The text of two reflections shared at our online worship via zoom.
Reflection One
The moment I wake up
Before I put on my makeup
I say a little prayer for you.
The words of Aretha Franklin’s song resonate; because in one way prayer is the most natural instinct when we love another person. When we care about our communities; when we hear the cries of the world. The moment we wake up - before we put on our makeup or get dressed - we say a little prayer.
At a human level, Aretha’s words are full of longing: she expresses the intimacy of the one she loves having a place in her heart; the sense that love transcends space and time; and the honesty that separation brings heartache.
Prayer is something we are exploring and making our own in familiar and perhaps new ways in this lockdown. Finding habits, places and words to say a little prayer.
Prayer is holding all our love; and abiding in love.
It’s a way of being that is honest, tender, hesitant, raw.
Prayer is an act of resistance: lament, praise, protest, gratitude.
It comes from our heart and changes our hearts.
And today we hear Jesus praying. Praying for those he loves. Praying to his Father. Praying with the disciples.
Jesus had washed their feet and shared a meal; he had encouraged them to believe and to trust; he’d promised them an advocate and guide and counsellor, the Spirit who’d lead them in truth and send them out as witnesses. He invites them to abide in love, just as he abides in his Father’s love.
He prays for them - they are drawn into the intimacy he shares with his Father.
Forever and ever, you’ll stay in my heart
And I will love you.
Perhaps the disciples hold in their hearts the hope that they’d never part; echoing Franklin’s little prayer, that:
To live without you
Would only mean heartache for me.
Ascension - Laila Shawa
With the lives of his disciples on his mind, Jesus also prays for himself.
He speaks of glory and life. He asks the Father to glorify him; using his death to give eternal life.
This glory reveals the depths of God’s love for the world; this glory reveals the cost of love that reaches out, arms outstretched on the cross, to draw us back to Godself.
This glory is revealed in a love that overcomes death to restore life. Life that is full of mercy and forgiveness and compassion.
And this is eternal life, abundant and full: it is to know God.
It is to come near; to rest in the intimacy and wonder of that; to know the joy of being belovéd and precious.
This life: to know that whatever our flaws and frailties, dreams and desires we are held in love. As we breath, God says:
Forever and ever, you’ll stay in my heart
And I will love you.
What must it have felt like to have overheard those words; to be prayed for with such tenderness and concern.
To be prayed for isn’t to be talked about: it is to be known, taken seriously and held. To be known in love; to be heard in life; to be held in trust.
Would the disciples have remembered this prayer as Jesus’ body - marked by wounds and glorious is life - now ascends to heaven?
Did they remember in their anguish at death and joy at new life, that Jesus prayed for them: that he gave thanks that they had received him - his name, his life, his love and his work?
As they looked up, with questions on their lips, did they remember that Jesus prayed for them: for their joy and their unity?
As they ask: is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? Do they remember that Jesus is honest about the opposition they’ll face; that he prays too for those who will come to believe through their words and deeds?
At this moment of parting, do they remember that Jesus in his prayer for them promised the Holy Spirit - the comforter, advocate and guide?
For now Jesus is no longer in the world, he promises that this prayer will be fulfilled. The power of the Spirit will be at work in them - breath by breath - as they witness to the fire of his transforming love.
For the love in which they abide; the love in which we rest; is a love that heals and transforms.
They stand -watching, gazing and looking up.
They are consumed by the spectacle - yet watching undermines the possibility of continuing the journey. At this moment of loss they are invited to go forward in faith.
This moment of Jesus’ departure marks a moment of transition; of waiting; of preparation and of prayer.
For a new order is about to begin. Our humanity abides with Jesus and the power of his Spirit abides with us: and we wait for it; we wait for it in prayer. For it is that Spirit that will enable us to speak and act for the kingdom Jesus brings.
It is is a kingdom of new life and hope; it is rooted in what they remember and comes into being through their witness.
But for now they are to devote themselves to prayer.
The moment they get up and return, they say a little prayer:
Forever and ever, you’ll stay in my heart
And I will love you.
Reflection Two
Pray: It’s an interesting group; this gathering of those called upon to pray, as Jesus did.
There are the disciples who’d walked the land with Jesus; some of the women who’d watched at waited, last at the cross and first at the tomb. Mary is there - with her other children.
Perhaps she is remembering that time of waiting in hope and prayer when, overshadowed by the Spirit, she said yes to being the God-bearer.
And now she prays with those who’d followed the one she’d carried in her womb: as now they prepare for an unknown future.
They wait and pray in a particular place: like us, shut in; like us, confined to world that is smaller or more limited; like us, they see around them life that is fragile and wounded.
But it is from this particular place that they will be sent out into the world. We like them are invite to wait and pray.
We pray: come down, O love divine: kindling in our hearts thy holy flame; come love divine, illumine our path; come, Holy Spirit, dwell within us.
In this prayer, each creature will be claimed as a site of love divine.
The American theologian Willie Jennings, calls this: the revolution of the intimate.
If our heart is warmed by this Spirit, then it is a spark that lights hundreds of fires.
Fires of prayer in our own homes, where we are equipped and inspired for the tasks entrusted to us; where we seek to reflect the character and values of patience, kindness, justice; of self-control, joy and hope.
Fires of public worship and witness: finding ways of gathering online, sharing hope on social media; looking at how our churches can be once again places of safety and sanctuary.
Fires of social transformation as we engage with vision and imagination in bringing people out of poverty; seeking a system of education and justice that works for all irrespective of race or gender or age or class; a cultural life that inspires and binds together; ensuring that there is dignity for those in frontline services, and those who depend on them.
Women Kneeling in Prayer - George Henry Broughton
To pray, like the disciples, that we might be open to the Spirit is discomforting and transformative. This vision is part of the witness we share with the apostles.
The Cuban-American theologian Justo González writes that the Book of Acts is: a call to Christians to be open to the action of the Spirit, not only leading them to confront failures and practices in society that may need to be subverted, put perhaps even leading them to subvert or question practices and values within the Church itself.
We only need to glance at news paper headlines to see how urgently need to confront such failures and practices; subverting selfish exceptionalism and seeking the common good.
As we pray, we make way for the Holy Spirit to touch human flesh and create in us new hearts; new hearts committee to a transformed world.
I pray, as we learn to pray with and for each other, alone and together, that we will discern how we serve Hendon in the months and years ahead. That each of us will know the task entrusted to us - using our skills and our work, leading us perhaps to do a new thing that we didn’t dare imagine.
As we pray, with clasped hands we are united with Christ - we abide with God - as the Spirit allows us to become fully ourselves. This is life. George Herbert - poem.
Ever thine: Aretha sang about her human love:
The moment I wake up
Before I put on my makeup
I say a little prayer for you.
Beethoven, centuries earlier, expresses a similarly intense and devoted to love to an unknown woman. Mourning her loss and longing of a life together.
And perhaps it those words of a faithful, loving and restless human heart that become the grounds of our deepest and most heartfelt prayer. For in the power of the Spirit, we can pray: Ever thine. Ever mine. Ever us.
An artist's depiction of a scene from the Pentecost appears in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in the city of St. Louis
Let us devote ourselves to prayer; let us discern the tasks to which we are called. Let us be open to the action of the Spirit; confronting failures and kindling fires of change.
Forever and ever, you’ll stay in my heart
And I will love you.
© Julie Gittoes 2020
