I was reading an article on Christmas gift books and came across a title I know called Children’s Letters to God. Each small letter by a child brings a smile (just as the article reports ), and the entire book is a fifteen minute read max. However, each letter has some meditative potential to mull over for longer periods.
Here are a few—
- Dear God, Are you invisible or is that just a trick? Lucy.
- Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. Joyce.
- Dear God, Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other if they had their own room. It works with my brother. Larry.
And then there’s this one which comes quite close to the theme of the Third Sunday of Advent:
- Dear God, Are you real? Some people don’t believe it. If you are, you’d better do something quick. Love, Harriet Anne.
As the article I was reading stated, that is the oldest, most authentic prayer in human history: Are you real? Where are you? Why is this happening to me? Please do something, God!
Or as we pray it today: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us…”
It is a good prayer but would we know it, if it were happening, if God’s power were stirring up, stirring us up? A leading theologian says NO, that the church has lost its ability to be a disciplined, discerning community because “we’re now, religiously, in a buyer’s market. Christianity has to bill itself as very good for your self-realization, and that’s killing us because we’re not very good for your self-realization. We are good for your salvation, which is not the same thing.” What Stanely Hauerwas means, I think, is that being a Christian is not about becoming all you can be but rather about giving all that you are.
“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…” So, just what are the signs, the evidence that show God is stirring among us? This is an intriguing question because it is directly responded to in a number of places in the Bible. In the Book of Exodus, for example, after things like quaking mountains and clouds of smoke and Moses receiving the tablets of commandments, God doesn’t say the sign will be more miraculous demonstrations of the same. Rather, Yahweh says that the sign that the Lord is present and stirring up power for the people will be that the people are all worshipping God upon the holy hill. That’s right. You will know God is stirring up divine power and with great might coming among the people because people will worship. As Zephaniah says, “Sing Aloud, O daughter Zion; shout….Rejoice and exult with all your heart…” Or, as Isaiah calls for in the canticle, “Sing the praises of the Lord….Cry aloud inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy.” Paul says it also, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
“Dear God, Are you real? Some people don’t believe it. If you are, you’d better do something quick.” When does Christ come again? When is God’s power stirring among us? When we sing and pray like it is the last day we have to do so.
Worship, human and divine—Liturgy, service of God, is more important than we think, and more expressive of the incarnate presence of God than we tend to feel. Also, liturgy, the work of the people in serving others is worship too, is the stirred up presence of God, and is fairly plain and straightforward if you consider today’s Gospel. How do you know if God is stirring things up? “Bear fruits worthy of repentance” and see what happens. “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” What else should we do? Collect no more than the amount prescribed”—fair prices. “Be satisfied with what you make—fair wages.”
Plain and simple: if you desire that God comes among us, stirring up godly power, then give all you are in godly acts. For the Lord is near when, in everything, you give thanks by prayer and song.
Pray, sing, give to others. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
So, the next time you wish God would do something, then pray, sing and give to others, and God’s “bountiful grace and mercy [will] speedily help and deliver us.” AMEN.
©Thomas F. Reese 13 December 2009