A wise woman once told me:
Reading the Torah
sometimes feels like
going down the stairs
into a damp, cluttered basement
and rummaging around
with a flashlight

you never know what you’ll turn up
or whether you’ll even know
what it is when you see it

a clever serpent may cross your path

there’s a tower stretching into the sky under some coats in a corner

on that shelf back there
a boat teeming with a pair of every creature

and right beside it, oof!
a man lying drunk and naked in his tent

around a corner
sitting around drinking old wine are
angels disguised as strangers

unmistakable
there’s the plaintive frightened wailing
of the infant child of a slave in the desert

near the boiler
a pile of smoking firepots and flaming torches

oh! and (hand in front of nose)
split animal carcasses

in a corner
swathed in cobwebs
a lonely pillar of salt
in the form of a woman

and waaaay in the back
a stairway reaching up into heaven, angels walking up and down

every culture has its mythical underpinnings
the stories we tell of things that happened
before anyone living can remember
before our grandparents or their grandparents were born

saying these stories are myths
doesn’t mean they’re untrue
it just means that they are told
not as a journalist reports a news story
or as a scientist reports data

instead
these stories are told
to help us explain who we are
who we belong to
why things are the way they are

as Christians
we are heirs through adoption
of the mythology of ancient Israel
full of visions and blood and fire and promises

many of these stories have their analogs
in the myths of other tribes

the story of the creation
or of the flood
or of the great Evil City laid waste
by divine action
in retribution for their surpassing wickedness

in that way
the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah
has resonances with the Greek tale of Atlantis

great civilization produces great hubris and wickedness
and must be destroyed by the gods

but unlike some of the founding myths
of nearby empires
the mythology of ancient Israel
is quirky
shot through with a peculiar revelation
as in today’s reading from Genesis

God’s presence stands on the earth
in the person of three messengers
ready to witness the violence and inhospitality and greed
of the Great Evil City
ready to execute divine wrath
fire and brimstone showering from the skies

when the wandering shepherd from Ur
still in quite an uncertain position
holding only the promise of a child from his wife Sarah
of becoming the father of teeming multitudes

screws up his courage
plants his feet
and

STANDS IN GOD’S WAY

asking impertinent questions
and bargaining for mercy
on behalf of the righteous of the Evil City

this story has its place in the great story of Israel
but does it have anything to teach us
about prayer?

I think prayer can be like this:
taking our stand
in active relationship with the God
whose thoughts are not our thoughts
whose ways are not our ways
and talking out what we think and feel and desire
in the audacious belief that
God will listen

because part of our inheritance
as grafts onto the tree of Israel
is a relationship with God
whom we come to know as
an eternal ‘You’
calling us out of ourselves
into communion

rather than a ‘Him’
who resides
at a great distance from us
whom we simply propitiate
and from whom we beg favors

So how do we begin
to pray?

In the Gospel lesson,
Jesus urges those who would follow him
to look to God for what they’re missing
as a child asks a parent for food

and that is a good place to begin
to enter a dialog with God
as the source of all things
who cares for us
with a boundless love

and so we ask
most often
in my experience
for help
for things we need
for freedom from danger
freedom from fear
freedom from want
for things to go our way
for our loved ones to be well
for our sorrows and theirs to be lifted

and from Jesus’ words in the Gospel
we might expect to receive what we ask for

but by now
most of us know
that God is not a vending machine
taking and filling orders

the Living God
is revealed to us in Jesus
not in Santa Claus

one of the blows of maturity
is the prayer that seems to go unanswered

we ask for a new puppy
but our apartment complex won’t allow dogs

we ask for a relationship
and go on bad date after bad date
haunted by our loneliness

we ask for that new job when we’re on our last 20 bucks
and no one calls with an interview
and we’re eating ramen noodles for every meal

we ask for our parents to stay together
and they separate and divorce bitterly

we ask for our loved one to be cured of cancer
and we watch them sicken and die
and we learn to drink grief
as a fish gulps water
trying to breathe

we ask for an end to the ruthless violence and misery of war
and the bodies continue to pile up without an end in sight
and our sons and brothers and fathers
come back haunted and broken

so why ask at all?

do we really imagine that God
will or even can
grant every prayer
if the one who prays
believes fervently enough?

I think it’s because
in setting forth our desires
we are being asked to set forth
our most vulnerable selves

it is the heart that wants
that longs
that tells the truth

it is also like
a compass

though it can be confounded and confused
by objects and magnetic fields near it

when the needle is free from undue influence
free to float and roam
it will always point towards the capital-P Pole

our hearts often confuse other things for God
but as we pay attention
and clear obstructions
we find that the heart’s needle is true

It points toward the Holy One
the ‘You’ Who draws us into relationship

Now I don’t know
if prayer changes God
(I’ll leave that to better theologians than I)
but I do know that
honest
raw
consistent
prayer
changes the one who prays

in the story
even Abraham bargained with God
but was unable to save Sodom and Gomorrah

So if not an approval of his request,
What is the answer to Abraham’s prayer?

What if the answer is just a burning question lodged in his throat,
‘What if there are ten righteous in the city? Will you spare them?’

A cry for justice that will not rest
that rumbles and courses like an underground river

Jesus is heir to the crying of prophets
and he is their fulfillment

in our long conversation with God
perhaps Jesus is also an answer to Abraham’s question

so bringing our whole selves
our bodies and hearts and souls
to God
as best we can

Jesus teaches us not just a prayer
to be recited
but the mold and form
of all Christian prayer

which begins by removing
the obstacles
the magnets that confuse
the compass of our hearts

Notice that the version in Luke
is a little different from the version
we see in Matthew
or in our liturgy:

first
a cry of kinship, the call of the Prodigal Son
as the one who loves him runs out to meet him:
Father!

(this sets aside the loneliness
the need for approval
the need to please
God is as close to us
as a loving parent
no one is alone)

Two wishes–
acknowledging that
God is not idle
that God is working in the world
to see the fruition of God’s vision
we can participate in our small ways
but these are not our project!
They are well in hand:
May your name be sanctified!
May your kingdom come!

(this sets aside pride
frantic busyness
and exaggerated self-importance.
the coming of God’s kingdom
does not rest on MY shoulders)

Five imperatives
Five demands
no pleases involved
and all in the first person plural
there’s no ‘I’ or ‘me’ in the Lord’s prayer
we go together or not at all

Gives us each day the bread we need to live.

we are not taught to ask for ‘what I need’
we are taught to ask for ‘what WE need’:
not bread for the year
or bread for the month
or bread for the week
just bread for us all
for today

(this sets aside our many insatiable cravings
lust, envy, greed
the fear of poverty
of scarcity)

Forgive us our sins
in the same measure that we forgive
everyone who does wrong to us.

we are not taught to turn away from MY sins
but to turn away from OUR sin
by forgiving the wounds
that the sins of others inflict

if I’m searching high and low
for forgiveness of what the Buddhists call
‘my ancient twisted karma’
I won’t find it alone

but we can find it together
embedded
in forgiving
those who have hurt us

(this sets aside the bonds of rage
and resentment and pettiness
the pile-up of complaints and grievances
that weigh down and paralyze)

And spare us from the time of trial.
grant all of us the strength to hold tight
to what is good and true, honorable and just
when it would be easier to let it go

(this set aside the idea
that I am solely responsible
for securing my salvation
with will power and optimism

we are reminded
that our circumstances may try us
and we depend on God
for guidance)

As we enter Jesus’ prayer
holding our compass
we may find that
the confounders are stripped away
and the needle floats free

pointing us directly

to our Hope and Calling
our Maker and Destiny
the Beloved
the Holy One

resplendent in glory
shining through
the people, places, and events
of our lives

for those who need something
–bread or answers–
God is gift
and calls us to give to others

for those who are searching for something
even if they don’t know what it is
God is discovery
and inspires us to search for the lost

for those wandering in search of a home
God is welcome
and helps us unbolt the doors of our lives
and invite the stranger to sit at our table

In Luke’s true form,
the pointing needle
only identifies the direction
in which we are to walk

it is up to us
to follow

(hat tip to Baba Yaga, the wise woman par excellence)