So which is it?
Is prayer a serene peaceful experience of surrender?
Or is prayer a relentless stubborn, belligerent thing ? Importunate, never accepting things as they are, insistent that things change, striving with God?
Well obviously it is both.
But our scripture lessons today portray prayer as anything but peaceful, in fact they disturb the peace, they are disruptive.
Jacob wrestles in the night with a strange man that turns out to be God.
Jesus’ parable about prayer portrays prayer as a powerless widow confronting a powerful unjust judge.
Prayer is about clinging to God, no matter what, never ceasing, never losing heart.
Scripture portrays God as faithful, as responsive to prayer, but it also shows that those who pray are changed and marked by the encounter.
Giving thanks is ultimately a stubbornly insistent choice, an act of will, a discipline. It is not about something as fickle as our emotions.
Often those who are most thankful are those with the least to be thankful about.
Often the least thankful have the most to be thankful about.
Giving thanks is ultimately about turning all of our life, the sum total of our person, our thoughts, our words, our actions, our relationships into prayer.
How can my life be a prayer of thanks giving?
Stewardship is that life of becoming a prayer of thanks.
Today we begin our annual pledge drive. It is simply about making an offering of thanks.
This is about so much more than supporting all the exciting ministry happening through this parish.
This is about the stubborn work of becoming a prayer of thanks.
Our theme is the art of giving thanks. We are God’s work of art, we are the art of God’s thankfulness. Creation, humanity and redemption all arise from the overflowing fullness of God’s Triune thanksgiving. How can we practice that same divine art?
It is easy to forget what church budgets are really about. It is easy to be all cynical and institutional and to forget what we are about.
This is about the paint and the canvas of this community becoming God’s work of art, a prayer of thanks.
May our lives, may this parish be the prayer and the art of thanks.