Sermon
August 3, 2008
Prayer and the “Perfect Storm”
Several
years ago, there was a movie called the “Perfect Storm.” It was about a fishing boat crew from
Many
times, our lives resemble the perfect storm.
I will ask for some assistance to hold three hula hoops I brought into
church this morning to illustrate the sermon.
Every life has its stormy times—for instance, every one will have
challenges to his or her health at some time in life. Everyone will have issues in their marriage
and their family at some and probably many points. There will be challenges with raising children. Job stress.
Stress with friends. Stress that
comes with changes in life, even good changes like marriage, or moving, or
retirement. There is stress about our
world—our economy, who will win the election, rising fuel costs, the war in
These
“storms” are part of every life. We hope
we deal with one at a time and that they don’t strike often. But there are times in life when two or three
of these storms will converge together and create “the perfect storm.”
I
offered these thoughts at camp a couple of weeks ago, using the hula hoops as a
visual aid, and I asked the campers rhetorically, how many of them had lives
that reflected the perfect storm. We
talked about how stress in school, stress with parents and stress with peers,
particularly peer pressure, come together when people are teenagers and create
a perfect storm, a situation that quickly becomes unmanageable to them in many
ways. Some respond with prayer, some
respond with work, some respond with sports or in the weight room, some
withdraw, and some respond in destructive ways, like drinking, drugs, plastic
surgery, not eating, laziness, bullying others, self-mutilation and even
suicidal thoughts.
Many
adult lives line up as a perfect storm—pressure at work, pressure at home,
pressure to keep up with the rest of the world, economic pressure—many adult
lives are as unmanageable and stressed as the lives of teenagers. Some adults respond well to the challenges of
the perfect storm, and others crack under the pressure—some respond with work,
some withdraw, some respond in destructive ways, like drinking too much because
it takes the edge off, or eating too much because it brings instant
gratification, some go on shopping sprees and buy things they can’t afford,
others become lazy, others become sad and depressed, others angry and
frustrated, they go through life with a chip on their shoulder.
So
much of life is about management—yes, we have to learn to manage our time, and
we have to learn to manage our finances.
But we have to learn to manage our stresses, our little storms, so that
our lives don’t become the perfect storm.
Because no one can stay alive in the perfect storm for very long—not the
fishing boat in the
And
one important step in learning to manage life, to avoid the perfect storm, or
negotiate your way out of one if that’s what your life looks like at this
particular moment, is found in prayer.
Prayer is many things—there are countless numbers of books written on
prayer and still they fail to grasp what prayer is in its entirety. There are countless numbers of holy people
who have mastered what it is to pray, and yet no one has ever exhausted the
ability to pray more deeply and more fervently.
And I could give a sermon on prayer every Sunday and not exhaust the
subject. So, allow me to say a few words
about prayer—I don’t consider myself an expert on prayer, nor do I consider
myself a holy person, just someone who is trying to find his own way through
the storms of life and hoping to find God’s kingdom. I can say, with honesty and with certainty,
that in the times when my prayer life has been strong, I have never experienced
the perfect storm. I have experienced
the perfect storm before, and always in the times when my prayer life has not
been strong. There seems to be a
correlation between prayer and avoiding the perfect storm. That is not to say that prayer will help one
avoid all storms—the is impossible—no matter how prayerful one is, he or she
will eventually have health concerns, stresses at home and work, peer pressure
and other stresses. Even our Lord felt
what it was like to not be in full health, His ministry was very stressful at
times, and His peers, His own friends were not always loyal to Him.
Prayer
sets a tone, among other things, and allows us to manage the storms of life,
and oftentimes, allows us to avoid the perfect storm. Starting your day with prayer sets a tone for
the entire day. For instance, if you
pray to God to give you peace in the day, you are not going to get in your car
and have road rage, because you have opened a dialogue with God where you have
asked for peace. If you pray to God to
be efficient in your tasks, you are not going to turn the computer on at work
and idly surf the internet or play computer games, because you’ve asked for
efficiency. You are not going to cheat a
client or a customer if you’ve asked God to be honest in your dealings with
people. And while it may be tempting,
you are less likely to gossip about other people if you’ve asked God to keep
your mouth clean and pure. Prayer is
neither a cure all or a good luck charm.
It doesn’t guarantee that you will avoid the perfect storm. And it doesn’t guarantee you will get out of
one either—just ask the many people who only pray when their life has
become the perfect storm and they don’t know what else to do. Prayer, when it is done on a regular basis,
sets a tone and over time, the perfect storms are held at bay—God’s grace,
which comes to us through prayer, helps us to keep the storms apart from each
other.
How
does one begin to pray? Just like with
most other things in life—you just do it.
You don’t need fancy books and equipment to eat healthy—just start
eating healthy. You don’t need fancy
books and equipment to exercise, just start walking. There is no waiting period, you just do it
one day and then the next and the next and soon it is a habit. A couple of years ago, I used to drink sodas
almost every day, sometimes more than one a day. Rarely was there a day I didn’t consume a
large amount of caffeine. Over time,
this intake of caffeine would wreak havoc inside of me. I would go to bed every night with chest
pains, sometimes wondering if I would wake up the next day. I finally got to a point where I discussed
this with my doctor, who told me, “you ought to eliminate caffeine from you
daily intake and you’ll live a lot better.
If you keep going like this, you are risking serious consequences to
your health.” I asked him, “How long
should I abstain from caffeine?” He
said, “For the rest of your life.” I
asked, “How about once a month? Could I
do that and be safe?” To which he
answered, “You could do it once a month and be safe. But could you limit yourself to once a month
and have it not go back to the way it is now?”
I answered, “probably not.” So,
on Memorial Day of 2006, I had caffeine for the last time—it’s been now well
over two years, and it’s no big deal, it’s just part of life now. Were those first few weeks a challenge? Yes, but I can hardly remember them. I’m just so happy I stopped that when I
did. The doctor was right—I live a lot
better without it. I have no interest in
going back to the way it used to be.
I’ve picked up a good habit and have no intention to ever stop it.
Prayer
is a good habit to pick up. And just
like diet or exercise or my stopping caffeine, it’s just a matter of deciding
one day that I’m going to pray, I’m going to set aside five minutes or ten
minutes and I’m going to pray. And then
I’m going to pray tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And soon it becomes a habit and we can’t even
remember what life was like without prayer.
What
to say when we are praying—well, we have many books that tell us words to say
in prayer—The Bible offers us the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms. The Liturgy book offers us many prayers. And there are prayer books that have prayers
for every occasion you can think of—like traveling, beginning a task, raising
your children, deepening your relationship with your spouse, trying to make a
decision—we sell these books in the bookstore.
You can even find prayers online.
But prayer does not need to be from a prayer book. Prayer books are tools to help us and some
people pray very fervently using the words someone else has written. Real prayer comes from the depth of the heart,
whether it is using your words or someone else’s—Lord, help me to know that you
are real. Be with me in my tasks
today. Give me wisdom so I can make good
decisions. Help me to be efficient in
carrying out my tasks. Bring me peace,
so that I don’t get flustered or angry today.
Prayer includes praying for other people, people who you know, and even
people who you don’t. I visited a couple
of parishioners in hospitals this past week and I prayed with them and I pray
for them. And I pray for those who are
like them, the other people in the hospital that I passed by during my visit—people
in pain, maybe in fear; for those who take care of them—doctors and nurses; and
for their families. I don’t know every
doctor and nurse in the hospital by name, but I can still pray for them—because
I know that their jobs require good decision making, that they are stressful,
and that God can work miracles through them.
Prayer
develops a relationship with God. I
asked the kids at camp, what is the most basic building block of a human
relationship? Anyone want to guess? It is respect—we should be able to co-exist
in the same space without anyone getting hurt—before there is friendship,
trust, love or anything else, there has to be respect. It’s the same thing with God. Before there can be trust or love with God,
there has to be basic respect—For God and His Commandments, and for God’s
people, our fellow human beings. It does
no good to pray in church this morning and go out to harm someone else this
afternoon. When we prayed “Let us love
one another,” or “let us give our thanks to the Lord,” this should set a tone
for the rest of the afternoon, that we depart from here loving one another, and
thanking God, rather than hurting one another and forgetting what we just did
this morning.
And
after respect, to build a relationship requires time spent together. Spend time talking to someone, share some
time and experience together, and this is where the relationship is built. Share something very personal and the
relationship goes to a new level—share a personal story, or a secret, or a
struggle—now there is vulnerability and this is where love begins to take
root. It is the same thing in a
relationship with God. Spend time
together with God, in prayer and in worship.
Speak to God in prayer. Allow God
to speak to you through the scriptures, through nature, through the testimony
of others and you’ll see the relationship begin. Speak to God from the heart—pour out sorrow
and shortcomings, bring needs and concerns, anxieties and worries to God—now
there is vulnerability and this is where love of God begins to take root.
One
of the reasons I am speaking about prayer today is that we are in the period of
the fast for the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.
We are having extra prayer services for the next two weeks called
Paraklesis Services, services of prayer and supplication to the Virgin
Mary. The hymns of these services speak
directly to the storms of life, especially the perfect storm that seems to hit
each life at some point.
With
many temptations surrounding me, Searching for salvation, I have sought refuge
in you; O Mother of the Word, and ever-Virgin, From all distresses and dangers
deliver me.
Assaults
of the passions have shaken me, My soul to its limits Has been filled with much
despair; Bring peace, O Maiden, in the calmness, Of your own Son and your God,
all-blameless One.
I
entreat you, O Virgin, Disperse the storm of my grief, and the soul's most
inward confusion, Scatter it far from me;
With
most serious ailments, And with the passions so dark, I am being tested, O
Virgin, Come and bring help to me;
I
lie now on a bed of infirmities, And there is no healing at all for my body Except
for you, Who has brought forth our Savior, God, the healer of all our
infirmities;
Of your goodness, I pray to you, From corruption of sicknesses raise me.
These
services also afford us the opportunity to remember in prayer specific people
in our lives, and specific needs. And
most especially, they allow us to put some of our burdens into the hands of
someone else, in this case the Virgin Mary.
And there is a great comfort in asking someone else to pray for you—and
what greater person to pray for us, than the Virgin Mary, the mother of us
all.
As
I was about to leave summer camp 9 days ago, I asked another priest to pray
over me—I had been doing a lot of soul searching and had a lot on my mind and I
felt I needed prayer from someone else.
I want to just kneel and have someone else say all the words. The priest asked me, “Which prayer should I
offer?” I answered him, “let’s talk for
a few minutes, and then offer up something about me from your heart.” I have to say it was a powerful
moment—talking together and then kneeling while Father put his stole over my
head and offered a beautiful prayer from his heart that spoke to my heart. If you think that is a powerful experience,
come to the Paraklesis and let the words of prayer offered through the Virgin
Mary to Her Son and our Lord speak to your heart.
Prayer
sets a tone for our lives—because it brings us into the presence of God, which
brings us peace. And it brings God into
our daily tasks, which brings wisdom, efficiency, patience and so many of the things
we need to be successful. Prayer helps
us to manage the storms and survive the perfect storm when it hits. Prayer sets a tone so that when the storms of
life converge around us, that they are challenging but not catastrophic, and so
that each challenge can be met because it is not faced alone, but with God, the
Virgin Mary, the angels and saints.
Amen.