“You can’t always get what you want …”

Let us pray.

“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you might find
You get what you need.”

Amen.

Many of you will recognize these words as a part of the chorus from The Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Beyond recalling it as an iconic baby boomer anthem, perhaps – over the years – some of us have come to appreciate the wisdom within the lyric. That is, the distinction between personal desire and what is necessary.

To this end, I think this chorus is worthy of our consideration as we find ourselves persistently in the midst of the tension between wants and needs. It’s difficult sometimes to distinguish between wants and needs, especially when we’re bombarded with messages telling us just what we “need.” In addition, it’s difficult when there is so much fear and anger demanding our attention. Can we distinguish between what is needful – that is necessary – and what simply wants our attention? The short answer to this question is, yes. But it takes practice – it is a learned discipline.

To this end the disciples are accustomed to seeing Jesus pray – not just occasionally but a lot –regularly and often. Finally, one of the disciples says to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray, ….” What we hear next is very familiar to us. In fact it is foundational for us – we pray it every week, and hopefully a lot more often than that. But familiarity can sometimes be a stumbling block because we can pray it mechanically and not think about what we are praying.

So let’s take a moment to unpack Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is wonderfully to the point, yet it contains and prioritizes all that is needful – all that is necessary for our well-being. First and foremost, it sets forth our primary focus – our relationship with God. Only then does it reminds us that a part of this focus is to bring about our Creator’s kingdom. Short and to the point! Then this prayer turns to our personal needs – to what is necessary for our well-being to be realized. It seems Jesus thinks we need far less than we may think. The first of these things is “daily bread.” This is not an appeal for abundance, but for what is necessary to sustain us for the day. This is less an issue of quantity and more about presence of mind – or attention. Give us what we need so that our attention can be focused on your kingdom.

Next among the needful or necessary things for us to place our Creator and kingdom first is the quality of our relationships with our fellow creatures. These relationships depend upon our ability to forgive and to be forgiven. This petition makes it clear that our forgiveness depends upon our ability to forgive those who are in need of our forgiveness – not just those who ask for it but all in need. Who might that be? Anyone against whom we hold a grudge.

Do these petitions remind you of something? They are in fact a lyrical re-expression of the two greatest commandments. You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is like it, love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Thus this simple prayer contains all that is needful – all that is necessary for us as disciples. As such it is a rule for distinguishing between that which is needful and that which simply wants our attention. But just because this prayer is simple, don’t think for a moment that it can be taken for granted. It takes persistent practice – daily, throughout the day, throughout the week, and for years before we are able to pray it as Jesus wants us to pray it – that is fully aware of what is needful in our lives, as opposed to what just wants our attention.

Thus the parable of the persistent friend illustrates what persistence in prayer looks like as it becomes our common prayer – our common language. “Persistent” is used to describe the friend who comes knocking in the middle of the night. A literal translation of persistence is “shamelessness,” which has some negative connotation, but there are positive connotations as well, such as transparent, unconcealed, open, and undisguised. These attributes of shamelessness are the ones we will recognize in others and ourselves as we learn to pray as Jesus teaches us because the prayer will make us more open and transparent to one another as we near the kingdom. So imagine yourself as the one in bed with our children and disturbed from our sleep by the “shameless” friend. I don’t know about you but I’m usually pretty grumpy when someone wakes me up in the middle of the night. As a result, I am reluctant to disturb others. Yet, in this parable, the shameless friend is not ashamed to share his need with his neighbor. The reason he is not ashamed is because as 1^st century Palestinians they share a common and abiding cultural obligation to extend hospitality to travelers. The shameless friend isn’t reluctant to disturb his friend because they are both steeped in the common obligation to extend hospitality to the traveler that arrives at their door. They share this common language and understanding between them. Thus this request is not as outrageous as it may seem to our 21^st century ears. And this is Jesus’ desire for his disciples, that we are so persistent and steeped in this common prayer and understanding that we are able to discern between what simply wants our attention and the kingdom that is necessary for our well-being.

In summation, if it is about “Our Father,” you may not “get what you want, but … you might find you get what you need.” Amen.

What will I choose to practice?

Have you ever had the experience of preparing a big presentation? You script it out, you prepare your graphics, you rehearse it over and over again, you think you’ve got it nailed; and then the time comes and you realize that what you thought was going to be spot on actually misses the mark. Blessed are you if this hasn’t been your experience. And more blessed are you if it has been your experience; yet you collect the pieces of your fractured disappointment, learn from it, and give it another go.

Collecting the fragments of our disappointment, and giving it another go is what happens if we are mastering a craft or task. And it reminds me of Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule, which claims you can achieve mastery of a task after you have practiced it over and over again for about 20 hours a week over ten years. Then there are those tasks at which some of us are more naturally gifted than others. The low-hanging fruit – so-to-speak – that doesn’t require too much effort.

As I think about this idea of mastery, the question that comes to mind is where should place my primary focus? Some wag might suggest it should be my short game or my backhand to which I respond “Humph!” Frankly, I think it should be on something that will really stretch my limits in the face of some limitation. But if mastery is the point, we are all limited in the time we have to devote to those priorities we might identify. But there are constraints other than time.

Our cultural context has a lot of influence upon the gifts we might choose or want to master. For example, in Middle Eastern society – even to this day – there has been enormous emphasis placed upon what some of us might consider extraordinary hospitality – the welcoming of everyone, even the stranger. Can you imagine opening your doors to everyone who knocked, and extending them the same welcome you would extend to your best friend? I know I would need to practice this a great deal more if it were what I chose to master. It would take a lot of focus and discipline, in part because of fear but in large part because it is so far outside of my experience. Perhaps my reticence reflects our cultural norms. Or perhaps I am conditioned to prefer solitary and contemplative pursuits. And then there is the high bar of our own discrete cultural context – as followers of Jesus – to create the beloved community by living out the commandments to love the Lord our God … and our neighbor as we love ourselves.

This leads me to reflect upon the flow of the conversation in Jesus’ visit to Martha’s and Mary’s house. Maybe I’m just picking the low-hanging fruit: preferring to focus upon the gift that comes easily or that is normatively appropriate rather than stretching to love my neighbor as myself. I want to imagine this is Martha’s circumstance: that she is complying with cultural norms; or that it may suit her natural inclination. Or maybe not. Maybe these concerns weigh upon Martha in part because she has internalized social expectations and made them her own, and up ‘til now no one has tried to disabuse her – tried to show her another way. It may have never occurred to Martha to consider, “what would I choose to do if the choice were mine?” Then again, maybe this agitated multitasking is just how Martha functions. Nonetheless, the persistent agitation is not healthy for Martha nor those she loves. Perhaps this is why Jesus says, “Martha, Martha…; there is need of only one thing.”[1] Find those things that so resonate within you, that they are life giving to you and those you love. Choose to master these gifts.

Martha and Jesus have not yet had the resurrection conversation in the lead-up to Lazarus being raised from the dead, where Martha says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”[2] To which he responds, “I am the resurrection and the life.”[3] “I am”, present tense, where I am present resurrected life is possible. We celebrate this fact week in and week out in the Eucharist; in Jesus’ presence and in the feast we get to practice resurrected life. This is why I am struck by Carrie Newcomer’s lyric, “keep practicing resurrection” from Lean in Toward the Light.

This may in fact be “the better part” that Mary has chosen, not to be cowed by social expectations but to find that thing that – in imitation the of Jesus Christ – is life-giving, not just to you but to those who surround you. Mary has chosen to practice resurrected living – to be attentive and present to Jesus, hanging on his every word, just as he is in every personal encounter in the Gospels.

Blessed are you if you are a Mary who has not struggled for liberation from convention. But more blessed are you if you are a Martha who has been constrained by and struggled with convention; yet you continue to collect the pieces of your fractured disappointment, learn from it, and give it another go. And, keep practicing resurrection!

[1] Luke 10:41-42a

[2] John 11:24

[3] Ibid. v. 25a