7th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9B

7th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9B July 8, 2018 I like to listen to a podcast regularly that is titled Pray as You Go. Pray as you Go is produced by monastics, Jesuits to be exact, and it is a way to engage with scripture and music to provide a framework for your prayer when you are on the go. They usually read the chosen reading through a couple of times and ask questions for the listener to reflect upon. These questions are designed to help you: “become more aware of God's presence in your life; listen to and reflect on God's word; and grow in your relationship with God.”i (I highly recommend it as a part of your spiritual practice. The meditations are between 10 and 13 minutes and are very accessible. You can access them from the website www.pray-as-you-go.org; you can download them where you download other podcasts, or they even have an app.) This week, I listened to the episode for this weekend which includes a portion of today’s gospel reading. I’ll give you an abbreviated taste of it and then share with you the questions they offered. “Jesus came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” “Jesus returns to his hometown. He comes as a teacher, yet his teaching is greeted not with wonder but with contempt. Can you recall a time when you felt too quickly disregarded or dismissed by those closest to you, those who know you too well? What did that feel like? Now, turn the tables for a moment. Can you identify those around you, people you know well who all too often get disregarded or shouted down? ‘Oh, it’s only so and so; he would say that!’ How important would the message have to be before you took them seriously?”ii There’s a second reading of the scripture and more questions, and the podcast concludes with the following: “I ask God now for whatever I feel I may need. An increase in faith, perhaps? Or maybe the ability to see God’s power and love in all the ordinary things as well as the amazing things around me. I talk to God and listen to what [God] has to say to me.”iii These questions struck me this week, because I, like the people of Jesus’s hometown, often miss when God’s power is revealed to me in the ordinary things. I think that our epistle reading is showing us that this was true for the apostle Paul as well. He talks about an amazing vision that he had of the kingdom of God, where he received a revelation about the nature of heaven. He also received what he called “a thorn in the flesh.” No one really knows what this thorn in the flesh was. Some have speculated that it was some sort of eye disease that Paul suffered from or possibly a wound that would not heal. But as a result of whatever this thorn in the flesh was, God spoke to Paul about it when Paul asked God to remove it from him. And God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” God reminds Paul that God is revealed not only in astounding events, amazing things, or visions. God’s power is even revealed and made perfect in Paul’s weakness. How is God’s power revealed in weakness? In your life? In our church and community? In the world? How do we miss seeing God’s power and love in all the ordinary things as well as the amazing things around us? How might you pay better attention to the ordinary things of your life this week and the ways that God’s power and love are revealed in and through them? A few years ago, I came across a prayer. I think it had been written by Garrison Keillor. It gets to the heart of our quest of being more open, more aware, more willing to see God’s power and love in the ordinary things of our life this week. It’s amazingly simple, and quite ordinary: “Thank you, dear God, for this good life, and forgive us if we do not love it enough. Amen.”iv i.https://pray-as-you-go.org/about/ ii.https://pray-as-you-go.org/home/ from the episode for July 7/8, 2018 iii.ibid iv. I don’t remember where I first encountered this. The internet attributes it to Garrison Keillor in Leaving Home.