A Fourth Church Sermon by Jocelyn C. Cadwallader

September 6, 2009 | 4:00 p.m.

Color, Words, Sounds, and Silence in Prayer

Jocelyn C. Cadwallader
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

James 5:13–16

We are in the Midst. Yes, we are. And so we pray. We continue to pray. We pray prayers and sing songs of thanksgiving, of praise, of lament, of question, of illumination, of love. And we live our lives, walking across the threshold of this church, of our places of employment, of our homes, over the thresholds of those who care for us and for whom we care, and we pray. As we behold each color, each image of one another, each crack within the sidewalk, we pray. As we take each step, take each bite, and taste each flavor, we are in the Midst of God, and therefore we pray.

I remember when I learned how to pray. I realize this may sound a little funny, as the scriptures do have ample instruction for us as to how to pray. They tell us to pray for one another, to confess to one another as James instructs. We know to pray without ceasing, and Jesus himself even teaches us to boldly pray the Lord’s Prayer, to ask and to seek, for God is faithful and loves us so. In the scriptures there are plenty of lessons to be learned as to when, where, why, and how to pray. There are even beautiful prayers in the Psalms to pray. But I remember when I learned how to pray—or at the very least, that I was practicing prayer.

This weekend I attended a reunion in Louisville, Kentucky. I had served as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) for two years before I attended seminary, and this reunion was for all volunteers who served with the program previously. I served as a mission volunteer with the PC(USA) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and in Nashville, Tennessee, and it was during this time in my life that I realized that I could practice prayer, not simply pray. This weekend, I was reminded, as I reunited with old YAV friends, of the ways in which that time in my life impacts me. And I was reminded again that it was during this time in my life that I learned that I was practicing prayer. There are several memories that spring to mind that, upon reflection, I know are moments of prayer in my life. I’ll share with you one of those:

I was working as a Youth Worker in Belfast, running an afterschool program in the afternoons and in the evenings working with a group of teenage girls. Two weeks before Christmas, I was leading the afterschool program for eight- and nine-year-olds. Our project for the day was to paint a mural of an angel set within a stained glass window. It was a rather amazing afternoon, because all the kids that were there that day wanted to participate and they seemed to truly be enjoying themselves. Then the back door opened and a few of the teenage girls I had been working with came in to use the computers. But because there wasn’t enough staff around, I had to ask them to leave. It was at this point that they saw weakness and took full advantage. The three girls were soon joined by three boys with dispositions like a hurricane, and they were looking for a good time. Long story short, they spent the next hour and a half destroying the property of the community project, assaulting me, and completely disrupting the youth program for the wee ones. At the end, the three girls stood blocking the doorway, just inside the building, and one of them lit up a cigarette. My only option was to stand there, stare her straight in the eye, and try to listen to what she was saying, listen to the rage that lives in her heart and her eyes beyond her assaulting words.

That was on a Thursday, and the following Monday we had closed the doors early for the Christmas holiday and didn’t reopen until the third week of January. I went back to work in January, and each day I went, I had a stack of Christmas cards that I had written to those teenage girls burning a hole in my bag. I kept going back and forth on whether or not I should risk the humiliation I would surely receive from them for giving a card a month after Christmas. I bit the bullet, and the first time I saw one of the girls, I asked her to come back the next day because I had something for her. The next day, they all came back together (there is safety in numbers). I took the cards from my bag and handed each of them one. In each card, I had written them a message—messages of encouragement in their unique gifts and simply words expressing my thankfulness to be in their lives. They all opened their cards right there and quickly realized that I had written something different to each of them. Unsure of what just happened, they backed away slowly to head home and said, “Right, OK, JC. We’ll see you later.”

It wasn’t until a few days later when I realized the power of what had happened. Those girls had experienced something very foreign, very unnerving. They were expecting me to be angry with them for what they had done to me. Instead I gave them a card and said, “Merry Christmas . . . a little late.” It was a rare experience for them: for a moment, a brief moment, they experienced forgiveness. In fact, we all did. And it’s only now that I am able to understand the power of prayer in that moment. We were in the Midst of God, and our lives prayed together in that moment.

But don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t because I was in a foreign land or in a particularly disturbing experience that I was able to recognize practicing prayer. I only share this story as the memory is fresh on my mind. Life is practicing prayer, and perhaps you might recall memories in your own mind of moments when prayer, the presence of God, was felt more palpably, more potently, in your life. Those moments are to be cherished and remembered. But don’t let yourself become trapped in the space that prayer was only in that moment. For God is in our Midst always and therefore prayer happens always.

Practicing prayer is something we encounter when we come together, when our lives intersect and engage with one another. I, too, have experienced this as Brother David has, as Barbara Brown Taylor shares with us—that prayer is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I’m doing. When we are fully alert to those who surround us, to the creation in our midst, to the colors that paint our lives, we are in prayer. And we—those of us here in this place, in this church, under this roof—have come together this evening to pray with one another. Each time we gather; each time we experience this prayer, this recognition of God happening in our Midst; each time we pray the prayers as the scriptures have taught us, our lives are enriched. Like a canvas enriched with brilliant colors, so may we be as a community in prayer. Amen.