In the Desert
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Click here to download the manuscript
Sermon Note:
At the 18:20 mark, there’s an invitation to create a list of short statements about God that we know to be true, that we can hold onto when we find ourselves struggling to hold onto our faith. What statements might you include on such a list? Some of the statements the congregation listed when this sermon was preached are as follow:
I am a friend of God.
God will never give me more than I can handle.
God will never leave me alone.
I am loved by God.
God has a plan for my life.
Christ has already died for us.
Scripture: Psalm 13
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
Rowan Williams, who used to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote that prayer is like birdwatching. He wrote: “You sit very still because something is liable to burst into view, and sometimes of course it means a long day sitting in the rain with nothing very much happening.”[i]
Sometimes we read Scripture, paying attention for anything that grabs our imagination or strikes us in a new way, listening for clues to God speaking, and we hear nothing. Sometimes we seek out that place in our imagination where we meet with God, be it a table in a coffee shop, a comfortable corner in our living room, or the dynamic, rhythms and patterns of the dance that is the Trinity, and no matter how completely we are able to place ourselves into that space, we find ourselves alone. Sometimes we feel that aloneness profoundly and deeply. Sometimes we experience it more as a fleeting glitch in our prayer life.
It’s all well and good to talk about prayer with the expectation that through prayer we meet God and know God a little bit better with each meeting, but the reality is that sometimes, no matter how many years we’ve been a follower of Jesus, no matter how practiced we are in the Spiritual Discipline of prayer, we find ourselves alone. God is absent. Our prayers fly no higher than the ceiling. This experience might be only momentary, but it might also endure for days, or months, or even years. And it can be devastating, as this short excerpt from Mother Teresa’s personal correspondence attests: “The place of God in my soul is blank – There is no God in me… I call, I cling, I want – and there is no One to answer – no One on whom I can cling; no, No One. Alone. The darkness is so dark – and I am alone.”[ii]
Can you imagine how much worse the world would be if Mother Teresa’s excruciating experience of God’s absence had led her to abandon her decades-long service of love? How did she keep going? How did she survive on nothing but faith, with no experience to bolster that faith? How do we keep going, how do we keep praying, during those times when we experience God’s absence?
On Sunday we’re going to consider God’s absence. We’re going to talk about how we keep praying in the midst of it. We’re going to talk about whether or not we want to keep praying in the midst of it. As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps spend some time looking inward. Have you ever experienced God’s absence? Have you ever experienced, like Jesus as he hung on the cross, what it is to feel forsaken by God? What do you think led to that experience? Or, if you’ve never experienced this absence or forsakenness, why do you think that’s the case?
[i] Rowan Williams. Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2016), 5.
[ii] Kerry Walters. “Mother Teresa: A Saint Who Conquered Darkness.” Franciscan Spirit. https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/mother-teresa-a-saint-who-conquered-darkness (accessed Feb. 21, 2022).