My Brother’s Keeper and My Sister’s Too!

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Mike Elliott

October 11, 2009

Psalm 42 and Romans 8

When we lived in Pittsburgh, we used to vacation many summers on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  If you have ever been, you know that the Outer Banks, especially Cape Hatteras sticks way out into the Atlantic Ocean and is subject to the strongest waves and currents that the Atlantic Ocean has to throw at the Eastern Seaboard.  It can make for some dangerous swimming conditions even in the calmest and nicest of weather.  You don’t even want to know what the ocean can throw at you in bad weather.  Like during a hurricane or soon after one passes.  Trust me on this one….you don’t!!!!  Really!!!

One summer, we had a really great weeklong rental not far from Cape Hatteras.  The bad news was that just a day before our vacation started, a hurricane grazed the Outer Banks in all of its fury.  The good news (or was it) was that our rental home was unscathed and our vacation was spared.  So, off we headed for North Carolina. 

When we got there, we immediately headed to the beach for a swim.  Oh, it looked calm and safe enough, but little did we know the danger that lurked just beneath the surface.  Like stupid little lemmings, we all followed my buddy Jeff, the strong macho power swimmer of the lot of us who assured us all that it was safe.  When we were about 10 feet from shore, we hit the roughest waves and strongest undertow that I had ever been in in my life.  Not ten feet from shore and I was struggling for my life and it was every man, woman and child for themselves.  No sooner would I right myself after being struck by one wave than another was right on it’s heels knocking me off my feet again.  The undertow made sure that I did nothing but tumble helplessly.  Unaware of which end was up.  And the waves made sure I could never regain my footing to even try and escape the sea’s fury.

I have never been more sure in my life of the fact that I was going to die.  Right there within a few feet of that precious shore.  Somehow, with the adrenaline rush fueled by pure terror I eventually managed to pull myself back on shore along with the rest of the group.

I can honestly and seriously tell you that every bone in my body and every muscle I owned ached more and was more tired than they had ever been in my whole life.  Now I know exactly what all of those bad actors in shipwreck movies feel like when they finally arrive on shore half drowned and covered in tattered clothes only to collapse exhausted on the shoreline.

Ten short little feet of shoreline that separated me from life and death.  Ten little feet that may as well have been a mile.  That incident always comes to my mind when I hear the words of Psalm 42.  So hear the Word of the Lord from the writer of Psalm 42 and keep that image of near drowning in your mind:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?  My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude,  leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.  Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.  Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.  By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.  I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me?  Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"

My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?"  Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

I think that in all of the words in all of Scripture, none rings truer to my ears.  In all of Scripture no other words resound more deeply in me than those of Psalm 42.  Not just because of my unfortunate experience at Cape Hatteras, but also because those “waves and breakers” have swept over me in so many other ways and in so many other times and places in my life.  Do any of you find the same sentiments as you hear the words of Psalm 42?  Words of fear and danger?  Words of unbelievable trouble and terror?  Or have you been fortunate enough to never have been on the receiving end of those “waves and breakers” of life?

Several of us in this congregation have started a year long exploration of Spirituality hosted by Living Waters, a part of Samaritan Counseling Center based in our very own Westminster House.  It is a program attended by several area churches.  A conglomeration of Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians.  For the past month we have been looking at the subject of prayer. 

For me, I have come to see that more than anything, prayer is making ourselves open and vulnerable.  Open and vulnerable both to God and to each other, our brothers and sisters in Christ.  This past week, as we were meeting, our own Terry Price made an interesting comment to me.  He said that he knew that we pastors are certainly as in need of prayer as anyone else but that he had no idea what he should pray for.  You see, we pastors are great at discerning the need for prayer in others and are always available when any of you need prayer.  But we pastors are terrible at allowing ourselves to be as vulnerable with you as we expect you to be with us.

So many times in my own life I have experienced those terrible and terrifying “waves and breakers” of life.  Those times would have been so much easier and so much less terrifying if my brothers and sisters in Christ had known enough to pray for me.  Or maybe more importantly, if I had the courage to be vulnerable enough to ask for prayer of my brothers and sisters.

If I could do it all over again, there are so many times I wish that someone, anyone, had recognized my need for prayer or that I had asked someone, anyone, to pray with me.  Times of fear and anxiety and uncertainty.  Times from my childhood when my family was in crisis.  Times when Sharon’s pregnancy was difficult and scary.  Times of struggling to decide if I should make the ministry my vocation.  Times of financial difficulty.  Just plain old hard times.

Do any of my waves and breakers resonate in your own lives?  Have any of you lived those same experiences and know exactly what is in my heart?  I know you’re out there and that you know where I am coming from!  Yet, too often, no one seemed to notice enough to pray with me.  And I was too proud and “strong” to ask someone to pray with me.  Yet I expect you all to act differently with me with your lives, don’t I?  Why do we find it so hard to ask if we can pray with someone that we know needs our prayers?  Why do we find it so hard to ask our brother or sister in Christ to pray with us and for us when we are hurting?

Why are we so afraid?  Are we afraid that we might be seen as a religious fanatic or that we are prying?  Is it because we don’t want someone to think we are weak or that we think they are weak?  Why do we find it so hard to pray for each other or to ask for prayer for ourselves?  I wonder.

When God comes looking for Cain after he slaughtered Abel, God asks him…”Where is your brother Abel?”  To which Cain replies “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Well you know what, when it comes to prayer, you are your brother’s keeper.  And your sister’s too!!!  And they are yours as well!

Praying with someone is about acknowledging that they are in need.  That they are hurting or struggling.  Praying with someone, and note I said praying with, not praying for.  Because there is a big difference.  Praying for someone means that you lift up their concerns to God on your own time.  Praying with someone means that you are willing to be vulnerable with them.  To put your hand on their shoulder or to hold their hand and lift up to God the words that they cannot find.  To hold their faith.  To be their faith for them when life has threatened to destroy it.  Now what can be a greater honor or more powerful than doing that for your brother or sister in Christ?  Or allowing them do that for you?

J. Michael Ripski, in his book Conversing With God tells this story.  “The woman seemed almost shell-shocked as she told her story to the prayer group that she had been a member of for years.  She had experienced one loss after another.  Her husband had left her for another woman.  Her mother had died.  Her son had been arrested and put in jail for selling drugs.  She had been laid off from her job.  She said to the group, 'I feel numb. I've lost my faith in God.  I'm having trouble seeing any reason to go on living.'  A member of the prayer group responded, 'We'll hold on to you and we'll hold on to your faith until you are able to take it back again. Until then, let our faith carry you.'“

Maybe more than anything, prayer is carrying someone’s faith for them when they are at faith’s end.  Or letting someone else carry our faith for us when we are flirting dangerously close to our faith’s end.  So are you your brother’s or sister’s keeper?  Will you let them be yours?

Does prayer change things?  You bet it does.  Even the most casual and simple of prayers changes things in extraordinary ways.  Because prayer reminds us, like nothing else can, that we are in deep relationship with each other.  Prayer changes things because it reminds us that we are in profound relationship with God.  That God knows us, hears us, and remembers us.  And that we remember each other to God.  Prayer absolutely changes things.

I cannot tell you how many weeks I sit here in worship or during coffee hour or Sunday School or as you leave church and I can sense in your faces and in your hearts your need.  I can sense the concern and the fear on your faces.  Now if you ask my wife, she will tell you that I am not the most observant of people!!!!!  Just ask her!  Now, if I can see the need for prayer in other people there is no way that any one of you do not see the same things I do.  I know you do.

Maybe that person you have seen already today or will see after service needs you to notice.  Maybe they need you to ask if they need prayer.  Maybe they are experiencing those exact same wave and breakers that you have been through or are going through now in your life.  Maybe they are hoping and praying that someone, anyone, will notice their pain and ask them for help in carrying their faith.  How powerful would your offer of prayer for them be?  Have you ever thought of what change your prayer with them just might bring about?  I know, really I do, that you notice the same needs in your brothers and sisters that I see! 

Or to turn it around, which brother or sister in Christ here this morning are you being drawn to that you need to ask to pray with you in your need?  You know that he or she is here with you.  If you ask them to pray with you, what change might their prayers bring in your life?

As I stand here preaching these words I can see and feel the discomfort among you.  I have said the one word that terrifies most people.  Prayer.  I’m no different than you though.  Prayer frightens me.  I never feel that I am good enough at prayer.  I never feel like there is any reason that God should hear or answer my prayers.  After all, there are far better pray-ers and more faithful people than me.  Honestly though, God hears and answers all prayers and from all people.  Always.

I know that I have broken a taboo by asking you to make yourselves vulnerable to each other by asking you to pray with each other.  But I know you can do it.  I do.  And it really isn’t so scary!  The Apostle Paul writes to the Romans these words:

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And God who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.”

I hope those words help ease your fear of prayer.  It’s not how long or how fancy or how moving our prayers are that matter.  What matters is only that we are open and willing to let the Spirit guide us as we pray with and for each other.  Sometimes even silence is powerful prayer.

Let me show you how painless and easy it can be to pray with someone else………

Prayer is not going to God, because God’s already here, or seeking God, he's already found us, or opening ourselves to God, you couldn't keep God out if you tried. And it's certainly not buttering God up with apologies and excuses -- because in his Beloved Son, he already thinks you're perfect.  Prayer is just talking with Someone who's already talking to you.

Sometimes its not much more than ten short feet that stands between our shoreline of life and death.  Especially when those waves and breakers are raging.  So, I invite each and every one of you, in the week ahead, to reach out to someone in prayer.  And please let me know how things turn out…I’ll be waiting to hear what happens.

Are you your brother’s keeper?  Absolutely, and your sister’s too!!!   

Amen.