O
God,
I
lack a certain courage :
to
risk abandoning all my closets
to
fulfill life’s dreams,
giving
up securities, pretensions,
presumptions,
indulgences,
fears—especially
fears—
to
be all you claim I am,
to
be all you call me to be,
to
be all you hope for me.
I
dawdle at the starting line,
telling
myself I’ll begin tomorrow.
Or,
part way through the race,
I
decide, I deserve a break today,
and
find it difficult to limit that break
to
time enough to rest and restore myself
to
run again.
Dear
God,
Jesus
fought the good fight,
finished
his race,
and
kept faith with his dreams
of
your commonwealth.
Why
do you give me this model, God?
It’s
like comparing my body to Olympic athletes,
or
my ministry to Mother Teresa’s,
or
my sacrifice to martyred saints in Central America!
I
can’t give it all, can I, Lord?
I
can’t sacrifice all for the commonwealth of God, can I?
“Seek
first God’s kingdom…,
and
all these things shall be yours as well.”
Jesus,
is this true?
Did
you have all you needed
as
you gave everything to finish the race?
It’s
so easy to say prayers, God,
so
difficult to translate ours words to actions.
Your
Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
We
nailed him,
we
suffocated him,
we
buried him,
in
part because we were so damned jealous
that
he did something we couldn’t :
he
lived out his prayer life.
When
he prayed “Thy kingdom come”
he
meant it,
he
preached it,
he
lived as its citizen
and
became its King.
We
mocked him
by
making his throne a cross
because
we thought he mocked us,
making
it seem so easy to be your children, God.
Though
tempted as we are,
he,
in prayer and fasting,
waited
on your word,
refused
to tempt your love,
and
worshiped only you.
O
God,
forgive
me for not waiting,
forgive
me for tempting you,
forgive
my worship of idols.
Teach
me to listen for your word,
trust
in your love,
and
worship in spirit and in truth.
Remind
me that Jesus is not an only child,
nor
your kingdom’s only citizen.
May
I live up to my inheritance as your child
and
as a citizen of your commonwealth,
through
Jesus Christ, who leads my way.
Amen.
Dear
Jesus,
sometimes
we expect too much sanctuary
within
the church.
We
want a womb,
a
warm, retreat experience,
not
harsh reality
of
needy people
and
petty politics,
ecclesiastical
or societal,
which
may lead to a tomb
as
it did for you.
But
the kingdom of heaven lay beyond
your
forty-day prayer retreat in the wilderness, Jesus.
The
commonwealth of God lay within
your
interactions with the world that followed.
The
commonwealth you preached, Jesus,
is
in our midst
as
healing occurs among us.
And
healing comes
as
you, the Christ, are in the world,
not
in retreat,
nor
entombed
either
by calcified doctrines
or
grave doubt.
You
taught that for us to pray,
for
us to find healing for ourselves,
is
not enough.
“Faith
without works is dead.”
Faith
without work is death.
Dear
Jesus,
Keep
me from resting in peace,
a
self-satisfied smile on my face,
while
others hunger for my touch
as
a member of your Body,
the
Body of Christ,
healer
of this world.
Amen.
These
are prayers Day 20, Day 41, and Day 46 from my book Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men, Their Families and Friends, published by Westminster/John Knox Press in 1991. Each prayer was
broken into phrases not out of poetic pretensions but to slow the reader. I
often refer to God’s “kingdom” as a “commonwealth” in which everything is
shared, including our common spiritual wealth. The only change I’ve made is
substituting “Olympic athletes” in the first prayer for the name of a
well-known body builder of the time, and this, contrasted with the reference to
Mother Teresa, demonstrates the longevity of compassion over other accomplishments.
The second prayer’s mention of suffocation refers to how victims of crucifixion
die: their bodies eventually sag from exhaustion and cut off the flow of air to
the lungs. The final lines of the second prayer’s first section refer to Jesus’
three temptations in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). The photo is a shadow on our deck I noticed days ago during my morning prayers.
As
with all of my writings, you are welcome to use these for non-profit purposes with
attribution of author and context.
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Christian Reflections is entirely
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Copyright © 1991 and 2019 by
Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of
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