11/4/62

Scripture: Read Mark 1: 29-38.

One of the moods of our generation is that we have sought God almost exclusively in the lovely; the desirable; the beautiful; the serene aspects of life. We’ve focused on “peace of mind;” “peace of soul.” God is there.

But He is also in the sterner, more severe, sometimes terrible aspects of life. If He may be apprehended in the still loveliness of a summer dawn, He may also be known in the fury of a storm. Our problem is to learn how to handle the rocky roads, the dark days, the terrible times, so that even in the black of night we may be able to sing as Paul and Silas sang in a prison cell.

Things had gone roughly with those two men. They had gone into a Macedonian city named Philippi to carry the gospel and to help people. One of their helpful acts was to heal a poor slave girl who had been used by her owners as a kind of fortune-teller. When she was healed of her disturbed condition, she was no longer useful to her masters as a fortune-teller. The masters seized Paul and Silas; dragged them before the magistrate; beat them without mercy and threw them into the local jail.

Their situation was dark; misfortune had come to them undeserved; their bodies ached with the pain of their beatings; their wounds were unwashed. They were surrounded by misery, moaning, hopelessness, hardship. Nevertheless, at midnight these two prayed and sang hymns. Not many are able to sing, as Paul and Silas did, in the midst of deepest trouble. Prayers are often said, as one calls for help; but how often are the prayers, which came out of trouble, offered in thanksgiving to God? Not many are able to pray and sing as Paul and Silas did, in the midst of deepest trouble. More of us need the assurance that comes from this art!

We have had a bad fortnight! Living at a moment in history when we know that man has not only the knowledge but the implements to bring about general destruction of life and civilization on this planet, we have wondered if the implements were about to be launched. The possibility that we in this part of the world might be targets of nuclear missiles; and the possibility that our part of the earth might be responsible likewise for launching nuclear missiles against other populations of the earth -- these nightmares have haunted us and others.

The outbreak of armed conflict between two Asiatic powers brings the sobering realization that general war could be touched off by that fuse! Meanwhile, we have our individual concerns and anxieties. Some have been anxious for the well being of a son or daughter. Some have watched life ebbing away from a loved one. Some have wrestled with the obligations in community life than mean hope or despair to many others. Some have struggled over the citizenship issues confronting us all as election day approaches. We become tense and burdened, even sick in body and mind. How shall we meet our dark days?

Well, for one thing, those of us who have come here today to this temple of worship have come apart for a little while from the turmoil, to be refreshed and renewed. Let it be done with confidence, with singing, with trust.

You recall, in the brief scripture lesson of the morning, how Jesus worked with the griefs and burdens and needs of people. A woman was sick with fever. She was cured. Those who were sick of body or of mind were brought to Jesus for help. And he ministered to their needs. The burden of the world’s woes was all around him; and he addressed himself to that need until he must have felt spent of his powers. And did you note what he did? In the morning, while it was before daylight, he got up and went out to a lonely place, and prayed. After that, when Peter and others found him and reminded him that everyone was searching for him, bringing their troubles, he could return to the struggle --- and not only there, but on to the next town as well.

It was a great priority of Jesus that the renewal of his life was in prayer. He was constantly expending his powers. And, in order to keep on doing so, he needed this renewal. Behind his public ministry, when seemingly a whole city gathered at his door, was his private solitude in the place of prayer. Here was the hidden source of the authority and power which struck men with astonishment. With Jesus, it was “time out for prayer.” It was time in to him for the re-creation of life, for fresh adjustment to the will of the Father, for replenishment with the life and power and goodness of God. He did not go apart for that which lulls. His lonely place was not a passive scene. His prayer was the highest activity of mind and spirit. It was as silent and powerful as a deep river. Opening his soul to the unseen force of his environment -- to God -- was the secret of his sustained life of the spirit.

The physical conditions of our existence make solitude nearly impossible. The telephone, the insistent radio, television, and newspapers, the pressure of daily duty and the addition of crises, make it hard to close a door long enough to meditate and pray. Life has become so public, and so gregarious, that it is hard to shut our doors against the insistent intrusions of the outer world. But we must make a place and time of solitude. Jesus did not just “happen” to find himself alone. He deliberately put a stout fence around some corner of time and space in order to find renewal, cleansing, fortification.

Keats has a line that pictures prayer beautifully when he says: “I stood tip-toe upon a little hill.” Jesus did it often in Galilee. You can do it anywhere. We have come here in the place of worship to do it today. Let us be satisfied with nothing less than a draught of the very water of life!

We have read that the President of the United States, deeply occupied with the present crisis and the necessity of making life or death decisions for the nation, interrupted his grim activity long enough to go to church. Pray God that he be given there the renewal and the insight and the strength of spirit that this hour requires of him and of the entire citizenry!

Mark has been called the “historian of Christ’s activities.” We often think of perfect love and gentleness when we think of Jesus. But Mark reminds us of the great zeal of Jesus, expressed in a multitude of actions. However this evangelist does not omit telling us of the fountain from which this “river of life” is fed; how the labors of Jesus were inspired in secret prayer. His contemplation never became nerveless; and his energy never burned out. Mark tells us that, after feeding the five thousand, while a storm gathered over his disciples on the lake, he went up into a mountain to pray. [Mark 6: 38-46]. Luke tells us of a whole night spent in prayer before Jesus chose his disciples [Luke 6: 12-13], and how it was to pray that he had gone up to the mountain of transfiguration. [Luke 9: 28-36].

We read of Jesus going into a desert to pray; we remember that he went to Mount Olivet to pray; we recall that he went so often into a garden to pray that Judas had no trouble at all in location him when he had decided to betray the Master. Prayer was the spring of all his energies. When he withdrew from the press of people and the hum of activity, it was not to soliloquize with himself, but to commune with God, his Father. He was singularly free of loneliness, for he gave consistent evidence that he believed God was with him. The retirement to be with his Father for a time enabled him to remain undisturbed until his disciples found him, long after crowds had besieged their dwelling.

I saw a glimpse of this in one of his recent disciples. It was once my enlightening duty to drive Dr. Toyohiko Kagawa over a good part of Maui County in Hawaii on a particular day 35 or 40 years ago. He spoke at least five times that day. He was never well in body. He had spoken in English, which he handled well but not as well as his native tongue. And he was still scheduled to speak to a big crowd in Japanese. I recall how completely spent and exhausted he appeared to be when he finished his fourth address of the day. It was clear that he wanted to be alone. He had simply asked for a cup of hot tea. And he sat on a straight chair looking out of a window into the darkness of the night, in prayerful meditation. For perhaps 20 minutes we let him strictly alone except that someone placed the cup of tea in his hand.

At the end of that time, he rose, noticeably renewed. He went in before a packed house of Japanese folk, most of whom were not professing Christians, and held them in rapt attention for another hour and a half. I do not see how a mere rest or relaxation alone could have filled his tired body and mind. He appeared to have renewed himself at a fountain of greater power.

Some such fountain can be our chief resource in days of trouble and darkness. It is not a case of being like Mary in the story of Jesus with Martha and Mary in the home of his friend Lazarus. Mary was listening with rapt attention to Jesus while her sister, Martha, hurried around the house getting a meal ready for the guest and fussing over her desire to get Mary out to the kitchen to help. [Luke 10: 38-42]. We have to be both Martha and Mary. Both action and contemplation are necessary to our life and service.

It is like a ship entering a lock of the Panama canal. Here it comes into the lock where the water gates are closed on both ends. The ship’s driving engines have slowed down, and its speed is reduced to nothing. For the time being, it is going nowhere. Yet all the time the water is rising underneath the ship and it floats higher and higher by a power not its own, that comes from outside itself. When, at length, the gate in front of it swings open, the ship emerges from its full stop and goes out for its journey at a higher level, carrying its burden of freight henceforth on a new plane.

We go through a series of personal crises; and we are passing through a critical moment in modern history. If our world is built on purely secular notions of power we know not where to turn for hope. For our hope lies in finding the eternal springs of peace and power that bring life and refreshment to the souls of mankind.

On a great occasion, Paul said: “None of these perils unsettles me.” Everything indicated the gravest kind of dangers ahead of him. He was starting out on a journey that was to end in Nero’s dungeon and finally to a martyr’s death. When the actual event was close at hand, he calmly spoke of the peace of God that passed all comprehension as the garrison of his heart and mind. [Philippians 4: 7].

Out of the soul-shaking events of the week, we come here to this place of prayer to be renewed and fortified. Here we meditate on our dependence upon the Power, so much greater than ourselves, creator of our lives and sustainer of our strength. Our prayers become a communion.

We think of some of great hymns of the church, like the one we most recently sang. The words are from the mind and pen of John Greenleaf Whittier. It begins as a prayer:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind;

In purer lives thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

A hymnal that was published in 1892, the year of Whittier’s death, uses a different word in the second, making it read:

“Forgive our ‘feverish’ ways!”

Perhaps either ‘foolish’ or ‘feverish’ describes our present situation from which we seek divine rescue.

The hymn goes on in meditative reference to the trust of disciples who heard Jesus speak and followed him; to the Sabbath calm when Jesus knelt to share with the Father the silences filled with love. It ends with a further prayer that quietness shall bring a ceasing of strife; that the strains and stress of living can be taken from our souls. Then it ends with these lines of dedication:

And let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace.

Coming to the place of worship in such a spirit of prayer and dedication we may confidently expect that the presence of the Father who hears and heeds prayer will lift us, like the waters of a lock lift a ship, to higher levels of faith and performance.

Carl Patton has a simple, direct bit of advice which was phrased this way in one of his sermons: “I can only say it over to you again. It is a simple message, but it is the key to all our spiritual life. Keep your heart open. Power and beauty and love and blessing are abroad in the world. Out of the mouth of Jesus come again and forever again the gracious words, “Come unto me.” [Matthew 11: 28]. “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” [Revelation 3: 20]. Out of the infinite love comes the divine invitation; keep your hearts open. Let no ingratitude of others, nor any fear or suspicion of your own, nor any unhappy experience of any sort, shut you up against the divine invitation that sounds forever in the ears of men. Keep your heart open; and when you hear, then come.

Archbishop French has written lines that might well be our closing prayer today, e’er we go out again to live in our demanding world.

In Thy Presence

Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make!

What heavy burdens from our bosoms take,

What parched grounds refresh as with a shower!

We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;

We rise, and all, the distant and the near,

Stands forth in sunny outline brave and clear;

We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power!

Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong;

Or others, that we are not always strong,

That we are overborne with care,

That we should ever weak or heartless be,

Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee!

Amen.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, November 4, 1962.

Wood County Infirmary, November 7, 1962.

Waioli Hui’ia Church, February 4, 1973.