Lenten Vespers 2007 Prayer is Trust

One of the most difficult things to teach a new swimmer is how to do the back float. I know this, because for 11 years of my life, it was something I did for a living. And, to be honest I was good at it. I helped to teach other people how to teach people how to swim.

But what it came down to so often with the back float was a simple, four word question- “Do you trust me?” Everything a person has learned about the world and how it operates up until that moment causes common sense to yell out “if you lean back in the water with no one there to hold you up, then you are going to go ‘yoink’ right to the bottom.”

So too with prayer. God, the God who has called us into intimacy with Him, the God who has called us to prioritize our lives- to put Him first, the God who has called us to be honest in our need for forgiveness, knows that ultimately the relationship that He wants with us in prayer and through prayer can only take place when we trust in God. It is His voice that we here saying “Do you trust me?”

We need to know that God hears and God answers every prayer offered up to Him. The difficulty lies in the fact that some times, the answer is an emphatic “No!” And yet we are called still to pray. This Sunday we begin the walk through Holy Week and the events it commemorates. On Maundy Thursday, we recall “the night in which He was betrayed.” And we give thanks for the institution of the Eucharist.

But it was on this night was well that he went into the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed. He prayed so hard that he sweated blood. He prayed the prayer that, like the prayer he taught in the Sermon on the Mount, has formed the basis of prayer for so many of those who follow in His name. Jesus prayed "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want." Jesus knew what was coming. Not because He was the Son of God, but because he was a smart man who knew what would happen when you stomped on the toes of the people in charge.

And keep in mind that Gethsemane was ideally situated for Jesus to see Judas and company approaching, and for Him to hotfoot it out of there and over into Bethany before anyone knew what was up. But he stayed.

And that’s the way it is. God never forces the hand. We always have the option of saying “No.” before we go one step further. All God does is ask a simple, four word question- “Do you trust me?”

And let us be perfectly honest with each other and name where that trust led Jesus. He was arrested. He was beaten. He was humiliated. He was tortured. He was crucified (perhaps one of the most gruesome forms of execution devised). He died. He was buried. In the midst of all of that it would be hard for anybody’s mind to be able to hold onto “and on the third day...”

We are called in prayer to trust our Heavenly Father as Christ himself did. And our Heavenly Father offers us the same freedom that he did His Son. We never have to stay in the Garden. We are always free to cut and run.

What God does promise is meaning to all that will happen when we do trust and we do walk with him. I love the closing collect to the Vespers Litany- and I think it speaks to what prayer as trust is all about. Just moments ago we said this prayer: O God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments; and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God forever.

It took me a while to notice something as I learned this liturgy in Seminary. And after noticing something, it took me a while to comprehend its meaning. We do not pray to be defended from our enemies. We pray to be defended from the fear of our enemies. In essence, we pray for trust in God. We pray for the trust to lean back into the arms of His love, and the grace to know that even when He takes his hands away, that He will be right there and His grace will hold us.

Let us pray- Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

SDG