The Unforgiveable Sin

Mark 3:20-30

by Daniel Harrell

I thought I stepped into it last Sunday night, preaching as I did about this fall’s presidential election. Not only did I risk our IRS status, but I risked offending most of you, given the polarizing nature of the American politics. I dared suggest that while Christians like to think that faith influences our political choices; more often than not it works the other way around. Politics govern our faith. Invoking not only Barack Obama and John McCain, but also Sarah Palin, Rick Warren, James Dobson, Jon Stewart and teenage premarital sex, I thought surely I’d irritated everybody. I braced for the onslaught of email. But instead of my inbox runneth over, all I got was internet crickets. One big email doughnut hole which led me to conclude that either A] last Sunday made you so mad you’re never going to speak to me again; B] any fury you did feel was quickly supplanted by concern over Tom Brady’s knee; or C] I didn’t offend you.

So I thought I’d try again this week. I have decided to continue this fall a series I began last May on the gospel of Mark; or more specifically, the sayings of Jesus in the gospel of Mark. For those of you who have red-letter Bibles, the sayings of Jesus are printed in red. Interest in these red letters has been sparked of late by a book entitled Red-Letter Christians by the popular author and sociologist Tony Campolo. A Christian and a Democrat, Campolo and like-minded others appeal to Jesus in order to show that the Republican platform does not reflect Christian values, despite the long-standing alliance between evangelicals and the GOP. Does that make God a Democrat? There’s really only one way to decide. Like the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal atop Mount Carmel, the winner is the one with the most answered prayers.

There was a Republican-leaning video posted by a well-known evangelical organization on You Tube just prior to the Democratic Convention in Denver last month where a narrator asks, “Would it be wrong to pray for rain? Not just rain, but abundant rain, torrential rain, urban and small stream flood advisory rain” at Mile High Stadium in Denver on say, August 28^th, just a couple minutes before Barack Obama is scheduled to give his acceptance speech. “Now I know there will probably be people who will pray for 72 degrees and clear skies,” the narrator conceded, “but if God decides, and it’s always up to God to decide, if God decides that rain of Biblical proportions would be a good and proper meteorological condition for that evening, we’ll see it, and we’ll say that ‘it is good.’” If you watched Obama’s speech you know he gave it under clear skies and as it turned out, 72 degrees. Did this mean that the Lord is voting Democratic? Not so fast. A rival You Tuber posted a video that wondered a similar thing. “Would it be wrong,” this narrator asked, “would it be wrong to pray for diarrhea… “not just diarrhea, but abundant diarrhea, torrential diarrhea, urban and small stream flood-advisory diarrhea” just in time for John McCain’s acceptance speech? As in Denver, there were no reports of that prayer being answered in St. Paul earlier this month. However, there was a You Tube spoof of the original rain video that asked whether it would be wrong to pray for a tornado. And while there was no tornado either, there was a hurricane. Gustav hit New Orleans just in time to disrupt the opening of the Republican Convention.

However, before you conclude that the Almighty has made his endorsement, remember that politics govern faith. Republicans believed that Hurricane Gustav was not indicative of God’s disfavor, but just the opposite. Since an appearance by our currently unpopular President (and his even less popular Vice-President) on national TV might have doomed McCain’s standing in the polls, Gustav providentially blew George W. Bush aside, and ample room for Hurricane Sarah to blow in and take the convention, and the polls by storm. Democrats counter that Hurricane Sarah has blown John McCain aside too. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be? As one columnist wrote, “She has already shown that she can shoot the pig, put lipstick on it, bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. Now all she has to do is also prove that she can be the leader of the free world on a moment’s notice, and field dress Putin as adeptly as she can a moose.” The campaigning turned pretty vicious this past week, prompting Sarah Palin to phone up purpose-driven pastor Rick Warren for prayer. Warren said that Palin “asked me to send her some bible verses on how do you deal with the unfair, unjust attacks and the mean-spirited criticism that comes in.”

Rick Warren, you may recall, hosted Barack Obama and John McCain at his megachurch last month to infuse some civility in this year’s election. Inasmuch as both presidential candidates profess a common faith, Warren hoped they would be able to “disagree without demonizing” each other. But folks couldn’t even manage that in the Bible. Rick Warren didn’t say which Bible verses he sent to Palin, but I’m guessing they did not come from our passage tonight. The fierce disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees that’s been simmering since the beginning of chapter 2 boils into full blown demonizing here in chapter 3. Vehemently opposed to Jesus’ miraculous works and words on account of their own politics, the Pharisees resort to accusing Jesus of working for Satan himself. “He is possessed by Beelzebub!” they said, “It is by the power of the prince of demons that he drives out demons.” As I noted last Sunday, like Obama and McCain, Jesus and the Pharisees also professed a common faith, both believed in God and both believed in his coming kingdom. Yet for the Pharisees, their kingdom-politics implied earthly power sufficient to take vengeance on Rome and take control of the system. On the other hand, Jesus’ kingdom-politics secured victory through humiliating defeat. His goal was redemption rather than revenge, powerful love rather than controlling power.

The Pharisees considered this crazy talk. Jesus tells them they need to repent. Repent? Them, the religious leaders? The victims of Roman tyranny? They don’t need to repent. They’re not the ones who flouted the Sabbath. He did. Everyone knew that failing to keep Sabbath was what got Israel into its political messes with the Babylonians and the Romans. God was so serious about the Sabbath that the only way he was ever going to deliver them was if they showed they were serious about Sabbath too. Yet here’s Jesus saying it’s OK to work on the Lord’s Day? He calls himself “the Lord of the Sabbath.” Who talks like that? Sure, he draws big crowds. But have you seen the people in those crowds? Outcasts, sinners, criminals. And worse than that, he says he has the authority to forgive their sins, like he’s God Almighty or something. True, he’s done some mighty things: casted out a few demons, cleared up some leprosy, healed a couple paralytics—but just because you can do miracles doesn’t mean God’s on your side, anymore than having a hurricane hit New Orleans during the Republican Convention meant God’s a Democrat. I guarantee New Orleans democrats don’t think so. No, the devil can do all of those tricks. “It is by the power of the prince of demons that he drives out demons,” they said.

Now the Pharisees were talking crazy. “How can Satan drive out Satan?” Jesus asked. That doesn’t make any sense. A country that declares war on itself will fall. A family that sues itself will come apart. If it’s Satan fighting Satan, soon there won’t be any Satan left. Everybody knows Satan has no interest in destroying himself. No, if anybody is going to destroy Satan, he has to be stronger than Satan; strong enough to tie him up and rob him blind.” Jesus is alluding to himself here. Evil cannot destroy evil. Only God can destroy evil. By exorcising and healing and forgiving, Jesus destroys evil. Jesus has the spirit of God.

And thus more than talking crazy, the Pharisees were talking blasphemy. Still, God could forgive them for that. “People will be forgiven for all sins,” Jesus said, “even for all the blasphemies they utter.”As the Psalmist sings: “God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” With one exception, Jesus warned, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, they are guilty of an eternal sin.” Gulp. Have I done this? When I cursed God in anger or in my sorrow doubted his goodness, did I commit the unforgiveable sin? Not if afterwards I asked God to forgive me. “People will be forgiven all the blasphemies they utter,” Jesus said. By calling Jesus’ works evil, the Pharisees callously call God’s power Satanic. Bad enough. But what made their sin unforgiveable is that they never repent of it. Their blasphemy is unforgiveable because they seek no forgiveness for it. So stubborn are their hearts that they refuse to receive what Jesus dies to give them. Little wonder that Jesus looked at them with anger back in verse 5. He grieved their hard hearts. The language hearkened back to the Israelites of old who never could embrace the genuine overtures of God’s grace. In the book of Acts, the first Christian martyr Stephen likewise accuses as he dies at their hands, “You are stiff-necked people, just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!”

We shake our heads at the Pharisees, wondering how it is that people so righteous could get it so wrong. But what if Jesus showed up today looking like he did back then, hanging with the people he hung with back then, saying things like he said back then, things such as “if you have seen me you have seen God.” Who talks like that? Speaking with a couple elders last Sunday about this very thing, we all pretty much concluded that we’d be Pharisees too in regard to Jesus, as scary as that sounds. Shoot, even Jesus’ family thought he was nuts. They show up in verse 21 “to take charge of him.” It’s a word that means “to restrain” or “take into custody.” Like parents who call me up every fall worried that their kids have joined a cult. “You’ve got them going to church every Sunday and to Bible study on Tuesday and serving the homeless on Thursday and to retreats on Saturday… it’s all Jesus all the time! What are you people running up there?!” Cults do prey on the religiously disillusioned; kids who have bit too much of a God complex. Mark doesn’t tell us exactly what it was that Jesus’ family was worried about. He simply quotes what Jesus’ kinfolk said about Jesus: “He’s out of his mind.”

I was speaking from this passage last Thursday night and mentioned that the word Mark uses for “out of his mind” is the Greek word from which we get the word eccentric. Eccentric means literally, “off center,” or “beside yourself,” which if you give it a Christian spin can be a good thing. After all, to be “off center” and “beside yourself” could mean that you’re centered onto others and beside them instead. That definitely describes Jesus. Of course it could just mean you’re crazy—but you can give that a Christian spin too. “We are fools for Christ!” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly dressed and poorly treated, we are homeless…” Which is coincidental since I was giving my Thursday night talk outside among the homeless. An eccentric group of us go outside every Thursday night, feeding and clothing as well as worshipping with those who call the Common their home. I’m sure that many of the passersby think we are crazy. Especially when they hear us singing and preaching in public. We do it rain or shine, in the dead of winter and in the heat of summer. We do it among those treated as outcasts: the addicted, the disenfranchised, the criminal, the alien and the plain poor. There’s room for some of you to join us if you’re interested.

While outside, a relatively inebriated fellow, well-versed in his Bible, insisted that we obey Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. He had in mind chapter 16:20; “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” He kept interrupting our worship demanding somebody kiss him. What he wanted was a big smooch from one of the young women in our group. I used to try that one in college myself. We worked to get through the worship service with him obnoxiously yelling for holy kisses according to Corinthians (and Romans and Thessalonians too). “Be ye not just hearers of the word,” he chastised us, “but be doers too.” So afterwards, not wanting to be a pastor who doesn’t practice what the Bible preaches, I went over and kissed him. Right smack on the jaw. He looked a little stunned. I then stuck out my cheek for him to kiss me back. Which he did, even though I know this was not what he had in mind. But then as I tasted his grimy street sweat on my lips, I thought, “Good Lord, what have I done? Am I crazy? Had I lost my mind?” Then I thought, “I hope so.”

“We are fools for Christ,” Paul wrote, “weak and held in disrepute. We hunger and thirst, are poorly dressed, poorly treated and homeless. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the earth, the world’s garbage, everybody’s trash.” If faith governed politics, you’d be looking for these “qualities” in a candidate this fall. But you’d never find such a candidate. But even if you did, would you vote for one so weak and so eccentric? Because politics governs faith, the Pharisees could never receive Jesus as the embodiment of God’s power. They could only demonize him and finally string him up. But you know, stringing Jesus up turned out to be the very ting, ironically, that tied up the strong man and robbed his house. By dying and rising Jesus took out the devil—and the powers of sin and death—and made forgiveness available to anyone crazy enough to follow him.

The Politics of Faith

Mark 3:1-6

by Daniel Harrell

A few months back I started a sermon series on the red-letters in Mark’s gospel—you know, the ones that demarcate the sayings of Jesus for those who own red-letter Bibles. Interest in these red letters has been sparked of late by a book entitled Red-Letter Christians by the popular author and sociologist Tony Campolo. Written in time for this year’s presidential campaign, Campolo asserts that to be a red-letter Christian is to have a high view of Scripture, to believe that Jesus is alive and that salvation can be had through faith in him—but it also means that you have a passionate commitment to social justice which inevitably leads to an intense involvement in politics. Now I should mention that “Red-Letter Christians” tend to be Democrats (ironic given that the letters are red). I am registered Republican. But as far as I can tell Jesus was neither Democrat nor Republican, despite efforts by both parties to make him their running mate. Still, Campolo is right about this: Jesus’ words did carry political implications.

Take the opening salvo from Mark chapter 1: “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” On the one hand, you read this and interpret it as Jesus speaking primarily about heaven and personal salvation. But when you look more closely, especially at the word near, and you discover that it’s a word that could also be translated as at hand, or even right here. Suddenly you wonder whether Jesus is speaking about something other than heaven out there, or even heaven in your heart. For his original audience here in Mark, Galilean Jews chafing under brutal Roman rule, to hear that the rule of God had arrived could not have been construed as anything other than a radical denouncement of the current administration. This is what made it such good news—and what made it political. Jesus announces that Rome’s time is up. God’s kingdom has come.

The word kingdom is politically charged. It implies power, and specifically, the power to control. In regard to Rome, kingdom power meant military power, control by brute force. For the Jews of Jesus’ day, his pronouncement of God’s coming power fueled their hope for deliverance. But they’d been hoping for a long time. Too long for some of them. Among the Jews were those called Zealots, people who believed that they needed to hurry God’s kingdom along and that the only way to do that was through open revolt. Others, known as Pharisees, opted for a cultural war. Bring on God’s kingdom by righteous legislation. Follow all the rules and thereby compel God to reward. Still others, the Herodians mentioned here, figured that if God was going to take his time they might as well take advantage. Cozy up to the Romans and reap the benefits of proximity to political clout, even if it means burying your faith under a basket for a while, or even burying it in the ground.

For each of these groups—Zealots, Pharisees and Herodians—kingdom-come implied controlling power. Whether through violence, legislation or accommodation, the end game was all about getting your fingers on the buttons. And therefore Jesus says repent. Instead of the usual violent rebellion, it was time to show the pagans what the true God was really like, not by fighting and violence but by loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek and going the second mile, even if that road led to its usual end; namely, crucifixion. Rome used crosses to squelch insurrection and thereby expose the futility of political resistance, as well as to execute the death sentence on rebels. But by contrast, Jesus used the cross to expose the futility of Roman and religious violence, while executing a sentence of forgiveness on his crucifiers. Christ accepts rejection and injustice and responds with resurrection. In his kingdom, peace is not made and kept through the shedding of enemies’ blood, but by the king shedding his own blood. In doing so, the cross becomes the ironic symbol of victory through defeat.

Amidst the intoxication of controlling power, the ironic power of the cross endures. Perhaps you watched Barack Obama and John McCain being interviewed by purpose-driven pastor Rick Warren. I found it surprising that the candidates chose a church for their first joint appearance (even if they didn’t appear together). Among the questions Warren asked each was what it meant to be a follower of Christ. Obama responded by saying it means that “Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that I am redeemed through Him. He is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. It also means an obligation to embrace not just words but, through deeds, the expectations God has for us. It means acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.” McCain concurred. He said that being a Christian means “that I’m saved and forgiven.” He went on to tell a story of his Vietnam war imprisonment and torture and how at one point a Vietnamese guard entered his cell and quietly loosened ropes that McCain’s interrogators were using to torture him. Later, on Christmas Day, McCain said this same guard walked over again and drew a cross in the dirt with his sandal in order to let him know that he was a Christian too.

Rick Warren said that the purpose for his interviews was to promote civility during this year’s election campaign. Presumably, shared faith should trump the temptation to sling mud. To be brothers in Christ means loving your brother as you love God, and partaking of all that spiritual fruit—like kindness and self-control—that makes any disagreement manageable. Yet we all know how seldom this works. From the first Corinthians on, Christians have been at each other’s throats: Catholics fighting Protestants, Congregationalists fighting Baptists, Baptists fighting Baptists. And that’s even without mentioning the discord common with most any run-of-the-mill church committee. We call it church politics. And thus it’s no surprise that brothers Obama and McCain, despite their unity in Christ, are already ripping each other. We’ve come to expect no less. Rick Warren said that Americans believe in the separation of church and state, but not in the separation of faith and politics. He meant that what we believe governs our politics. But in reality, I think more often it works the other way around. Our politics govern what we believe.

I got to thinking this watching the drama of last week’s introduction of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. For political conservatives (many of whom are Christians), Palin’s piety and penchant for packing heat was just what the Dr. Dobson ordered. But then came the curve ball regarding her teenage daughter’s pregnancy. Typically, conservatives would explicitly censure such behavior, being strong advocates of policies that promote teenage sexual abstinence. But toward Governor Palin’s daughter, any censure was all but nonexistent. I wondered, would these same conservatives have been equally subdued had the teenage mother been, say, a young Chelsea Clinton, or even more to the point, an older Malia Obama? On the other hand, political liberals (many of whom are Christians) oppose legislating abstinence. They champion women’s rights but could say nothing in support of a Republican, so instead they lobbed a few Jon Stewart grenades of sarcasm—likening Bristol Palin to Jamie Lynn Spears. They then chastised McCain for irresponsibly vetting an obviously irresponsible parent as a running mate—something they never would have done had the pregnant daughter belonged to their party’s nominee.

Jesus and the Pharisees shared a common faith. Both were of chosen stock, both traced their ancestry to Abraham, both worshipped at the Temple and regarded the Law as God’s sacred word, and both looked toward God’s deliverance from Roman oppression. And both remembered the Sabbath day and kept it holy. Yet their politics diverged deeply—evidenced here in regard to the Sabbath. As much as sexual conduct headlines contemporary political news cycles, Sabbath conduct did so in Jesus’ day. Sabbath was a core aspect of Israel’s identity. It was the tangible thing that set them apart from their pagan oppressors. As with Christians who refuse to work on Sundays, Pharisaic Jews kept Sabbath as a way of drawing their line in the cultural sand. Yet since the Romans were apparently fine with letting their Jewish subjects keep their Sabbath for the most part, it wasn’t much of a line. For the Pharisees, however, strict Sabbath observance succeeded as a political ploy. By sticking to the Sabbath the Pharisees could look like they were sticking it to Rome. By keeping the Sabbath better than everybody else they could project an image that they were better than everybody else. They cornered the market on both power and prominence—and piety too, since to keep Sabbath kept you in God’s graces.

And they pretty much got away with it until Jesus showed up and started messing with their Sabbath setup. Of the five conflicts recorded between Jesus and the Pharisees so far in Mark, three have to do with the Sabbath. Chapter 3 opens with Jesus again going to synagogue. This time the Pharisees were ready. Like a rival party eager to dig up some dirt on their opponent, Mark describes the Pharisees as “looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely.” All they needed to do was to catch Jesus bending the law, then they could spin it and discredit him as a lawbreaker. On this particular Sabbath, a man with a paralyzed hand was present. In Leviticus, the law forbid any man with any defect from approaching God, including a man with “a crippled foot or hand.” Now technically, this prohibition applied only to priests offering sacrifices in the Temple. But by the time we get to Jesus’ day, the legal restriction had likely generalized into a social discrimination. If it’s bad for a paralyzed priest to sacrifice in the Temple, it can’t be good for a man with a shriveled hand to show up in synagogue. It wasn’t forbidden, but like a man showing up in church without a shirt, everybody noticed—and disapproved.

Perhaps an usher walked over and asked the man to take a seat in the back, so as not to bother the more respectable worshippers. But Jesus calls the paralyzed man to the front. The Pharisees watched, Mark writes, “to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.” It’s surprising to note that the issue is not Jesus’ ability to heal; the Pharisees conceded Jesus could do that. Funny, you’d think that being able to make paralysis disappear would have made Jesus a compelling candidate to the Pharisees, but politics doesn’t work that way. Jesus’ view of the kingdom meant losing power and that was not on the Pharisees’ platform. And therefore the Pharisees labeled Jesus healing as work. Ask any doctor and they’ll tell you that healing is work, hard work. And God prohibited work on the Sabbath. But if all healing comes from God, and Jesus healed on the day God prohibited it, then something more was at stake. For Jesus to heal on the Sabbath might suggest that God was on his side rather than theirs. The debate begins. Jesus asks: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” This was a no-brainer. It is always lawful to do good on the Sabbath. It is lawful to do good every day, just as it is unlawful to do evil or to kill any day. Why don’t the Pharisees answer? Because politics does not allow you to agree with your opponent.

Typically we interpret this conflict as one between law and grace; as if somehow Jesus considered keeping Sabbath superfluous. But that’s not true. Jesus kept Jewish law. The conflict is not between the law and grace, but over how to interpret the law; specifically here, what it means to save a life. Already it was accepted principle by all parties that “any danger to life takes precedence over the Sabbath.” For the Pharisees, this principle allowed one to perform CPR on the Sabbath, even though you’d have to work to do it. I remember one vivid occasion when a beloved member of our church collapsed in his pew just as I was beginning to preach my sermon. I stopped and rushed to his side with the doctors in the house. We dialed quickly 911, and then prayed as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. Nobody objected to my completely skipping the sermon that day (Some people were glad). But what about those of you who aren’t dying, you just feel like it. You’re worried about school, or who have just lost your job, or are in a troubled relationship or wish you had a relationship to be troubled about; you’ve got some chronic something you cannot get rid of. Maybe you’re not listening anyway because what you need is for someone to talk with rather than listen to, someone to pray for you and make things better. Should I stop preaching so we can do that? I don’t know, maybe some Sundays I should.

This man’s paralyzed hand is not life-threatening in the literal sense. Yet in every other sense, his disability threatened his living. To be disabled brought on social and religious prejudice, it labeled him defective and disfavored by God. It also left him poor since in that society, the loss of a hand would mean the inability to work. To this man, for Jesus to heal his hand would save his life in every other way. And since it is lawful to save a life on the Sabbath, Jesus says to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Jesus does not flout the law here; he rightly interprets it and rightly upholds it. And just to make perfectly clear that he has the authority to do that, Jesus heals by simply speaking, which technically speaking, is not work. He heals with a word, just like God heals—which is where Jesus’ authority comes from. Jesus further justifies his claim from chapter 2: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Of course the Pharisees, like any party in power, could not allow for this. And because politics makes strange bedfellows, they conspired with the Herodians about how to take Jesus out—the Herodians, Jews who’d hopped into bed with their Roman oppressors, setting aside convictions the Pharisees were so adamant about guarding. And not only that. Though your NIV omits it, Mark uses the word immediately in verse 6, suggesting that the so-called guardians of the Sabbath do their harmful conspiring on the Sabbath. Politics govern beliefs. In verse 5, Jesus looked at them in anger and grieved their stubborn hearts. Other Bibles translate it “hardness of heart,” hearkening back to the Israelites of old who never could embrace the genuine overtures of God’s grace. We forget that Jesus did not come to fight the Pharisees, but to save their lives too.

Ignatius of Loyola

The last in this year's installment of the Church Fathers by Daniel Harrell (I'm on vacation for the month of August. See you in September!)

Well, the congregation has spoken. I asked you to vote which Church Father starting with the Letter I would be the topic of this Sunday’s sermon and you did. For those of you new tonight, eleven years ago I embarked on a month-of-July sermon series concerning the Church Fathers, those personalities who over the course of church history fashioned our faith and codified what we have come to embrace as orthodox Christianity. As there have been numerous noteworthy Church Fathers (and Mothers) it seemed sensible to tackle them a letter at a time. However, since many of the patristic heroes cluster around the letter A, I’m only this year getting to Letter I. So far this year we’ve looked at the early second century martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch and the influential third century theologian, Irenaeus of Lyons. As I had morning duty last Sunday, I gave you a choice of I-Father for this week since I could only preach one: either Ignatius of Loyola, (the founder of the Jesuits), Innocent III (the founder of the imperial papacy), or Isidore of Pelusium, an early desert father. The winner, with a convincing 61% of the total, is Ignatius of Loyola.

Granted, only 42 of you managed to click an opinion, including the three of you that voted for the iPhone. It may be your were swayed by your penchant for the 1986 movie classic The Mission, or maybe you’re a student or alumni of Boston College. Either way, you know about the Jesuits, or officially, the Society of Jesus. A religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, the Jesuits number 23,000 brothers “ready to live in any part of the world where there is hope of God’s greater glory and the good of souls.” Jesuits work for social justice and promote education, having founded Boston College as well as a host of other schools such as Georgetown, Marquette, Holy Cross and all the colleges and universities with Loyola in their name. If your experience of the Jesuits hasn’t been through the movies or school, perhaps it’s been through an experience of spiritual direction. Ignatius’ popular handbook The Spiritual Exercises, is still widely used for spiritual direction and retreats 460 years after its first publication.

Spiritual discipline is not something unique to Catholic orders. Plenty of Protestants have found following Ignatian exercises an invaluable help to reinvigorating their own prayer lives and bringing them into deeper intimacy with God. Stretching all the way back to Leviticus, a strong spiritual life has always depended upon rules and ritual to keep the human heart tuned to God. Some of these ancient guidelines, refined by the rabbis of Jesus’ day, appear here in Matthew 6. Giving to the poor fostered generosity and kindness, pulling your focus away from yourself for the sake of serving others. Generosity reminds the heart of the generosity of God; we give because God so lavishly gives to us. Fasting fostered self-control through self-denial. By subjugating your bodily desires to spiritual ends, you rein in your selfishness and better resist worldly distractions and temptations. Prayer is holy communication. As God and His Spirit abide in His people, so prayer is the primary way God’s people participate in that presence; prayer is the natural, unselfconscious language of relationship.

Yet, Jesus, in addressing giving, fasting and prayer here in chapter 6, nevertheless warns that even these deeds designed to guard the heart may ironically be corrupted by the heart. “Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven,” Jesus said, but “Be careful not to practice your righteousness publicly, in order to be seen by others. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Human sin can be uncanny. Which is why we need to pray rightly.

I want to think with you specifically about prayer tonight because prayer is so central to our relationship with Christ and thus so central to Ignatius’ own life—but also because I find prayer so hard to do. I find giving and fasting hard to do too, but at least they’re more tangible. You can see the results of giving and feel the results of fasting. But with prayer that’s not always the case. My mind wanders at times when I pray. I get impatient. I doubt. I don’t get the answers I want. People will tell me it’s because I don’t have enough faith. And that’s true, but at least with less faith you get less disappointment. I can’t tell you the number of pious folks I’ve had to coax back from the edge of apostasy due to unanswered prayer. Because our expectations of prayer can be so high, it’s easy to understand how easy it can get to try and get something else out of it when God’s giving you nothing. Faking it in public at least gets people thinking you’re a good Christian.

Of course if that’s what you’re after, Jesus says that’s all you’ll get. But if what you’re after is something more eternal, then Jesus says you’d best do your praying in secret, in a room with the door shut. Now understand that Jesus employs hyperbole here. Given that most ancient Palestinian homes only had two rooms, praying in a room without anyone knowing would have been as difficult as your left hand not knowing what your right hand is giving. Likewise, few Jews deliberately prayed in the streets any more than they announced their giving by blowing trumpets. Jesus’ point gets back to the heart.

Motivations matter when it comes to prayer, perhaps even more so than faith. In fact, if you’re like me, much of your prayer is prayer for faith. In verse 7, Jesus issues a warning against praying like pagans—idol-worshippers who babble on and on because they think they’ll be heard if they say enough words. Granted, you have to talk a lot if you’re trying to get an statue to do anything, but that pagans persisted indicates they had plenty of faith, it was just aimed in the wrong direction. By contrast, Jesus says, “your Father knows what you need before you ask;” the implication being that weak faith and inadequate words will do. Moreover, presuming that God knows your needs even better than you do, a further implication is that God sometimes gives despite what you ask. To receive such undesired gifts from God requires that we trust God knows what he’s doing, that like any loving Father, his concern is more for our ultimate well-being than for our immediate wishes.

Such faith goes to the matter of unanswered prayer. We all experience disappointment with God. Perhaps that’s intentional. God did not come to earth as an impoverished, scandal-ridden and finally executed carpenter to impress anybody. We become Christians only to suffer trouble and brokenness and end up dead on this earth. Talk about disappointment. But maybe God doesn’t always answer prayer like you’d like because God wants you to want what He wants—on earth as it is in heaven. He wants you seeking after his Kingdom and after his righteousness. He wants you disappointed enough with this worldly existence so as to eagerly hope for your life to come. This is the reward Jesus alludes to here in Matthew 6.

Regrettably, promises of incomparable glory don’t always make for sufficient motivation to follow Christ in the meantime. Which is why even the most heartfelt Christians mix their motives. We give to the poor because God gives to us, but also to assuage our guilt and because helping other people makes us feel good about ourselves and gets us a few props. We fast to hone our spiritual attention, but if that doesn’t work at least we lose some weight. However prayer doesn’t offer the same sort of side benefits. This isn’t to say that our motives can’t be mixed when it comes to prayer, particularly when it comes to what we pray for. There are those who compare prayer to yoga or meditation to make it seem more normal, but do it in out loud and in public and I guarantee most people will think you’ve lost your mind. I think this is part of prayer’s design. As holy language reserved for God, there is a sort of human foolishness about it.

Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491 into Spanish nobility. Europe of the late 15th Century was a world of discovery and invention. Explorers sailed west to the Americas and south to Africa. Scholars uncovered the buried civilizations of Greece and Rome. The printing press fed a new hunger for knowledge among a growing middle class. It was the end of chivalry and the rise of a new humanism. It was a time of radical change, social upheaval, and war. The latter opened up career opportunities for Ignatius. The youngest of 13, all the other jobs had been taken. So Ignatius entered the military. In 1521, during a quixotic battle with the French, a cannonball shattered his leg. During the long weeks of his recuperation, he was extremely bored and asked for some romance novels to pass the time. However, the only books available were a Bible and books about the life of Jesus and church fathers such as Augustine, Basil, Bede and Francis of Assisi. These had an unexpected effect. Moved by their example and faith, Ignatius confessed his sins, donated his fine clothes to the poor, fasted and took vows of poverty and chastity.

Determined to devote his life to Jesus, he joined a monastery and tried his hand at severe asceticism, but it failed to get at what he sensed God wanted to do with him. So instead, he just got depressed. That happens sometimes. He tried making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to work as a missionary, but that didn’t work either, so sadly decided to do what so many do when life hits a dead end: go to graduate school. On the way, he stopped to spend the night in a cave but became so engrossed in prayer that he remained there ten months. It was camped out in that cave that ideas for his Spiritual Exercises began to take shape. It was also there that he had a vision which he regarded as the most significant moment in his life. Ignatius never revealed exactly what the vision was, but it was an experience that enabled Ignatius to see God’s presence in all things. This grace, finding God in all things, is one of the central characteristics of Jesuit spirituality. By finding God in all things, all times are times of prayer. Even graduate school. Ignatius made it to graduate school (the same one where John Calvin was studying), was ordained a priest and with others, founded the Society of Jesus in 1534. One of their early emblems was the same as the one at the center of our sanctuary cross. The three letters “IHS” are the Latinized version of the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek.

The Spiritual Exercises is a simple set of meditations, prayers, considerations, and contemplative practices. It proved an important tool in countering the Protestant Reformation by shoring up the Catholic rank and file. Anyone can do them. The Exercises recognize that not only the intellect, but also emotions and feelings help us come to a knowledge of the Spirit’s action in our lives. Based on four movements, the Exercises encourage a deeper conversion into life with God in Christ by allowing our personal stories to be interpreted by being subsumed in a Story of God. The first movement works on purifying the soul, the second movement on gaining a greater knowledge and love of Christ, the third on freeing the will to follow Christ, and the fourth on releasing the heart from worldly attachments. Ignatius wrote, “ask the grace of God our Lord that all our intentions, actions and operations may be directed purely to the service and praise of His Divine Majesty.”

Ignatius taught that imagination could be employed as a powerful tool in prayer. One of his exercises invites you to imagine yourself as a character in a Biblical encounter with Jesus. The idea is that by empathizing with a character, you can be guided into your own real conversation with God. I thought it might be interesting to try this exercise, both to give you a taste of Ignatian spirituality, but also perhaps to help you pray.Make yourself as comfortable as you can. The idea is to hold yourself still so you can listen to God. I will read this account of Jesus walking on water, then we’ll listen in silence a few minutes, after which I will read it again to refocus. At the end, I will close by praying a prayer of Ignatius. As you listen, the idea is to place yourself in the story. What is the scene like: the water, the boat, the storm? What’s the temperature? What do you smell? How do your feet feel? What expressions are on other people’s faces? What sounds do you hear? What do you feel inside? And what does Jesus say to you as you imagine yourself there with him? Let’s try it. Get comfortable. Close your eyes. And listen.

“Lord Jesus, speak to us through your word.”

Jesus insisted that his disciples get into a boat and cross to the other side of the lake. He went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone. Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, “It’s a ghost!” But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!” Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.” “Yes, come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?” When they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped. Then the disciples worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God!”

“Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me: I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.”