The Work of Prayer, The Prayer of Work Psalm 146, Acts 6:1-7

Benedict was born in Nursia, Italy in 480 A.D.
The son of a Roman nobleman, he lived a privileged life and pursued classic studies
until, scandalized by the debauchery of his fellow students,
he left his studies to pursue a life of solitude.
Determined to devote his life to God, Benedict is reputed to have been the instrument
of several remarkable divine miracles
and at one point a group of monks invited him to be their leader.
Benedict knew the group and warned them he would be much too strict for them,
but they persisted and he finally relented.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the monks became so fed up with Benedict’s
demands that they tried to poison him!

As time passed, Benedict matured and he became less obsessed with avoiding sin
and more interested in establishing a community of common, ordinary laymen
who shared his desire to live a life similar to that
which he read about in the New Testament.
So, around the age of 50, Benedict came up with seventy three guidelines
governing this life together.
The centerpiece of what the church has come to know as the “Rule of St. Benedict”
is the essential balance of work and prayer.
Actually, Benedict saw no distinction between the two.
For Benedict, work is the lattice upon which a life of devotion grows,
and, as for prayer, he calls it “God’s work.”
Prayer is work. Work is prayer.
Work and Prayer, Prayer and Work.
Down through the history of the church we see how easy it is
to tip the scales toward one or the other
and how difficult it is to keep the two in balance.
We tend to see prayer and work as an either/or proposition.
Those who would live a life of piety
sometimes withdraw into a cocoon of quiet contemplation
substituting ritual and liturgy for actual engagement with the world.
Those who seek their salvation through action
sometimes jeer at what they perceive as the passiveness and irrelevance of prayer.
They have to produce something, accomplish something, fix something
before they can feel they’ve been faithful.

We Protestants are very familiar with Monty Python stereotypes of Roman monks
chanting in monotonous Latin phrases, hidden away in their dim cloister
where the world can’t touch them and vice versa.
Likewise, conservative fundamentalists have a stereotype of us “liberal” Presbyterians
spending all our energy on “secular” pursuits like working for civil rights
or affordable housing or stewardship of the environment and not caring one whit
about leading someone to a moment of decision for Christ.

One thing about a stereotype is that there is often a grain of truth in it.
It is possible to cloister oneself and go through the motions of prayer and piety
and be dead inside.
It’s also possible to be a fiery activist for a worthy cause
and be absolutely closed off to the movement of God’s Spirit.

Another thing about a stereotype is that those who swear by it
usually do so as a defense against feeling inadequate in some way.
The very thing we ridicule in someone else
is often a quality in which we find ourselves deficient.

Through my ministry I confess I have often harbored a sense of superiority
toward those devoted souls who speak of “bathing themselves in prayer”
and “feeding on” God’s word.
I’d personally rather bathe myself in a tub and feed on bacon and eggs
and then get on with the work of God’s kingdom
making sure a poor family in Mexico has a roof over their heads
or an orphan in Haiti has food in his stomach.

But, if I’m honest, the truth is I get ants in my pants if I sit and try to pray for very long.
If I’m still and quiet I have to face myself.
I think most of those who have been coming to our class on prayer
are having a hard time with this.
We excuse our unwillingness to spend fifteen minutes in silence before God
with the assertion that we have more important things to do,
yet we easily find fifteen minutes to read the paper or watch TV or nap.
The truth is that sitting in silence before God even for fifteen minutes is hard work.
It requires concentration.
I complain that it’s boring, but in reality it’s more terrifying than boring.
Such a period of silence in God’s presence
gives me time to think of all the things I’ve left undone.
It gives me the opportunity to see that if I’m quiet for fifteen minutes
the world somehow manages to keep spinning on it’s axis.
Fifteen minutes of silence is long enough to allow those thoughts to creep in
that all my strategies of distraction through the day are meant to keep out.
To fight through this discomfort requires courage.
It requires tenacity. It requires stamina that I fear I don’t have.
The practice of prayer is a topic of ongoing concern in the life of the early church
as Luke describes for us the initial growing pains of that early band of believers.
In our passage today we read about a very practical problem that has come up
among the followers of Jesus
and the solution that was reached to satisfy those who were unhappy.

You’ve got to remember that Jerusalem was a melting pot of sorts
and that prior to the time of the early church
the area had been ruled first by Greeks and then by Romans.
Within Jerusalem there were Jews who spoke a dialect of Hebrew called Aramaic
and those who spoke Greek, called in our text Hellenists.
The Apostles of Jesus probably all spoke Aramaic
so it was likely that Aramaic speakers among the early believers felt more privileged
and the Hellenists felt more like second class citizens.

Luke has already told us that those early followers of Jesus
devoted themselves to fellowship
and shared everything in common as each had need.
This is easy enough when the group is small,
but as numbers grow the logistics get more complicated.
At some point Luke recounts that the Hellenists begin to feel
like the widows of their group are getting shorted –
receiving, perhaps, but one bag of groceries per week
when they should be getting two.
Or maybe the widows live out in the boonies
and the donkey driven delivery cart just can’t get out that far.
Or maybe there’s no difference at all, but when you feel second class already
it’s easy to imagine that you’re being slighted.

Whether the slight is real or imagined,
the twelve apostles know that such a complaint can wreck a fellowship.
They’ve got a potential revolt on their hands,
that or a big law suit.

It’s interesting what Luke leaves out at this point.
In previous accounts we’re told that the Apostles took no step
without first devoting themselves to prayer.
Because that was their practice, it’s likely they did the same in this case.
I assume they sought divine guidance because they came up
with such a reasonable, elegant solution.

The first thing they did was reassert their own specific calling.
“It’s not right that we should neglect the word of God to wait on tables.”
This sounds elitist – “What, are they too GOOD to be waiters?”
But clearly that’s not how it was received by their audience.
The church was growing and the Apostles had their work cut out for them
and a large portion of what they saw as their work was the time they spent in prayer.
Prayer and bearing witness to the good news of God’s kingdom was too important
to neglect it, even it would have meant serving widows,
a task certainly in line with Jesus’ teaching.

The second thing the Apostles did, after asserting their own calling,
was to serve as instruments of God’s calling to seven others.
Notice their sensitivity in making sure that the seven chosen were Greeks themselves.
The Apostles used this opportunity to empower those in their group
who felt like second class citizens.
But it wasn’t just an empty gesture,
or a ploy to simply get the Hellenists off their backs.
The Apostles prayed and laid hands on the seven as a sign of ordination,
symbolizing the work and presence of the Holy Spirit in this important task.
The Apostles weren’t just dividing up the weekly chores.
Instead, by their gestures they signaled the deep holiness of the calling to service
that was being bestowed on the seven chosen ones.
The Apostles had accepted their own calling to the work of prayer.
And by praying for the seven and laying on their hands
they were acknowledging the holiness or the prayer of work.

Prayer as work, work as prayer.
Just as there needs to be balance in the individual
there needs to be balance in the congregation as well.
While Jesus himself modeled a balance in his life between prayer and service
between contemplation and action,
it’s not unusual to find that some people have a special gift of praying or teaching
and some people have a special gift of serving in more active ways.
The point is not for one to feel superior to the other
or for one to feel envious of the other.
The point, I suppose, is that there is always room for growth in either direction
and the faithful response for us is not to give excuses or to value one over the other,
but to be honest in recognizing what comes easy to us in our life of faith
and where we could be stronger.

You may not feel God has given you the gift of contemplative prayer.
Or, you may not feel God has given you the courage to take risks in your serving.
Just be aware that sometimes gifts are not evident until they are exercised.
And sometimes our gifts change as our season of life changes.
Sometimes the prodding to grow in a new direction
comes from the most unlikely sources.
Kathryn and I took Will on Friday to visit the community of Innisfree,
a beautiful 500 acre farm where forty adults with developmental disabilities
and twenty-five to thirty volunteers and staff live and work together.
They are not religiously affiliated, but their mission is certainly compatible
with the values of the Kingdom of God that we find in the Bible.
Residents are allowed to freely express their faith,
but there is no outward encouragement of any faith practice that I saw.
So, when we sat down to eat lunch, the plates were put before us.
There was work to be done – people to be cared for, chores to be finished,
everyone needed strength for the afternoon ahead – that was what was important.
Everyone: staff, residents, Kathryn and I – everyone picked up a fork and began to eat.
Everyone except Will who put out his hands as is our practice at home –
he put out his hands because he is accustomed to our giving thanks to God
before we eat. Thanks for the reminder.
Prayer is work. Work is prayer. They belong together.