This Lent, my focus is very much on prayer, and indeed that’s the subject of our Lent course. Prayer is the root of our relationship with God. In any relationship, good communication is vital, however it happens. For any friendship to flourish, we must spend time together – quality time, not merely quantity. We must listen to each other and be able to speak what is in our hearts, trusting that the other will treat our fragile and precious honesty with compassion and respect.
God invites us into this kind of relationship, and prayer (which has many forms) is a keyway in which we both listen and speak. Because of Jesus, God is not distant from us, a deity who cannot have any appreciation of our frailty and struggles. Because of Jesus, God truly understands what it is to be human and to live in this world; he did it. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, God is not only with us, but also within us, and when we do not have the words to express our joy or our suffering, the Spirit speaks for us within our hearts.
One of the readings for this Sunday is Psalm 27, the first line of which is also the motto for Oxford University: Dominus illuminatio mea. The Lord is my light. The first two verses read, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?” In typical Hebrew form, the same sentiment is expressed twice, in slightly different phrasing. The psalm continues with an affirmation of faith in God, even though it seems that the world is collapsing around us, and the outlook very bleak. It does not shy away from the reality of human struggle and suffering. Lent is perhaps a very good time to acknowledge that life is hard, and often very unfair!
Lent is also however a good time to dig down past our disappointments, and to renew our trust that in the end, somehow, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Looking at the mess in our lives and all around us, God knows how! Literally! When I find myself despairing at a situation, I try to stop and think how much worse it would be without prayer. I then put more prayer into it. Sometimes solutions take years to come through. Sometimes we must wait for God to bring about the right solution that truly brings freedom; otherwise, we will settle for an outcome that continues fear and oppression, and brings neither justice or peace.
What we can trust in however is that, as Professor Dumbledore comments, even in the darkest of places there is hope, if only we remember to switch on the light. I’d like to suggest that prayer is the switch which allows the light of God to shine no matter how dark the surroundings may seem to be. Prayer is our invitation to God to come into the situation. Prayer is how we will hear his reply. Prayer is the essential comms line, without which we can so easily be lost. And prayer can be as simple as, “God, please! Thank you.”
Revd. Talisker
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash