Lent... a season of prayer

Sunday morning worship at Bethabara Baptist Church was not for the fainthearted or weak in spirit. Worship as I had known it at Pinetta Baptist, Clyattville Baptist, Pauline Baptist and the downtown church of First Baptist was no preparation for this way of approaching God. We filed in chatting amiably, sat in our appointed places, sang our songs with joy (sometimes), stood and sat on cue, listened quietly to the sermons, prayed with heads bowed and “behaved” in church. This was not the method of worship employed at Bethabara Baptist. We were a group of Baptist college students spending our summer building a church for this small congregation, primarily Cherokee, and worshiping with them every Sunday morning. We learned a new foreign language in worship that summer, a way of speaking to God that was vastly different from our own.
The first time an altar call was extended for prayer, we watched as most of the congregation came down front, knelt and began to pray out loud all at the same time. Some prayed in Cherokee, some in English and some in unknown tongues. Prayer lasted until the last voice faded away into silence, a season of prayer, prayer that was public and private at the same time. We sat trying to behave as if we knew exactly what was happening when we had no idea at all what was going on.
Sermons were not the same. Some of us had been exposed to the suck and spit method of preaching, preachers who suck in air and spit out the words in a rhythm, but not like this. This method of preaching was loud and messy. It called out a response from the congregation that scared us a little. People “lost control”, stood up and spoke in tongues, answered back to the preacher with fervent “Amen’s” and “Preach it, Brother”. Brother Owl, the pastor, was a small man who seemed to swell in size and volume when the Spirit moved. One Sunday the Spirit caught up Mrs. Owl and she threw her grandbaby in the air, jubilantly unaware of her grandchild’s danger of a hard landing. One of our fearless leaders, Mary Lynn, fielded that baby on its way down.
Worship was dangerous, exciting, upsetting, unsettling and a scary business for us that summer. These folks spoke a different language to the God we both worshiped and I learned some very important things that summer. I learned that the form didn’t matter to God nearly as much as it did to me. I learned that we are all more alike than different. I learned to watch and listen because if you are truly searching for God, you might get what you ask for and that can be dangerous. I learned that God is able to find us however we call out his/her name and if we are persistent and pushy, God will come when we pray.
Abram knew this, I suspect, because he dared to question God, asking for explanations of the inexplicable. “How can my reward be great when I am childless? What gift can you give me that will equal the hurt of living without a child born to Sarai and me?” God told him to do something... go out into the woods and kill some animals, split them in two, don’t burn them, just stack them leaning on their sides and keep the birds of prey away. It grew dark outside and inside of Abram as he slept. The light of the stars, the stars that God said were the numbers of his descendants, was not bright enough to hold the dread and darkness at bay. But in this time of darkness, God spoke a new covenant into being between them, a covenant that promised hope for the future. Hard times were coming for those who would be Abram’s descendants but God would not leave them. All would be well. The slaves would be set free and Abram would die in peace at a ripe old age.
Abram’s faith, his willingness to live with the darkness and dread, his acceptance of God’s answers to his questions, sets a pattern for me this Lenten season. I need to venture out into the darkness of my soul. Feel the dread and not run away from it. Do something that provides a time and place for God to come to me. Keep on asking questions and listening for answers. Make a new covenant between God and me. Wake up from my sleep and move on into the rest of this season of repentance and renewal. Like Abram, Lord, I question what lies in store for the rest of my life... what gifts do you have for me that my faith eyes are too nearsighted to see... what troubles are coming... will I have a good old age... will You be with me even until the end of life as I now know it... And, an answer comes for me as it did for Abram. All will be well because God is a present help in times of trouble and a stronghold for my heart in times of darkness and dread. God will bring rivers of laughter and joy, the shelter of grace and peace, and the assurance of more light yet to come after the darkness is spent. Thanks be to God for all of life and for Lent, my season of prayer caught up in the Spirit.