offering of 5, 10, 15 minutes daily that is pivotal. Time matters. It is also important to offer Our Lord what we might call ‘prime time’.
Time, and then secondly, place. There’s church of course, suitable for some of us. Most of us though have to find a prayer space at home. We need then to be quiet, but perhaps not too quiet so we keep our feet on the ground. We need perhaps to be comfortable, not so much that we fall asleep. Prayer invites attentiveness. Some people say a hard backed chair gives you that business like feeling. Myself I use a comfy chair, but try to kneel as well for some of the time.
Then what – as one definition puts it ‘prayer is a lifting of heart and mind to God’ and there are many different ‘airports’ for lift off. The aim of our course is to open some of these airports or ways of prayer up to you.
Wherever you lift off from you have to be ‘there’ to get a lift. Confession of sin before you pray is important – you want God to see the real you and nothing pretentious! The bottom line for prayer, for getting to a place of lift off, is honesty. To be there is also about getting down from your mind into your heart as well.
Tom Smail's baldness 'caused by the Lord banging on his head to get his religion from head to heart'- a vital 14".
I want this morning to address briefly six aspects of prayer, of looking to Jesus: listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection, and lastly empowerment.
1. Listening
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 jokingly said he prayed only for 2 minutes but went on to admit it took him 30 minutes to get there.
Scripture is a means of looking to Jesus through listening to his Word. We read in Hebrews 4:12 that the Word of God 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.
We’ll be looking during the week at the power of imaginative listening to scripture. A basic piece of advice on praying from scripture is to 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.
2. Friendship
Looking to Jesus is about friendship. We seek our friends’ 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 is like a defrosting by the heavenly microwave!
One aid to contemplation is to read a set prayer slowly, open for God to speak to you as your friend.
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 phrases 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 is commended all through the Christian tradition as in the writings of St. John Chrysostom: Abide constantly with the name of our Lord Jesus, so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart and the two become one. Please don’t hesitate to talk to the prayer guides, to myself or your clergy if you want guidance on the Jesus Prayer or any other of the forms of prayer suggested in this booklet.
Looking to Jesus in prayer is about listening and building friendship, about lighting one another up so that in the words of Nehemiah (8v10) the joy of the Lord [becomes] our strength.
3. Warfare
Prayer, 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 (12:1b). 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 in the name of Jesus against the dark forces that impel us. Hesychius of Jerusalem writes: As it is impossible for the sun to shine without light, so it is impossible for the heart to be cleansed of the filth of wicked thoughts without prayer in the Name of Jesus…let us utter this Name as often as we breathe.
The battle that is prayer comes much into its own when we attempt self-examination. This has been described as like going under water. You experience an up thrust, 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! So we battle on – in the spiritual warfare that is prayer!
4. Benevolence
Looking to Jesus fourthly is benevolence, the capacity to enter the good will of God for all people, especially in intercessory prayer. This is a feature of prayer that the St Swithun’s exploration will major on in the coming week.
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]. This benevolent spirit of intercession is captured in St. Paul’s invitation in Galatians 6:2 to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.
We look to Jesus to be with us as we intercede. He lifts us up into his perfect Offering, most especially in the Holy Eucharist. In intercession we come before the Lord with people and needs on our heart to entrust them to him with confidence.
My wife Anne’s prayer for Catherine that bore fruit after 11 years
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.
5. Recollection
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.
Another feature we will be majoring on in the fortnight ahead is the value of prayer journaling. This is the discipline of keeping a sort of written conversation with the Lord so that we can trace his working in our lives. 'Tis grace both led me safe thus far … and grace will lead me home.
Just an idea, even if you can’t make the sessions. Why not in the coming week attempt a review of your life? Look back over your years 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. As the orthodox spiritual writer Fr. Bulgakov puts it 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.
6. Empowerment
Looking to Jesus lastly is 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 deeper into our lives by praying regularly for the Holy Spirit. Earlier in Luke 11 Jesus says with a great emphasis ask, and it will be given to you. If you being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Looking to Jesus is an empowerment especially by the word of God and the gifting of the Holy Spirit. You do not have James warns in his letter (4:2) because you do not ask.
When we persist in asking we can from time to time 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.
To summarise, prayer, looking to Jesus, brings some wonderful experiences. It’s also a matter of perseverance, as Michael Ramsey reminds us with his 2 minutes prayer within half an hour’s devotional time. We need spiritual determination if we’re going to get anywhere in prayer though prayer itself kindles such enthusiasm and determination. Let us run with perseverance then the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus through listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection and empowerment. May the Lord turn our eyes more and more upon himself in the coming week!
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