Trinity 21

I wonder whether the collect has got it wrong. How can we pray for a quiet mind? Surely our faithfulness means that we are excited and eager for the Lord’s work. Surely our minds are stirred up to enquire after the Lord, to seek our God at every moment. Or am I completely wrong about my faith? So let us consider this question as we look at the letter to the Thessalonians.

Paul writes that he is always giving thanks to God for all of the Thessalonians and he is mentioning them in his prayers, constantly remembering their faithful work, their labours of love and their steadfast hope. This strikes me as a rather active imagination. Paul’s mind is forever darting between one congregation and another in the parts of the world where he worked. He prays in much the same way for the Colossians (“in our prayers we always thank God”), the Philippians (“every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for you”), the Ephesians (“I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers”), for the Corinthians (“I give thanks to my God always for you”) and the Romans (“as God is my witness, that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers”).

(That he does not mention prayers and remembrance of the Galatians in the normal place and that he is also remiss in 2 Corinthians (though he says he does pray always in the first of the letters). But these observations are an aside for another time.)

How can someone who is constantly thinking of so many people have a “quiet mind”? This is a question about the christian character for which the Collect is praying.

What is the character of our prayers? Do they dart from one to another in the hope of landing one day? Do they bring to mind the people who need God’s help? Are our prayers only self delusion, where we hope for things that are only good for us, like the child who prays that since he has been such a good boy Santa will bring everything he wants on christmass eve? Perhaps even our adult prayers of an end to dictatorships are of the same kind?

Whatever our prayers, we need to think whence their essence derives. Why do we pray for an end to the empires of evil?

I do not propose to answer any of these questions about the essence of prayer, but merely pose them over against our reflections on this particular collect. These questions must be answered by each and every one of us at some time, but that time is not this morning, and certainly I will not answer them for you.

Rather, let us keep these questions in the background as we consider this “quiet mind” of the collect.

I think that perhaps our prayer focuses us on something that really does not exist in the heart and mind of the active christian. I say this because if we look at our prayers, they are always looking out at our world. Our cycles of prayer keep us thinking about the people in other places, other parts of the Anglican communion internationally, other parts of the diocese and other parts of the benefice. And then the prayers set for us as the intercessions make us pray for our friends, family and neighbours, we pray also for the sick in body, mind or spirit and finally we pray for the dead. So how can we have a quiet mind when all of these people come to mind, when we focus our attention on their needs? It is perplexing, isn’t it?

I do not think we understand the collect correctly if we consider the peace we pray for as an absence of any disturbance. After all, how can we be complaisant when we consider that we have been granted the pardon of all our sins? I, for one, am greatly disturbed by that, because my sinfulness is very deep. I know everything that has been wrong in my life, and I am deeply ashamed, and then I have forgotten to pray for so many people who require my prayers. So I have no quiet mind as I realise the bounty of God’s mercy. I cannot serve God with a quiet mind, for I am full of embarrassment and shame while I thank God for the pardon of all my sinfulness that he has given me.

As my mind flits from one to another to whom I owe so much, my consternation becomes extreme. I am filled with a turmoil because I know that I should be doing more. So how can I pray for this quiet mind? — My mind is not “quiet” as I pray. I wonder whose is.

I pray in the same manner as Paul, flitting from one person to another who needs prayer for them when they come to mind, or my gratitude that God has given me the grace to have met them, or that I must ask forgiveness for humanity’s insensitivity toward one another. Even though my mind is so perturbed there is a peace which enfolds me.

There is a calmness which must come from God. It finds its expression in the service we give to God. That quiet mind is the mind that is focussed on the Lord of our lives, that mind that does not look anywhere but at our hope for the coming of the kingdom.

I have come to that conclusion because of the last week. I have been away with the bishop and his clergy and licenced ministers at a conference in Swanick. It has been a wonderful time. Just like Paul’s letters, we remembered everyone in our prayers – but not by name sadly – our minds have been challenged by the speakers to action appropriate to the gospel, our hearts have been wrung in compassion for those whose stories we have heard.

Through the bishop we were assured of the pardon and peace of God, for he stood there as a symbol of it, tall and confident as he gazed on us all with what I took to be charity. We were allowed to rest in the peace of friendship which he embodied. We were able to depart the conference with quiet minds because we were given that focus of the Kingdom of God in the final benediction. I hope we have not got the collect wrong in our own lives. I hope that our quiet minds are ever flitting from one place to another in order to pray for the world, and finally resting in the Kingdom that it may come with speed, as we say, “Maranatha. Come, Lord, come.”

AMEN