Our daily bread and the prayer of the Spirit--More thoughts on Romans 8:26

 “…the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us

in groans that cannot be put into words…”

--Romans 8:26b

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Spirit praying for us, and in my contemplation my thoughts keep turning back to that prayer that the Lord, Himself teaches us:

 Thy will be done,

They kingdom come…

Give us this day, our daily bread…

Deliver us from evil…

 I figure that if this is what Jesus, Himself tells us to pray, then that is probably what the Spirit is praying for us.  While I am busily pleading with God for health and success and the phone number of a trustworthy plumber, the Spirit is petitioning that God’s will be done, and God’s kingdom will come…

 And that one particular phrase, “our daily bread” has stood out to me. Being a bread baker, and biscuit maker, I have my own particular tendency when I hear that phrase—and it leans toward melting butter, crackly golden crust, and orange marmalade (or grilled cheese).  But, as I prayed over this scripture recently, I find myself returning again and again to a different idea about my “daily bread.”  What if our daily bread, refers not just to food for our stomach.  What if it refers to food for our souls as well?

And again, this idea comes straight from the lips of Jesus. In John’s Gospel there is that story about the Samaritan woman at the well.  Toward the end of that story the disciples return with food and urge Jesus to have something to eat, but instead of asking if the waffle fries are still warm, the Lord says to them:

 “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me…” (John 4:34)

and that phrase keeps coming into my prayer—though now (for some reason) I am also thinking about waffle fries. Extra crispy… and a chocolate shake…

But, back to the point.  What does it mean to my prayer life to know that when Jesus speaks of daily bread, He might mean something other than sourdough or pumpernickel. He might be speaking of the sustenance and nourishment that come from doing God’s will.  And so, I am wondering if my daily bread might be God’s will; my daily bread might be the gift of a chance to do God’s will; to lean into a difficult moment and say: Not my will, but Thy will be done…

 The food of doing God’s will is food for my soul, food for the journey, food to sustain me in my time in the desert.  And thinking about this I am reminded of the story we hear at the beginning of each Lent, the story of Jesus fasting in the desert.  Immediately after He is baptized, He goes out into the desert and fasts for 40 days.  During this time, Satan comes to Jesus and tempts Him with promises of good things: food, security, success… and each time, Jesus responds: Not my will, but God’s will be done. 

On the surface, this seems to be simply a story of Jesus turning away from temptation and showing great restraint or will-power or even that He is clever-er than Satan.  But, what if this is really a story demonstrating how Jesus was fed during His time of fasting. The food He was nourished with was doing the will of the one who sent Him. 

To do God’s will, to walk with God, completely, and in complete harmony with God’s will is to dwell in the Kingdom of God’s Holy Presence. His Spirit… Is there anything more that the Spirit could want for us?

 And so I keep praying: Give us this day, our daily bread… And in groans that I cannot put into words, and cannot find on any fast-food menu, what I really mean is: Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come…

 At least, that’s what I want to be praying for, even if I can’t put it into words.

 

Prayer and the Spirit--some thoughts on Romans 8

“…the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness,

for, when we do not know how to pray properly,

then the spirit personally makes our petitions for us

in groans that cannot be put into words; and He

who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit

means because the prayers the prayers that the

Spirit makes for God’s holy people are always

in accordance with the mind of God.”

--Romans 8: 26-27

 

The prayers of the Spirit are always in accordance with the mind of God… I’ve never really pondered what that means.  What is the Spirit’s prayer?  I guess, that is something I’ve usually glossed over when reading Romans.  I think my focus has probably been on the beautiful assurance that even if I don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit does and will pray for me. And that has always seemed like enough for me.  I took comfort in the fact that if I was thinking I needed a new bright red Schwinn bicycle with gears and hand brakes and a bell on it, perhaps the Spirit would know I would do better with a blue one.  That was kind of how I thought this worked.

 

But after a Pandemic year and a Pipe-Freezing Snow-mageddon, I began to wonder, what’s going on here?  Is it me or is it the Spirit? Somebody sure seems to be praying wrong.  Because I sure wasn’t praying for a pipe-bursting freeze and a state-wide power outage and a week without running water.  Maybe it was my wife! She had been wanting to go camping, so maybe God was answering her prayer—because that’s what we were doing. Camping in the living room, gathering snow and rain water to flush the toilets, melting bags of ice that a friend bought for us so we’d have drinking water.  We were –at least for these city-folks—roughing it.  Living the Little House on the Prairie dream, so to speak. Heck, we even made molasses candy in the snow, like Ma and Laura used to do!  And so, yes—we might admit that there was something of a blessing in this weird break from our normal lives.  We were a little quieter and a little more intentional for a few days.  We were a little more dependent on each other and on our neighbors.  And even in the evening as the world grew dark and the battery powered lanterns came on, we would sit listening to a battery powered radio and playing games by candle-light in the growing dark. And just when it was getting to be too much and our nerves were beginning to fray and the charm of roughing it was wearing thin, the power came back and stayed on.  And we all cheered. It felt like a prayer had been answered.  But then, the phone rang; it was my mother-in-law. She was in the ER. The doctors weren’t certain what was going on, but she seemed to have some internal bleeding. In the end, this was only the beginning. After more than a week in the hospital we learned she has cancer in her stomach and possibly other places, and according to the doctors, only months to live.  It felt like a sucker punch. Like we’d been tricked into thinking everything was finally okay, getting back to normal, and suddenly—wham!

 

Is this what it means to be in accordance with the mind of God?  As St. Teresa of Avila famously said: If this is how God treats His friends, no wonder He has so few…

 

 

 

And so, suddenly the world has stopped. And all the headlines and talk about freezes and pandemics and Ercot and elections and masks and ZOOM and re-openings, it all seems like so much nothing.  Looking into the eyes of a person who knows she is dying, seeing that fear and confusion and that helplessness seem to grow in the quiet of her exhausted gaze… Suddenly everything seems to be put into perspective. And suddenly I want to cry out—but I don’t have any words.

 

And yet, according to Paul, that is exactly when the Spirit intercedes for us “in groans that cannot be put into words…” 

 

Looking into my mother-in-law’s eyes, that is the prayer I see; that prayer that cannot be put into words.

 

In the book of Job, there is that wonderful, strange prayer of his; standing before his friends, Job turns to God and cries out, “Please just leave me alone long enough that I may swallow my spit!” (cf. 7:19).  We all feel that way sometimes. The world, our life, our trials overwhelm us and all the prayer we have left in us is to cry out: Leave me alone! But if we offer even that to God, we can trust that the Holy Spirit will set it right in the translation.

 

For us, for the moment, all our prayers are for my wife’s mother. For a miracle, for healing, for comfort, for hope… that she won’t be afraid and that she will know she is loved, by her family, and by her Lord. And the rest we just have to leave to God.

 But now, as I finish this, I think I might have an idea just exactly what it is the Spirit prays:

 Our Father, who art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come.

Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day

our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil…

 

Amen