Sermon C 12: Windows of the Soul

This week we had new windows installed in Hunter Hall.  Our old windows were rapidly disintegrating, and these new windows have a practical and an ethical impact on our lives.  They will save us heating or cooling costs.  Some estimate up to 33% of our bills.  That’s practical because it will be good for our budget.  It is also ethical because we will use less of the world dwindling resources. These new windows make a statement to the Community. 

 

But windows are also metaphorical.  In my home we observe the birds, the squirrels, the rabbits, and the deer through windows on our back yard.  Usually they don’t notice us inside, so we get to reach out and examine nature quietly, contemplatively.

 

Through the window of our souls we reach out to God in many ways.  Religious icons like this banner of the Nativity are called windows to God.  The Bible, our one a day Gospel readings, and especially the Gospel that we heard today in which Jesus teaches us to pray, all these are windows to God. We reach out to God through our Book of Common Prayer and through our worship service.  And God reaches out to us.

 

God’s search for us begins with something said, ours begins with something heard.  God’s search begins with some thing shown.  Ours begins with something seen.  God’s search for us and our search for God meet at the windows of everyday experience, Prayer.

 

Prayer is our window to God.  Jesus teaches us to pray in today’s gospel, but I wonder if we need less instruction on how to pray than we need instruction on the importance of prayer all together.  Fox News says that 1/3 of Americans pray twice a day.  And 2/3’s pray once a day.  Do you believe those results?  I think that prayer is grievously neglected and that most people don’t even know that they have a problem, the depth of our need for prayer, in first place.  On the way to the domain, Emily and I passed a church with a sign that said, God reads knee mail, but how many bend their knees or wills toward God.  First we must enjoy prayer.

          The reason I doubt Fox News on prayer is that Americans have a zealous enthusiasm and a never ending desire for more worldly goods.  Shop keepers rise early to open their shops sooner than their competitors.  Sunday is a big sales day at Wal-Mart, and I confess that I am often seduced into studying the weekly color ads for Kroger’s that arrive after Church.  Time spent buying or selling usurps the time given for prayerful worship; earthly treasures not heavenly rewards consume our time and energy.  Manufacturers consider prayer useless, and trust more to the work of their own hands and not to the one who made those hands.  Teachers explain the science of the universe without ever teaching prayer which gives access to the creator of the universe.  Small farms on which farmers grow crops for the godly purpose of feeding and taking care of their own or their neighbor’s daily needs are disappearing and are being replaced by agri-business conglomerates that are impersonal profit machines.  Americans pile up earthly goods and they still covet more. Family life suffers as parents take extra jobs to keep up in a consumption world.  By forgetting to pray, a Christian’s primary means of access to the greatest wealth, God and all of heaven’s abundance is cut off.  God’s lay away plan, laying up treasures in heaven, where rust and moths don’t destroy, has it ever really caught on?  Instead televangelists preach a Gospel of prosperity where the cross is exchanged for the good life here and now.

          But there is always hope.  The hymn we sang reminds us:

  “Thy Kingdom come,” on bended knee the passing ages pray;

And faithful have yearned to see on earth that kingdom’s day.

 

 Christians must pray first and work second; then the work of our hands will be truly divine and a means to serving our sisters and brothers.   And to see on earth the Kingdom of Heaven, we must discover a new awareness. We must learn to look with more than just our eyes and listen with more than just our ears for the sounds that are sometimes faint and sights sometimes far away.  We must be aware at all times and in all places because windows are everywhere, and at anytime we may find one.  Or one may find us.   The world is full of the grandeur of God, and any backyard shrub can become a burning bush lit by the presence of God.  His voice penetrates the raw material of our daily lives, speaking through Scripture and through prayer, but also through a conversation at coffee hour, a job well done, or the remark of a co-worker.  Through the windows of our souls God reaches out for us. 

 Let us pray,

 Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City, where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ our Lord,  Amen