Sunday, September 9, 2018

SERMON: "Stay Awake and Pray"

Stay Awake and Pray
A Sermon for September 9, 2018
Homecoming Sunday
Mark 14:32-42

1.

"Jesus and His Disciples" (Rembrandt)
The Gospel of Mark is a story of prophetic courage, clearly, and human suffering, clearly, and the devastating and then transforming way courage meets suffering at the cross.  But, at its core, in its essence, the Gospel of Mark is a story about friendship, spiritual friendship, friendship in the midst of a movement.  The radical energy of the gospel is generated by Jesus’ urgent call to friendship, and then by the tragic unraveling of those same relationships, and then again by the almost unimaginable promise of new life and new community and renewed friendship on the other side of the cross.

I want to suggest this morning that we can’t seriously grasp Mark’s project—or Jesus’ movement, for that matter—without grappling with friendship, without exploring friendship in light of the gospel, without joining the beloved community at this elemental point.  What kind of friends are we?  What kind of friends are we prepared to be?  These questions strike at the political edge of Christian witness, but also at the spiritual, relational, even liturgical heart of it.  What kind of friends are we prepared to be?  Brothers and sisters, maybe I’m hitting the conclusion too early in the sermon.  But here’s what I get out of the story this morning, the Gethsemane text: the gospel invites us to create a dynamic and resilient company of friends.  And that kind of friendship is watchful and alert.  And that kind of friendship is spiritually responsive and physically present.  And that kind of friendship is very, very hard to sustain. 

2.

You know the story.  I know you know the story.

You know that Jesus gathered them—just a short while ago—that he gathered them in a hideout, a safehouse, a neighborhood he could trust.  And you know that he pulled them close, in the shadows, and remembered with them the story of Israel’s captivity in Egypt and God’s passion for liberation and their daring dash to freedom in a promised land.  And you know that he prayed with them there, in that safehouse, that they prayed together for the courage to manifest that same passion in their own city, in their own context, and to join arms and hearts and bodies in a new journey to freedom.  Which would be just as revolutionary, and just as disorienting, as the first one.

And then, you know this too, and then Jesus offered them his own body.  Maybe it’s more meaningful, more radical, to say that he entrusted them with his own body.  Taking the blessed bread.  Feeling it break in his hands.  Reaching out to each one his friends.  “This is my body.  This is my brokenness.  This is the way of prophets and lovers and friends of God.”  Oh, the vulnerability, the raw vulnerability and courage and intimacy of that moment.  Jesus and his friends.  He’s not interested in doctrinal disputes and ecclesiastical councils.  He’s surely not weighing in on who gets to eat, and who gets to serve, and whether the whole thing is a stairway to heaven.  This is about faith, and fear.  This is about a practice shared by friends.  A practice that means something.  “This is my body.  Take it.  Care for it.  I entrust it to you.”

And again, all of this is happening in a dangerous environment, a menacing empire of unchecked violence, a culture of greed that will not accommodate the ancient prophetic vision of economic justice and neighborliness.  Jesus knows that his faith, his God, his vision necessitates sacrifice, vulnerability, the very real possibility of pain and even execution.  But he also knows he needs his friends: that his faithfulness has everything to do with the company of friends he’s created along the way.  “This is my body,” he says to them, a friend among friends.  “Take it.  Care for it.  I entrust it to you.”

3.

And that was just a short while ago.  A few verses back in Mark’s story.  And now, in the garden, in the darkness, Jesus asks them, he begs them really, to follow through on their promise: to stay awake as he prays, to keep watch as he agonizes, even as he looks for some kind of a way out.  I know you’ve had moments like this.  When so much is at stake and loyalty’s a lifeline.  When a friend asks you to stay close as a doctor comes in with a rough diagnosis.  When a colleague begs you for companionship because it’s time to stand up and speak truth to power.  Jesus has spent several years weaving a network, investing in relationships.  And now he begs them to keep watch. 

And there are a couple of dimensions to this watchfulness, I think.  He simply and urgently needs his friends to be present with him, right there, to be alert to his pain, to recognize the agony and know it with him.  Like your friend in the doctor’s office.  But there’s a more practical dimension, right?  Jesus needs them to look out for the militia, for the police, undoubtedly sent to intimidate him, probably on their way to arrest him.  He fears for his life.  He’s not ready to let it all go.  “I’m very sad,” he says to his friends, “It’s as if I’m dying.  Stay here and keep alert.” 

And he goes off, and he throws himself to the ground, and he prays.  He prays for a break.  He prays for some easier way.  And he prays for wisdom and discernment and vision: “Not what I want but what you want.”  Not what I want but what you want.  (By the way, take that one verse, that one prayer.  Begin each day—first thing in the morning—with just that prayer.  “Not what I want but what you want.”  Say, every day for a month.  And go to sleep at night with just that prayer on your lips.  “Not what I want but what you want.”  See what that does for you.  See how hard it is, how unnerving it is, to live with that prayer.  It’s not a long prayer.  It’s not a theologically complex prayer.  But, seriously?  “Not what I want but what you want.”  Jesus is serious about his practice.  And prophetic practice is spiritually disciplined.  He is deeply, deeply committed to the struggle, to the process, to the journey of surrender.  So: “Not what I want but what you want.”)

But it’s hard—for Peter and James and John and Mary and Joanna and all the rest of them.  It’s hard to keep watch in the Garden.  It’s hard to stay awake when the mind and the heart are so, so, so weary and so, so, so tired.  It’s hard to bear Jesus’ agony, to anticipate his suffering, to watch him waver in prayer, on his knees, this dark night of his sweet soul.  And, of course, he comes back to them a while later, and he finds them sleeping.  All of them.  The bravest and the most sophisticated.  The mystical ones and the most dependable.  He finds them all sleeping.  Because friendship—the kind of friendship, the practice of friendship that Jesus needs—is hard.    

4.

So I wonder if you and I might a commitment, even this morning, to praying for one another within this beloved community—the one we call First Church.  I wonder if we might make a commitment to keeping watch with one another and bearing one another’s burdens—and if we might understand these very commitments as essential to the edgy, daring project of the church in our generation.    

Now I’m not talking about the kind of prayer that pleads simply for divine intervention, that runs down a list of intercessions, or seeks the random material gain of some over others.  Obviously.  I’m talking about prayer as a robust and disciplined practice of compassion and friendship.  I’m talking about prayer as a sustained spirit of gratitude, delight and support—in which we keep watch with one another, in which we stay alert to the humanity of one another, in which we praise God for one another.  I’m talking about taking a risk and praying not only for the sister whose company you enjoy, but for the brother whose intentions you question.  Is that possible?  Do we have that kind of prayer in us?  I think so.  I’m talking about paying attention in worship, and over coffee, even in commission meetings, and making a very conscious choice to lift up the brother whose morale is low, or the sister who’s deep in discernment around a new direction or calling or matter of conscience.    

There was a brother in our church in California—and he was diagnosed, rather young, with Parkinson’s Disease.  As he began to shuffle a bit—in and out of worship, in and out of meetings—he asked us (he asked his church) to pay attention.  He took up poetry, writing thoughtful poems about his journey into illness and uncertainty.  And he sent them around, he needed us to read them and honor them.  He came to worship—as often as he could—and during hymns and other music, he stood in the back and danced a little.  Moved his broken body.  Shuffled to the beat.  And he cherished, every time, he cherished knowing that we were watching, paying attention, bearing witness to his holy, strange and difficult journey.  That’s church, right?  That’s what all this is.

So might we stay awake together?   In the gardens and the shadows of Gethsemane.  In the hideouts and safehouses where everything’s up for grabs.  Might we keep watch and bear witness, to one another’s humanity, to one another’s integrity, to one another’s sweet sacred soul?  At the heart of our mission, you see, at the core of our witness, if we’re honest, is a robust practice of friendship and prayer.  The two go hand in hand.  At least, that’s how I’m reading this morning’s text.  It’s hard.  It’s not easy.  And let’s face it: we will nod off from time to time.    But as we pray for one another in this way—as we practice watchfulness and gratitude for one another—I have every confidence the Spirit will bless and surprise us and build out of this very body a spunky and soulful alternative to the meanness that warps our culture in so many ways.  After all, it’s this company of friends—this very one—that God has chosen to bless and heal and mend the world.  (Maybe there’s an amen to that, in the room?)

5.

Just this past week I was invited to a dinner party here in town, by a couple of California friends who were passing through.  These are longtime organizers, agitators, nonviolent practitioners; and they were so eager to introduce me to sister conspirators and brother dreamers here in the district.  There were maybe ten of us at the table that night, in Columbia Heights, talking about farming and land and mending the earth that way; talking about militarism and torture and nonviolent resistance; talking about spiritual practice and storytelling and tending our parched souls.  It was all delightful and progressive and these were folks who believed in something new, something holy being born even now, even in our time.  My advice: never pass up a dinner party with folks who believe like that. 

And when it was over, when it was time to head out into the humidity and bid farewell, a young activist from El Salvador asked to pray for us.  Jessica’s her name.  And Jessica identifies as a Pentecostal Christian and a member of an Assembly of God congregation in Virginia; and her ministry engages the poor and marginalized in projects like growing their own food and eating the food they grow and working out just arrangements and economies of scale. 

And I have to tell you I don’t pray very often with Pentecostals—and maybe I’ll have to work on that—because Jessica’s prayer that night was fire and grace and glory.  It was pulsing with physical energy and urgency.  You could feel her prayer in the palms and the fingers and the hands we were holding.  You could taste it in the air.  Like a holy eucharist.    

She prayed God’s blessing into our lives, into our varied ministries: into the witness of an old man there who used to work for the CIA but now speaks out on militarism and torture and protests with his body whenever he gets the chance; into the witness of a practitioner who brings victims and offenders together for restorative justice; and into my ministry, too, the ministry of a DC newcomer in a church of big hearts and restless passion.  Her prayer was rousing and she was grateful, and she invoked the presence and power of Jesus such that he was clearly and generously there with us.  Blessing.  Agitating.  And delighting in our little circle.  My friends, prayer can be a powerful force.  A deeply energizing and stirring practice.

So here’s what I’m thinking this morning.  I’m thinking that a beloved community that prays for one another begins to look like and sound like and dream like the kingdom of God.  Around this circle, we’re undoubtedly diverse—in the ways we think, in the ways we imagine God, certainly in the ways we experience Jesus.  But when we pray for one another, we entrust to one another our bodies, and our fears, and our dreams.  When we pray for one another, we invite a spirit of conversion, almost a Pentecostal spirit, to shape us and awaken us and embolden us with love and hope. 

When we come to the table, then, let’s come in that spirit and with those expectations.  Let’s experiment with that kind of courage and commitment.  Let’s keep watch together.  Let’s pray for one another, as the sisters and brothers and siblings and friends we truly are.  And then let’s see what kind of mischief and revelry and world-flipping fun we can have together.  As the people of God.

Amen.