PRAYERS UNANSWERED

“So, I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”

   Isn’t it wonderful that Jesus tells us that what we ask for we will receive? That what we are looking for we will find, and that by knocking, the doors will open? What good news! Just imagine that our prayers will be answered and all we need to do is to ask. How pleasant the world would be if this were true. Imagine if all our prayers were answered. Well, maybe not our selfish asks about jobs and real estate deals but it sure would be nice if the really important things we ask for were answered.

   When I was training to be a chaplain at Good Samaritan Hospital, I watched a devout woman pray on her knees for her child to survive. She had gone through years of fertility issues and had just given birth and now her baby was in terrible trouble. She begged God for a miracle, for her child to live. I also prayed with all my heart, but our prayers were not answered. Her infant died.

   I have since been asked to pray with thousands of incarcerated men and women for their trials or for their families. Over the years I decided to simply ask for God’s for mercy and for the strength to accept the outcome. The hardest part of being a prison chaplain is witnessing the injustice of the system and the broken hearts of the innocent sent to prison. How much nicer the world would be if we could pray away injustice, and that families could ask for God to prevent the government deporting them with confidence in this prayer being answered.

   Yes, Jesus, I want to live in the world of answered prayers.

   Why does Jesus say this to us? How can he tell us this?  It is one of the most confounding questions I have for my beloved Christ. I sincerely hope that when I die, I will be able to ask him why he promises this. I long to understand this over all the other mysteries.   

   An important book that has had a deep influence on my faith walk is Revelations of Divine Love by the 14^th century mystic, Julian of Norwich. She lived at the time of the Black Plague which wiped out over 25 million people in Europe in only 4 years, so she was immersed in suffering and loss. She was given 16 mystical experiences and spent 20 years as an anchoress, entombed at a church, reckoning with their meaning. Out of this time she wrote what has now become her most famous words, “All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This isn’t some Hallmark sentiment but a profound understanding of God and God’s goodness. She found that there is no purposeless suffering, but that we may not know the purpose in our lifetime. We have only to look to the cross to see how God transforms suffering into freedom – the promise of eternal life. The path of compassion is not to pretend that we have answers but to stand with the sufferer in faithful allegiance.   

   Another one of my bedside books was written by a young Jewish woman who was taken to a concentration camp with her family where they were all killed. Her name is Etty Hillesum and her book, An Interrupted Life, is composed of her journals which survived the war.

   As Etty watched the horror of the Nazis killing machine, she came to realize that God cannot help us. But she went on to say that “We must safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well.”

   Etty maintained her faith as she went through the horror of that time. She never stopped loving God as she wrote, “You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

   Jim Finley, one of the most brilliant spiritual teachers of our time, who suffered an extremely abusive childhood writes, “God does not rescue us, in fact God is a presence that protects us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things.” 

   Yes – terrible unjust things are happening all over the world as we sit here today. At the same time our God of love and mercy is abiding with us as we sit here today. Both are true. How do we reconcile these two truths?

   I wish there was less suffering, less injustice, and less oppression in our world.  I can hardly stand hearing of the horrors that are going on in Gaza, the starvation and violence these people are enduring. But I also believe that my distress is not helpful. I must stand up to oppression in all its many forms. Today I will be attending a rally to support the end of arm shipments to Israel and in support of the people of Gaza at the Avila Pier. Maybe some of you are going too?

   My faith in a loving God who is longing for us to create a better world is alive in me. I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit as Love within me, and I make an effort every single day to protect or nourish this truth. Just as Etty says in her journals while experiencing the worst of human behavior, we must guard that part of God that dwells within.

   Jesus came to awaken the divine in all of us. It is up to us to co-create a loving world and to stand for justice and love for all of God’s family. Now it is more important than ever before in our lifetime that we participate in the divine nature by standing in solidarity with all who are suffering and who are afraid. May we be agents of God’s Divine Love bringing ever more justice and peace and healing into the world.  Amen.

Sister Greta