Kahu's Manao
Keawala‘i Congregational Church
United Church of Christ (USA)
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Rev. Kealahou C. Alika
"To Be a Community of Faith"
Acts
1:6-14 & John
17:1-11
It was not long ago that the Board of Deacons of our church made the decision to establish a network for prayers that may be received during the week by mail, email, telephone or fax. Prayers received during the week would then be added to the listing of daily prayers in our weekly worship bulletin.
The hope was that we would be able respond to more immediate needs during the week, to invite everyone to be in prayer not only on Sundays but throughout the week. The listing changes from week to week as well as on the first Sunday of each month.
The response has been nothing short of remarkable. Every week we receive emails and telephone calls and often we receive letters and an occasional fax.
Someone said that “to be a community of faith is to be a community of prayer.” If that is true then we give thanks to God that we have become such a community of faith.
Our reading from The Gospel According to John includes an account of a prayer Jesus offers for the disciples and those who will follow them. Jesus prays in the hearing of the disciples. Although his prayer is addressed to God, his concern is for the disciples.
He offers this prayer just before entering the Garden of Gethsemane, aware of his impending death. He does not struggle over what is to come. Instead he affirms the hour as one in which he will be glorified. So he prays for the immediate community of the disciples who follow him and he also prays for the later community of those who will believe through the witness of these first disciples.
Jesus prays that these communities will know the intimacy of his relationship with God. Whatever hope they may have in the future will be relational; that is, their hope will be shaped by their relationship with God and with one another. Whatever hope they may have in the future will also be missional; that is. they will be called upon to embody and to bear witness to God’s love for the world.
Jesus prays: “As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21b). It was from their witness of the good news of Jesus Christ that future generations, including our own, would gather to worship and to pray.
We have become such a community of faith and prayer – offering prayers for comfort and peace, health and healing, joy and thanksgiving. Those who have been the recipients of prayers for healing have said they could feel an inner sense of well being knowing people were praying for them. Some attribute such feelings to the power of prayer.
It becomes difficult for us when prayers for physical healing go unanswered. There are those who believe that when we pray to God about something, our prayers go to heaven. God hears them then manages to pull a few strings and a positive change is seen.
But what are we to say when there is no positive change? The idea that God would respond to some but not others is difficult to accept.
If we understand that it is in God’s Spirit that all life emerges and lives then we will begin to understand that our prayers for others, for our world, even for ourselves are not about asking God to fix things. Instead it is to understand that our prayers are about directing our love and care to those for whom we are praying.
David J.H. Hart of Halifax, Novia Scotia, serves as Kahu or pastor of Bedford United Church in Halifax. He points out: “To a great degree, we live under the illusion that as separate, distinct individuals, we cannot effect change in other people. Only God can do so, we think.”
But then he goes on to say: “The truth is that we live in an invisible ocean of the (God’s) Spirit, one that connects us all together, and so our energy expressed as intention, as loving thought and emotion, as care and empathy, actually travels across or through the invisible spirit reality of God, to surround the other person. All of that loving energy does, indeed, effect positive change, even if at only a very subtle level” (Seasons of the Spirit, Congregational Life, Lent/Easter, May 4, 2008, page 137).
Our prayers then are not about asking God to pull a few strings on behalf of someone or to fix things that trouble us. Instead our prayers are about sharing our aloha for one another and for the world in which we live.
In a sense that is what Jesus prays when he prays for the disciples. He does not pray that God would spare them from pain and sorrow, suffering or even death. Instead his prayer is a prayer of love for them and for God. “I am coming to you, Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11)
As this Easter season comes to a close and as we gather around the table that has been prepared for us, may we be one as a community of faith. May we be one as we devote ourselves to be a community of prayer as did Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James as well as certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Amen.