Sermon: "The Prayer of Humility"

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. [Hebrews 13:2]

[Do not forget to entertain (or neglect to show hospitality to) strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.]  

There is a story told within my family about my grandmother

(I suppose 70 years or so ago). If a tramp should come to the door she would always give him some money. Now they were a relatively poor mining family and my grandfather, who was more cynical about these matters, used to say to her “Agnes, why do you insist of giving money to someone like him - he’s probably got more than we have!” To which she would reply: “Wyndham, don’t be like that because, you never know, we might be entertaining angels unawares.” 

Within society now we have many homeless people - a situation which has escalated over the past 20 years or so. But we don’t seem to have the “gentleman of the road” professional kind of tramp so much. Since living in Llanbedr there has been one such visitor to the Rectory on a regular basis every 2 months or so for about 2 years. He was, I would say, about my age, professing himself a Christian, having a very deep faith, believing that God had called him to live in this way travelling around to challenge people he met within their own Christian lives, if they are Christians, or to be a Christian witness to them if they are not.  

Now we may say that he is misguided and that this is a very foolish thing to do, and that God could not possibly wish for someone to have such a lifestyle - living off the hospitality of others. And it would be fair to say that Brian does have his own particular problems - he is certainly not perfect, but then neither are any of us. Someone like Brian challenges our conventional lifestyle - he certainly challenged me in the way that we tend to hoard our possessions and build up personal security in all sorts of ways. Brian has none of this - he is vulnerable, at the mercy of others but attempts to see God acting within all of the circumstances and situations in which he finds himself. Sometimes people are kind to him, sometimes they abuse him, sometimes they try to understand him, sometimes they try to manipulate him. Whether you accept Brian for what he is or not - you cannot help to admire his faith and commitment to Jesus. 

We find it hard to understand why someone would wish to live in this way - but in other cultures and at other times through history this would be perfectly acceptable - even revered. We must remember that Jesus himself was an “itinerant preacher” accepting the hospitality of others as he and his disciples travelled. Hospitality is extremely important within the cultural setting of the Bible and in many other parts of the world. To show hospitality to travellers would be good manners - one of the conventions of the society of the day. Our thinking has changed - we see ourselves as individuals having a responsibility to create wealth for ourselves. We also, I think, have a fear of being abused or suffering violence from strangers - which sadly is a real danger today. But losing such a sense of hospitality, graciousness, trust and concern diminishes us as a society, diminishes us as human beings made in the image of God.

Nowadays, perhaps more than ever before, we have to weigh up the risk of personal safety with the risk of reaching out in hospitality. Not an easy decision to make. 

Brian reminded me of a particular book - a spiritual classic of Russian Orthodoxy - entitled the Way of a Pilgrim. (In fact he actually borrowed it for a time and returned to me – ironic that the book itself has been on pilgrimage! It describes the story of an unknown pilgrim of the mid-nineteenth century who wanders through Russia and Siberia, from one holy place to another, in search of the way of prayer.

You can see why the book reminds me of Brian because it begins:

By the grace of God, I am a Christian man, by my actions a great sinner, and by calling a homeless wanderer of the humblest birth who roams from place to place. My worldly goods are a knapsack with some dried bread in it on my back, and in my breast pocket a Bible. And that is all.

On the 24th Sunday after Pentecost I went to church to say my prayers. The first Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians was being read, and among other words I heard these - “Pray without ceasing”

The story goes on to explain his attempts to find a spiritual guide  a starets who instructed him in what is known as the Jesus Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me

It is a simple prayer to be used anywhere and everywhere, being repeated slowly and quietly - taught and practiced extensively by Russian Christians as the basis of what it means to pray without ceasing. In a similar way to what we sometimes call arrow prayers except that this is intended as a more continuous prayer rather than a prayer for a specific need. 

[Sit down alone and in silence. Lower your head, shut your eyes, breathe out gently and imagine yourself looking into your own heart. Carry your mind, i.e. your thoughts, from your head to your heart. As you breathe out, say “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”. Say it moving your lips gently, or simply say it in your mind. Try to put all other thoughts aside. Be calm, be patient, and repeat the process very frequently.] 

Within the Russian Christian tradition people revered the starets but they also revered the fool. Both displayed great Christian truths within themselves. We could say that such people were “angels unawares” in the sense that they were God’s messengers.

Salvation Army saying that:

I would rather be a fool for Christ than a fool for the devil!

I am afraid that there are many fools for the devil today - sadly, I’m not so sure that there are so many for Christ. Remember that God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. 

[The book was written by a pilgrim endowed with simplicity and wholeness which are rare in any epoch but very difficult to experience in our own day. To warn against any attempt to ape the pilgrim, free from family life, unhampered by any concern, even for his own survival. Always on the move, and completely unattached, the pilgrim had an inner freedom which few enjoy or would probably care to possess at the cost he paid for it.] 

Now I am not advocating that we should all sell our houses and possessions to travel the country! But one thing we can be encouraged to do - the message to us from the pilgrim - is to pray. To follow his example in praying the Jesus Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me 

It is a prayer of humility echoing the prayer of the tax collector in Luke 18:3. Humility is obviously a virtue very close to Luke’s heart as we can see from the account in today’s passage.

The Jesus Prayer acknowledges an awareness of the horror of being “outside God” - walled up in the isolation of our own ego - cut off from God - this was the situation of the devout pharisee - so self-righteous that he had no need of God. Reciting Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me is to recognise our need of God at every moment of our lives. In this way the prayer is also a prayer of conversion - a turning to God and trusting that his grace will sustain us. Most of all the Jesus Prayer is an affirmation that life, true life, is found in God alone bringing with it the desire to become more Christ-like, that is to grow in holiness. 

Hospitality itself is at its basic level to acknowledge the worth of another, irrespective of who they are, to acknowledge that they are valued and loved by God. The practice within Celtic Christianity was more extreme still than that of entertaining angels (messengers) unawares in that in meeting the stranger we meet with Christ (Matt. 25). And whenever we encounter Christ we are changed - through the action of the Holy Spirit we grow in his likeness as we travel on our personal Christian pilgrimage. So we have much to learn from the way of the pilgrim - the simplicity of his life and his devotion to God. This all begins with prayer - the desire to pray without ceasing - that is to know God’s presence with us every moment - to have Christ as our constant companion. This is the aim of the Jesus Prayer - a prayer of humility, conversion and holiness. Also a  prayer of power to transform us into the likeness of Christ day by day.  

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.  

I believe that Brian was an angel to me in the sense that he brought a message from God. I have not seen him now for some time, but the message that remains with me is The Way of a Pilgrim, the desire to pray without ceasing the Jesus Prayer: 

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.