July 24, 2016

Luke 11:1-13

Chip W. sent me a link to this story by Auburn Sandstrom, which I’ll try to summarize this morning. It is called, “A Phone Call” because it was at two in the morning while cradled desperately in her bed that Auburn dials the number that her mother had once given her for a moment like this.  Auburn is suffering from withdrawal and is desperately craving the drug of her addiction.  Her husband is out on the streets seeking the drug while her anxiety, pain, and sickness escalates.  She lay there in bed, wanting to leave her skin and crawl out of her body, but of course, she can’t; she’s stuck in herself, trapped in her addiction, which had been building for years.

It began as a young adult. Before that she was a child of privilege dutifully doing the expected things – French lessons, expensive schools, and money for all her needs and wants.  But, as time went along she learned about the advantage she’d been afforded and she came to the conclusion that she needed to reject it, to spit on it, to hate it, and to become something else.

She notes how each time in life she’s come to a flawed conclusion there’s appeared a man who was ready to join her down its path. This time it was a 40 year-old poet whose brilliance, and creativity, and alternative look on the world captivated her 21 year-old mind and swept her off her feet.  It was his friend who introduced her to the drug that ended up dominating her life for the next five years.

The poet became her husband and together they had a son whom she loved but neglected in horribly sad ways as they drove their lives deeper and deeper into destruction. He was somewhere in their mess of an apartment when she uncrinkled the piece of paper that her mother had given her back when they were in communication.  “This is the number for a Christian counselor who might be able to help you if you are ever desperate enough to call,” her mother said as she gave her the note.

When she called, a man’s voice answered. She said who she was and how she needed help.  She could hear his sheets ruffling and other sounds of him getting up and making himself available.  He talked with her and asked her questions.  As they talked she began sharing truths about herself.  “I may be addicted to drugs,” she said.  “How painful that must be,” he said in reply.  She told him other truths as well, how she loved her husband but perhaps he would hit her from time to time.  She told him that she wouldn’t want him to say anything bad about her husband, but he tried to put their son out into the cold one time, and another time, while high, he tried to throw them out of a moving car.  All the while the man on the phone listened attentively and without judging her.  He empathized with her, and she could hear the calm compassion in his voice.

He stayed with her on the line from two to sunrise until she finally felt calm enough to face the day before her. Able to smile just a bit she said, “Well, aren’t you going to give me some bible passages to read or something?” because that would have been okay.  But, he didn’t.  They talked a bit more and she asked, “How long have you been a Christian counselor?”  He was quiet for a moment and he said, “Please, don’t hang up the phone when I give you my answer.  I believe you dialed the wrong number.  I’m not a counselor.”

Ultimately, it didn’t matter if he was a counselor or not; it mattered what he did and what he gave her. She said that the next day for the first time she felt something of what people meant when they talked about a “peace that passes all understanding.”  Things didn’t suddenly fall into place for her after that discussion, but that discussion opened the door; it made the healing process possible.

Here’s how she concludes the story: “I know this: in the deepest, blackest night of your despair it only takes a pin hole of light, and all of grace can come in.”[1]

What I imagine from this story is a mother, long at a loss as what to do for her ill and troubled daughter, praying despite the distance between them that somehow God would have access to her where she didn’t, that somehow God would lead her to help where she couldn’t. I imagine a mother not stopping her prayer, though never knowing how or if it might be answered.

I imagine a man with an open heart and a desire to grow in his faith.  I imagine a man who has known some struggle and pain of his own, but along the journey also found some help and some healing.  I imagine him, in faith’s mix of knowing God and not-knowing (of finding and yet always seeking), cultivating the kind of compassion such that when the phone rings at 2 in the morning and the voice of a stranger in need starts talking, he is able and willing to embrace the opportunity to offer his help and his presence.

I imagine a woman lost and in deep pain, confused about her convictions and her choices, torn by regret and the oppressions of her addiction, deep down hoping for a God she’s never been able to find, wishing for help she’s not sure exists.

I imagine a God whose heart breaks in the pain of it all, a God who dies anew with each death of whole-self that His people undergo, but also a God whose love rises out of death and shines through darkness, a God whose work for redemption moves patiently and persistently onward in mystery and truth.  I imagine a God who never loses this lost woman, a God who knows her regardless of what she knows or doesn’t know, a God whose providence is beautifully (but only partially) revealed in this moment of her dialing the wrong number and finding help.

Author and pastor, Michael Fick, gives words to my thoughts in relation to today’s passage from Luke.  “What is the point of prayer?” he asks.  “I have neither the space nor the theological expertise to address such a question in any definitive way.  Yet there it is, writ large and looming in the… Gospel for this Sunday.  The terrain seems fraught with places to trip and fall.  Is prayer the means by which I might change the mind of God?  Is it a reflex or a negotiation?  The knock on a door that opens to the things I want, or the things I didn’t even know I needed?  Does prayer make things happen, or change my perceptions of what ‘is’ already?”[2]

How are we supposed to think about prayer?  How does it work?  How are we to do it?  What difference does it make?  Can it change the world or can it only change us?  Like Rev. Fick I have no definitive answers to these questions.  But, I’ll point to the verbs in the prayer that Christ teaches us: “give us,” “forgive us,” “lead us,” “deliver us.”  All these verbs do more than simply imply our dependence.  They reinforce the truth that we are not ourselves on our own.  We are not meant to be our own gods.  We are designed to be dependent, and so the assumption behind Christ’s prayer is that it is offered out of a condition of real necessity.  “How should we pray?” they ask.  “Pray out of your need,” says Jesus.

Douglas John Hall reflects, “Prayer is not a meek, contrived, and merely ‘religious’ act; it is the act of human beings who know how hard it is to be human.  Real prayer cannot be faked.  Its only prerequisites are sufficient self-knowledge to recognize the depths of our need, and enough humility to ask for help.”[3]

I imagine that the workings of prayer might look a lot like Auburn Sandstrom’s story.   Three people ask for help.  None knows how that help might happen.  Yet, it happens, surprisingly and profoundly.

 

[1] https://themoth.org/storytellers/auburn-sandstrom

[2] Christian Century, July 6, 2016, page 21.

[3] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, page 290.