you are the light of the world

Step 11 Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out. 

Psalm 46:10, Ephesians 4:22-23, Mark 1:35

 Prayer – if you’ve grown up in the church it’s kind of a `given.’  It’s what we do.  Well, at least it’s what the `preacher’ is supposed to do, isn’t it?  We have, and I include myself in this, seen prayer as a way to take our concerns to God.  It’s good to do that, but if we do that with the intent to woo God, or please God so that God will give us what we want, we tend to create neurotic, frustrated and angry people.  Note that is not what step 11 is about.

It calls us to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.  It’s not a matter of saying the right words, whether it’s the Rosary or the Lord’s Prayer, it’s more a process of emptying the mind, letting go of our ego and it’s wants, and opening our heart centre.  Not saying, God this is my will for you, but opening to what is God’s will for us.

When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray he said, “When you pray, go to your inner room, and shut the door.”   Matthew 6:6 Now… for lo these many years, I’ve generally thought, along with many others it seems, that Jesus meant go to your study and shut the door.  Don’t have a study – go to a quiet place in the house – the bedroom or bathroom, some little corner to get away from it all.  Ah, but here is where living in an affluent culture gets in the way of understanding.  Back in the day, when Jesus roamed around Galilee, his listeners knew there was no such thing as an “inner room” in a Jewish one-room house, so they would have known that he was talking about the inner self, what we would now call the unconscious, your personal inner room, as it were.  This is also indicated by his double use of the word secret as both a place where the truth is waiting unawares and a place hidden to most of us – in which God “dwells” and from which God “blesses” (Matthew 6:6) NRSV But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Implied in this is that the reward is a deep understanding at the soul level.

Rohr says, What we call the Lord’s Prayer, or the `Our Father’ was likely a concession to the social need of we human beings to have something verbal that helps define our identity.

But over and over again in scripture, Jesus goes into silence, into nature and usually alone when he prays. p99

Alone or in a crowd, we are invited to improve our conscious contact with God, to listen to the wisdom deep within our own soul, because it deeply affects how we think and live in the world.   Rohr ends this chapter with these wise words (author unknown):

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits, Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. p.103

 We carry on with Step 12

Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. 

Psalm 78: 3-4, Luke 22:31-32, Matthew 10:8

I believe that it’s important to gather together for worship.  I am well aware that that is a minority opinion in our society.  It’s important that we gather to intentionally take time to deepen our level of prayer, to challenge and encourage one another, to face our addictive tendencies and then let that divine spark in us glow in service to those beyond ourselves.  We can’t wait until we have our act together, until we’ve gone to more retreats or workshops, or guest speakers, we just need to get out there and say – this has been a help to me, so I want to pass it on.

In Matthew 25:40 Jesus says, “What you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me: it’s the spiritual equivalent to the First Law of Thermodynamics:  Energy cannot really be created or destroyed, it is merely converted to different uses.  What comes around must go around, or it doesn’t come around again. 

 It’s like the breath prayer we learned earlier in worship.  If we only inhale or exhale we die.  It has to be a continuous exchange.  If we only exist for ourselves, we will die.  We want to be invitational and not offend anyone, but Jesus didn’t call people to comfort, he called them to ministry, he called them to a life of transformation and compassionate service.

We cannot program grace and mercy – we don’t earn a spiritual awakening, but we do have to show up for it, we have to do our inner work, get the ego out of the way, so we can listen to and find God – the love of all loves at the core of who we are.

If we take the teachings of Jesus seriously, then we, like those first disciples need to know that we are the light of the world.  Yes, even us.  We’re not the whole light.  But we are a part of it, and sometimes it only takes a single candle to show a glimmer of hope, a safe welcome; enough light to see in a new way.

I invite you to pray with me now, that we may heed the call to be light to the world.  Please join in the response:  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

 Celebration of our Calling: Bless the spark of light

O Love Divine, We take heart in Jesus’ words to the disciples and curious followers, long ago on a hillside, by the Sea of Galilee. “You are the light of the world”, he proclaims.  And surely they must have looked around to see who he was talking to.

“You are the salt of the earth,” he proclaims and surely they must have wondered how they went from subsistence farmers and fisher-folk to such a precious commodity.

Bless the spark of light in us, O Holy One and help us to … “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”

Oh Light of Lights, there are days when the actions of others, or our own actions oppress us or depress us, dimming our view, leaving more sputter than spark.

Bless the spark of light in us, O Holy One and help us to … “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”

When we are bedazzled by more show that substance, by pizzazz rather that perseverance, by charisma rather than true character, help us to see the True Light.

Bless the spark of light in us, O Holy One and help us to … “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”

When we fail to see the beauty in our families, in our friends in our neighbours, in our enemies, and in ourselves, help us to see what Jesus saw when he told we were the light of the world.

Bless the spark of light in us, O Holy One and help us to … “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!  Oh, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.   

Feel encouraged to have the response sung –as per the song “This Little Light of Mine”  This prayer will be in the under construction book `”Cup of Wine and Piece of Bread…”