Wings

Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 40 says, in part, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.” Today’s Gospel (Mark 1:29-39) gives us one of Jesus’ secrets for how he was able to deal with the demands of the crowds who came to him for healing and help. Mark 1:35 says, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, [Jesus] got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” For Jesus to help those who came to him, he needed regular quality time in prayer to God.

Communities of religious – monks, nuns – maintain a balance between prayer and work, or in Latin, ora et labora. Both are necessary for spiritual balance and growth. They drew this model from the life of Jesus, who would periodically draw away from the crowds to draw near God in prayer. Both are needed – constant activity that’s not spiritually grounded can run itself into the ground with exhaustion; constant meditation exclusive of service can easily become a head trip, pie in the sky fantasy and self-indulgence. We might think of the two arms of the cross, the vertical and the horizontal. True connection with God – true vertical connection – will inevitably lead us to make a true horizontal connection with neighbor. Ora provides the grounding for labora.

At a time when I was feeling burned-out by work and church demands, I went to a conference sponsored by my denomination. The keynote speaker told the story of her conversation with a volunteer who complained of feeling burned out. The keynote speaker told the volunteer, “You’re not burned out. You haven’t even caught fire yet.”

The way to catch fire and keep the flame burning bright is to go regularly to God in prayer. Prayer is how we keep our ears open and pay attention to the direction in which God is calling us. Prayer is how we keep our eyes open to catch the vision of how our individual lives and the life of Emanuel Church fit into the larger life of the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, we must come away from the crowds and our workaday lives, to spend time in prayer with God. Empowered by God in prayer, we, like Jesus, can then return to the crowds and our daily tasks, can go back to our places of ministry renewed, refreshed, and ready to soar with wings like eagles as we serve our loving God.