When Jesus was Praying

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened….” Picture it in your mind: Jesus out there on the bank of the Jordan with all the riff raff, all those people on the margins of society – the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the Roman soldiers, probably the pickpockets, swindlers, and adulterers – all those people who had listened to John, had obeyed John’s call for repentance and change of life, and had come out to symbolically wash away all the dirt in their lives. And there was Jesus among them, in solidarity with them, also going down into the water. It could have been John the Baptizer who had led the ritual that included Jesus, but it also might have been one of John’s disciples, since in the verses between John’s speech, and Luke’s allusion to Jesus’ baptism, we learn that John had been imprisoned by Herod. Whoever it was, after Jesus came up out of the water, he must have moved apart from the throngs around him. As Luke tells us, Jesus then began to pray.

Prayer is an important element in Luke’s writings, in both the gospel and the book of Acts, much more so than with Mark or Matthew. Just think about all the times the gospel of Luke mentions prayer. Right in the beginning of the gospel, John’s father Zechariah is praying when he learns that, although he and Elizabeth have been childless, Elizabeth is to have a son. Moreover, Jesus is at prayer at critical moments in his own ministry. He prays after a day spent healing the sick. He spends all night in prayer before calling the twelve. He has been at prayer, when he confronts the twelve and asks who people say he is. He is at prayer when he is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. He prays before offering the model of prayer that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. He prays in Gethsemane before his ordeal. Even in the agony of death, he prays, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” His earliest disciples follow his example and continue to pray. As we heard in today’s reading from the book of Acts, Peter and John prayed that the Samarians might receive the Holy Spirit.

In today’s reading, we catch up with Jesus just at the beginning of his ministry. The birth stories and Jesus’ visit with the scholars in the temple in Jerusalem are behind us. Jesus is now a fully adult male. Indeed in the verse immediately following the end of the today’s reading, verse 23, Luke tells us that, “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.” Having drawn apart some distance from the noise of the crowds, sensing perhaps that his life was about to change, what would Jesus have prayed for? The text invites us to wonder. Would he have prayed for illumination to understand the road that lay ahead of him? Might he have asked God to deepen his trust that God would be with him on that road? Perhaps he prayed for a deeper understanding of God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Perhaps he prayed for discernment as he made his way through the clamor and crowds around him, and for the guidance of God’s Spirit in the choices he would inevitably face. Perhaps he prayed for reassurance. Perhaps he even remembered the verses from Isaiah that we heard earlier and understood that, while these verses originally applied to the exiled Israelites, now they might also apply not only to him, but also to all those who would follow him. And perhaps after all that, Jesus just silently rested in God’s presence.

Of course, Luke tells us none of this. In wonderfully symbolic language, Luke only tells us that Jesus had some kind of epiphany, some “aha” moment, some sense of being in a “thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is briefly parted. And in this epiphany, Jesus understood that he was truly God’s anointed one, and that God’s Spirit was indeed at work in him. He knew that he was God’s beloved, and that he was indeed empowered for the ministry and work that lay ahead.

Fast forward to 2016. We have been baptized. We too have been empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. As followers of Jesus, commissioned to do Jesus’ work in the world, how do we pray? Perhaps as children, we began praying by learning rote prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” or the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps we learned to say grace before meals or prayers before bedtime. Perhaps we learned prayers in Sunday school or youth groups. Depending on your tradition, perhaps you even learned to pray spontaneously in public.

Of course, for Episcopalians, prayer is what is found in the Book of Common Prayer. We’re a “wordy” bunch, and we have lots of beautiful prayers – the Book of Common Prayer is literally a treasure trove of prayers. Many Episcopalians equate prayer with the Eucharist, or with one of the four daily offices, Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer, and Compline. When we learn about prayer, we often learn about the four traditional forms of formal prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and intercession.

All of this is important, but all this is only the tip of the iceberg of prayer. When we discover more contemplative prayer – you will have a taste of it at our Lenten Quiet day on Saturday, February 20th – we discover that there are many other ways to pray: breath prayer, lectio divina, centering prayer, Ignatian prayer, prayer with icons, meditative journaling, prayer with music, with dancing, with art, even with mandalas, prayer in nature, and the list goes on and on.

None of these forms of prayer, whether formal or more contemplative, are ends in themselves. They are all simply practices that enable us to sense, as Jesus did, that we too are God’s beloved children, that we are God’s beloved daughters and sons, not by virtue of where we were born, our skin color, our family, our wealth, or even our piety, devotion, and generosity, but simply because we have always been, are, and always will be called into being by a God of love. Our prayer too helps us to remember that all are God’s beloved children, not only those of us privileged to follow Jesus’ way. In prayer we too realize that God’s Spirit is at work within us, that we too are empowered for ministry in the world. In prayer, we realize that God lives and works through us. Ultimately, we sense that our lives have a deeper dimension than we realize, and our prayer becomes a way of life that is centered in God.

Benedictine sister Joan Chittister relates a delightful Sufi story. One night a seeker – who could be any of us – hears a voice saying, “Who’s there?” The Sufi seeker answers with great excitement, “It is I, it is I, Lord! I am right here!” And the voice disappears. Years later, the Sufi again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” Excited to hear the voice again, the Sufi answers, “It is I, Lord, and I seek you with all my heart!” Again the voice disappears. Finally, years later, the seeker again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” And this time the Sufi replies, “Thou Lord, only Thou!” This is prayer: to let oneself be drawn into the mind, heart, and consciousness of God. God may draw us only very slowly into God’s life, but sometimes, in the silence, when we pray without words, we too can find ourselves in that thin place, when we know ourselves to be irrevocably joined to God.

You might be thinking, in our 24/7, busy, busy, noisy world, can we ever really find ourselves in that place? Sr. Joan would say “absolutely.” She’s a prolific writer and a popular speaker, and yet she maintains a contemplative way of life. Her first suggestion to us is begin to think the way Jesus thought. Think about life, people, issues, everyday incidents the way Jesus might have thought about them. Have an attitude of graciousness and welcome for all, and a willingness to put the needs of those around us before our own. And then follow Jesus’ lead in spending time apart, time with God, so that you slowly, slowly begin to see the presence of God everywhere in the world, so that you are conscious of the presence of God and able to let God work through you.

Spiritual writer Henry Nouwen reminds us that, “The One who created us is waiting for our response to the love that gave us being. God not only says, “You are my Beloved.” God also asks, “Do you love me?” and offers us countless chances to say “Yes.”

In these weeks of Epiphany, I invite you to sit with these questions: what do you truly seek? Do you seek illumination and understanding? Do you seek reassurance and courage? Do you seek a deeper knowledge of God? Do you seek to know in your own heart that God’s love for you is real and true?

I pray that God will enable all of us to know ourselves as truly beloved, and with Jesus, Chittister, Nouwen, and all the holy ones, to let God’s love fill all our nights and days.