Avoiding the Easy Answer

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In today's installment, I want to touch briefly on something I have seen making the rounds of various media outlets as it relates to the life of the faithful, the call to prayer in times like these. However, I won't be talking about prayer as it relates to the hope for a cure or a hope for a vaccine or hope from the relief of suffering, although those are all vital parts of being people of prayer. Luke's Gospel gives us an account of Jesus during Holy Week, teaching about prayer in a way that is not about a solution to our current crisis, but prayer is a way to live through, well, anything, but especially a crisis.

Let's take a quick look at Luke 22, verses 39 through 46. I'll be reading from the Common English Bible.

"Jesus left and made his way to the Mount of Olives, as well as his custom, and the disciples followed him. When he arrived, he said to them, 'Pray that you won't give into temptation.' He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, knelt down and prayed. He said, 'Father, if it's your will, take this cup of suffering away from me. However, not my will, but yours must be done.' And then a heavenly angel appeared to him and strengthened him. He was in anguish and prayed even more earnestly. His sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. When he got up from praying, he went to the disciples. He found them asleep, overcome by grief. He said to them, 'Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray so that you won't give into temptation.'"

Just a few things to look at during this lunch hour in this passage. And I'm going to pretty much skip from the front part to the back part. And I think you'll see why in just in minutes. If you notice that Jesus starts and ends this narrative calling his followers to pray so that they would not give into temptation. Well, why? Why didn't Jesus call them to pray for whatever would tempt them to be destroyed? Could it be that Jesus in his wisdom knew better than to guarantee his disciples a smooth, easy life without any trials and tribulations of any kind?

The second thing we look at is, Lord knows there's enough out there to tempt us right now. We are tempted to anger because we feel so helpless. We're tempted to have critical spirits because we know there are decisions we and others have made that seem to make this mess even deeper. We're tempted to covet because we know others who have so much more than we do, especially certain items we took for granted until our current situation. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Part of the call on God's people to be people of prayer is to recognize that none of us are beyond temptation and rather than focus solely on seeking relief from various calamities, we are called to be prepared to weather these calamities by being people of faithful obedience to and trust in God's gracious provision, that gives all we need, not necessarily all we want.

You notice Jesus concludes this passage by chiding them for sleeping. Maybe a question this passage is asking of us today is how is it that we are sleeping, by not being people of prayer for strength during times where we can be easily tempted?

Now look, I get it. I really, really get it. There is a sense of desperation in the air for so many. And our natural instinct is to cry out for relief. However, let us take a few moments today to ask ourselves, how, in addition to prayer for this and all crisis to abate, we also pray to God for strength to resist the temptation to choose a path that is contrary to God's will for our lives, a path modeled by the grace and peace personified in Jesus Christ. We can wish and hope for a hundred different things, but we, in amidst of our being people of hope, praying for a way out of certain situations, we would do well to remember that God never promises us an easy path. He never promises the faithful that all situations are going to be great.

Go back and read Paul's letters. Some of the most inspirational writing came at a time of suffering. And I think something that we see in Paul's writings, something we see in today's scripture lesson from Luke, is that part of being people of prayer means praying to be prepared, to live as godly people in the most ungodly of situations. A prayer to resist the temptation to give in to our base desires and prayer for strength instead to get through times where we might default to how shall we say it, less than the Christian ideal in thought, word, and deed.