This morning’s gospel reading comes from the very beginning of Mark’s gospel. Jesus was beginning his ministry, and we are told that he got up early in the morning and went to a deserted place to pray. Mark doesn’t tell us anything about how he prayed, but we can imagine that this was a regular practice of Jesus’. He rose early in the morning to pray.
Prayer, contemplation or meditation are fundamental to the spiritual life. Prayer was foundational to Jesus’ ministry and it is basic to ours but I think many of us find it hard. We think of prayer as asking God for things, and then when those things don’t happen as we hoped we think that either we failed or God wasn’t listening to us.
This way of thinking about prayer makes us think of God as somewhere out there, maybe sitting in the clouds, listening to everyone’s prayers and deciding which ones to grant and which ones not to grant. We imagine an almighty, omnipotent God who wants the best for us but is somewhat capricious in how he responds to our requests.
The other image of God that this way of thinking sometimes presents is God as vending machine. If you put your prayers in properly you get out what you want.
I don’t think either of these images of God are helpful. Instead I’d like to suggest that we think of God as water flowing through the seen and unseen universe. Water can be gentle or water can be fierce. Water can get things which are stuck unstuck. Water brings life. As the divine water flows it connects all things.
So when we pray we are connecting with the stream of divine water which flows among all creation and which intends the best and the highest for everything it touches. When we pray, we are connecting our energy to the divine desire for good.
We were created in the image of God the Creator to be amazingly creative. And we are called to be co-creators with God, in other words to use our creativity in bringing about the redemption of the whole cosmos, which is the great creative work of God. One of the things that happens when we pray is that we join our creativity with the divine impulse. Our desire for good is joined with the divine desire for good and so the flow of positive possibilities is increased.
Another thing that happens when we pray is that our relationship with God deepens. If we are serious about our love affair with the divine then setting time aside for prayer is vital. Because it is this prayer which deepens our walk and leads us into closer and closer relationship. I want to commend to you the prayer that has been called the prayer of assent.
The prayer of assent. That’s assent not ascent which means upward movement. Assent is a formal word we don’t use much in everyday speech. It means that we agree to something. We might say the prayer of agreement but that is a bit weak. The prayer of assent is more muscular – it is when we choose, when we use our wills to say “I give myself in this time to God and nothing else.” So this time is for focusing on God however we may understand God. It is a time for just being in the presence of God, giving our assent to God’s presence. It isn’t asking for anything, it isn’t even praising God particularly, it is just giving ourselves and our time completely to God with no agenda.
Of course our minds and our thoughts are going to wander, which is why the prayer of assent involves our wills. Whenever we notice that our thoughts have wandered, we bring them back to the presence of God using a sacred word, or a short phrase. There is no agenda except to keep returning to the presence of God whenever our thoughts take us away.
In the gospel reading, the disciples were frantic when they couldn’t find Jesus and when they did they told him, “Everyone is searching for you.” Our thoughts are a bit like that. When they notice we’re not paying attention they come searching for us. The prayer of assent can seem more like a pan of spaghetti than prayer. The trick is that for the limited time that you have decided upon, you are assenting to make God more important than your thoughts. Your thoughts will come searching for you and they will seem very important and very pressing, so much so that surely you should write them down before you forget them again.
But no, the presence of God is more important than your thoughts. And so you gently but firmly bring your mind back to your sacred word, back to the presence of God.
It is a temptation to think that we should be able to feel the presence of God and bask in his love. That is not always the case. Sometimes we do have wonderful moments but we don’t get to depend on them. In this time of prayer we are not only assenting to make God more important than our thoughts but also assenting to the presence of God and we know by faith that God is present. We choose to turn our attention toward God, trusting that God is there whether or not we perceive her.
Prayer like this is similar to sitting quietly with a beloved person or pet. You don’t need to be talking all the time. We treasure those moments of silent intimacy. They draw us closer. It’s like that with the prayer of assent. As we become more comfortable with connecting to the one who is the water flowing through the universe so our relationship deepens and we begin to draw more deeply from the wellsprings of divine life. And as we do so our prayers of petition, our requests for ourselves and others seem to become more powerful because we are co-creating more closely with the Creator herself.
I know it’s difficult to find the time. But that is also part of the assent. It is part of our decision to be followers of Christ, to enroll in the reign of God.
It is said that one day Gandhi’s advisors told him they had a very busy day ahead, so could he for once skip morning meditation? Gandhi replied that if they had so much work to do, they’d better meditate for two hours, not just one.
This kind of meditative prayer leads to a deeper calm after a while of practice. The time spent turning gently away from the spaghetti of our thoughts and towards the presence of God gives us a new perspective on those thoughts.
When Jesus was told “everyone is searching for you” he didn’t jump into action. No, he said, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” He was able to see what was important and not react to the crisis of the moment. The deeper our walk with God, the easier it is to know what is ours to do and what is not.
Most practitioners suggest 20 minutes of this Centering prayer twice a day. But 5 minutes is better than nothing. So let us take 5 minutes now to pray together.
First you’ll want to choose a sacred word or very short phrase. You could try Jesus, joy, peace, I use Holy One.
Now find a comfortable position and turn your attention toward God. Whenever you notice you’re thinking let the thoughts go and use your sacred word to bring your attention gently back to God. …Amen
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