Ash Wednesday Meditation

I was little.  Maybe I was 6.  I sat with my mother in the pew at Church of the Good Shepherd. 

My mother held my hand and we went in and found our pew, in the middle, the left hand side, the Gospel side.  My mother knelt…I fidgeted and I slid up and down the pew.

She prayed…I fidgeted and whispered her name over and over again.

She was quiet…I fidgeted and tried to get her attention, I pulled on her dress.

She told me to kneel with her and to pray to God before church began.  I said, “I don’t know what to say to God.” I’m sure I said this with a very loud voice.  She whispered to me that I was to go see my father.

I sulked. I sulked out of my pew. I sulked all the way back to the back of the church to the church doors…past the crucifer…past the torch bearers…I sulked past the lay readers…I sulked up to my father (the priest) standing at the back of the procession.

I looked up with my best sad face, I marshaled the tears, and I blubbered. Mom says to pray to God. I don’t know what I am supposed to say. What do you say to God? Does God even listen? Will God listen to me? Mom says pray. I don’t know how.

My father leaned down to me and said, “Go tell God good morning and hello. Introduce yourself.  That is all you need to do.  Go tell God hello; like you might to an old friend.”

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we pray for the first time.  It doesn’t matter how one grew up. It doesn’t matter the tradition of one’s family.  Somewhere, in some quiet place, in some way, at an important time, everyone utters a prayer to God.

In a moment, then the moment is gone, a word of prayer bridges the gap between heaven and earth; between the creator and the created.

Some of us get mighty good at praying.

Some of us get very good prayer voices.

Some of us are good at making prayer gestures.

But in this season of Lent we are reminded of the importance of simple prayer and a simple conversation with our maker.  We are reminded of our need to go see a good friend…an old friend.  We are reminded to make ourselves known.  We are given an opportunity to again in a small quiet place, in a quiet voice, to say “hello” again to God.

Jesus, in our lesson from Matthew offers a bit of guidance. It is as if he is saying, “Hey…don’t get in people’s faces about your prayer life.”

Allow your prayer life to remind you of the importance of giving…but don’t be all high and mighty about it.

Don’t use that God voice when you pray.  It irritates God and everybody else. 

Being public with your faith is not all it’s cracked up to be. It is a lot better to pray privately and sincerely.  It is better for your life to model the very best of God’s love…then when people ask you about it you can tell them.  Sometimes the obvious is not as good as the subtle.

Remember when you pray that God knows what you need so you don't have to always be telling God out loud with a long list of how you would like life to be...

Please don't look dismal and sad.  Look happy and enjoy your relationship with God.

Remember that what matters is the love of God, the love of neighbor - these are the treasures worth having.  So pray and live for love.

If we opened the bible up and looked at this passage what we would see is that Jesus is teaching his followers to pray, and he offers to them what today we call the Lord’s Prayer.

It is as if Jesus is saying, “This is a good way of doing it. Pray like this.”

Jesus says, say “Our Father”.  Begin this way because we are to seek as intimate a relationship with God as I have.

Pray “Who art in heaven”.  When you do you’ll be reminded of your created nature as a gift from heaven. Life is given to us from God. We also recognize in this short phrase that we are not God.

Say to God “Hallowed be thy name”. In response to the grace of being welcomed into God’s community, bowing humbly and acknowledging our created nature, we recognize the holiness of God. We proclaim that God’s name is hallowed and that we are not holy.

Remember and ask for God’s kingdom to come; “Thy kingdom come”.  The words of Jesus remind us that, like the disciples’ own desires to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, this is not our kingdom. The reign of God is not what you and I have in mind. We ask God: by your power bring your kingdom into this world. Help us to beat our swords into ploughshares that we might feed the world.

Say, “Thy will be done”. We bend our wills to God’s, following the living example of Jesus Christ. We ask for grace to constantly set aside our desires and take on the love of God’s reign. Let our hands and hearts build not powers and principalities but the rule of love.

“On earth as it is in heaven”.  Ask God to give us eyes to see this kingdom vision, and then ask for courage and power to make heaven a reality in this world. May our homes, our churches, and our communities be a sanctuary for the hurting world to find shelter, to find some small experience of heaven.

Then pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”.  In prayer we come to understand that we are consumers. We need, desire, and just want many things. In Christ, we are reminded that all we need is our daily bread.  And as we surrender our desires, help us to provide daily bread for those who have none today.

Ask God to “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Sanity and restoration are possible only because God forgives us. Because of that sacrificial forgiveness--made real in the life and death of Jesus--we can see and then share mercy and forgiveness. Help me personally offer sacrificial forgiveness to all those I feel have wronged me. I want to know and see my own fault in those broken relationships. May I be a sacrament of your grace and forgiveness to others.

“Lead us not into temptation”: As Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and replaced God with their own understanding of reality, we need help turning away from our own earthly and political desires and turning toward the wisdom of God in Christ Jesus. So we remind ourselves how we are so tempted to go the easy way, to believe our desires are God’s desires. We have the audacity to assume we can know God’s mind. Show us your way and help us to trust it.

Please God, “deliver us from evil”.  Only God can deliver us from evil. There is darkness in the world around us. We know this darkness feeds on our deepest desire: to be God ourselves. That deceptive voice affirms everything we do and justifies our actions, even when they compromise other people’s dignity. It whispers and tells us we possess God’s truth and no one else does. Deliver us from the evil that inhabits this world, the weakness of our hearts, and the darkness of our lives, that we might walk in light.

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen”  I want to remember that I am powerless. Help me give my life up to an higher power and devote my life and love to God and my neighbor.   Help us to see your glory and beauty in the world, this day and every day.

So, in Lent…perhaps as your Lenten discipline, say good morning to God again for the first time; like you might say hello to an old friend.  

Pray simply, maybe just use the Lord’s Prayer every day.  Pray simply.  And let your prayer bridge the gap between heaven and earth.

The Mystery of Intercession

Jesus Christ is our great High Priest. Jesus Christ makes the great and eternal intercession for our lives and our world. Christ makes his prayer of intercession to the merciful Father "through the prayer of all the faithful who are baptized into his body. His voice does not appeal to God separately from theirs." Father Benson, the first brother in the Society of St. John the Evangelist wrote the following. "They are…so many mouths to Himself; and as they pray…His voice fills their utterance with the authority and claim belonging to Himself."



When we pray, God hears the voice of his Son in our prayers and accepts them as Christ's own. We reflect to God the beauty of his Son's sacrificial offering, we reflect the glorious resurrection that offers transformation. When we pray we bring those for whom we pray into the loving arms of the merciful Father. When Christians pray the merciful Father hears the beautiful words of Jesus Christ whispered into his heart. When those who are not Christians pray, God hears them too. God hears them and he hears Jesus whispering into his heart those words, those ancient words, those yearning words of Jesus, "How long have I wished to gather you in my arms, as a hen gathers her young."



It is God's Holy Spirit that invites us to join Christ in the "offering our love in intercessory prayer and action, to be used by God for healing and transformation." God delights in the work of prayer. God makes us partners in the restoration of the world. We are "fellow-workers" with Christ. It is through our intercession that we bring all things and all people to Christ. 


The work of intercessory prayer is an ancient tradition for those who followed Christ. We may read in diaries, fragments, and ancient stories how important the work of prayer was for those first Christians. Perpetua prays for her fellow martyrs, her family, her persecutors. In praying Perpetua declares her Christian faith.



Perhaps since the very apostles prayed at the foot of the cross of Christ, Christians have been called to the edge of culture so as to be poised to hear, with ears open, the "deepest cries of humanity" (SSJE, Rule 24). Again, I quote Father Benson: "In praying for others we learn really and truly to love them. As we approach God on their behalf we carry the thought of them into the very being of eternal love and as we go to him who is eternal love, so we learn to love whatever we take with us there" (SSJE, Rule 25)



We discover in our intercessions a deep and abiding kinship. I pray for my family, my friends, my coworkers, my clergy, parishioners. People give me their names and their causes because they know I pray for them. I pray for them by name and I imagine their faces. I believe God is at work in these prayers, and that my voice is part of Christ's voice raising each person to God, my father, who is in heaven. As we live in the divine community, dwelling with Christ, we discover that God welcomes all our work, our struggles, our afflictions, and our daily lives to bless and uphold the world (SSJE, Rule 25).

A Survey of Scriptural Posts tagged #Prayer and #Jesus

Scripture is the first place for us to begin our journey of reflection on this topic of work that is prayer and flows from prayer. Jesus teaches those who follow him about prayer. One can almost understand that Jesus believes that we have, as God's creatures, a need to pray (Luke 18.1). Those who follow Jesus are to pray for others, and pray for those for who are your enemies (Matt 5.44). The Gospel of Luke records Jesus instructing that his followers are to pray for those who abuse you (Luke 6.28). And we are to pray for deliverance (Lk 22.40).



He instructs those who follow him to pray privately (Matt 6). He instructs his followers to pray in desert places (Luke 5.16). We are not to pray out in the open for fear of being like those who lord and show off their prayer in front of others.


Perhaps one of the greatest human sins is the sin of pride. And we like to take pride in our prayers, especially those spoken aloud. This is the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer which keeps our egos out of the work of prayer by praying ancient and holy prayers. It is the beauty of solitude and prayer through meditation, which humbles us before the throne and community of God. We are to seek out deserted places and private places in which we are to have intimate prayer with God.


In these intimate moments we are, as Jesus prescribes in the Gospel of Matthew, to pray out of our faith for what we need of God (Matt 21.22). In Luke's Gospel, Jesus connects fasting and prayer (Luke l5.33). I believe Jesus told us to fast and pray in order to help us understand his sacred solidarity with the poor and our overdependence upon the things of this world. He goes away to pray himself. He goes to the mountain and prays (Matt 19.13). He prays in the garden before he is arrested. And, he invites his followers to pray with him (Matt 26.36). He prayed in his anguish (Lk 22.44). We also know that Jesus prayed the psalms.


Over all, what we see is that Jesus prayed and instructed us to pray for what was needed. He thought it best to pray privately as if in conversation with our Father. If we looked at each of these passages in context we would find that they are connected with action. 


Jesus teaches the need of persistent prayer, the widow and unjust judge just before the healing of children in Luke 18. After Jesus teaches prayer for those who abuse you, he heals the beloved slave of the Centurion (Luke 7). Throughout the Gospel of Mark we see repeatedly prayer followed by healings and teachings. Jesus also seems to instruct his disciples that prayer was a daily need for those who followed him, a type of daily spiritual food. Moreover, Jesus seems to understand the importance of prayer in one's life, especially in times of trial or trouble.


Perhaps these themes and passages are not new to you, but they somewhat shape and form my beginning place in this conversation. These are the pieces that got me going and thinking, drawing myself deeper into a conversation with God about Prayer, the work that is prayer, and the work that originates in prayer. Jesus modeled a life of prayer and offers it to us as part of our Christian journey and vocation. Indeed we reflect and acknowledge its centrality in our own commitment to God when we say, "I will with God's help continue in the Apostle's prayers" (BCP 304).


Coming up next: A Daily Prayer Shaping Our Daily Work