Let us pray: God of faith, God of hope, God of Love, we come before you this evening in a way in which we do not normally worship you. Keep our ears, eyes and hearts open to your message for each and every one of us, that we might grow closer to you, and to our neighbor next to us. In Jesus name we pray.
This is a unique service for many Christians to attend. Unity in worship is a concept in which we sometimes pay lip service to, yet we rarely do things as a community of believers which makes a large impact on the rest of those around us. Luckily, today in the little town of Riverside, we have at least 5 major faith communities which have enough sense to come together, put aside our normal style of worship and join in praise and adoration of a loving God.
I need everyone here today to do me a favor. You see, I am still a seminary student and because of that, there is always a little bit of fear in ordained clergy that I might get too heretical in what I preach. So I need you to watch all the clergy up front here to see if they nod in agreement with my theological statement or if they hang their heads in disgust.
God does not change. God is the same forever and ever. From the Alpha to the Omega. God is immovable, steadfast, and without end. Our God is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting.
Ok, give me a thumbs up if they seemed to be in agreement, a thumbs down if they were disgusted, or a wavy hand to let me know if they tried to appear as stoic as possible. Ok thank you. I wanted to get the theological test out of the way so we could get to the theme of today’s service.
Pray without ceasing.
There are so many ways to view this passage. We can view this passage as a way in which we attempt to make everything we do a prayer, to try and see through God’s eyes every moment. Some might view this passage and think they need to become a priest or monk or a nun and spend their day worshipping God. Or perhaps you try to pray without ceasing by noticing the holy in everything. Be it seeing Jesus in the homeless person on the street or the dandelion growing up in the cracks of a sidewalk.
There is another way to pray without ceasing. There are many groups who hold 24/7 prayer watches. My own denomination did it for 100 years in Germany, and only stopped because of war. In fact, there is a group in England which heard of the Moravian 100 years of continuous prayer and decided to start one of their own, which was great, except for the fact that when he started advertising it, he would mention that our denomination had died, because he assumed once we stopped praying, we no longer existed.
While both of these are good ways to improve your prayer life, I’m not terribly concerned with them on this day of unity. Remember how I stated earlier that God doesn’t change. That is still true, but our God is all about change, and that vehicle of change is prayer. When we pray, we are asking for a change in the way things are! and we are asking for things to change in a way which we know we cannot do on our own. When we pray, we are saying that we know our own knowledge about the situation is limited and we need the help of the Holy Spirit to change us, to change the situation, to change others thoughts, to interact with the world in such a way that God’s will is made manifest. Paul’s challenge, in my view, to always be joyful, to pray without ceasing, to give thanks in all circumstances, as it is Gods will for us in Christ Jesus is a challenge for us to seek change and to be followers of that change, no matter where it takes us in life.
Prayer as agent of change is probably not something most of us think about when we gather at a service for Christian unity. Change tends to create disunity rather than bringing God’s people together. Normally when we think of change, we create groups which separate us. I’m sure that most of us can recall a time in our churches where change has caused one group to be upset with another, or has two groups to form a third group who didn’t like either option. An experience of change creates both unity and disunity.
The question we must ask ourselves, as a diverse group of believers in Jesus Christ, is, if it is our experiences which create both unity and disunity, what then can we seek which only promotes unity? The answer, I believe, comes from one of my favourite theologians.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer says that it is not experience that binds us together, but faith.[1] He continues by saying “God has acted and wants to act upon us all, this we see in faith as God’s greatest gift, this makes us glad and happy, but it also makes us ready to forego all such experiences when God at times does not grant them.”[2]
The gospel lesson we read today reinforces this fact. When Jesus is praying for all believers, it is not that they will all have the same experience, but that all who believe, all who have faith, will be one. If, then, it is faith that is to be the theme of our prayer of change, we must seek Gods will with the knowledge that we will receive an answer which might differ from everything our previous experience has led us to believe.
To me, this is an exciting concept. There is beauty in the uncertainty of how God will respond to our prayer. We must always be in prayer in order that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, with the knowledge that most of the time, that prayer means we must change our own ways in order to be in line with God’s plan. It started with Abraham, whom God asked to change everything he ever knew, to leave his country in order to bless the generations which would follow him. It continued when Jesus called his disciples, some were fishing in their boats, others were collecting taxes, but when Jesus called, they changed what they thought they would be doing for the rest of their life to follow. John 17 is Jesus’ final prayer for his followers, he prays for change in our hearts, that God will be in us as God is in Christ… the only thing left for us to do is continue to ask for that change.
Let us close in prayer: Eternal God, we share a long history and living witness with many who are like us and many more who are not. Help us to recognize our brothers and sisters and the countless ways which you bless us all. Change our hearts to your will. Give us hands and feet which will gladly become callused because of our faith in your wisdom. Sharpen our eyes to see need in our neighbor. Make us delighted listeners of the stories of your majesty. And above all, continue to be steadfast in patience, as so often we fail to do these things which we ask for. In Jesus name, Amen.
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community.” Translated by John W. Doberstein. Harper & Row Publishers. 1954. Pg 39.
[2] Ibid
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