Gosh golly, has it really been a month?

Well, here's why: my parents were visiting for a little over two weeks, and then last night I preached my first sermon at church.

Here it is.

What would you think if I said to you, "I will always love you." "You are always on my mind." You’d think I was making a declaration of love, right? What if I added, "I’m always on the run" or "You can’t always get what you want," now you probably know what I’m getting to. (Powerpoint: picture of a Jeopardy board.) "I’ll take POP SONGS CONTAINING THE WORD ALWAYS for $200, Alex." For emphasis, I could even add, "Always look on the bright side of life." What I’m wanting to do is to get you thinking about the word "always" because it’s a key word in the passage we’re looking at tonight. And I think that the meaning we commonly hold for "always," which is that same as in those song titles, isn’t the same as the meaning Paul gives it in this passage, and it’s important to get the meaning right. As pop culture would have it, always means all the time. If I tell you that I’ll always love you, you’ll probably think I mean I’ll love you forever. The word always has come to be a measure of time, and I think this weakens the word, because it becomes a standard that’s impossible to reach, and as such, really isn’t encouraging when Paul uses it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love pop and rock music as much as anyone—in fact a significant portion of my brain cells are still full of Milli Vanilli and Debbie Gibson lyrics—but I think that sometimes it does us a disservice, when it warps the meanings of certain words. And if I haven’t fully convinced you that the word always has lost much of its meaning in today’s society... (PP: picture of package of Always sanitary pads.) Exactly.

I believe that when Paul uses the word ‘always’ here, he isn’t talking so much about time as he is talking about manner, about an attitude of the heart. If you break the word up, all and ways , the concept becomes clearer. It means in all manner, in all you do, through all you do—rejoice, pray, give thanks. The words ‘always’ ‘without ceasing and ‘in everything’ are interchangeable.
When James Prette and I talked about me being up here to speak to you guys, and he said he’d slot me in during 1 Thessalonians, immediately my thoughts went to this passage, and I asked if I could preach on it. We all have favourite scripture passages that hold special meaning for us, and this is such a passage for me, for it gives me an answer to the question that preoccupies me most: How am I to live? Which is another way of asking, What is God’s will for me? I think this is the most crucial question that a Christian has to grapple with. How do we come to know God’s will for us? A friend of mine, a real wise girl, gave me this answer once: God’s will is that we be in relationship with Him. It’s the best answer I’ve heard so far. And in the heart of this passage, Paul fleshes out this concept for us—he tells us how to be in relationship with God. These are the essential ingredients: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus."

So, how do we do this? How do we pray without ceasing? Why should we? What good would it do? It’s a hard thing that Paul asks of us—and I do believe that he is asking this of every one of us. This is a subject of deep, deep interest for me. I really feel called to this practice. Which doesn’t mean, in any way, that I’m some expert, that I have this down. I really don’t. I have done lots of reading on the subject, which really isn’t the same as praying, though sometimes I like to fool myself to think so. I really appreciate Henri Nouwen’s honesty who wrote that he much preferred reading and writing about prayer to actually praying. I can relate. What I want to do tonight is present to you some of the answers I’ve come across. And I hope that you will be challenged by this, and that some of us, together, will decide to embark on this journey. Because, as we’ll see later on, this unceasing prayer, this intimate relationship with God, really is all about community, is all about our neighbour.

The first person I want to introduce to you, for whom this question of unceasing prayer was a matter of great importance, is St Benedict. Benedict lived in 6th century Italy. He is called the father of monasticism, because he wrote the rule that governs life in monasteries, even to this day. Now even though the life of a monk is vastly different from ours, still the Rule is of great relevance to us today, and to our interests tonight, because Benedict set down the rules for a way of life that is balanced, and which is held together by prayer—in fact, the whole purpose of life, for Benedict, is prayer, which he also calls the ‘work of God.’ All activities of the day—whether reading, singing in choir with the other monks, manual labour, eating, sleeping, and recreation: not one of these holds more importance than another, for all are a means to seek out God’s presence, to attend to it, to respond to it. I really think this is something to strive for in our stressed-out, over-stimulated and fragmented lives. See, Benedict believed that it doesn’t matter what you’re occupied with , whether it’s something seemingly holy like reading Scripture or something seemingly earthy like shoeing horses: God is present in both occasions, indeed is present at all times, and for believers that fact—and it is a fact—carries with it a responsibility, and that responsibility is to pray to and praise our God, at all times, in all ways. No matter what we do, where we are. "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. " What Paul and Benedict are saying is that, by attending to God’s presence in all circumstances and occasions of our lives, we can make our lives into continual, unceasing prayer. And this, also, is the answer to ‘Why should I seek to pray without ceasing?’ Because God is there. If we know that God is here with us, why shouldn’t we stop to praise him?

So, ultimately, for Benedict, praying is living, working, loving, accepting, it’s the refusal to take anything or anyone for granted but rather to try to find Christ in and through them all. You can see how this ties in to what Paul says to us: to rejoice always, and to give thanks in everything—these are both the root and the fruit of ‘total attentiveness to God.’ I really wish I had more time to flesh this out tonight—the idea of rejoicing always, and of giving thanks in everything. This often seems impossible, yet learning to do so can be absolutely redemptive. All of us have been in situations where there was no possibility of rejoicing. C’mon Paul, you want me to give thanks for this? Remember who’s asking these things of us, and what he’s been through. I know a great lady, who told me this story: she was home, after a bout of chemo, throwing up into the toilet, when she heard God’s voice inside her say, Praise me now. Now, God? Really? But she did. She praised him, because they’d just moved into a new house, where there were two bathrooms, and she could be alone, and not worry about taking a long time. It helps to notice that Paul says to give thanks in everything, not for everything. No matter how crappy the situation, you can always rejoice and give thanks that God is there with you, you can rejoice in His character and give thanks for the relationship you have with Him. Being joyful and thankful should never mean pretending our life is great when it’s not. The psalms are a good example of this: we can pretty well sum up the half of them like this: it’s just someone saying, This sucks. It’s true. But most of them move from the place of suckiness into a place of praise, because each are a conversation with God, each is an encounter with His presence. In this way, the psalms are a great model of prayer: because they’re so gritty, so real, so honest.

So, according to Benedict’s way, words are not essential to prayer, since what matters most is the attitude of our hearts. But this doesn’t mean that words can’t be used. In fact, for the next two people I want to introduce to you, words take on a great deal of importance. Next up, let us meet brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence, or frère Laurent, was a Benedictine monk living in France in the 17th century. He developed, through his years, a sort of loose method he called The Practice of the Presence of God. His letters and papers were collected after his death in a book that bears that name. Brother Lawrence is an example of the Rule lived out. He followed the Rule of Benedict, but had a particular, personal take on it. This is what he has to say: "The holiest, most common, most necessary practice in the spiritual life is the presence of God, that is to take delight in and become accustomed to His divine company, speaking humbly and talking lovingly with Him at all times, at every moment, without rule or system."

Brother Lawrence was assigned to kitchen duties upon first entering the monastery, then was transferred to the shoe repair shop, and that was his occupation for the rest of his life. And he claims that, after the first decade of his religious life, which was arid and difficult, he then spent the rest of it dwelling in the sweet presence of God, and his writings exude this sense of joy, of gratitude, and the utter simplicity of his way of prayer. It’s really quite simple, he tells us, you just keep up this continual conversation with God, in your thoughts, in your heart, about matters great and small, about things that seem to have no importance at all. I like to imagine this guy, who described himself as a "clumsy lummox," and who by all accounts was no great looker, in his shoe repair shop with a beatific smile on his face, carrying on this chat with God. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch for us, barristas and cashiers, nurses and accountants, to do the same.

Lastly, I want to introduce you to a nameless Russian peasant who, in the 19th century, wrote a book titled The Way of a Pilgrim, which is now a classic work of Eastern Christian spirituality.
The author was just like you, going to church one night, and he heard the same passage you’re hearing tonight. He heard the words "Pray without ceasing," and it’s like a light went off in his head, and he thought—this teaching is of the utmost importance, and yet I don’t get it. I don’t know what it means to pray without ceasing, but I know in my bones that this I must do. I’m going to try to find someone who can explain it to me. So he leaves his life, he takes off with only his Bible, and a bit of dried bread and salt, and goes in search of a teacher, someone who can explain to him what unceasing prayer is, and how he can go about practising it. This is by no means an easy process. He wanders all over Russia on foot to try to find that answer to the question that is burning in his heart: What is unceasing prayer?

Eventually, he finds a starets, that is, a spiritual father, who gives him the answer he’s been looking for. The starets teaches the pilgrim the Jesus Prayer, which goes, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me" and instructs him to go about repeating it, all day long, and he does, and finds great joy and peace doing so. He repeats the prayer on his lips so consistently and for so long, that at one point he feels himself no longer saying the prayer, but listening to it, for it’s his heart that prays it, a word to each beat. As he journeys on, the Jesus Prayer becomes his companion, his comfort.

But, this is only the beginning of the journey, the beginning of the book. He starts off with this question—and in the word ‘question’ is the word ‘quest’—and through perseverance, honest searching, and humility, he finds his answer, and puts the teaching into practice. But that’s only the start of his adventures. You see, on his journey, he meets people, good and bad. Lots of stuff happens to him: he is mobbed and robbed, taken in, thrown out, he lives in a cave for awhile, a monastery, a beat-up shack in the woods. He tells all this through the lens of the Jesus Prayer—how he kept on saying it no matter what, how each event deepened his practice, how he kept learning from spiritual people he met and how he in turn teached others to pray without ceasing. See, prayer is really all about community. This is a bit of a counter-intuitive thought, for we are used to thinking about prayer as something personal. But the story of this guy turns that concept on its head: we usually think of a pilgrim as someone who walks the world in solitude, in search of more solitude, and while it’s true that the pilgrim desires solitude, so he can be alone with his prayer, his travels accounts are full of people. See, we don’t just pray for ourselves—we have a responsibility to others when we pray, as well. Because if the fruit of our prayer doesn’t feed others, then we’re like a dead tree, only good to be thrown into the fire. Somewhere in the narrative, the pilgrim quotes St Gregory, saying "Not only should we ourselves in accordance to God’s will pray unceasingly in the name of Jesus Christ, but we are bound to reveal it and teach it to others." We don’t pray in a vacuum, you see. Others are with us when we pray, and it is our responsibility to make our prayer life rich and sweet and deep, not only for the sake of our own relationship with God, but because others need to be fed from our prayer, too, to deepen their relationship with God. Remember, the prayer that Jesus taught us isn’t the "My Father," it’s the "Our Father."

A definition of prayer could be to seek and enter into God’s presence. Keeping that in mind, and what I just said about prayer and community, I want us to think about a wheel. Now, imagine the center, the hub, as God’s presence, and the spokes as us, His people. What happens when we get closer to Him? We get closer to each other. And this is the point. This is why the call to unceasing prayer is such an important one—because it is one we are meant to share. Looking at the way Paul structured this passage helps us to see this.

"Pray without ceasing" is the heart of the passage—the hub, on which the meaning of everything else hangs. It’s the one ingredient that allows us to fulfil the other commands Paul gives us. Verses 12 to 15 tell us to comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all, esteem one another in love, and be at peace among ourselves. Now, I will make the suggestion that the only way that we’ll have the strenght to do this well, thoroughly and consistently is to have unceasing prayer as our foundation. Similarily, in verses 21 and 22, Paul admonishes us to test all things, hold fast to what is good, and to abstain from every form of evil. Now we’ll only be able to discern good and evil if we are deeply rooted in God’s presence, because in so doing we will be given the mind of Christ.

About a month ago, preaching on an earlier passage of Thessalonians, James Prette asked us: what would be the crowning achievement of our lives? Remember that? He said he wished the answer would be, that we truly loved people. I wish this, too, for myself, for everyone. And I think this is the place to start, with prayer. With unceasing prayer. Because prayer should not be isolating—it is meant to prepare our hearts, so we can love people and serve them. But that’s prayer’s second movement. The first movement is hearing the call, feeling that stir in our hearts—yes, I must do this—and setting out on the journey. You see, it doesn’t matter really what I tell you about unceasing prayer tonight, what teachings I present to you, for you have to find your own way. Ask yourself this: In your own relationship with God, what does a conversation look like, what does it sound like? It’s up to each one of you to answer that question for yourselves, and it may take a while to find that answer. My hope for tonight is that you would hear the call, like our Russian pilgrim friend, and step out of your comfort zones in search of God’s presence. And if our friend’s tale is any indication, it’ll be a tough road—we might get hungry, sick, we may be robbed, we may get lonely, we may despair. But we can also reach out to each other along the way. We have to do this each one for ourselves, but we don’t have to do it alone. See, prayer is a two-way street: as we are desiring to enter into deeper prayer, God is desiring to give us prayer. John Climacus said, "God gives prayer to the person who prays." It’s something we’ll figure out along the way. The only way to learn how to pray is to pray. It’s that simple—though simple doesn’t mean easy. So let’s get to it, let’s pray together, and then share a meal together to fortify ourselves for the journey.