Fr. Sean's Rogation Sunday Sermon

"JESUS said unto his disciples, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you."

For the second half of Easter we have been contemplating the long farewell discourse in the end of the Gospel of John, and this week we continue in the same passage. Easter is a season of joy as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, but it is also a season of anticipation. Easter anticipates the radical changes that occurred after the resurrection. While Christ established his kingdom during his life and then conquered our ancient foes of sin and death by his death and now reigns supreme in his resurrection, we still await his ascension to his throne and the coming of his Holy Spirit which will guide the church (his kingdom). 

I know it might seem strange to say that this season is one of anticipation for we know the whole story--we know that Christ will ascend and at Pentecost the Holy Spirit will descend upon the Apostles and that those Apostles, filled with the divine life, will go out and spread the kingdom of Jesus throughout the whole world and ages until our own time. And so when I call this a season of anticipation, I do not mean that we are wondering ‘what would have happened’ if Christ never ascended or what if the Holy Spirit never came at Pentecost. What I mean is that as we liturgically wait for these feast days, the anticipation helps us focus on what they mean and why they are important. In effect, they help us understand (if we are attentive!) why these feast days matter and how they should change our lives! Each year when we celebrate Easter, we have another chance to more fully understand the meaning of the Resurrection and commit our lives to that reality. Each Ascension we get to ask ourselves whether Christ who is king of the universe is truly our own king. At Pentecost we reflect upon the life of the Holy Spirit and ask ourselves whether we are submitting to his guidance in and through the church. These are the opportunities provided for us in the church calendar and the anticipation of this season of the resurrection. 

And this week we are anticipating a very important aspect of our lives in the kingdom of God: how should we ask God for things? Or, even more fundamentally, what should we need or desire given the resurrection? 

I do not think it an accident that the Easter lectionary for Morning Prayer has been following the Hebrews' walk through the wilderness. Each day we have been following this group as they navigate a new life of freedom, but one that is not what they expected. And so begins a common theme of the book of Numbers, or, well, most of the OT: the people who have been saved by God complain that their situation is not good enough. When they began to tire of their food, they complain and God sends them manna. When they tire of manna and desire fish and vegetables like they had in Egypt, God sends them quail. When we read these passages, it is easy to dismiss the Hebrews as an incorrigible lot. More often than not, however, we are seeing ourselves. God provided them freedom and passage to a new land which he promised to conquer for them. He proved his power in the exodus from Egypt and his constant protection in the wilderness. He gave them water and food and even a way to worship him properly. And yet, the Hebrews fail to follow God–even though they have received these wonderful gifts, they do not trust the end for which God has designed them. 

And we too fall into the same temptations. We have been provided true freedom and passage to eternal life with God. He has proved his power in his resurrection and ascension. He has given us gifts upon gifts from Himself in the sacraments. He has taught us how to be with him and worship him–he has even given us his own Spirit. And yet, we so often, like the Hebrews, complain and do not allow the gifts of God to work in us. 

Last week we looked at the framework of receptivity and how important it is to view our lives, and all creation, as a gift from God. We receive our life, our vocation, and the end for which we are created as pure gifts. I am not saying it is easy to retain this posture of receptivity, but it is essential as we consider how to pray, how to ask God for what we need. In the first place, if we view reality as a gift, we must accept that our prayers must conform to God, rather than making God conform to us. This requires a reorientation of our desires.

Thinking of the Hebrews in the wilderness, I want to yell at them to reorient their lives and petitions. It seems so obvious! Don’t go back to Baal and ask for rain! Pray to the God who literally brought you out from Egypt and separated the waters of the Red Sea and gave you water from a rock! He already has demonstrated his power over the waters! Don’t mess up by letting your desire for rain misdirect your greater desires! You see, I am very good at diagnosing their problems. But this is a good example of how our prayers need to be oriented in the right way.

Jesus’ instruction in prayer teaches His disciples to desire God first and then desire our life in God next. Once we desire God as we should (that is, as our Father), and we worship Him only, all our other petitions start fitting correctly. The Sursum Corda is the great example of this! In order to enter into the Canon of the Mass, the priest turns around and asks the people to lift up their hearts. The people then assent that they will lift their hearts up to God. Then the priest reminds the people that when we turn our desires to God, we must start by giving thanks, which the people do by responding, "It is meet and right so to do." This is the prime example of the nature of prayer. It is the lifting up of ourselves to God, to give thanks to Him for Who He Is because of Who He IS.

Prayer is NOT calling upon God to descend and accomplish our desires! No! It is our job to receive the life of God and so tune our desires to match His! Gregory of Naziansus, whose feast day we celebrated this past week, wrote in his treatise on prayer: "A person who comes to prayer without understanding does not lift himself up to the height of the Giver, but rather craves that the divine power descend to the low and earthly level of his own desires. . . All these present their petitions to God not to be freed from their enslaving desire but rather that their sickness might develop to its fullness."

Therefore when Jesus says: Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you,” he really does want us to ask the Father, and the Father really does respond, but it depends what we ask for and how we ask for it. If the focus of our petitions is a secure life, and by that I mean perfect health, financial stability, successful job, and little to no sadness, we are asking for the wrong things. These categories view the world from a strictly physical viewpoint--as if our purpose is our security here on earth. As we have seen, we must first lift our desires up to God and view our lives in His reality. 

A prime example of a receptive life, of course, is the Blessed Virgin Mary. When the angel Gabriel came to her, she accepted the life that God asked of her. Her Fiat is the model of humility as she seeks to serve God and give herself over to Him. Rather than turning away from such a radical and self-giving call, Mary stays and accepts the Lord. And from that point on, the entirety of Mary's destiny is shaped by her Son. Even though her life was full of suffering, Mary never turns from God but continues to receive God’s plan for her. Mary's humble service to Christ is our premier example of service, of a whole life lived in a posture of humility, never turning away from the Light of the World which she bore in her own womb, pondering in her heart what new service she would have to give as the identity of her baby boy was slowly revealed. Like our icon of her, Mary’s entire life points towards her son because she never puts her will before her son’s but receives the mission and call of God. 

This is hard, of course, to accomplish, but God desires, and this is truly amazing, to work His Will in you, like Mary. We often settle in our prayers to pray for our own goods rather than God’s glory to be lived out in our lives. Pray then that God gives you the right desires and the right prayers so that your life, which is wrapped up into the divine life, may show forth God’s love. The Rogation Days are a great time for us to learn how to petition well. Our predecessors knew well that you cannot grow crops well without accepting God's intention for nature--so likewise we cannot pray well without accepting God's reality first. As the Collect appointed for today says: “Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same.” Amen!

"JESUS said unto his disciples, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you."