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Sermon by: The Rev. R. Casey Shobe Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration | Dallas, Texas July 23, 2017 Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 11 |
Texts:
I have a fairly predictable morning routine. When I up, I make the coffee, let the dog out, and pull up the New York Times on my iPad. It’s almost like clockwork, and some mornings I wonder if I am in a real-life version of the movie Groundhog Day, repeating the morning over and over again. But in recent months, Melody tells me that I have a new aspect to my routine: groaning. Mostly it is involuntary. I read something troublesome in the news and take a big, exasperated breath.
Melody, who hates to read the news first thing in the morning, has been giving me a hard time about it. She says that she’s innocently sitting there, trying to relax over a cup of coffee and maybe have a few minutes of silence—which in a house with young kids is all-too precious—only to be interrupted by my sighing and moaning. But to my surprise this week, as I read the lesson from Romans, I discovered that my morning routine actually bears some elements of fundamental spiritual practice. Because as Christians we are supposed to groan.
This morning we heard some more of Paul’s letter to the Romans, which we’ve been reading together in church this summer. This morning we heard this:
“The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
If this letter is to be believed, then we, and in fact the entirety of God’s creation, are meant to be groaning. And not only each of us and the world, but even the Spirit of God is groaning. Next week we’ll hear the next few verses in the letter, in which Paul says,
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
The Greek word that is translated “sighs” is stenagmos, which could also be translated “groans.” Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit is groaning in prayer—right along with creation, and right along with each of us.
It is, if you think about it, a pretty strange thing for the Bible to be saying. We often believe that being a Christian is about being perpetually joyful and peaceful and content. When I ask people why they come to church, the number one response I hear is, “because it makes me feel good.” So, it might seem strange for Paul to say that part of being a Christian is about groaning, and that part of the life of a faithful Christian is to groan, to cry out, to sigh too deeply for words right alongside the Holy Spirit. But the truth is that part of an authentic prayer life is groaning.
My friend Jennifer Phillips, who’s a priest in New England, once told me a story about a time she spent with a group of nuns on a prayer retreat. These were women who had spent almost their entire lives praying; praying together in worship, praying the Psalms, praying quietly alone in their cells. They were what you might call “prayer professionals.” So, when they arrived at this prayer retreat, they expected more of the same, that the facilitator would read them a few beautiful quotes about the power of prayer and then send them off to do what they did best—to pray. Instead, the facilitator read these verses from Romans, and then instructed all the nuns to lie down on the floor of the chapel. “Now groan,” he told them. “Spend the next hour groaning out in prayer to God.” My friend told me that the room was utterly silent for several minutes, and then one of the nuns finally broke the silence with a soft grunt. Very soon the chapel was filled with the sound of 20 nuns groaning from the depth of their soul, groans so deep and earnest and prayerful that they would split the air and break your heart. The nuns were finding a new aspect of their prayer life: praying along with the Holy Spirit in groans too deep for words.
We spend a lot of time trying to find words to say, to each other and to God. Frankly, too many people pray far too little because they think that their words aren’t polished or pretty enough, that they somehow don’t know how to pray very well. But perhaps all our focus on finding the right words is the wrong impulse. Perhaps we could actually say more by speaking less, as we communicate to God the deepest feelings and yearnings of our soul. Perhaps we should learn the art of the spiritual groan. Because the truth is, if we are honest, there is a lot in this world to groan about. Groaning is what I do in response to: