Prayer Is Always The First Step
THE SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Acts 1:6-14 • 1 Peter 4:12-14 • 5:6-11 • John 17:1-11
For a group of church leaders who get a lot of credit, the disciples sure do spend a lot of time just sitting around. And that’s where God always seems to find them. Like a boss who checks up on you right when you’re taking a break, God seems to have a way of showing up when they are least prepared for it.
The risen Jesus didn’t reveal himself to the disciples while they were walking to Emmaus but after the journey was over as they sat together for the evening meal. He didn’t wait for the disciples to go out into the streets and share the good news of his resurrection but walked through locked doors in order to give them his peace. After Jesus blessed the apostles as he was ascending into heaven, God didn’t send the Spirit upon them immediately so that they could get right to work. Instead, they went back into the upper room, where they sat around and waited until the wind and fire of Holy Spirit came and filled the house.
It's a strange way to get things started—knowing that you have important work to do, unsure how you will get it done, a little confused about how God is going to help you, but somehow confident that something good is going to happen. After seeing Jesus taken up into heaven, the disciples were standing on the cusp of something completely new, so they did the only thing they knew how to do. The men and women who had followed Jesus got together in a room and devoted themselves to prayer and waited for God to show up.
That sounds a little bit like what happened in this community 175 years ago this Tuesday:
May 23, 1848, after due notice a meeting of the members of the Church was held in the schoolroom—the usual place of worship—and after divine service the Rev. W. C. Stout, Missionary, was called to the chair, and Col. W. S. Gidham appointed secretary…Whereupon the following instrument was read by the [Secretary] and on motion of John W. Chew adopted and signed by those whose names are thereunto written. To-wit: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. We, the subscribers assembled for the purpose of organizing a parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Fayetteville, County of Washington and State of Arkansas after due notice given do hereby agree to form a Parish to be known by the name of St. Paul’s Church Parish, and as such, do hereby acknowledge and accede to the doctrines, disciplines, and worship, the Constitution and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America… [1]
That’s how we got our start—gathered together in a room, unsure of what was ahead of us but confident that God would give us what we need, and devoted to prayer.
A whole lot of good has been done in and through St. Paul’s since that day. If we took time to pour through the archives, we could count the number of services, sermons, marriages, baptisms, confirmations, and burials that have been offered to God’s glory in this place. We could probably figure out how much money has been spent carrying out the ministries of this church and responding to the needs of the community. But the good work that has been accomplished here far exceeds what any service record, parish register, or balance sheet could attest. How many lives have been touched by the people of St. Paul’s? How many prayers have been answered? How many people have found a reason to hope in the midst of their struggle or recognized God’s presence in the face of hardship? For 175 years, the people of this parish have devoted themselves to carrying out God’s work in the world, and it should be no surprise to us that that work must always begin with prayer.
In this reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear two questions that make clear to us why prayer is essential if we are to be faithful in our work. First, the apostles ask Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” As Willie James Jennings notes, it is a perfectly natural question. They have journeyed from the depths of despair in the shadow of the cross to the heights of glory in the triumph of the risen Lord. They have seen God strike a fatal blow to death itself, and now they want to know what all of us who stand in the light of that victory want to know—is this the time when God will restore the kingdom to God’s people on earth? [2]
But every time we ask that question—and long to know the answer—we impose upon God the limitations of our own imaginations. For, whenever we ask God whether this is the real moment of triumph, we reveal our desire not to follow where Christ has led but to turn the resurrection of Jesus into a sign of our own victory. As Jennings writes, the desire imbedded within such a longing is fundamentally nationalistic—not a “nationalism bound to the anatomy of Israel, but the deeply human desire of every people to control their destiny and shape the world into their hoped-for eternal image.” [3]
Jesus’ reply to the apostles puts an end to such a fantasy: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” As Jennings continues, Jesus alone “will define resurrection’s meaning and resurrection’s purpose. It will not be used by these disciples as an ideological tool for statecraft. Nor will it constitute [for] them the winner’s circle. Such ways of thinking resurrection turn Jesus into the greatest victor in an eternal competition and produces disciples who follow Jesus only because they worship power.”
Instead, we must wait in prayer for the power that comes to clothe us from on high. The power Jesus sends upon us is the power of the Holy Spirit—a power which is indistinguishable from the power of the Crucified One. It descends from the place where he has gone before, not to bestow upon us a power that belongs to this world but a power to transform it through his death and resurrection, through his sacrifice and love. Prayer is how we wait for the power that God will give us instead of rushing in and claiming only what the world can give.
But there is another danger we must face if we are to be faithful to the one who calls us and sends us and equips us with the Spirit’s power, and the second question in this reading from Acts helps us identify it. “While [Jesus] was going and [the apostles] were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’” Those who know the triumph of the risen Christ have a tendency to stand around, staring at what has already been accomplished without offering themselves to the work that lies ahead. Our first step might be to come together in prayer, but there’s a big difference between gazing at a memorial of what has been and praying that God will lead us into something new.
The challenge for us is holding onto both. We cannot charge ahead as if the reign of God is something we can bring about through our best efforts. It does not come from within us, no matter how good and wonderful our community of faith might be. It only comes from above. But neither can our waiting and watching and hoping be a mere passive expression of faith. We cannot remain still, standing in the fading glow of his ascension, even though standing still is often a lot more comfortable to us than stepping out into the unknown.
We do not know what lies ahead. We do not know what it will cost us. We do not know whether we will succeed. We do not know how or when the fullness of God’s reign will take hold in this world. But we do know that God has made us witnesses of Jesus Christ—missionaries of the good news of God’s infinite grace, acceptance, and love. And God has sent us the Holy Spirit to give us everything we need to be faithful to the work God is giving us to do.
In the end, prayer is how we balance the need to wait on God and the need to offer ourselves to God’s work. The majesty of God breaking forth fully into this world is not something for us to achieve, and yet it is something for us to give our whole lives to. That can only happen through prayer. Prayer is how we yield our egos over to God and allow the Spirit to shape and mold us into emissaries of God’s reign. Prayer is how we let go of our inadequate hopes and dreams and yoke ourselves instead to the dream of God.
Once again, the people of this parish stand on the cusp of something new and wonderful. We do not know what it will be, but God does. We cannot see how or when it will come to pass, but God can. If we will be a part of it, we must come together and devote ourselves to prayer. And prayer is enough, for, by offering ourselves to God in that way, we trust God to use us however God will, and that’s when we know God will show up.
1. Stout, W. C.. “A Faithful Record of the Affairs, Spiritual and Temporal of St. Paul’s Parish,” 1848, p. 9.
2. Jennings, Willie James. Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville: 2017, p. 17.
3. Jennings, p. 19.
© 2023 The Rev. Evan D. Garner
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas