Gather Us In

This post is by Kyle Butler, a pastor at Mt. Tamalpais UMC and Tam Abbey:

During Lent Mt. Tam UMC is doing a sermon series focused on the theme of "mindfulness" and different practices to grow in our spiritual lives. This Sunday I will be talking about prayer as a spiritual practice and after reading this week's lesson from Luke my first thought was "there is no way I can use this story to talk about prayer!" Luke's gospel tells us of a threat to Jesus' life and of Jesus' lament over the city of Jerusalem. It's a harsh and threatening text that, at least for me, doesn't place me in an attitude of prayer. I was tempted to preach on a different text, something calmer and more reassuring.

Yet, despite this initial uneasiness, these words of Christ stuck out to me, "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" These words have remained with me as I reflect on this passage. How often is it that God seeks to gather me in from the chaos of my life and I am unwilling? How often do I choose to fill my time sitting on the couch watching television rather than allowing God to speak to me in a moment of reflection?

So I think this passage may actually have a lot to teach us about prayer. Prayer can take a lot of different forms for different people. You may like to write your prayers out in a journal. You may prefer to express your prayers in images that you draw yourself or cut from a magazine. Perhaps you pray best by just sitting in silence, going on a walk, or kneeling down and speaking to God out loud. Whatever form of prayer strikes you, I think for all of us prayer is simply the act of taking a moment to simply listen to God. Prayer is a challenge to not fill every moment with some new task, to turn off the steady stream of media pouring into our lives, and just notice all that is around us. God is already gathering us in, prayer is taking the time to notice and respond.