WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.940 Let us pray. Your word, O God, is a lamp to our 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:08.539 feet and a light to our path. By the power of 00:00:08.539 --> 00:00:11.220 your Spirit, speak to us, we pray in Jesus' name. 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:16.260 Amen. Our second reading is from Exodus chapter 00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:19.219 3. Let us listen together now for God's word 00:00:19.219 --> 00:00:24.739 to us. Moses was keeping the flock of his father 00:00:24.739 --> 00:00:28.179 -in -law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led 00:00:28.179 --> 00:00:30.260 his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount 00:00:30.260 --> 00:00:33.299 Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of 00:00:33.299 --> 00:00:36.299 the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out 00:00:36.299 --> 00:00:39.560 of a bush. He looked and the bush was blazing, 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:43.060 yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, I must 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:46.340 turn aside and look at this great sight and see 00:00:46.340 --> 00:00:49.500 why the bush is not burned up. When the Lord 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.000 saw that he had turned aside to see, God called 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.229 to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he 00:00:57.229 --> 00:01:00.770 said, Here I am. Then he said, Come no closer. 00:01:01.229 --> 00:01:03.689 Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place 00:01:03.689 --> 00:01:07.849 on which you are standing is holy ground. He 00:01:07.849 --> 00:01:10.590 said further, I am the God of your father, the 00:01:10.590 --> 00:01:12.609 God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God 00:01:12.609 --> 00:01:15.829 of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was 00:01:15.829 --> 00:01:18.989 afraid to look at God. The word of the Lord. 00:01:20.069 --> 00:01:24.909 Thanks be to God. Harry Cohn was the head of 00:01:24.909 --> 00:01:28.310 Columbia Studios in the first half of the 20th 00:01:28.310 --> 00:01:30.790 century, and one day his brother Jack suggested 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:35.670 to him that they produce a biblical epic. What 00:01:35.670 --> 00:01:39.430 do you know about the Bible, Harry said. I bet 00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:41.750 you 50 bucks you don't even know the Lord's Prayer. 00:01:43.430 --> 00:01:47.909 After a moment, Jack began, Now I lay me down 00:01:47.909 --> 00:01:54.259 to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Harry 00:01:54.259 --> 00:01:57.420 reached into his pocket and pulled out a bill 00:01:57.420 --> 00:02:00.299 and said, well, I'll be. I didn't think you knew 00:02:00.299 --> 00:02:09.520 it. There is a very broad familiarity with prayer 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:14.919 in our culture. Broad, I said, not deep. But 00:02:14.919 --> 00:02:17.680 virtually everyone has a sense of what we're 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.900 talking about. When we're talking about prayer, 00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:23.240 there's a baseline understanding about prayer, 00:02:23.379 --> 00:02:27.039 and that is that it is, in some way, speaking 00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:31.439 to God. And very often, we speak to God by making 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:36.039 petitions, asking God for things, asking God 00:02:36.039 --> 00:02:40.199 to do things. This is a very common understanding, 00:02:40.419 --> 00:02:43.159 and it's not a misunderstanding. It's not wrong. 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:45.580 That is an important aspect of prayer, but of 00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:49.759 course, it's limited. It's narrow. It's an incomplete 00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:53.759 understanding of prayer. And because of that, 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:55.900 and because of how widespread that understanding 00:02:55.900 --> 00:02:59.659 is, when we begin to think about prayer as a 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:03.659 spiritual discipline, we generally have a specific 00:03:03.659 --> 00:03:08.520 idea of what that looks like, as in lots of regular, 00:03:08.699 --> 00:03:14.340 lengthy, wordy conversations with God, which 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:18.139 maybe to us sounds onerous and time -consuming. 00:03:18.729 --> 00:03:21.949 It sounds like it's a unique skill that only 00:03:21.949 --> 00:03:27.990 some possess. And if we were to try and get down 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:30.550 on our knees for all that time, day after day, 00:03:30.650 --> 00:03:33.389 we would probably find ourselves struggling to 00:03:33.389 --> 00:03:35.590 find the words that we need, the right words, 00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:38.370 the appropriate words, and maybe at the end of 00:03:38.370 --> 00:03:42.379 it all feel frustrated by the outcomes. that 00:03:42.379 --> 00:03:45.960 our prayers manage to accomplish. And so we look 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:48.520 at all of that and we say, prayer as a spiritual 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:55.199 discipline is not really for me. Today's stories, 00:03:55.419 --> 00:03:58.520 the story of Elijah that we heard and the story 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:02.099 of Moses, they are not about getting down on 00:04:02.099 --> 00:04:04.740 your knees and holding forth before God. They 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:08.520 are not about how to pray in order to get what 00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:12.460 you ask for. They are not about... Which are 00:04:12.460 --> 00:04:15.819 the right words to use when approaching God? 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:21.319 And yet, these stories are about prayer. But 00:04:21.319 --> 00:04:25.339 they come at prayer a little bit sideways. But 00:04:25.339 --> 00:04:30.000 putting them together helps us develop a better 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.399 idea of what prayer is and how we can make it 00:04:33.399 --> 00:04:35.959 more a part of our daily lives, how we can embrace 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:40.589 it as a discipline. So the first story we heard 00:04:40.589 --> 00:04:43.509 is a story, a brief snippet of a story of Elijah 00:04:43.509 --> 00:04:46.949 the prophet. In chapter 18 of 1 Kings, Elijah 00:04:46.949 --> 00:04:51.089 has just won a great contest. One prophet of 00:04:51.089 --> 00:04:54.050 the Lord against hundreds of prophets of Baal 00:04:54.050 --> 00:04:58.850 to see whose God is real, whose God is not. And 00:04:58.850 --> 00:05:02.269 of course, it was Elijah's God who won. But fresh 00:05:02.269 --> 00:05:05.110 off this victory, Elijah's life is threatened 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:08.430 by Jezebel the queen, so he runs and he hides 00:05:08.430 --> 00:05:12.350 in a cave. God says to him there in the cave, 00:05:12.449 --> 00:05:15.310 Elijah, what are you doing? And he says, I'm 00:05:15.310 --> 00:05:20.110 afraid for my life. And God says, I am about 00:05:20.110 --> 00:05:23.790 to pass by. And that's the part of the story 00:05:23.790 --> 00:05:27.509 we heard. As Elijah sits there in the cave, there's 00:05:27.509 --> 00:05:30.069 a great wind that comes through, ripping the 00:05:30.069 --> 00:05:33.670 mountains apart. But God is not in the wind. 00:05:33.829 --> 00:05:36.910 And then the earth shakes, and God is not in 00:05:36.910 --> 00:05:38.790 the earthquake. And then there's a fire, and 00:05:38.790 --> 00:05:41.610 God is not in the fire. And then there is the 00:05:41.610 --> 00:05:45.910 sound of sheer silence, which in the King James 00:05:45.910 --> 00:05:51.769 Version is a still, small voice. And then Elijah 00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:59.319 steps out. and encounters God. When we look for 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:04.519 God, what exactly are we looking for? If God 00:06:04.519 --> 00:06:07.920 were to appear among us right now, what sort 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:12.339 of sign would we expect to demonstrate God's 00:06:12.339 --> 00:06:16.310 presence? How about a great wind? How about a 00:06:16.310 --> 00:06:19.009 shaking of the earth or a great fire? To that 00:06:19.009 --> 00:06:22.470 I say, all of the above. Any one of those signs 00:06:22.470 --> 00:06:25.329 would be enough to have gotten me out of the 00:06:25.329 --> 00:06:28.069 cave. Here comes the wind, strongest wind I've 00:06:28.069 --> 00:06:30.990 ever seen. That's got to be God. Out I go. The 00:06:30.990 --> 00:06:35.110 earthquake, the fire. I would step out of the 00:06:35.110 --> 00:06:39.410 cave each time, and I would walk back in empty 00:06:39.410 --> 00:06:43.540 -handed. I would expect to see God in the dramatic 00:06:43.540 --> 00:06:48.100 and powerful sign. The Christian writer Henry 00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:52.300 Nouwen once spent seven months living in a Benedictine 00:06:52.300 --> 00:06:56.339 monastery, and he chronicled his experience there, 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:59.300 and he tells about a kind of fantasy that he 00:06:59.300 --> 00:07:02.959 had. A fantasy that if he spent enough time there 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:05.819 in that monastery, if he dug deep enough into 00:07:05.819 --> 00:07:08.860 his spiritual life, that God would appear in 00:07:08.860 --> 00:07:12.139 some dramatic way. And when God appears in that 00:07:12.139 --> 00:07:16.279 way, that now his sins, the ones he's been battling 00:07:16.279 --> 00:07:18.220 with and struggling with, they would go away. 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:20.560 They would melt away. And he would be able to 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:24.959 fully commit himself to God. And he told the 00:07:24.959 --> 00:07:28.579 abbot of the monastery. about this great hope 00:07:28.579 --> 00:07:31.759 of his for his time there. And the abbot responded 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:35.680 to him by saying, you want God to appear to you 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:41.000 in the way your passions desire, but these passions 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:48.000 make you blind to God's presence now. We look 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:51.980 for God to show up like a lightning bolt, right? 00:07:52.540 --> 00:07:56.699 When we pray and we ask for God to show up, We 00:07:56.699 --> 00:08:00.379 are looking for sickness to be healed. We are 00:08:00.379 --> 00:08:03.399 looking for a rupture to be repaired. We are 00:08:03.399 --> 00:08:06.740 looking for hurt to be erased. We are looking 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:12.000 for wrongs to be righted. And when lightning 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:17.939 doesn't strike, we're disappointed. Or worse, 00:08:17.939 --> 00:08:21.420 we just assume that God isn't listening, that 00:08:21.420 --> 00:08:24.620 God doesn't care. We're looking for the wind, 00:08:24.699 --> 00:08:27.240 but God is not in the wind. We're looking for 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:29.180 the earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake. 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:32.360 We're looking for the fire, but God is not found 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:39.139 there. The prophet Elijah, he witnesses all of 00:08:39.139 --> 00:08:41.120 these things, but he sees through the noise, 00:08:41.379 --> 00:08:43.899 he sees through the distraction, through the 00:08:43.899 --> 00:08:48.559 appearance of power, through the flashy production, 00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:54.450 and he was attuned To the sound of sheer silence, 00:08:54.590 --> 00:08:59.649 the still small voice, he encountered God. That's 00:08:59.649 --> 00:09:02.370 the first story. Second story takes us to Moses 00:09:02.370 --> 00:09:06.350 in the desert. Moses has fled Egypt. He ran for 00:09:06.350 --> 00:09:09.210 his life. And now he's living the quiet life. 00:09:09.629 --> 00:09:12.830 He got married, had a child, and he's taking 00:09:12.830 --> 00:09:16.669 care of his father -in -law's sheep. And in the 00:09:16.669 --> 00:09:18.629 midst of his day -to -day work, this is his morning 00:09:18.629 --> 00:09:23.009 commute. He's walking along with the sheep. He 00:09:23.009 --> 00:09:27.129 sees that bush that's burning. And he hears God's 00:09:27.129 --> 00:09:33.350 voice from the burning bush. Where do we look 00:09:33.350 --> 00:09:37.309 for God? What places do we go? What places do 00:09:37.309 --> 00:09:40.570 we look when we want to see or experience God? 00:09:40.669 --> 00:09:43.490 Where do we imagine that we need to go to find 00:09:43.490 --> 00:09:45.950 ourselves in God's presence? Is it a mountaintop? 00:09:48.169 --> 00:09:50.429 Is it the beach in the early morning for a beautiful 00:09:50.429 --> 00:09:56.169 sunrise? Is it a place of worship? The most interesting 00:09:56.169 --> 00:09:59.370 thing to me about this story of Moses is that 00:09:59.370 --> 00:10:02.389 it all hinges on one simple action of Moses. 00:10:02.490 --> 00:10:04.690 And I wonder if you caught it as I read the story. 00:10:04.909 --> 00:10:07.669 Moses sees the bush that's burning, but that's 00:10:07.669 --> 00:10:10.830 not it. Hard to know how remarkable a thing that 00:10:10.830 --> 00:10:14.409 is. Probably a little bit strange. But what catches 00:10:14.409 --> 00:10:16.350 his attention is not that the bush is burning, 00:10:16.409 --> 00:10:19.080 but that the bush burns. and isn't consumed. 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:24.360 And here's what Moses says, I must turn aside 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:29.419 and look. And then the text says that when the 00:10:29.419 --> 00:10:32.440 Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God 00:10:32.440 --> 00:10:35.059 called to him out of the bush. That's what God 00:10:35.059 --> 00:10:39.379 was waiting for. God was waiting for Moses to 00:10:39.379 --> 00:10:44.379 turn aside and look. God is there. God is present. 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:49.639 God is waiting. But Moses had to turn aside, 00:10:49.820 --> 00:10:53.179 turn aside from the task at hand, from the planned 00:10:53.179 --> 00:10:56.220 path of the morning, from the duties and the 00:10:56.220 --> 00:10:59.899 distractions of the moment. Moses had to turn 00:10:59.899 --> 00:11:04.059 aside. A few years ago, I was running in the 00:11:04.059 --> 00:11:05.820 morning through the streets of our neighborhood. 00:11:05.879 --> 00:11:09.399 It was dark out, and the sky was clear, and I 00:11:09.399 --> 00:11:11.139 looked up at the sky, and I don't know why I 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:12.860 looked up. Running is boring, and I probably 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:15.940 was just looking around. But I look up, and just 00:11:15.940 --> 00:11:18.679 at the moment that I look up, I see the most 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:22.320 astonishing meteor I have ever seen. Bright in 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:27.279 the sky, a long and sparkling tail. It was unforgettable. 00:11:27.379 --> 00:11:29.639 It was amazing. And the first thing I thought 00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:33.940 after seeing that was how lucky am I that I got 00:11:33.940 --> 00:11:36.519 to see this sight. How many people are out right 00:11:36.519 --> 00:11:39.000 now in this part of the world? How many people 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:43.309 got to witness what I just witnessed? But as 00:11:43.309 --> 00:11:45.570 I kept running and kept thinking, my second thought 00:11:45.570 --> 00:11:51.990 was, how many of these have I missed? How many 00:11:51.990 --> 00:11:55.330 times has something of great beauty gone on above 00:11:55.330 --> 00:11:59.789 me or around me and I haven't noticed, I haven't 00:11:59.789 --> 00:12:06.070 looked, I haven't turned aside to see? The Dutch 00:12:06.070 --> 00:12:11.820 painter Vincent van Gogh loved to walk. He would 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:16.000 walk for hours at a time, day after day. It was 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:19.120 a favorite habit of his. And as he did, he would 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:24.100 observe. He would absorb his ordinary surroundings. 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:27.860 And this was the nature of his art as well, to 00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:31.740 depict ordinary people, ordinary places, but 00:12:31.740 --> 00:12:35.320 to use his imagination and his gifts to draw 00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:41.210 out what was beautiful about what was so... ordinary. 00:12:42.330 --> 00:12:45.009 And he once wrote a letter to his brother. In 00:12:45.009 --> 00:12:47.230 this letter, he wrote years before he even started 00:12:47.230 --> 00:12:50.730 painting. And in this letter, he says this, find 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:56.029 things beautiful as much as you can. Most people 00:12:56.029 --> 00:13:02.590 find too little beautiful. Find things beautiful. 00:13:02.610 --> 00:13:04.909 Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say find 00:13:04.909 --> 00:13:09.379 beautiful things. To find beautiful things is 00:13:09.379 --> 00:13:12.039 like a treasure hunt. Go out into this world 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:15.320 of boring, ugly things, and if you look hard 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:17.919 enough, you will find beautiful things. That's 00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:22.980 not what he is saying. He says, find things beautiful. 00:13:24.139 --> 00:13:27.940 For Van Gogh, beauty surrounds us, but we don't 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:34.559 attend to it. We don't turn aside to look. So 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:38.559 where do we look? Do we look to extraordinary 00:13:38.559 --> 00:13:42.399 places, extraordinary moments? Do we assume that 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:46.659 God only rarely shows up? And the reason that 00:13:46.659 --> 00:13:49.039 we don't see God is because we're just not the 00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:51.919 lucky ones who end up in the right place at the 00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:55.980 right time? Don't we tend to look for God like 00:13:55.980 --> 00:13:58.519 we are on a treasure hunt, thinking that the 00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:01.639 conditions have to be just right for God to show 00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:05.049 up? that we have to sift through all of the places 00:14:05.049 --> 00:14:09.450 where God is not present, all of the times where 00:14:09.450 --> 00:14:12.789 God is not present, all of the experiences where 00:14:12.789 --> 00:14:16.970 God is not present, hoping that if we're lucky, 00:14:17.049 --> 00:14:22.330 we might find God somewhere, sometime, somehow. 00:14:24.450 --> 00:14:29.679 God appears to Moses in an ordinary object. At 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:33.519 an ordinary time, but that's not enough. Moses 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:37.580 has to turn aside before he hears God's voice, 00:14:37.639 --> 00:14:41.720 before he finds himself standing on holy ground. 00:14:43.179 --> 00:14:48.299 But that holy ground is just dirt. It is as ordinary 00:14:48.299 --> 00:14:54.659 as it comes. God can be found anywhere, anytime, 00:14:55.039 --> 00:15:01.690 anyhow. Most people find too little beautiful. 00:15:03.330 --> 00:15:10.350 Most people find too little holy. Elijah teaches 00:15:10.350 --> 00:15:13.649 us that prayer reaches through and beneath the 00:15:13.649 --> 00:15:18.129 flashy demonstrations, the outrageous distractions, 00:15:18.529 --> 00:15:22.769 the obvious and the empty productions. Prayer 00:15:22.769 --> 00:15:28.210 finds God in the sound of sheer silence. And 00:15:28.210 --> 00:15:32.210 Moses teaches us to turn aside, to find God in 00:15:32.210 --> 00:15:35.889 the most ordinary, to discover holy ground on 00:15:35.889 --> 00:15:39.889 ordinary paths, and to hear God's call in the 00:15:39.889 --> 00:15:44.970 midst of everyday life. One of the things that 00:15:44.970 --> 00:15:49.029 I really miss about living in Michigan is the 00:15:49.029 --> 00:15:55.830 corn. In August, the corn is amazing. We have 00:15:55.830 --> 00:16:00.080 corn here. but it's not the same. And I miss 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:04.139 it. It turns out corn is a really remarkable 00:16:04.139 --> 00:16:06.580 plant. You probably know how important it has 00:16:06.580 --> 00:16:10.159 been in the Americas. It was domesticated here 00:16:10.159 --> 00:16:14.019 thousands of years ago. But there's some mystery 00:16:14.019 --> 00:16:16.820 surrounding the domestication of this delicious 00:16:16.820 --> 00:16:21.419 grain. And that is that the closest genetic relative 00:16:21.419 --> 00:16:25.820 to corn that scientists have found is a grain 00:16:25.820 --> 00:16:30.340 called teosinte, and it's very small, and it 00:16:30.340 --> 00:16:33.860 doesn't look very much at all like corn. But 00:16:33.860 --> 00:16:36.200 that's just the beginning of the mystery. The 00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:39.200 really important part of this is that teosinte, 00:16:39.259 --> 00:16:42.539 like most grains, when it's ripe, it shatters. 00:16:43.370 --> 00:16:45.389 And what that means is that when that head of 00:16:45.389 --> 00:16:48.269 grain is ripe, if there is a small disturbance 00:16:48.269 --> 00:16:52.629 like a wind or an animal that bumps this grain, 00:16:52.909 --> 00:16:58.129 the grain explodes, flies off the head, which 00:16:58.129 --> 00:17:01.009 of course is how the seed scatters. And those 00:17:01.009 --> 00:17:04.009 seeds then, if they find good soil, they grow 00:17:04.009 --> 00:17:09.809 and they produce fruit, right? Not so with corn. 00:17:10.430 --> 00:17:12.369 A couple weeks ago, we had bought a bunch of 00:17:12.369 --> 00:17:14.670 ears of corn to have with dinner, and I'm standing 00:17:14.670 --> 00:17:17.490 over the trash can shucking this corn, and my 00:17:17.490 --> 00:17:19.529 kids see what I'm doing, and they think it looks 00:17:19.529 --> 00:17:22.170 fun, so they ask if they can help, and I say, 00:17:22.230 --> 00:17:24.690 of course you can help. So they come over, and 00:17:24.690 --> 00:17:27.250 they start trying to peel that husk off, and 00:17:27.250 --> 00:17:31.140 all of them remark. on how difficult it is, layer 00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:34.119 after layer, and you have to pull so hard, and 00:17:34.119 --> 00:17:35.500 then when you're done, you've got all those strings 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:37.799 that you have to deal with, and they said, this 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:39.640 is not as fun as I thought it was going to be. 00:17:42.099 --> 00:17:47.740 Corn requires human intervention in order to 00:17:47.740 --> 00:17:52.539 grow. If an ear of corn falls off a stalk, lands 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:56.700 on the ground, as is, I would assume that the 00:17:56.700 --> 00:18:01.259 husk decays, and the kernels find their way into 00:18:01.259 --> 00:18:03.700 the soil and put down roots and grow again, but 00:18:03.700 --> 00:18:06.740 that's not what happens. The ear will simply 00:18:06.740 --> 00:18:12.279 rot on the ground. It cannot grow without the 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:16.500 human hand peeling the layers off of that husk 00:18:16.500 --> 00:18:19.519 or a farm machine. I'll admit that's not as great 00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:23.019 for a sermon. Either way, corn can't do it by 00:18:23.019 --> 00:18:26.599 itself, right? It takes that intervention to 00:18:26.599 --> 00:18:30.589 open it. so it doesn't waste away, so that it 00:18:30.589 --> 00:18:34.430 can be fruitful. And this is what it means to 00:18:34.430 --> 00:18:38.990 embrace prayer as a spiritual discipline. It 00:18:38.990 --> 00:18:41.470 does not mean that we have to spend hours a day 00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:44.650 on our knees, although it is good to be on our 00:18:44.650 --> 00:18:48.470 knees from time to time. It does not mean that 00:18:48.470 --> 00:18:52.210 we have to speak words upon words upon words, 00:18:52.289 --> 00:18:57.599 though of course it is good to address God. What 00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:01.400 it means is peeling back the protective layers 00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:05.319 that we surround ourselves with, our busyness 00:19:05.319 --> 00:19:08.039 and our distractions, our resentments and our 00:19:08.039 --> 00:19:11.559 jealousies, our hurts and our grievances, our 00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:15.140 insecurities and our inadequacies, all the things 00:19:15.140 --> 00:19:20.519 that keep us from fruitfulness, all the things 00:19:20.519 --> 00:19:25.000 that limit our growth, all the things that keep 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:30.109 our doors closed, that prevent us from sending 00:19:30.109 --> 00:19:34.170 our roots down into the holy ground of life. 00:19:35.710 --> 00:19:39.109 The theologian Walter Burghardt says that prayer 00:19:39.109 --> 00:19:46.289 is a long, loving look at the real. To pray is 00:19:46.289 --> 00:19:50.609 to be sensitive to the subtle and silent movements 00:19:50.609 --> 00:19:55.589 of God all around us. To pray is to live with 00:19:55.589 --> 00:19:59.269 open eyes and open hearts, ready to turn aside 00:19:59.269 --> 00:20:02.670 and set foot on the holy ground of our everyday 00:20:02.670 --> 00:20:07.130 lives. And to make prayer a discipline is to 00:20:07.130 --> 00:20:12.250 cultivate a habit of attention, attending to 00:20:12.250 --> 00:20:16.809 the things that we would otherwise ignore. When 00:20:16.809 --> 00:20:19.490 we wait for God to appear like a lightning bolt, 00:20:19.569 --> 00:20:23.359 we miss God's presence now. And God is present 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:28.319 now. And if we think that we can only meet God 00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:32.019 in special moments and in special places, then 00:20:32.019 --> 00:20:35.619 we will never turn aside to find God in the ordinary. 00:20:36.839 --> 00:20:41.259 So may prayer be not just something that we do. 00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:48.000 May it be how we choose to live. Open to the 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:53.180 living and present God. and ready to live fruitful 00:20:53.180 --> 00:21:00.740 lives. Let us pray. God, we open ourselves to 00:21:00.740 --> 00:21:07.380 you now and again and again and again, inviting 00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:11.220 you to transform us, to tune our hearts so that 00:21:11.220 --> 00:21:14.319 we can see the ways that you are moving around 00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:17.160 us, the ways that you are at work in this world, 00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:19.740 and the ways that you have called us to serve. 00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:23.019 In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.