|
September 27, 2009
First Friends Meeting
Matthew 7:7-12
‘Personality and Prayer’
Last spring, I wrote a piece for our newsletter about Earl the
squirrel. There are two or three squirrels that forage in my
yard. I can’t tell them apart, so they may all be
Earl. Anyway, in the cold months of the year, I put out seed for
the birds on the rail of my deck. Every morning, Earl shows up
and eats most of the sunflower seeds. Occasionally, I also have
apples that need using up, and I put one out for Earl. One day,
when I was in the back yard, I noticed Earl on the deck as I returned
to the house. He climbed up on the roof and watched me as I
walked across the deck. As I approached the back door, I noticed
an apple core on the doorstep. I realized that Earl had left it
there for me to find. It was his way of asking for another
apple. Well, I was impressed with Earl’s intelligence and
efforts at communication. And I wanted to demonstrate that humans
are intelligent creatures too. So I went and got him another
apple.
Since I wrote that story, there have been further developments.
Twice now, Earl has left empty walnut shells on my deck railing.
I think he’s trying to tell me that the sunflower seeds are great
– but walnuts would be even better. I haven’t chosen
to respond this time. Walnuts are expensive. So Earl is
dealing with that age-old dilemma of unanswered prayer.
Now, I know that I’m anthropomorphizing Earl. That is,
I’m attributing some human personality traits to Earl the
squirrel. But I don’t think I’m mistaken about what
he’s trying to communicate. Yes, squirrels are just rodents
with a bushy tail. But when it comes to food, rodents are very
persistent and ingenious. So there’s intelligence, and I
would suggest even personality there. It’s just a lesser
degree and complexity than our intelligence and personalities. It
may well be that in his limited way, Earl was squirrel-morphizing me
– attributing rodent personality traits to me. Earl
probably imagines the inside of my house as an endless store of
sunflower seeds and – who knows? -- maybe even walnuts. And
to a rodent, well, that’s heaven.
So Earl the squirrel has been on my mind this week as I have reflected
on prayer. Prayer and personality. In our modern
‘world come of age’ many people dismiss prayer as
hopelessly anthropomorphizing. Christians and other religious
people pray to God as if God were a person like us. Isn’t
God way beyond all that? Maybe the whole concept of
‘God’ is hopelessly bound up with our human preconceptions
and should be left behind, along with heaven.
But I’m not so sure. To consider that God is a person
doesn’t necessarily reduce God to the ‘old man with a
beard’. Like us, God is a person. But God is not a
person like us – anymore than I am a person like Earl (or at
least I like to think not). If we believe that God is love, then
surely we are dealing with a personality of some sort. Love is
something persons feel for other persons. Now, of course,
polytheists believe in many gods. And then you can have a god of
love and a god of hate, a god of war and a god of peace. A sun
god and a fertility god. Gods and goddesses. And then you
pray to different gods and goddesses according to different needs and
desires.
But when you believe in one God, you believe in one, integrated, whole,
benign, loving person. Not a force of nature, or a specialist of
some kind. And when you really pray seriously to that person over
time, it has the effect of making you one, integrated, whole, benign,
loving person. That’s the power of prayer that Jesus
teaches. Jesus spoke of God in very personal terms, as a loving
father – he even addressed God as ‘Abba’ –
Dad. Jesus urges us to bring everything to God in prayer.
He urges us to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect.” The word that is translated perfect here could
just as easily be translated whole, integrated. Be one person as
God is one person. We may never become perfect persons in this
life. But prayer is the engine of growth that moves us in that
direction.
So in the passage Melissa just read, Jesus urges us to go for it.
Ask and you shall receive. This is teaching even Earl could
understand and go for. Yes, of course, we humans do abuse this
teaching. We ask selfishly, we pray self-indulgently, even
trivially. Years ago, Janis Joplin lampooned this kind of prayer
with that song, “Lord, won’t you give me a Mercedes
Benz. My friends all drive Porches, I must make
amends.” Or there’s the immature Christian who prays
for a good place in the parking lot. There are always Christians
who will confirm these stereotypes. And this is often where
growth in prayer has to begin.
But if we keep praying very long, and very honestly – honest with
ourselves and honest to God – we can’t avoid growing,
maturing, integrating, becoming whole. We begin to take God
seriously, not as our ‘Easy Button’ but as a real person
we’re talking to. Then we begin to see ourselves more
honestly as real persons, warts and all. Less than the person we
want to be. And so far less than the person we’re talking
to. So either we stop talking to God and draw back in shame, or
we keep talking and struggle to get better. Oh yeah, we can stop
talking to God and decide that God is either no good or doesn’t
exist. But that’s just a dodge for the shame of believing
that we’re not good enough. Prayer is a person-to-person
call and once you begin the conversation, you can’t hang
up. Or if you do, you’re left with hang-ups that are all
your own problem to deal with. But God won’t hang up on you.
One of the keys to this passage is the last verse. Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you. We call it the Golden
Rule. And we always treat it by itself. And by itself,
it’s a powerful rule to live by. But this week, as I looked
at this passage, I realized that this verse belongs with the ones about
prayer. This is the verse that keeps prayer honest. First,
Jesus says, God is this wonderful person that will give you whatever
you need. Then he says, now you be that kind of person too.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Gandhi said,
“Become part of the world you would like to live in.”
Jesus personalizes it. Become the kind of person you believe God
is. This is what makes God real in our lives, and not just a
bunch of wishful thinking. This is what makes heaven not just a
far-off fantasy-land. It brings heaven to earth. This is
what God becoming human in Jesus is meant to show us, in the span of
one short lifetime.
So we keep praying. And if we keep praying in earnest and
don’t just fall into rote formulas, we will keep growing as
persons. Our relationship with God will keep developing, and that
will cause our relationships with other persons grow too. We will
grow in our most intimate and committed relationships with family and
friends. But our circle of concern and compassion will also
grow. As we let our hearts hurt with those who hurt, we will be
led to help them. Sometimes, we can do that through personal
contact, when we help out at the Pantry, for example. But in the
world today, we need to do it in impersonal ways too. Writing a
check to help people far away, let’s say. For example,
Right Sharing of World Resources is a tiny Quaker organization that
makes micro-loans to little groups of people in Africa, India, and
elsewhere. People we will never meet. But a little of our
money, rightly placed, can do a lot of good. This is part of our
growth as persons, being able to extend our compassion and generosity
beyond person-to-person relationships, through organizations we can
trust.
Prayer fuels our growth as persons. We may start out praying for
that prime parking place. But as we grow as person, we may choose
a place further from the store and leave that prime place for someone
who needs it more. In many ways we become less self-centered,
because we become attuned to the personhood and need of others –
even those we don’t know personally. Jesus says, to those
who are faithful in a little, more will be given. God is waiting
for us to show a bit more spiritual intelligence, a bit more
personality. And God will respond by giving us what we need to
take the next step.
Well, back to Earl. I have to say, Earl is not the kind of
squirrel I would like him to be. When he’s on the deck
railing, gobbling up sunflower seeds and another squirrel comes along,
Earl chases that other squirrel away. That other squirrel may be
his mate, for all I know. But he won’t share. Still,
I keep feeding him and the birds. I figure I need to show a
little faith.
|
