What prayer has to do with Jello, eggs and restaurants - Part 3 of 3

Have you ever gone by a restaurant and seen a line out the door? Have you ever been in a conversation and they tell you about a restaurant that you "have to go to" because it is "so good". Oh, and when you are there be sure to order this and sit in this location.

When we pray and are changed by our prayers, people will see that we are different and changed. As we pray and our concern for our neighbor and concern for the world impacts our actions, others see that we are of a faith that matters. More and more people become curious about our actions.

I know I am curious about a restaurant that everyone talks about, so too I become curious about a faith (or a church) that I hear everyone talking about.

We live in a time when culture is suspicious of the Christian religion. Much of the time we Christians are portrayed as militant, xenophobic, anti-intellectuals who are reject science and believe everyone is going to hell except us. We live in culture that is suspicious to even come to the church because all they see are Christians they don’t want to be like. They see followers of a Jesus that is not compelling. So they reject the faith and reject the Church. We already have a restaurant effect going on, we are just thought of as a bad restaurant.

The more we we pray and are forced out of our little comfort zones, the more we become ambassadors of reconciliation, peacemakers, advocates of love sharing a voice of hope, the greater chance we have at displaying for the world that Christianity (or a local church) is a good restaurant. A place where we find good company, share in good meals, encourage sustainable life, and are nourished by the Bread of Life.

What prayer has to do with Jello, eggs and restaurants - Part 2 of 3

Every Easter we take eggs and put them into vinegar and dye. After a few moments the, previously white egg is now vibrant green, orange or blue. However, if you were to take an egg and put it into vinegar for two days, do you know what happens?  

The hard protective shell breaks down and you are left with an egg that is soft, squishy, and a bit bouncy. And if you did not hard boil the egg, then shell less egg will still be liquid on the inside.

As we move through our world and pray, chances are we will encounter a few of our neighbors. As we encounter our neighbors and get to know them, both of our hard protective shells will soften, we become more flexible and less rigid. We still have ourselves in tact but we are a bit more transparent with each other.

We are still eggs, if you will, but we are changed in a dramatic way. Whereas before we could not get too close to each other for fear of our hard shells breaking, now we can become closer to one another without fear. Whereas before our hard shells would not allow us to give in to ourselves even just a little bit for fear of breaking, now we are able flexible enough so that we each give without breaking.

Prayer is like that vinegar on that egg. If we pray even for a short time, just like eggs at Easter, we can be changed. If we pray for an extended period of time, just as the Scripture says, our prayers are powerful and effective.

Prayer changes us and it changes our community.

What prayer has to do with Jello, eggs and restaurants - Part 1 of 3

There are more people who talk about desiring to join a gym than those numbers of people who actually join a gym. 

Prayer is the gym membership of the Church.

There are more people who talk about prayer than people who actually pray. This is true among the clergy ranks as well. I have been at many small meetings with clergy and there is no prayer at all. Not even a "God is great" prayer.  

Could it be that perhaps all the talk and little action to the practice of prayer is that we do not really think it matters or makes a difference?  

We tend to think that we are all individual people living individual lives and our actions are too small to affect anyone on any sort of scale. We also tend to think that unless we can physically see something then that something is not real. Or, put another way, we are really suspicious of all that “spiritual” stuff.

Prayer has fallen out of popular practice in part because we have bought into the idea that the only things that change the world are the grand projects. And while these grand ideas are needed, we forget that each grand projects is just a collection of much smaller projects. The beehive is very large, but it is the result of a bunch of small bees doing small amounts. Big things are the result of small things.

Secondly, we hesitate to take prayer too seriously because we cannot see prayer. We can see the sandwiches we made to go to the homeless. We can see the money we collect that goes to eradicate Malaria. We can see the hours we put into a home and see the improvements, but we cannot see prayer. And since we cannot see it, it somehow is less than that which we can see.

So for many prayer becomes something we do not practice at the levels that we talk about it.

Which is where Jello, eggs and restaurants come into the picture. This post will just focus on Jello.

Imagine a mound of jello with fruit and you have a fork. You are tasked to remove a piece of fruit without disrupting the jello mold.

You may be able to have no movement if you move slowly. But as soon as you pierce the fruit to pull the fruit out, and the fruit pushes jello out of its way to make room for it’s exit, you will disrupt the mold.

Quantum Physics says that everything is bound together by energy. And that what affects one particle affects the next. Christianity has stated for hundreds of years that we are all bound together as the body of Christ. And what affects your ankle, affects your knee, and what affects your knee, affects your hip, your hips affect your back and your back affects your shoulders. What affects one area of the body affects all areas of the body.

Prayer is like a fork on a jello mold. It is said that prayer is really more helpful for the individual praying than anyone else. I don’t know. What I do know is what affects one part of the body affects all parts of the body. And quantum physics shows that affects one particle affects all particles.

The next post - Prayer and eggs.