Sunday Afternoon Prayer: Elizabeth’s Prayer

In Luke 1, Mary (Luke 1:46-55) has a song and Zechariah has a song (Luke 1:68-79).  These are their prayers at  times in their lives when God was moving in unexpected ways.  Elizabeth's prayers aren't recorded in scripture, but based on her story in Luke 1, this is how I imagine she might have prayed.

O Lord Our God,
You have declared that "my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways my ways.
As the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are my ways higher than your ways
And my thoughts higher than your thoughts."¹

I've always known those words were true.  But I didn't like them.
Most of my life I have not understood your ways.
I am not sure I do, even now.
Actually, I am pretty sure I don't.

All those years of waiting and longing.
When I was a little girl I dreamed of a good husband and the children I would bear him.  It didn't seem like much to ask.
And my husband is a good man.
He is upright and follows you.
But the children never came to us.
Month after month after month of disappointment.
My friends had their first child, and their second, and their third...
And my womb lay empty and my stomach flat.
At every gathering, they would start to tell their birth stories and discuss the challenges of nursing.  I have never felt so out of place.  Like I was an imposter, a fake woman.

And all of those months I cried out to you.
"Please Lord, may this be the month."
"How long, O Lord, how long?"²
"Do not hide your face from me, my God"³

And you remained silent.
You did not answer me.
For all those years.

I tried to be patient while I waited.  I really did.
But the shame was unbearable.
I know others whispered behind my back:
Who sinned?  This woman or her husband?

I wondered myself.  What have we done wrong?
And still you remained silent.  I was left waiting.

As the years passed, I gave up hope.
I was too old to have my first child now.
My friends had become grandmothers.

So I tried to be faithful with the little I had.
I worshipped you.  I kept your commandments.
I kept the Sabbath.
I honored my husband and our marriage.
I tried so hard to not covet my friends' children.
But the questions still gnawed at my heart.  Your silence didn't help.

And then.  Then it all changed.
Zechariah came home from his work in the temple.
He had gotten his once in a lifetime opportunity to enter the holy of holies.
But things were strange.
He couldn't speak.  He had to communicate in writing.
And he scrawled on the board that I would become pregnant.
I didn't believe it.  Now?  After all these years?
But he told me about your messenger.
And slowly, I felt a tiny ray of hope warm my being.
Maybe it would be so.  Maybe you wouldn't be silent forever.

And it was so.  You heard my cry and you answered me.I look at this tiny babe in my arms, and I don't know what the future holds for him.
I want to keep him safe in my arms forever, but I'm sure that isn't your plan.
I know this is a special baby.  A miracle baby.
And you have plans for him.  I don't know what they are yet.
But you have proved that your ways are higher than mine.
Even during all those torturous years, you were faithful to your promises.
You heard my cry and finally answered me.

¹Isaiah 55:8-9
² Psalm 13:1
³ Psalm 27:9
Photo by Cary and Kacey Jordan, The Jordan Collective.  Used under a Creative Commons License.

Boxing Lament, Creating Playlists, and Backwards Parties: Spiritual Practices for a Busy Generation

I was talking with a clergy colleague/friend recently about an intergenerational study she is putting together for her congregation about spiritual disciplines.  We talks a bit about the different resources she is (and could) pull from.  There are a number of books about spiritual disciplines published.  I had never heard the term “spiritual discipline” until I was in college.  I was introduced to the term and the concept through Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline.  My family and church community had certainly practiced spiritual disciplines (some better than others), but I had never seen them all laid out and talked about as a whole. 
In the years since, I have read a number of such books at different points in my life.  Each has a slightly different tone and focus.  Most recently I read Who’s Got Time: Spirituality for a Busy Generation by Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman.  It is one of the newest titles in the Young Clergy Woman Project imprint with Chalice Press.  Peterson and Fetterman are both youngish pastors and they wrote this primarily for people in their generation.  People who grew up with computers.  People who grew up moving frequently and far from extended family.  People who are marrying later and later or not marrying at all.  People who struggle to find work and if they do expect to change jobs regularly for the rest of their life.
Peterson and Fetterman do a great job of suggesting ways to practice spiritual disciplines (both classic and new) in the busy, hyper-connected life most of us live.  I really appreciated their practicality and creativity.  As much as a I respect Foster’s work, Celebration of Discipline doesn’t include a chapter on social media. 
Here’s a sampling of some of the ideas that I found interesting (they cover more traditional disciplines, like fasting, too).  Chapter two is called “In the Body,” and it explores “ways we can exercise our spirits as we live in flesh and bone.”  One of their suggestions is to incorporate a piece of scripture into a boxing (or kickboxing?) routine.  They say “Amy’s personal favorite combo includes Psalm 61:1 and goes like this: Hear *jab* my *jab* cry *right hook* O *left hook* God *backfist*.”  I may or may not actually try this one myself, but a physical lament sounds awesome!
Chapter four is all about using music in the life of faith.  One of my favorite ideas from the chapter I already shared on the blog—making playlists.  They suggest peace and righteous anger playlists.  I made a wait. hope. expect. playlist that helps me to wait with hope during this period of my life.
They also have a chapter on rituals that I found inspiring.  They wonder “How do we organize our hopes, dreams, fears, realities, loves, losses, and find a sense of the Holy in the midst of them? How do we mark these life events that don’t have rituals already attached to them the way marriage or kids do?…We believe there is a way to create ritual that makes meaning out of the lives we live now, as twenty-first–century young adults” (ch. 5).  One of the examples they give is a “backwards party” when one of their friends was moving away.  They started by saying goodbye, ate dessert, then dinner, and ended with saying hello.  It was a ritual that helped this group of friends to transition to a new phase of their friendship.  I haven’t started any new rituals yet, but I’m thinking of opportunities.
There are lots more ideas in the book, and I would encourage you to check it out for yourself if you are looking to grow in your spiritual walk.  I would add a note that I am a bit more conservative in theology than the authors, and a few ideas I’m not sure I’d be comfortable trying.  But that doesn’t mean they don’t have lots of good ideas and true thoughts.  

Loose Ends (Advent Psalms #1)

During Advent, I am reflecting on the theme of waiting in four psalms.  I chose this theme because it is particularly appropriate to Advent and to my life right now.  When and how do these prayers talk about waiting?  How does that shape the way we wait during Advent and the rest of the year?  My prayer is that my words and the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing to the Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
This reflection focuses on Psalm 27.

Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.Psalm 27:14

This is the very last verse in the psalm.  This is the psalmist’s conclusion: wait for the Lord.  This conclusion breaks a lot of English writing rules.  In English writing, or other formal communication, we are supposed to sum up what we’ve said so there aren’t loose ends.  But this psalm ends with waiting, which is full of loose ends. 

Those loose ends make sense when you read verses 7-13 of this psalm.  It would be hard to tie up the psalmist’s desperation into a neat bow.  The Message puts verse 7, “Listen God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs.”  This is the prayer of a desperate person.  A person who is earnestly seeking God, but doesn’t seem to be getting an answer.  The psalmist implores God, “do not hide your face from me….Do not reject me or forsake me….Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes.”  In this prayer, the enemies are real.  And God’s answer seems to be silence.  At this time in the psalmist’s life, God is hidden.

It wasn’t always so for the psalmist.  Verses 1-6 are a soaring declaration of trust and confidence.  They don’t minimize the trouble; there are plenty of wicked enemies in these verses, too.  But the psalmist also has deep trust that God will keep him safe, will hide him from his enemies.  The psalm starts with the probably familiar words: “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?”

This is one reason I love they psalms.  They do not force us to have one feeling or one prayer at a time.  These prayers are as complicated as our lives.  We can usually remember the ways God has cared for us in the past: the right job at the right time, a good friend walking with us through a hard time, a spouse when you had given up hope of ever marrying, a special knowledge of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us.  The list can go on and on.  Our great God, the maker of heaven and earth, is our light and our salvation.  We don’t need to be afraid.  

But at other times of life, this care is hard for us to see.  The right job doesn’t come, a loved one dies and you feel alone in the world, all you get from online dating is a string of bad dates, God seems far away.  Hidden, even.  Our prayers join the psalmist: “don’t hide your face from me!”  It is important to note that this psalm, like other psalms in the lament genre doesn’t say pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get over it.  It doesn’t give a theological treatise on why God isn’t actually hidden.  It gives honest voice to the psalmist’s questions and cries.     

And the psalmist doesn’t feel the need to tie up all the loose ends.  The psalmist resolves this prayer with waiting.  He has quiet confidence that he will see the goodness of the Lord again, but he ends with waiting.  Perhaps it is a middle time.  A time between the despair and new life.  Advent is a middle time, too.  Advent captures in a particular way the already-but-not-yet.  We are waiting to celebrate Christ’s first coming, but we are also waiting for Christ’s second coming.  There are still loose ends in the redemption story.  We’re in the middle time between Jesus coming to redeem the world and Jesus coming back to make everything new. 

I like to think of the last verse of Psalm 27 as a bit of a pep talk the psalmist gives himself for the middle time.  In the middle of all this, wait for the Lord.  Be strong and take heart.  You know what kind of God this is.  Wait for the Lord.  Perhaps this is a pep talk that we need to give ourselves, too.  Even if God seems hidden, wait for the Lord.  Be strong and take heart.  Seek shelter in God’s presence through whatever rituals are helpful for you—community worship, listing the ways God has been good to you in the past, Advent rituals, writing your own prayers.  Rest in the messy middle time.  Hold the loose ends in your lap—you don’t have to have it all figured out right now.  Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: When The Timing Seems Wrong

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, a time of waiting and anticipation.  This is my prayer for these weeks (and my life).  If you are looking for devotional activities for Advent, you can print what I created.  If you are still thinking about American Thanksgiving, you can read about things I'm thankful for.

God of time,
You are outside of time.  Yet you created time. 
That time plays a big part of lives.  And sometimes, the timing just seems wrong. 
The Israelite people wanted their Messiah to come sooner to rescue them.
Zechariah and Elizabeth longed for a child to be born for years.
Mary faced a too-soon-pregnancy.
Christians have been waiting for Jesus to return.  For 2,000 years.
Some wait for a positive pregnancy test while others are overwhelmed with an unexpected pregnancy.
We wait to hear back about job interviews and scholarships, home sales and medical tests.
So often, the timing just seems wrong and our lives feel like they are crumbling.

How long, O Lord?

How long until you make “beautiful things out of dust”?

Jesus, you know time.  You too had to wait until your hour came.
Help us as we wait!  Give us strength and patience. 
Help us to trust in your timing, that you are caring for us even when it seems like our lives are dust.
Help us to see glimpses of “hope…springing up from this old ground.”
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

With thanks to Psalm 13, Luke 1-2, John 2, and “Beautiful Things” by Gungor.  
Photo by gilliu00_, used under a Creative Commons License.