Texts:

Psalm 118: 19-29

Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

John 12: 12-16

The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord? the King of Israel!" Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: "Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!" His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.

Sermon Text

This is the last sermon in the Lenten series that has paired the morning Sunday school lesson with the message in the pulpit. Our study sessions have been based on a new book, called "Teach Us to Pray" published by our denomination's Spiritual Formation office. Those of you who have bought a copy know that there is a wealth of practical material in that work book. Even if you didn't participate in the Lenten Sunday school series, you will find this book very helpful for your prayer life, so I recommend getting it and going through the exercises on your own.

My sermon this morning relates to the final chapter of "Teach Us to Pray," which is about using the Bible as an aid to prayer. Oddly, I didn't learn about this in seminary, and neither did most Presbyterian seminarians until fairly recently. In my seminary days, students learned how to understand the Bible with critical, historical tools. We studied theology in a systematic, theoretical fashion. We learned all about Christian history. But I don't recall any classes on how to pray, or how to use the Bible devotionally. I think it's fair to say that there was even a bias against using the Bible that way. We used to hear: "Beware of isogesis!" The proper way of studying scripture, we were drilled, was through exogesis. That meant understanding scripture through the lens of linguistic and historical analysis. Isogesis meant reading yourself into the text, allowing your own issues and your own feelings to influence what you got out of the reading.

Well, as I was reviewing this week's chapter in "Teach Us to Pray" I discovered that an ancient and much respected way of reading the Bible does employ isogesis. Asking how a reading affects one personally is absolutely required, asserts this ancient method, if one is to use the Bible for spiritual food. Fortunately, our denomination has recognized this lack in seminarians' education, and is now teaching pastors how to feed their own spirits through prayer and a different kind of Bible study, and how to help their congregations do the same.

For those of you who didn't get the book, here are the steps in that ancient method:

First, resolve to spend some time as you read the Bible and pray. Don't be in a hurry. Our lives are so hectic these days! It isn't enough to cram more activities into a smaller time--we're devoted to multitasking! I saw a guy stuck in traffic the other day who had a cell phone propped between his left ear and left shoulder while he shaved his right cheek with a portable razor! With that mentality, you're sure to flunk praying 101. "Slow down, you move too fast. Gotta make the moment last," said a popular song of the sixties. Right on! The first step in this method is to take several deep breaths and sit still and slow down. Then you will be ready to read that Bible passage slowly.

Make it a short one, because if it's long you'll say to yourself: "This is a lot of reading. I've gotta really MOVE through it! No, don't bite off more than you can chew thoroughly.

As you read slowly, make note of any words or phrases that stick out for you. Don't ask why they do. Just put a mental bookmark at those places, because you'll be coming back to them later.

That's step number one. Take some relaxing breaths after this step. Keep quiet. Keep your pace slow.

Now, read the passage again, slowly. This time, return to the words or phrases that you mentally bookmarked, and ask yourself: How do these words or phrases speak to me? What is their importance in my life? Allow your emotions to come into play. Note how you feel as you ask the question how these special words and phrases speak to you personally. Don't rush this process. Take as long as you must to allow everything that wants to rise to the surface to do so. When you've finished, again, take some deep, relaxing breaths.

In these previous two steps, you've been exercising your thinking and your feeling. You've been placing mental bookmarks and coming back to them. All this has taken place at a relaxed pace, and the process has been deliberate, controlled. By contrast, in step three, you are going to coast. Don't try to do anything in this stage. Just rest in silence and open yourself to the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it may help to raise your palms upward in a gesture of receiving. Your mind and your emotions should be as much at rest as you can manage, by paying attention to your breathing. Your unconscious has the watch now. Relax! Your unconscious is the part of your mental apparatus that works while you dream or daydream, revealing things to you that somehow you knew all along, but had never quite put into focus. Rest now, and wait, for something helpful is about to come forth. Your unconscious is working in tandem with the Holy Spirit to open up something to you. What will that be?

This question brings you to the next-to-last step in using the Bible for prayer. You must stop coasting now, and take back the watch from your unconscious, and ask yourself: How shall I respond to what I have learned about myself, and what has been revealed to me in this quiet time? Is there anything I must do? Is there anything in my life that I should strive to change?

Once you have identified at least one direction for action, ask God to help you take the first necessary steps in that direction. The Bible becomes a living word for us not yet by intellectual understanding, not yet by emotional and intuitive exploration, and not yet even by opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit, but finally only after we have responded to all of these learnings, and resolved with God's help to live differently, change something, take action. Until then all that we have learned remains fixed upon the pages of our minds, and has not yet become a living word that brings holy shalom, the "peace that passes understanding," to ourselves and the planet.

A final footnote to this sermon about using the Bible for prayer: Today's chapter in "Teach Us to Pray" notes how important the psalms have been to devout people over millennia. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died in a Nazi prison, wrote that the psalms were the most beloved portion of scripture to him. Why? Well, I guess because the psalms are so human, so nitty gritty real. You meet writers there who think like you do, feel like you do. They aren't goodie goodies, although they are pious. They get angry--sometimes at God! They express all kinds of feelings: remorse, regret, deep sorrow, fear, confusion, frustration, vengefulness, hopelessness, hopefulness, trust, joy, peace, even ecstasy; and that's just a small sampling. What better place to find a scripture that will speak to your situation, your struggle, your journey-- and feed you richly--than this spiritual smorgasbord, the Book of Psalms? If you want to know where to begin to practice using the Bible in prayer, that is a very good place to start.