Sermon for Pentecost 10 Year C 2013 Jesu Juva, Soli Deo Gloria: Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

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1 Sermon for Pentecost 10 Year C 2013 Jesu Juva, Soli Deo Gloria: Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi Well, I finally have an occasion to share with you one of my all-time favorite children s bloopers. It s been around for some time so it may be one of your favorites as well. It s a little corny, but here goes: IA six-year old was writing a biographical essay on Johann Sebastian Bach. Here is how he began his essay: Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions. He had two wives and a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. (Just in case you wondering, Bach didn t have an old spinster in the attic but he did practice quite a bit on his spinet that is, a harpsichord!) Today we remember and give thanks for this great composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. He was the youngest of eight children, born into a musical family in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. As a child he studied violin and organ and he served as a choir boy at his local Lutheran parish church. By early adulthood he had already achieved an enviable reputation as a composer and performer. Throughout his life Bach bore the burden of much grief and sadness. At the age of ten, both his parents died within a year of each other; His first wife died suddenly after bearing seven children. Though he married again a year later, of the twenty children who were born to Bach and his two wives, ten died in infacy. He struggled with church leadership and town counsels, and at times could be a man with quite a temper. Nevertheless, he was a loving and compassionate husband and father. Soon after his second marriage Bach became the organist and cantor (or choir director and teacher) of St. Thomas (Lutheran) Church in Leipzig where he remained for the rest of his life. Towards the end of 1749, Bach underwent surgery in an attempt to correct his failing eyesight which had the disastrous result of complete blindness. Despite his failing health, Bach continued to compose, dictating his music to a pupil. He died on July 28th, 1750 and was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Thomas Church. He is considered by many (including other musicians and composers) to be the greatest composer in the history of Western music. His music is bracketed alongside the works of Shakespeare and the writings and thinking of Isaac Newton. In fact, back in the 1970s, a wide variety of music, including some compositions of Bach, were launched into the reaches of outer space on two Voyager Spacecrafts. When the eminent biologist and author Lewis Thomas was asked what music he would want to send from Earth to outer space, he answered, I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach. After a pause, he added, But that would be boasting. 1

2 This great composer was also a man whose devout Lutheran faith informed his life, his career, and his view of music. He believed that music was a "refreshment of spirit," as some of the title pages of his works stated. He believed that music was a powerful tool for the proclamation of the gospel, as his cantatas, Passions, organ chorales, and other compositions clearly show. His compositions were his sermons which is why he is often known as the fifth evangelist. During his lifetime, Bach wrote well over 1200 compositions and these are only the compositions that have survived; many scholars believe half of Bach s works are missing. Which is why many music scholars have asked when did Bach find time to compose? We might ask when did Bach find time to pray? Good questions, right? Both questions, I think, have the same answer. That is because Bach began most of his compositions with a prayer: he began his compositions with the initials JJ which stood for Jesu, Juva which means Jesus, help me. And on the final page he would inscribe the initials SDG which stand for Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone). There is an ancient Latin saying from the early church: lex orandi, lex credendi which loosely translated means the rule or imperative of prayer is the rule or imperative of faith or belief Simply put, this maxim or saying was referring to the relationship between prayer (or worship) and belief. Which comes first? Prayer/worship or belief? Well, in this morning s gospel story from Luke, the disciples in one of their more insightful moments show us: prayer comes first. The late Christian psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck, author of one of the best-selling books of all time, The Road Less Traveled, once commented that he thought lex orandi, lex credendi meant that if he believed more, he would pray more. But what he came to discover and experience was, in fact, that the rule of prayer preceeds (comes before) the rule of faith. So he found that to have more faith, one needed to pray more. Prayer comes first. It seems that Bach understood this well and also, along with his music skills, put prayer into practice along with his other practicing in the attic. The disciples came to Jesus and asked, Lord, teach us to pray. And Jesus answers their prayer did you notice that I said that their question was a prayer? Because everything we address to Jesus, to God, is prayer. Even when we are not agreeing with God. Even when we are arguing with what God (as Abraham showed us in the lesson from Genesis this morning), even when we don t know or don t agree with what we think God is up to in our life or someone else s or in the world all this is prayer. 2

3 The Danish Lutheran philosopher Soren Kirkegaard wrote, The function of prayer, is not to [so much to] influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. Or as Martin Luther would have said, prayer is when we pour our hearts out to God but also when the Holy Spirit can have his way with us. That s what worship is all about it may seem that we are the actors in worship, singing, standing, praying, holding our hands out like beggars at the altar despite all that, in actuality God is the principle actor. It s God s work, our hands. I am reminded of all this as I read the Gospel for this week when Jesus gives his disciples a prayer which will come to define their way of life. And then he gives them some encouraging, hope-filled promises: Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. This prayer and these promises are a radical opening for relationship, a possibility for fulfillment, a coming into being beyond anything else we could imagine. But what is it that is given for this asking and seeking and knocking on doors? In the parallel passage to this story in Luke, the Evangelist Matthew says that our Father in heaven will give good things to those who ask him. Notice that Luke doesn t say that the gift awaiting the asker will be good things, but rather the Holy Spirit. Now the two gospels are not as in conflict here as they might seem. Because the Holy Spirit is not simply a good thing, the Holy Spirit is the grounding and possibility of good things. The Holy Spirit is what makes possible the transformation of those who ask, seek and knock on doors. From the example of Bach, we can see that when we pray we are offering our selves our minds, our knowledge, our hands, our feet, our hearts, our very life to be part of the answer to our prayer. Bach began and ended his work with prayer. It was Bach s hands; but God s work and God s glory. It was Bach s mind and his knowledge inspired and enlightened by the Gospel. Like Martin Luther, Bach believed that God s grace was evident in sacred music; that God s gracious presence is always there in worship. 3

4 He believed that the gift of music not only refreshed the hearts of the saints but it was a form of proclamation. His cantatas for Sunday morning worship were sermons The music itself with the words were preaching to the seeking disciples in worship. And how wonderful that we, even today, hundreds of years later, can participate in hearing and singing those sermons we are part of those inspired proclamations. Jesus tells us that a good parent will not give a snake instead of a fish when a child asks for a fish. Our problem is that often we ask for a snake when what we should have asked for is a fish. It is only by living our lives in Christ, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith that we will want what is truly good and good for us. Of course as the letter to the Colossians goes on to tell us, this transformation is only made possible through the death of our old life and our new life or rebirth in baptism. The cross of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection reform our realities. Lex orandi, lex credendi The prayer for the Holy Spirit precedes the quickening, the birth of faith. The prayer Jesus gives us also has this formational nature making possible the asking that comes next. This giving of a distinctive form of prayer was the mark of this faithful community, the early church. Jesus gift of this prayer to his disciples will not only teach them how to pray, but especially how to live and act as his followers. Both Luke the evangelist, the Apostle Paul and the Colossian church would tell us that Christian prayer, Baptism, and Holy Communion, are not merely nice traditions, they are central faith forming, faithful living practices. Prayer, baptism and Holy Communions are practices that will help us speak and ask in truth so that we can truly receive not merely what we want but what we most deeply need. When we are formed by Spirit through prayer, the word, water, bread and wine into the body of Christ we will be able to say with the Psalmist, When I called, you answered me. The words of the prayer Jesus taught the disciples are like the very air we breathe. They are so engrained in our hearts and minds that they are as wonderfully automatic as our breathing in and out. The disciples ask Jesus, "Teach us to pray. Help us learn what we have seen you do." And Jesus responds by giving them a prayer, a set of petitions that we still teach and learn inside out, forward and backward. But Jesus, our helper, doesn t let the disciples go without adding one more thing: an odd little parable of sorts, with some curious comments about gifts. Note this well: Jesus encourages us to make pests of ourselves with our prayers; he encourages us to be relentless as children in asking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus understands that everything begins with prayer and God delights in giving every good gift to his children. 4

5 Luther proclaimed, To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. What if we began everything we do with prayer? What if we began each day and each task with a silent or a spoken Jesu, juva, Jesus, help me? What if we concluded every task or every day praying Soli Deo Gloria? What then? What if we prayed the Lord s Prayer asking in our hearts for God to use us to answer the prayer? Bach s true greatness was not in his prodigious musical talents, but in his complete reliance on the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The rule of prayer precedes the rule of faith. Everything begins with prayer. Oh, by the way... Did I tell you that when you sing, you pray twice? 5