God's Instrument

A sermon for Sunday, March 22, 2020

Would you pray with me?

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

In times of stress, I do my best to be there for other people, but after all the comforting and helping, at the end of the day, I turn to horror stories to unwind. Maybe not the best coping mechanism, but it’s been working for me. And as I’ve been working through Stephen King’s catalog, I found myself thinking about The Shawshank Redemption this week, and one particular storyline in the book. Andy Dufresne, who has been convicted of the murder of two people, including his wife, after he’s found his place in the prison, turns his attention to the prison’s library. He begins writing letters to elected officials to get better funding for the library, one a day for years. After he wears down the officials and gets the first round of funding, he turns around and begins writing two a day so that he can build up the library even more.

It’s a lovely modern parable of doing the good that you can, even in a period of limitations. As we go through this time of social distancing and, in some places, lockdowns, it’s our task to figure out how to do the good we can while still maintaining the distance that we need to. I think our prayer this morning, the prayer of St. Francis, gives us some guidance on the goods that God can work in us so that we are still doing good, no matter our circumstances.

Something that stuck out to me as I was researching for this sermon, though, is that this prayer was likely not one that Francis himself prayed. That’s not really a surprise—our two other prayers that we’ve tackled so far this Lent, a Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition and the Breastplate of St. Patrick, weren’t written by John Wesley or St. Patrick, but are prayers attributed to them or the communities they led. But the reason why this prayer probably wasn’t prayed by Francis is what stuck out to me: this prayer is for an individual. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me bring love.

See, Francis was focused on community. We as Americans are very used to focusing on the individual—we swim daily in the waters of individualism, focused on our individual hopes and dreams. Not so with Francis.

And we likely have something to learn from that stance of Francis’. The spread of COVID-19 has taught us that what individuals do impacts the community, and vice-versa. Reports out of South Korea show that one woman who did not get tested for the coronavirus and went to church spread the sickness to 37 people. What we as individuals do has an impact on our communities, and one way of doing good in this time is reorienting ourselves to be thinking of our communities all the time.

So when we turn to this prayer this morning, I want us to focus on community. If we as individuals are all shaped by this prayer into being those who bring love and hope and joy and forgiveness into the world, how will that shape our community? I believe that if we can be a community full of individuals who are shaped by this prayer, we will be able to persist in doing good in these uncertain times.

So. Let’s turn to the prayer. There are two parts to it, as I’m sure you noticed as I prayed it. There’s this first section, where we pray for God to make us instruments of God’s good works, and the second section of reversals, “It is in comforting that we are comforted,” and so on. The first section reminds me of the Covenant Prayer we focused on two weeks ago, where we prayed to be used by God as God saw fit.

There’s something powerful in asking God to work in you rather than asking God to bless your work, especially in these times where none of us know what the next right thing to do is. Instead of charging ahead and asking God to bless our decisions after the fact, this prayer asks that God be the one to do good through us. If we are grounded in being instruments of God’s peace, not potential peacemakers trying to work out things all on our own, we can trust that the guidance we get from God will produce good.

What might that look like? Turn to someone watching with you or take a moment to write down some thoughts. Have you been able to do any of the things the prayer asks this past week? Have you brought peace or love or hope into any situation? Can you do any of these things in the week ahead?

I want to speak about bringing faith where there is doubt for just a moment before we move on to the second part of the prayer. COVID-19 has us all thinking about what our faith means. I don't think we're doubting God's power by being careful and taking precautions like social distancing. I actually think we're allowing God to use our minds to do the Lord's work, not only for ourselves but for those who are most vulnerable and for healthcare workers. And yet I know, and I’m sure we all know, that there are other Christians who believe that the faithful response to a pandemic is to continue to gather, because God has not given us a spirit of fear. Sowing faith in this time of doubt is a complicated matter. I know for myself what I believe and how it has shaped my actions, but each of us has to wrestle with this question for ourselves. As you pray this prayer this week, allow yourself some time to think about how your response to this pandemic is grounded in your faith, so that God can use you as an instrument of faith during this time.

Now, what I want us to notice in the second part of the prayer is the balance that’s inherent in it. “Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand.”

When I first began praying this prayer, I thought that this meant that I should never seek to be consoled and never seek to be understood and never seek to be loved. I thought, as many of us may think, that it was my job as a faithful Christian (and to name it honestly, as a woman) to always be the one who is giving and never the one who is receiving. It created a bit of a compulsion on my part and honestly deprived me of the fullness of some friendships and relationships.

Because the prayer doesn’t assume that relationships aren’t mutual; remember, this prayer is focused in community. The prayer assumes that each person praying it does seek out love and comfort and understanding because we as humans need those things. Instead, the prayer seeks to correct the selfish impulse of always seeking more to be understood than to understand.

If we in selfishness are seeking these things, we won't find them. It's in community with people who practice this way of life that we're able to see the fulfilment of each of these goods: consolation, love, forgiveness, understanding. We all know people who'd rather be loved than to love. We all know people who pour out love with nothing in return. But it's reciprocity that enables the thing to be good. It is in the relationship between people who are able to console and love and do so freely, trusting that whatever they give will come back to them.

It is hard to be in a community like that right now, but it is exactly now that we need to be in community together. What can you commit to this week that will build a community, a community that will reach back to you when you reach out them? Can you commit to phone calls? Emails? Cards? Or will you commit to doing some soul-work so that you can be a giving and receiving part of a community? Spend a minute or two talking that out with those beside you or writing it down for yourself.

I have to admit, in uncertain times, I want to be in charge. Put me in the governor's mansion or in the White House, I don't care, just let me be in the room where decisions happen so that I know that I'm doing all I can, no holds barred. But unless you're an elected official, you're stuck in the same boat as Andy Dufresne. All you can do is be persistent in communicating your needs and what should be done.

And that doesn't seem like anything. For those of us who aren't out there on the front line, the medical care professionals, the essential employees, the cash register clerks, it seems like we're stuck doing not a thing at all. But our prayer this morning is here to remind us that everything we do, as long as we are letting God guide us in doing it, is a powerful act that can bring good into the world. In everything, we can bring peace, love, etc.

Now, I don't mean to make you think that you need to emerge from quarantine a saint. But I do think we have the chance to be, as one of my favorite Avett Brothers songs says, "At least a little better than we've been so far. It's the only way to keep that last bit of sanity."

Amen.