Praying with angels

Dear People of Christ Church,
Last week we prayed over our backpacks, the week before we prayed over Emma leaving for college, and this Sunday we'll pray over our children's education folks, thanking them for their service and asking God's blessing on their most holy work. We also prayed for a moment of silence for peace in Syria, prayed for pets and parents as part of our children's sermon, and, of course, we pray every time we celebrate communion-"send your Holy Spirit on these gifts your earth has formed and human hands have made." Church involves a lot of praying, in routine and not-so-routine ways.

But what are we doing, really?
In our series on prayer last year for Lent, Jose shared the prayers of Kierkegaard-"the function of prayer is to change the one who is praying, not the God to whom we pray."  
We'll leave aside for now the bigger theological debates about how God is present in bread and wine at Eucharist-our Anglican tradition leaves that to the individual conscience apart from reassuring us that Christ is "really" present.  The personal significance to Jesus Christ of our little backpacks and lunch boxes may not be much. But when we place those things at the altar for blessing, we're saying to each other and to ourselves, and to God, "Ok-this is it.  I have my mind, my soul, my heart, and my body-and I have these tools to help me do what I have to do. Let these things, along with your love, along with my family and my friends-let even my backpack be something to remind me that I'm not alone.

In the letter to the Hebrews we heard this past Sunday, St Paul reminds the people of the story of Abraham and Sarah, that "some have entertained angels unawares." Before God named them Abraham and Sarah, they were plain old Abram and Sarai, just being kind to strangers. But, as the story in Genesis 18 goes, those strangers turned out to be angels announcing that Sarai would have a child. She who had lost hope of giving birth would be the one in whom the world was blessed. Who knows where we'd be if Abram had told those mysterious travelers that he and Sarai were too busy or didn't have enough resources to help.

The point of the story is that God shows up everywhere, sometimes in the least likely places bringing the least likely gifts.  Remembering that even our backpacks can be holy is good practice for looking for God in all of those random corners and different places.   Drawing their own angel wings, I encouraged our kids to remember that they, too, could be angels, reaching out to others, especially heading back to school when there would be new people and new things going on.

Remembering that even our stuff can be a reminder of God's presence also leads me to a pitch for our fall education, which extends the conversation to our time. We'll be looking at the ideas in Mark Scandrette's Free:  Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most.  Scandrette invites us to think together from a Christian perspective about how we use these resources and how we can consciously choose to live well and free lives as God desires for us.  The book should be in at Back Pages (at a 15% discount!) early next week-call the bookstore to confirm (781) 209-0631.  
If there's interest, we'll add an all-ages part (for which we need both children to attend and adults to staff it-RSVP in our survey... ).

Blessings,
Sara+