christianmystics.com

"He who attains true prayer and love has no discrimination between things and sees no difference between the righteous man and a sinner, but loves them all and condemns no one, as God makes the sun shine and rain fall upon both the just and the unjust...."

Nicetas Stethatus

 

With true prayer comes love and with love comes true prayer. Prayer is, after all, the contemplation of life from the highest point of view - that of the person immersed in the love of God.

The abuse of prayer is well documented -- television evanglists proclaiming that their prayers redirected a hurricane to avoid destruction of their broadcase facilities. If this is God at work, what are those who lived where the storm did hit to think? What are we to think of a God who would respond to such ego-filled nonsense?

Prayer is not of the ego -- God or a human's. It it were, then all the prayers in which a person asks for something from the ego, the "I want" would be answered immediately. If it were a question of God's eqo, all the flattery that usually proceeds the request would certainly produce the shallow, but desired results of the petitioner's request.

Prayer is abolutely ego-less. It is the moment when God forgets he's God and man forgets he's man. The two meet as one, a dance in which each may think the other is leading.

The quote, however, talks about the results of prayer. And here, too, we can see that it is not question of ego, of something attained by a person's efforts, but rather by grace, and when the ego is forgotten, so is judgement.

After all, the ego allows us foolishly to condemn others in God's name for the purpose of strengthening our own self-pride and sense of worth. If there is a "they" who are outcasts, then there is an "we" who are on the inside, the privileged. But God, as Nicetas Stethatus reminds us, causes the sun and rain to fall both upon the just and unjust. And the love of God, through us, her sweet agent upon the earth, must do the same.

If Jesus says that the first are last and the last are first, it is said to shake us up, to tell us that our own judgements of others have nothing to do with God's purpose for those we so freely judge. Jesus often spoke in words that were jarring for their extreme tone, but how else could he get our attention? By showing us a reality that went against every bit of common sense, we are left with a God so crazy with love that we are astonished to find ourselves included in that love.

And if, in our services or prayers or thoughts we ask, "Lord, have mercy," are we not recognizing that it is mercy in judgment we hope for? And can we, in good faith, not offer the same to Christ amongst us?