Teaching | Contemplative Prayer | Prayer E02

Hello and welcome to the John Mark Cometations Podcast. My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space. It's wonderful to have you with us. We're continuing our prayer series. Exploring what it means to move from prayer and To prayer as a way of life with God. In this week's episode we're hearing from Father Rick Gans on the Prayer to help us abide with God.

Father Rick is a founder and director of the Farber Institute in Portland, Oregon, an organization committed to awakening our souls through teaching, spiritual direction and retreat. You can learn more about the Farber Institute and Father Rick's work at Farber Institute.com. Here's Father Rick. Well I have to confess.

And uh here it is. So I was very moved when all the moms came up. He said, just pile in here and get up close. And as they gathered and I could see their faces from the side, And I imagine myself up front, looking down on all these faces, who looked on little ones when they first came into the world, and felt such love and wondered what would happen. And I imagine myself standing there and looking at them all and seeing them in prayer. And I wondered what it'd be like to body surf.

So I confess that and I ask your forgiveness. Last week. John Mark preached and some of the pieces that I picked up I remembered our I knew he talked about the Lord's Prayer, because if you want to learn how to pray, you might as well learn from him. He said, if you don't know what to do, you might try this. And then he said those words. He talked about how Jesus really enjoyed being with his father in prayer.

It wasn't work to go to prayer. It was joy to be with his father. Prayer was not like get in there and practice the piano. As sometimes we feel. He went knowing that his father would show up and he would delight in being with him. John Mark Ars also made this comment. Money can, it appears, do what prayer can do. Get what I want. And John Mark, because he's a skilled speaker, kind of needled us to think about that.

He said, if you are bored with God, then maybe it's you who are boring. It's a good line. I wrote it and he gave it in the email. He also said God does not know how to be absent. These are good lines.

I'd like to offer for your consideration this way of understanding what prayer is. Prayer is a spiritual word. It's a word we pick. That we will use to describe all of our experiences, but as understood as sharing them with God. Prayer is a spiritual word that we use to describe all of our experiences, but as understood as shared with God. Prayer is not a special kind of experience. It is a special mode of perceiving all of reality as given us by God to live with him.

This is really important. I have learned that often when we have experiences in our life, we quic quickly characterize them as I had a good experience or I had a bad experience, right? It's not good to moralize experience, because experience is just experience.

And something we thought was bad over the course of time turns out to be a profoundly significant something in our life that truly changed us, so that at a later time it's hard to imagine well Yeah, it was bad, but what happened with it, it's good kind of and it's hard to figure it out.

God gives us our days to live. And as we say in a an old prayer at the beginning of the day, I was taught as a little boy to always say this prayer when I got up in the morning, and it began We offer you all our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day. As if giving the day before we even have it. Prayer is a way of seeing all our experience as shared with God. Do you remember in Luke chapter 18, verses 40 to 43, Jesus has met a blind man on the road to Jericho?

And then this quoting Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him, and when he came near, Jesus asked him What do you want me to do for you? That's really good. We never assume that we know what someone needs. Ask them. So Jesus asks, What do you want me to do for you? He replied, Lord, please let me see what Prayer is a way of seeing all our experience as shared with God. Jesus told him, Have sight. Your faith has saved you.

He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. And when they all saw this, they all gave praise to God. If prayer is a way of perceiving all of experience, The disciplines of prayer are simply the ways that we train ourselves to be awake enough to see our experience in this way. All the profound and sometimes playful modes by which God Himself is really present to us, reaching for us in the circumstances of our day.

When biblical scholars look at the Gospel of John, they do notice that Jesus talked a lot at the Last Supper. It's called the farewell discourse. In the very center of the Of that farewell discourse starting at chapter thirteen and moving through until the Passion Account starts. The very center of it are the verses I'm about to read to you, and it's as if Jesus is saying to you and me, this is as deep as I can go. This is the deepest. And if you get this, you've got it.

So it's John chapter fifteen, starting at verse one. And my translation of that Greek sounds like this. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit. That's beautiful. Did you see that? Jesus is always our advocate. He never takes away. His father does. And every one that does he prunes, so that it bears more fruit. Now you are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me as I remain in you.

Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither. People will gather them and throw them into a fire, and they will be burned. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want.

And it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. 美麗 Beautiful. I wrote that too. There was a sixteenth century Jesuit who asked the question Why did Jesus use the image of the vine here? When he wanted to go to the deepest point. He might have used a fig tree, he might have used an olive tree, because these images show up in the Bible too. Why the vine?

First reason the contrast between the quantity of fruit, the number of grapes, in relation to the size of the vine and its branches is striking. Small branches, huge fruit. Second, the contrast between a single vine with its modest girth in relation to the multitude of its branches. Third, the fruit, when harvested from the branches and given to the winemaker, produces a gift of sweet drink. It loosens people up.

Fourth, the grapes produced from the oldest vines are fewer but more flavorful than the young vines that produce massively and are a little thinner in taste. Did you know vines can be two hundred years old? Fifth and last year. The vines require a higher order being to tend them. Because they are unable to tend themselves. So if you plant vines, they'll just go crazy. And the branches going out all over the place, it takes a higher order being a being us.

to recognize how the thing is growing and where to snip it so that it stays healthy and fresh and the air gets through it and the light hits all parts of it. We're like that too. We need a higher order being to look after us, or we grow all over the place, end up looking like you before you came to this church. I thought that was good. Three five of those five reasons why he might have chosen that image.

Now, in the image, there's a beautiful revelation of the Holy Trinity, too. He's expressing the identity of God. So the vine dresser, the owner of the vineyard, is the one who owns the thing, and who decided to plant it and wanting it to bear fruit, the father. The vineyard belongs to him. The sun is a vine. From which all the branches go. Remember the the vine doesn't produce grapes.

The branches do, which shows a beautiful courtesy and a collaborative awareness of God that I have my thing and you have yours. But it takes both of us to get there. And the third is the Holy Spirit hiddenly present in the image. As the life force that penetrates through the roots and burns vividly up through the stem and bursts out into all the branches and expresses itself in perfect grapes. The same light that's in the Father and the Son, hiddenly present in the image. Beautiful.

Each of us have the same beautiful life energy. Not even Dr. Frankenstein could really create life and be successful. It's a mystery given. And that life force burning up through all of us has within it a beautiful finality that if we follow it, it will take us right into the heart of God. But because God wanted it this way, He granted us an artistic relation to the energy He gives us.

And he says, I want you to participate in the gift I give and do with it what you wish, because you always surprise me. And so that energy comes up into us, and often we end up throwing it at things, driving it towards things that truly don't matter. And it splinters our focus and leaves us depleted. You know what I'm talking about. Years ago there was a Jesuit priest by the name of Pat Tue. You would have liked him. He's a holy guy and a load of fun.

He worked on the Native American missions in northern Washington, up in Omack, where Jesuits have been back since the eighteen sixties. He lived in a trailer on the reservation, and one day he is in his trailer. And when you knock on a trailer, it's noisy, right? But it was a courteous knock, so he goes to the door and opens it and hears Red Cloud. Now Red Cloud on that reservation was the holiest man and everyone knew it.

That kind of holiness that is kind of unsettling because their presence makes you more real, and sometimes you're not ready for that real. You can get a little skittish around them. And he comes in and so they start talking and shortly after Loud. Louder.

emergency sort of a knock. And Pat jumps and goes to the door and opens it and there's a man out there saying, Father Pat, you've got to come. You gotta come right now. There's there's they're fighting and and there's a woman and and her child she's just gotten hurt. Pat knew what that meant. Not too many blocks away, and there are no actual blocks, but across the space. There was a bar, a particular kind of bar that was very rough. Every town has them. And you probably know where they are.

The one thing Pat knew is don't go there. This guy is saying, Pat, you've got to come, someone's been hurt. And inside, he's saying, N No. I've learned you don't go there when they're fighting. And before he knew it, Red Cloud had gone right past him, right out the door of the trailer, and was starting to walk in the direction of this bar, and then he turns to Pat and he says, Are you coming?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I am coming. So he comes in behind, and Red Cloud is walking. He's like eighty years old. And he's walking straight toward the thing, and as they get close, you can hear the place roaring, the sound of crying out and profanity and smashing and things getting overturned. Scary. And they get to the place, and Red Cloud goes straight up the steps, straight through the door into the room. With Pat following right behind. And this is what he did.

He walked out into the middle of the room. Bang! Crash prevent. He just sat. And Pat standing behind him, and in less than a minute, that room was not moving. And everyone was looking towards him. Right in the middle. And then he held them almost an impossible length of time, forcing them, if you will, to be still. And then he raised his head and he said, Is there a child who's been hurt?

And he looks over to the right and there's an overturned table and he sees this woman's head stick up and her hair is wild there's blood on her face and she's been crying. And she raises up and she says, My daughter. And he says, Bring her here. So she walks over and she has her hand on her daughter's face, and there was blood coming out. She comes over to him and he says, Let me have the girl.

And so she gives you a little Her daughter to him, puts her on her lap, and as the mom's hand came off, Pat standing right there, saw that her whole face had been torn open by a broken bottle that had been thrown across the room and ripped her face right open. So Red Cloud took his hand and he put it on her dear little face. I know. He took his hand away, remember Path's right here, and her face was perfect.

just blood caked, but no sign at all. And he stands her up and he gives her to her mom And then he says, I think we're done here. Thank you.

When you and I remain in God and God remains in us, we don't have to do Our presence gives. It's what John means over and over again by the word abide or remain in me. You're always trying to figure out some more things you might do to work the relation. He says, all you have to do is stay with me and I with you. And you've understood it. Think of how the branches on the vine abide in the vine. One is the extension and directly related. But the vine also.

Is present in the grapes, even though it didn't make them, because without the vine the grapes aren't there. I want you to think of abiding like this. One of my favorite images, and I've rarely seen it because I don't have a chance. When I've watched young married couples put their kids to bed, the parents simply watch their child sleep. I know they're not doing anything, but I feel the power of the abiding. They feel the connection with their little one. And it makes them closer as a couple.

Beautiful. Another example of abiding. I don't know women why women like to do this. And I I'll never have a chance for this one because of my vow. Women love, I guess, they love to put their heads on the chests of their men and listen to their heart. And if this isn't true, don't tell me. But I love that thought. They're not doing anything. They're feeling the connection. They feel the friendship.

And I like to imagine that contemplative prayer is like putting our head on the chest of God and hearing his heart beat. No questions to ask, no explanations required of God, just the felt sense of friendship. We use the word meditation in Christian language to describe holy thinking about holy things. John Mark is a writer and a publisher, and he writes many homilies too, and you've heard them and appreciate them. He has to meditate in order to do that, to think about holy things.

But he wouldn't want any of those books out there or any of the words out there if it wasn't about bringing you to a contemplative awareness of the connection God has with you. A felt sense of the friendship of God.

Now, in order to grow in a capacity to understand prayer as a way of seeing all reality as given you by God to live with Him, In order in experience to hear the heartbeat of God, to feel the connection, we have to train. And I'd like to offer you as your prayer practice this week,'cause I'm supposed to do that, a practice that's very dear to the Jesuits founded in fifteen forty, and if you practice this faithfully this week once a day. You might find that you'll start thinking or imagining

It's called the examine. It's a dear prayer of Jesuits, and it's the practice of the highest art in our fellowship. Its full name is the examination of consciousness, not examination of conscience. It's an awareness of being placed in the midst of experiences and rummaging around in the experiences looking for the blessing of God in there.

So, in order to do this practice, you do like you do here. You take a lot of time to warm you guys up and make sure you're here and no place else. And that's the whole worship thing. Beautifully done. And the music ministers don't quit until they have a sense that you're all here and no place else. At least I think that's what they're doing. And they're good at it. It's their art. It's the way they pray the room into focus.

So before any prayer, there is the preparation, and so you make that preparation, and then these five steps, and I'll just quickly say them and then I'll be done here. The first one is you pray for light. Mary, the mother of God, is remembered for a prayer that she prayed. My soul magnifies the Lord. And what she's saying is, I want my life.

To be the kind of life that when people are around me, I'm a magnifier of God's presence in that space. So that when I'm here, it's easier for everyone else to see that God's here. So we pray at the beginning of the exam and prayer for light that God will make himself just cut us some slack and make himself more obvious so we don't miss his presence. Step one. The second step is a very important thing.

is rummage around in your experience looking for blessings, moments when you felt blessed, surprised by joy, touched by a graciousness, and hunt for it through your memory. And when you find one, lean into it and open your memory and your feeling toward it so that you're enriched by it. You really experience it. Step three, pick among all those experiences where you felt the strongest affective response. Just notice this particular thing drove.

Drew out the strongest affective response. And this can be things like j intense joy or surprise or delight or anger or confusion or Hopelessness. Wherever the affect was the strongest, grab onto that and lean into it, looking to understand what it means. Step four, take that experience to Jesus and say, Have you ever felt anything like this before? And he might remind you of a text from the gospel in which he had a feeling like that. So you go read it.

So that the feeling you have helps you understand what he felt. And in that regard, you grow together. And then the last step. You thank God for this moment that you could learn something about what he's like in Jesus who is really like us. And in feeling that connection, grow in closeness with him.

And last of all, I'm an old guy. I'm sixty-two. And now I'm racing toward my sarcophagus. In my youth, the possibility that I, a Jesuit and a Catholic priest, could be standing and talking to you. So spiritually lost in a need. Ha ha ha. was simply inconceivable. Those of you who are young, you say, well that's just dumb. Why did they do that? You have to remember for us, the fact that this is happening is the answer to a four hundred year old prayer.

And we want to enjoy that God answered the prayer. And I swear to you, for me to stand in the first Baptist church. Remember they thought our Pope was the Antichrist, and they still do. We did that kind of thing to each other. And it might be the case that some of you in this room are truly uncomfortable that I'm here. And I say I have seen wonders in my life.

But one of the greatest of all is this possibility that we can share our gifts with each other and belong to each other better. It's one of the greatest gifts I have seen in my life. But it wouldn't happen if John Mark, your pastor, presumably with the okay of the other pastors who work here. Can I go way out over the tips of my ski and bring a Jesuit Catholic priest here? It wouldn't happen without that. And so I give him credit and notice that. Thank you. That was a vision of heaven.

You walk in not sure you belong there, and everyone stands up. And even the people you hated all your life and they ended up in heaven too.

Anyway, would you stand? I think I'm supposed to do this, so I'm just gonna follow because I was told that this is supposed to happen. Okay. So I'm just gonna very quickly just take you through the examine and you'll see this expressed to you on the website, I guess, wherever that is. Okay? So take a moment, and this will be very quick, but just give you a feel for it. Go with me in this prayer. Pray that God remembers who you are and is willing to be obvious. So pray for light.

And the light you're praying for is to be able to see your experience as something given you by God to live with Him. Step two Accessing your wondrous power of soul called imagination and memory. Let yourself drift back even into this morning, if you can remember that far, looking for moments where you felt delighted, surprised, touched by a blessing. And you're free to wander into yesterday too. As you feel the blessing.

Into it and release and open your powers of memory to savor it and deepen the gift. Step three. Of all the feelings you've had Pick the strongest one and And pay particular attention to that as if God is saying, look here. I'd like to be with you in that reaction. And then take that feeling that you feel And talk with Jesus about it. Did you ever feel it like this? Is this am I okay feeling this? Or what did you do when you had this feeling that was so strong? Heart to heart, friend to friend.

and then as you finish Thank Jesus for be willing for being willing to show you something of his own affect. through yours shown him. Thank him for the closeness you feel. Thanks for listening. This podcast is from Practice in the Way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. We're a crowdfunded nonprofit, so everything we make is completely free. Special thanks today goes to Aaron for the first time.

Jacob from Tallahassee, Florida and Travis from the Thank you. About our resources, visit practiceintheway.org. Until next time, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. of God. Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.