May 31, 2026 Sermon

After I reflect on today’s question, Dana Cassell will share with you all about her take on the question. She sends her love to you all.

We are talking about prayer today. So, I wanted to work in different ways to reflect. So we will take prayer breaks during this reflection.

Prayer #1:

First, take a big breathe and then exhale.

Ok, Now, big inhale while you say “Loving God.”

Exhale, “Be present now.”

Breathe prayers are centering prayers for me, they ground me in the present and remind me of God’s ever presence. And I can do them anywhere, often with no one knowing I am doing it.

Now, if I need to make a decision - I choose active praying - walk a labyrinth, take a very long walk, once I went on a camping prayer retreat to make a decision.

I have been shaped by the story that prayer caused a miracle to happen to me right after birth when the doctor’s were all saying I needed a risky blood transfusion, and then miraclously I didn’t. The doctors told my parents it was a miracle, and I have long heard that the praying people at church had done their job through the night.

And so I pray because it feels good, because it attempts to reach out to God, and acknowledge that I believe that I want to understand God’s take.

As a pastor and a chaplain, I enjoy praying with and for people. I pray for this congregation.I pray for people carrying heaviness that they can explain, and that they cannot explain.

I pray for exhausted parents. I pray for overwhelmed kids. I give thanks to God for small and big wins.

I pray for those battling loneliness.I pray for healing.

I pray for strength, wisdom, compassion - traits of God that I desparely want people to experience for themselves.

With all of this experience, Maybe I should really know an automatic answer to our question in the series “Curious Hearts, Honest Answers”. “How does prayer work cosmically?”

But, I don’t. I have no idea. I don’t know. Prayer continues to be a mystery of faith.

I pray because prayer changes the room I inhabit.

Prayer changes the heart that inhabits me.

Prayer, for me, is something that reduces the space between God and me. And I value that.

Prayer #2:

In the bulletin, you were given a labyrinth for your finger. The folks that were at NJHC last year might remember doing an in-person labyrinth together. How I learned to do labyrinth was to walk or trace with you thumb in this case, towards the center as you talk to God. And stay in the center for a bit as you finish, and then as you leave to go back out of the labyrinth listen to God. Feel free to do the rest of the service, and take it home.

James writes:

“Are any among you suffering? They should pray… Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them… Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”

In James, we see a connection between individual prayer when one is suffering and then also calling on the community to pray. I think Highland Ave has a strong presence of sharing concerns with each other that help us create space for prayer and community.

Beyond working at the hospital right now, I am taking an additional class to get a new certification in chaplaincy. At the beginning of the class, I needed to make learning goals, and I made one about how I pray with patients. I did so because I have found my tendency is that I want prayer to sound good and I want to make sure my theology is all good - and at the same time neutral as I am not always praying with Church of the Brethren folks!, Yet often the setting feels to rushed, to holy for flowing flowery words, more often than not in those scary sacred moments we don’t have capacity to take in much.

So I need to be less concerned about words. Its about hope and reaching out.

The prayers become simple:

Please help.

Please stay.

Please let them be okay.

Please give us strength.

Which allows people feeling less alone, softer, tender, and maybe a tad more courageous. And maybe that matters more than we realize.

Because a connection to something bigger - God- may be just what we need to accept help from others and from God. So, Prayer can bring to mind God, community and being cared for.

Prayer #3:

When I worked more with youth than I do now, I started using pipecleaners as a way to pray. You should have gotten a pipecleaner as you walked in.

While we are doing it with pipecleaners - you can also use clay, you can draw, and a range of other things to help have your hands model your prayers.

You can make a ball when you are confused to help pray about confusion, or make a person that you want to pray about, or just shapes to help you capture your listening to God.

Maybe you have heard about Roseto, Pennsylvania, its north of Allentown.

In the 1950s researchers discovered something astonishing about this small Italian immigrant community. People there had dramatically lower rates of heart disease than the rest of America. They smoked. They ate fatty foods. They did not jog or meditate or count calories.

And yet they lived longer.

Researchers searched for answers in genetics, environment, and diet, but eventually they realized the secret was relational.

People visited each other constantly.

Three generations lived together.

Neighbors stopped in to talk.

The church unified the town.

The community protected people from isolation.

The researchers called it “The Roseto Effect.”

People were healing one another simply by belonging to one another.

Maybe prayer works something like that.

Maybe prayer is not primarily about changing God’s opinion or action, but creates a better bond between us and God, and us and our community.

Thus creating healing spaces while God heals.

When we pray for one another, we begin paying attention to one another.

When we pray for suffering people, we become less able to ignore suffering.

When we pray for justice, we become more willing to participate in justice.

When we pray for peace, we become more careful with our words.

When we pray for healing, we become gentler with wounded people.

Prayer rearranges us - maybe that is the change we see most from it. Prayer creates openings where love can move.

I know for sure that a world where people are praying for each other is different than a world where nobody is. Prayer changes what becomes possible.

Prayer #4

Sometimes it feels good to write a prayer - if you haven’t done this - let me assure you prayers don’t have to be long, proofread, or formal. I like the format of Kate Bowler’s hanging by a thread prayer. She starts by listing all the things and then names who God is and what God might be able to do.

I know that some of you love a spreadsheet, it organizes and makes things clear. I laughed a bit when I was trying to think about God’s organization of prayers from God’s people. I have a feeling I know a lot of people that would offer to manage God’s spreadsheet of prayers. But that would require me to believe that God is a cosmic manager in an office stamping approval on prayers like Mr. Incredible does in the Pixar movies, not happy with the mandated work was awaits each day.

An article I read recently suggested that maybe its important to pray outward and inward, and not praying up to this cosmic manager.

Because we know that God is with us, we can see prayer as acknowledging the presence wherever we are and wherever God is.

God is there in the mother crying for her child.

God is there in the trembling voice when you are scared.

God is there in the silence and gasp after devastating news.

God is there in the laughter after recovery.

God is there in the pain.

God is there in the vulnerability.

John O’Donohue said, “Prayer is the presence that holds harmony in the midst of chaos.”

Maybe we pray and the power of prayer is how it holds the harmony in light of the chaos.

Prayer #5

Sometimes you just need some good music to put you in a prayerful mood.

I pray.

Not because I understand prayer completely.

I do not.

Prayer remains mystery.

But I have witnessed that

people who pray tend to stay tender.

People who pray tend to forgive more easily.

People who pray tend to notice suffering faster.

People who pray tend to become more courageous in love.

Those are all thing I want to root myself in.

I believe in the power of prayer.

I encourage you to pray, not because you possess certainty,

but because you are willing to remain open to the sacred mystery moving in, with, through, and beyond all things. And when you do,

you may discover that prayer has been changing you all along.

Let’s pray:

May you seek out and find the thin places that ground you, connect you, and embrace you in the love, wisdom, and peace of the Holy One.