Message from Sunday, August 25, 2024
The Rev. Megan Collins
One of the absolute hardest jobs, in my opinion, is being a school teacher.
Raising our own kids is a big job. Taking care of a bunch of other people’s kids including keeping them safe, attending to their emotional health, and, somehow in the meantime, achieving measurable educational growth, that feels impossible. Teaching is such a hard job. There is one kind of teaching that I have had the opportunity to observe, as a parent, that is really next level difficult:
A middle school band teacher.
Imagine, if you will, a scenario where you are in a room with 40 sixth graders. To really make it interesting, you hand each of them an instrument, and then you encourage them to blow into or bang on that instrument . . . all at the same time . . . for seven hours a day.
Our two sons both participated in middle school band. (God bless you Eric Mendez at Maitland Middle School). I can remember the day both of them took a hold of their instrument for the very first time. Our oldest chose the saxophone and our youngest, the trumpet. Yes, in case you are wondering, those are two of the loudest instruments you can choose to play.
The first few weeks there were lots of squeaks and loud tones from the back of the house as they practiced in their rooms. It wasn’t music so much as just . . . noise, loud noise. After about a month of school they had their first band concert. The middle schoolers all filled in with their matching polo shirts and nervously held their instruments they had only had for a few weeks. Then they did it. They played a song. The song was "Mr. Whole Note Takes a Walk", but they did it. By the next year in band they were well past whole notes and into music theory and then into jazz. Then right at the end of middle school, they started to add in improv, where they would look up from the page of notes and play something that came just for their heart. Just when they got really good at their instrument, they go to high school. Bless those middle school band directors. All that hard work and now the high school gets to reap the benefits of three years of loud squeaks and tones and whole notes taking lots of walks.
Here’s what I learned from watching this process in my kids:
Middle school band directors deserve a raise!
Have your child pick a brass instrument because reeds are expensive for woodwind instruments.
You have to play someone else’s music before you can improvise your own. You have to learn the fundamentals of music, studying time signatures and notes and playing music someone else wrote before you improv. Even then, your first few times of trying improv will be a little shaky, because it takes practice to do it on your own.
That’s true of a lot of things, isn’t it?
You read a lot of books before you try to write one.
You listen to other people speak a foreign language before you speak it.
You learn to do a summersault before you try to do a cartwheel.
Learning anything takes practice, lots of practice.
Why then, when we come to prayer, do we think we should all just be able to sit down and start praying like we’ve been doing it our whole lives? Why do we assume it should be easy and natural and we shouldn’t need any help or practice or guidance? It’s like if we had handed those middle schoolers an instrument and told them to improv and then been surprised when they asked how to play an E note. Prayer, like anything else in our lives, is something we can learn, and then practice, over a lifetime. But we don’t always give one another the fundamentals to learn how to do it. We tell people to pray but we don’t tell them what that means.
A few weeks ago I preached on prayer. We’re in this series on "Things People Said to Jesus", and in Luke 11 they asked Jesus “Teach us to Pray.” Jesus responded by giving them the Lord’s prayer, and then talking about how God answers prayers. I realized later that what we didn’t talk about that morning was any more specifics on how to pray. Today we are going to have a part two to that message, and talk more about the specifics of how to pray.
Maybe you are someone who would like to pray, but isn’t sure where to start. People (like me) in your life encourage you to pray but then we don’t give you any fundamentals to get started.
Maybe you have tried to pray but you aren’t sure what to say, so you gave up.
Maybe you aren’t really sure what you think about God but you are curious what people are doing when they are praying
Maybe you have been praying for a long time but you feel a little stuck in your prayer life, or that things have become a little stale, or you haven’t been feeling as connected to God.
Maybe you are an expert at prayer - if there is such a thing- but you aren’t sure how to help someone else who wants to learn.
What we are going to do today is go back to the fundamentals. Instead of just telling you to improv and play whatever notes you feel on your heart let’s talk about some ways to pray. This isn’t because you have to pray in a certain way, but because jumping right to improvising can make it hard to know what to do, so let’s learn some notes.
Let's talk about different ways you can pray, first using someone else’s words, and then using your own. Some of these will work for you. Some of them won’t at all. The point is it gives us a place to start.
First let’s look at prayers where we use someone else’s words. The best to learn to pray, or to reinvigorate your prayer life, is to play music someone else wrote first. The most straightforward way to do this is to use the words in our Bibles as prayers. You can take a Scripture and rewrite it to be a prayer. Look at Romans 12, rewritten as a prayer:
God, let my love be genuine. Help me to hate what is evil and to hold fast to what is good. Let me love others and show honor. Make me ardent in spirit and in serving you. Help me to rejoice in hope, to be patient in affliction and to persevere in prayer.
Or read one of the Psalms as a prayer:
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
The next step in prayer with Scripture is to throw in a little Lectio Divina, an ancient way of praying the Scriptures. When you do this, you’ll read through a Bible passage a few times. You are listening for a word or a phrase that stands out to you, like it shimmers in the page. Then you think about that word or phrase for the rest of the day, or the week, and why that might be important in your life right now. (You can find more detailed instructions here).
You can also use the words of Scripture to pray what we call a breath prayer. Try this with me:
The Lord is my shepherd (inhale)
I shall not want (exhale)
You can pray the words of the Bible. You can also pray a prayer someone else wrote that feels meaningful to you. Here’s one from Ted Loder:
Almighty one there is something I wanted to ask you
but I stumble along the edge of a nameless rage,
haunted by a hundred floating fears,
of war,
of losing my job
of failing
of getting sick and old
having loved ones die
of dying
and I forget what it is the real question is I wanted to ask
and I forget to listen anyway because you seem unreal and far away and I forget what it is I have forgotten.
O God,
don't forget me, please,
for the sake of Jesus Christ….
Or here is an exert from Kate Bowler:
“I am running on fumes again. I am burning the candle at both ends and can’t stop because it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. The responsibilities and duties that fall on me are too much. There is not enough time or energy or finances of bandwidth. I am coming to the edge of myself. I can’t keep going and I can’t rest. God, can you help me slow down? I need just a little shelter, a little breather so I can take a minute and rest.”
You can find more prayers from Kate here. Prayer can be that simple. Read someone else’s prayer as your own. Play someone else’s notes. This isn’t limited to just written prayers. It can also be a song.
One of my favorite songs to pray is "I Surrender." (Listen here). One part says:
Find me here
Lord as You draw me near
Desperate for You
I surrender
This is where prayer starts. Learning the fundamentals by playing someone else’s notes. But what if you are ready to take a step toward improv?
Let’s look at some other prayers where you can add in your own words.
One is praying the times of the day. This is an ancient practice, praying everyday in the morning, and the midday and the evening. The basic idea is in the morning you thank God for a new day and asking for guidance for the day ahead. At midday, you see how God has called us out into the day and praying for the responsibilities and challenges we are facing. Then in the evening, you thank God for all the ways God was present and letting go of the things we are carrying. If you are into liturgical prayer, there is a Book of Common Worship, Daily Prayer Edition put out by our denomination that has prayers for these times you can use. (You can find information about the app here!)
Now here’s one people don’t always talk about. Maybe you are in a really tough time right now, and you are a little angry about it. I’d like to introduce to you the Prayers of Lament. The basic structure is: complain, ask for help, then choose to trust God with it. You can use Psalm 13 or come up with your own.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
(Add in your complaints here)
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
(Ask God for what you need)
But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
(Then trust that God will be with you in this difficult time)
Maybe you do have some things to say to God directly, but you want some structure to your prayer. We’ve talked some before about the PRAY form for prayer. You can do all of these in order or just focus on one. You may have heard before about the ACTS prayer - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. I like this one because it's easier to understand and remember.
Praise: Thank God for all the good things in your life. Let your gratitude pour out. You'll find as you start that you have so much to be grateful for.
Repent: This is your time of confession. If you are having trouble coming up with your sin, ask people in your life. (Kidding). Try thinking through the different kinds of sin. There are the sins that anyone would see and know are a mistake. There are the things you didn’t mean to do but did. There are the things you should have done or said but didn’t, and the things that haven’t gone from your head or heart into action but could. There are the ways you have hidden from who God has called you to be and the things you aren’t fully trusting God with
Ask: Ask for what you need. There are a lot of ways to do this. You can just simply ask with a list. But you can also use images. Try picturing the person you are praying for. You don't have to know what to say, simply lift them up before God and hold them in prayer.
You can also journal. Start writing down your words like you are talking to God. Journaling is especially good when you are looking for direction because you can look back and notice patterns or words that jump off the page. What are the things or people you mention more than once? What words seems to grab your attention? Look for how God is working, and what God might be saying to you.
There’s also a really different one called praying in color. You can learn more about praying in color here. If you are someone who likes to doodle, or someone who gets distracted during prayer, this is a great approach to try!
Yield: Give your trust over to God. This is the time when you can be quiet, and experience God's presence, listen for God's voice. It's when you submit your will to God's will for your life. If it's a particularly hard time, try lighting a candle that symbolizes your concerns, ask God to take them, then as you blow it out, watch the smoke rise up to God as your prayers. Release your hold on the things you are praying about.
There are lots of ways to pray, and these are just a few. In fact, after I preached on Sunday, someone in the congregation recommended people try praying out loud. Let's add that one to the list!
Sometimes we will play someone else’s notes, creating a beautiful prayer by trusting the work of the Scriptures or another faithful brother or sister. Sometimes we will improv with our own prayers. This can be a few squeaky notes that are our own, or a time of silence, or the words just flow out, like a musician caught up in their work playing with their eyes closed.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter exactly how we pray. What matters is the consistency. We learn how to pray by praying, and that takes practice.
Both of my kids went from playing whole note takes a walk to classic pieces to jazz and then to improv. But it took practice, a lot of practice, to get there.
This week, try a new way of praying, and while you are praying, say a special prayer for the middle school band directors.
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