Walk this way…. VII Pentecost, 2022
This week, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray.
They have come, asking him to teach them, like a good guru/rabbi, '...like John taught his own disciples...'
Whom do we ask to teach us to pray? For, we are continually praying -- asking, seeking, opening ourselves to follow/pattern ourselves after someone or some desire.
Anne Lamott (following St Augustine, perhaps...) wrote that all prayer could be expressed as either 'Help me, help me, help me!" or 'Thank you, thank you, thank you!' Not bad, as far as our articulated, conscious understanding goes. This is often how we use language in approaching notions of divine presence, and divine intervention. On the one hand, magical thinking can evolve. On the other hand, a stance of continual gratitude is not a bad existential state to cultivate, no matter the circumstance.
These words, themselves, are not magic -- even though it is good to know them and use short prayers as some traditions use mantras: words to return our conscious mind to connection with ultimate reality, with God. We often employ these words in a rote fashion (and their familiarity can be a comfort in tense or anxious situations).
Yet, what Jesus is offering his disciples - orienting them toward - is not magic words to repeat like a spell (pace Harry Potter) to produce a specific result. He offers them a template -- even as Christian tradition refers to Jesus as our template -- a way of entering into prayer-as-orientation toward the ultimate reality he calls God the father.
'When you pray, pray like this...'
The result of this sort of prayer - this way of orienting toward a way of life that is 'prayer,' itself - is the gift of the Holy Spirit, at lest in Luke's telling. Or, perhaps, the result will be that one dwells so deeply, over time, in this 'holy' spirit that the gifts of this embodied living become so apparent to others that they are received as gifts. As fruits from a tree. A life oriented in the template Jesus offers will bear fruit in season and out -- not as magic, but as '...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.'
Paul writes that a life lived in Christ (like a tree in soil, watered by an ever-flowing river) increasingly simply yields these fruits of the Spirit dwelling within us all.
This is the fruit of prayer, as Jesus teaches his disciples.
-The ultimate nature of reality has a name, and I call it Love, says Jesus. This is holy: be attentive to this holiness.
-The living-into-this-reality is to be desired for all that lives -- all created things on earth, and the Earth, itself. This 'kingdom' comes into existence continually among and within us.
-Focus our desire on what we need for each day; root our lives in our relationship with desire now, here. Let tomorrow's anxieties wait. Be oriented away from hoarding - whether of bread, or of any resource that must be viewed in a different light.
-We practice the flow of mercy (and of gentleness, patience, generosity...) when we learn to forgive -- and do so in ways large and small, with everyone, relinquishing bitterness to God-who-is-love and whose reality can forgive and heal even when we can't.
-We are human, and quite incapable of holding on to this template all the time. Our attention spans need the training of the life-of-prayer which you show us.
Bring the fruits of the Spirit to bear in us so that - in the times that try us (try our patience, try our gentleness, try our forgiveness...) we may stay in that Spirit that still brings healing to all things in time.
This may be what Jesus means by, 'when you pray, pray in this way...'
'Pray in such a way' ...that brings life, forgiveness, healing. Be oriented thus, always.
Help me! And: thank you!