Sermons

The Missing Power Pack

Rod Frohman                            Third Presbyterian Church
August 13, 2006                              Mark 9:14-29

Perhaps one of the most famous sentences in all of the English language has become, “Batteries not included.” Every gadget or machine made now-a-days, whether it is a computer, a cellular phone, PDA, or a “game boy” needs a power supply. When astronauts go on space walks, as they did just two weeks ago, they were attached to a power pack. And if the power pack is missing, the results could be deadly.

It might be going too far to suggest that we are born with the label, “Batteries not included.” But it is not too far of a stretch to say that we are born with the manufacturer’s warning: “Batteries must be recharged.” We live in a world which demands a tremendous drain on our personal and social power packs because of the contradictions and the paradoxes of modern living.

We live in a time that is both heart-warming and heart-chilling. We can see around us so much generosity and kindness, yet so much boredom and weariness; so much sense of surging life, yet so much cruelty and homicidal lust; so much reason for world peace, yet so much hate-filled fratricide; so much glib talk about the value of the individual yet so much contempt for community; so much talk of contractual rights, so little talk of covenantal obligations; so many wonderful new beginnings, yet so many tragic pathetic endings. How wonderful to hop on an airplane and take a vacation, how sad that we will now have to buy our toothpaste when we get there.

These polarities may remind us of the opening of Charles Dickens’ novel, Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness... It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness.”

There is a somewhat obscure story in the Gospel of Mark concerning a boy with epileptic seizures. Of course in a pre-scientific world the New Testament description is that the boy is “demon possessed.” The boy's father finds Jesus and says, “I asked your disciples to cast out the demon and they were not able.” The boy is brought to Jesus and after listening to the father's story, Jesus heals the boy of his epilepsy. After the excitement of this healing died down Jesus was quizzed privately by his disciples. “Why could we not cast it out?” they asked. Jesus’ response is most curious. He says, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

“This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” There is an arrogance among us all, ministers included, that if we have the best theory, the best analysis, the best insight, the most imaginative methods, then we can solve most of our problems. If we would only use the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, then we would be highly effective! Sociologists have a name for this: “technological rationality.” This is nothing to scoff at because “technological rationality” has given us everything from moon walks to microwaves to computers and we all like the products it has give us. Technological rationality is a central part of our church thinking too. It is a new ecclesiastical growth industry. If we would only follow the 12 Keys To An Effective Church, then things would work out ok.

I like technological rationality. I am among the most ardent worshippers of the right theory, or method. Strong evidence of this is this past Tuesday, Peter DuBois, Erica Vera and I attended an all-day workshop called Managing Multiple Projects, Objectives and Deadlines. Watch out Third Church.

But I think we all have this little caution light deep inside of us that tells us that correct insights and excellent methods do not necessarily confer power to act upon them. The desire to help is not the same as the ability to help. A well-conceived program in the church, the community or in our personal lives is still not a substitute for indispensable power from God. If we are not missing a power pack, then our batteries are frequently run down. Is it humiliating to have to admit this? More basically, is it true?

Across twenty centuries I can still hear the words of our Lord spoken to a group of loyal followers who had tried their best and failed; “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Prayer is the missing power pack.

Prayer is a difficult thing to do and to understand. It has always been so. Even the disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” But I detect two things peculiar to our time which make it more difficult to pray now than in previous ages.

First, we are so molded by this technological rationality that we simply do not think prayer makes much sense. The Enlightenment of the 18th century developed the idea that the universe is mechanistic. That is, the universe was seen as a machine, a closed system of natural law. Every effect had its cause. Therefore the religious outlook of pre-enlightenment generations was seen a superstitious. At the time our country was founded, Deism was the popular religious belief, and most of our founding fathers were not Christians, but Deists. Deism understood God as a remote and majestic Source of Order who, like a clockmaker, wound up the universe and is now running itself according to immutable laws. To a large extent, this God as machine is the dominant theology of 21st century people in and out of the church.

The modern effect of this deus ex machina is to reduce prayer to either gratitude or complaint and daily life to a kind of jockeying for position to avoid getting crushed in the wheels of the machine. The idea of nagging God in a prayer of petition like the importunate widow confronting Jesus, is really out of the question if God is a machine. Or, for example, how could prayer cancel out natural law? Can a person change the course of a hurricane or blizzard by prayer? If your computer hard drive should crash, could prayer make it boot up again? Of course we are all aware that from time to time when our hard drive crashes we may be prone to say, “Oh Jesus,” but we are not praying. If something more serious happens to our computer, we take it over to Microworx and there, Presbyterians Jeff or Kay Leist would fix it regardless of whether or not you are a theist, deist or atheist.

Secondly, not only has technological rationality made prayer difficult for many, but the practices of prayer on the part of devout believers have often reduced prayer to pious foolishness. Just surf the cable channels any day and you have a chance to pick up all kinds of interesting forms of prayer. And for serious, seeking non-believers, this is just what it takes for an effective turn off to institutional Christianity.

So for many, the very idea of getting re-connected to the missing power pack is not at the top of a list of priorities. The reason it is not at the top of our list is because our instincts tell us that we cannot go back and just merely repeat the prayers of 200 or even 20 years ago, as beautiful as they may be. Real prayer must connect to real life now. We must discover the splendor of God anew and God's presence in the life situations we face.

If we want to discover the missing power pack, then a paradigm shift is required. We have to stop looking “out there” and start looking “in here,” into ourselves. We have to re-discover soul. Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” Another way to say that is, “You have soul.” You are made in the image of God. You are, I am, we are all God-shaped in salty soulfulness.

Now notice I did not say we HAVE a soul. A soul is some sort of entity thought to exist within a person, which separates from the body at the point of death. I am NOT talking about that. That is a Greek idea which Christianity imported long ago which now must be discarded because it no longer makes much sense. Besides, the Bible never adopted that idea. (The Bible speaks of a spiritual body in the after life, but that is another sermon). Rather, the Biblical understanding of personhood is that we don't have a soul, we ARE a soul. To have soul “has to do with genuineness and depth. Soul is revealed in attachment, love, community, intimacy, as well as reflection, solitude, and inner conversations.” (Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, p. xii. If you have one more book to read this summer, then read Thomas Moore’s book.)

Do you ever talk to yourself, in anger, praise, or fear? That is an exercise of soulfulness. Does music ever move you? Then we say it has soul. It speaks deeply to us. From the African-American tradition we learn about, “soul music,” “soul food.” About having soul.

Prayer, Moore suggests, is an inward attention to foster soulfulness. Prayer now must go in and not up. Prayer must now go deep and not high. Prayer must go to the ground, not the sky. On the ground, in the depths, in the center of the self, in the center of the universe is God, the Ground of all Being. (Tillich) So when we pray now we are no longer astronauts, but spelunkers and scuba divers. When we pray, we are now climbing deep down into the cave of experience; we are diving deep into the sea of humanity. This going inward is what we can call the care of soul. (Ibid.)

But whether the metaphor is going up or going in, the act of prayer, or care of the soul requires art, or craft. (Ibid.)

Art or craft found only in the studio or museum, done by professionals, results in a dangerous gulf between art and life. Professional art can become too precious and therefore irrelevant. The arts are important for all of us, whether or not we ourselves practice a particular artistic discipline. Art, broadly speaking, is that which invites us into contemplation, a rare commodity in modern life. Art arrests attention. In that moment of contemplation, art intensifies the presence of soul in the world. We see life more vividly and deeply.

But soul cannot thrive in a fast-paced, drive-through world. Taking things in and shaping them requires time. Living artfully, living soulfully, living prayerfully might require something as simple as pausing.

A common symptom of modern life is that there is no time for thought, even for letting the impressions of the day sink in. We have to be wired to something. We all have, TVs, radios, cell phones, regular phones and e-mail. We have iPods, PDAs and text messaging. There is a very strange sense in which we are technologically demon possessed, addicted to being technologically connected.

There is a classical term for the kind of prayer that pauses or just stops. It is called adoration. Adoration is wonder, awe, puzzlement at the mystery of the divine in the human. Stopping for adoration is a basic way to pray. God can thus be experienced in the enjoyment of the stories our children tell us about school that day; in the persistent drum of the rain upon the roof; in the quiet spent in a room filled with the silence of a companion.

In July I had the occasion to spend ten days house-sitting my daughter and son-in-law’s rented farmhouse in Swoope, Virginia, a very remote location. Driving back to the farmhouse late one evening I turned in to the long access road and discovered that I had left no lights on in the house or yard. So when I got out of the car, I had to wait for my eyes to adjust. There was no glow of city lights, no street lights. It was dark! At first I noticed the flickering fireflies in the big oak tree. And looking past them was a starry, starry night I had not seen in over a decade. I could actually see the Milky Way, the front edge of our galaxy. And as I walked around the farmyard I found myself clapping. “You’ve done a great job, God!” I exclaimed. I was alone, but I was not alone. I was connected to the center of the universe, the Ground of Being.