(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
Of all the images which linger, a year later, of the events of
last September 11, none is more haunting than the picture of
people falling from the windows of the World Trade Center.
As the buildings burned with hellish intensity, bodies came
out of the windows and fell to certain death on the
pavements far below. Were they blown out of the windows
by the force of the explosions? Or did they break open the
windows intentionally, and throw themselves out, preferring
death by concussion to death by burning? I don’t suppose
we will ever know. There is no way to know whether the
windows were blown out by accident or were opened by
intention. Either way, however, men and women of all walks
of life, rich and poor, young and old, all religions and no
religion, had no choice but to throw themselves on the mercy
of God.
When your life is undergoing great stress, the mercy of God
is there for you, whether the windows are blown out or
whether they are opened intentionally. God is good, all the
time; and all the time, God is good. But how much light, how
much refreshment, there is if we will sit by the windows,
hearing what God might say.
The events of a year ago are coming back to remind us now,
aren’t they, of the stresses under which we all live? Since
the 11th of September we have felt panic, for fear that
terrorists might strike this capital city. Since the 11th of
September we have seen troops in Afghanistan, the stock
market tumbling, companies failing, jobs being lost,
bankruptcies climbing, and rumblings of war with Iraq. Some
of us in this congregation have felt the results in very
personal ways: you knew people who were annihilated, your
own job changed radically, your investments shrank. I would
guess that many of have made very important lifestyle
changes in response to September 11. And I would not be
surprised if the stresses of responding may be a silent killer
that will take its toll on us, some day. Who knows but what
some of us are so stressed, feeling that our security is not
what it used to be, that our very lives are being shortened?
What I want to speak about today has implications for
physical and emotional life as well as for spiritual life. I want
to open a window that may in truth save lives as well as
souls. I want to speak with you about prayer in times of
stress.
I invite you to consider: when your life is undergoing great
stress, the mercy of God is there for you, whether the
windows are blown out or they are opened intentionally. As
we said a moment ago, God is good, all the time; and all the
time, God is good. But how much light, how much
refreshment, there is if we will sit by the windows, hearing
what God might say. What do I mean?
Ken Medema is a wonderful Christian musician. Blind from
birth, he has lived a live of exceptional usefulness. He’s
composed many songs, and most of them have to do with
blindness. If you are unable to see, that one great fact takes
over your life, just as September 11 has taken over great
chunks of our lives. But Ken Medema has always been
determined that his blindness would not be his everything;
Ken says that Christ is his everything, and so he sings about
is faith. Years ago I heard him do a song on the story of
Daniel, chapter 6, at this prayer window. I want you to learn
a fragment of that song with me:
(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
Consider who came to the window.
I
First, conspirators came to the window. Evil men with malice
on their minds watched Daniel day by day and conceived a
plan to harm him. Conspirators came to the window and
watched:
“[They] ... tried to find grounds for complaint against Daniel ... but
they could find no grounds for complaint ... [They] said, ‘We shall
not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find
it in connection with the law of his God.’”
And so they devised a plot against Daniel, these
conspirators. They persuaded King Darius to enact a law
that no one should pray to any god other than the king
himself. These men were jealous of Daniel; he threatened
them with his integrity. They did not really know where that
integrity came from; they knew only that they wanted to
attack. They thought they could get to Daniel by creating a
conflict in his heart. And so they set him up.
Who came to the window, and with what intent? The
conspirators came to the window, not to pray, but to scoff at
the praying man. Not to pray, but to plot death. The
conspirators came to the window to blow it out. They
thought that if the windows of Daniel’s life were blown out, he
would self-destruct and be out of their way. Little did they
understand that the mercies of God come to us, whether our
windows are blown out or we open them, for God is good all
the time, and all the time God is good. Little did the
conspirators know that when they tried to interfere with
Daniel at prayer, they were engaging a power for whom they
were no match whatsoever.
A year ago conspirators struck at our nation. They thought
that if they could topple the towers of power, if they could
plow into the Pentagon, they could bring us to our knees and
damage us beyond repair. We have since learned of a vast
global conspiracy; we have read about people and
organizations whose names we could barely pronounce a
year ago – Usama bin Laden, the Taliban, Al Qaeda,
Moussauoi. We have had to accept deaths and costs,
inconveniences and difficulties of all sorts.
Well, the conspirators brought us to our knees, all right, but
not in the way they had expected. They brought many of us
to our knees in prayer. Christian people have found not just
comfort, nor vague promises, nor nebulous hopes – but
Christian people have found courage, conviction, and power
through prayer. We have declared that we will not be
defeated by the powers of evil. We have affirmed that we
will not be led to self-destruct. Like Daniel, sitting by the
window praying, we have discovered, as the Bible says, that
no weapon that is fashioned against [us] shall prosper.
A year later, we are more determined than ever that we shall
not be destroyed. Those who seek to blow out windows and
frighten us will be frustrated, for we are a praying people.
We are ..
(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
The conspirators came to the window. Evil men with malice
on their minds planned harm. But they did not know what
they were up against when they took on a praying people.
II
The conspirators came to the window, and so did Darius the
King. Darius the king came to the window, but saw nothing,
heard nothing, because the king was the victim of bad
religion. He was the victim of faulty theology, and so Darius
clamped shut the window. Darius got trapped in rigid,
legalistic, fundamentalist ideology, masking as faith. Listen
to this rich text:
“[They] came to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live
forever! All ... are agreed that the king should establish an
ordinance ... that whoever prays to anyone ..., except to you, O king,
shall be thrown into a den of lions. Now, O king, ... sign the
document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the
Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.”
King Darius came to the window, and all Darius saw was
himself. They said, “O King, live forever.” Guess what?
That’s not going to happen! But they suckered the king
because they knew that he, like all of us, lived his life in a
self-centered way. The center of Darius’ universe was
Darius. They hooked him on that. “O King, live forever”.
They had him right where they wanted him.
And then they got him to buy into bad religion. They tempted
him with faulty theology, with rigid and legalistic
fundamentalism. Make a law, Darius, that anyone who prays
except to you will be thrown away. And make it so that the
law cannot be changed even if your heart would like to
change it. That is rigidity to the nth degree. Darius came to
the window and clamped it shut, set it up so that no new
thought would ever cross his mind, no human need would
ever penetrate his heart.
You see, some of us respond to stress by becoming very
strict. We decide that the rules are the rules, and that’s that.
Every parent has done this. Those kids pluck our last string,
and we say, “All right, you. Go sit down and do not move
until I say move.” We respond to stress with legalisms and
rigid demands. We want to write policies, we want to say
“no” to everything new – we are just plain scared!
I am not against rules. They have their place. But be
careful. When we are under stress, we get hooked into
protecting our positions and establishing our rights. When
you are tempted to be rigid, make sure that what you are
defending is more than your own privileges. They hooked
King Darius with faulty theology and with rigid thinking.
In the PBS special on the faith issues raised by September
11, one Catholic priest said that he knew from the outset that
“religion did that.” Religion took down the trade center,
religion attacked the Pentagon, religion destroyed lives. Not
God, mind you, but religion. Not a loving, compassionate
Father, but people whose idea of following God is to be
either/or, right or wrong, all or nothing. The greatest enemy
of genuine faith is a rigid, legalistic, unbending, my way or no
way approach. We put ourselves at the center of our own
wants and wishes, we protect what we think is ours. But
that’s not genuine faith. That’s bad religion.
In the aftermath of September 11, one minister joined in a
public prayer service at Yankee Stadium. For that he was
brought up on charges by the leaders of his denomination,
not only because he prayed with people of other faiths, but
even because he prayed with Christians of other
denominations! Scared people make rules like that! Darius
is alive and well, sitting at the shut down window, hearing
nothing, seeing nothing. Stuck in faulty religion and mindless
fundamentalistic fervor.
In a Muslim school in Brooklyn, children are being taught that
Islam does not support things like terrorism. Their principal
and their teachers are try to show them that their faith is
about compassion and not about holy war. But when
reporters spoke to these children, young people said they
wanted Jews to die, they wanted more terrorist acts, and
they argued that Muslim assassins would go straight to
Paradise. If these children did not get such views in school,
where did they come from? Presumably from their homes
and from their mosques. From bad religion. Darius, you
see, is alive and well, sitting at the clamped-down window,
hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Mired in bad theology and
rigid thinking, protecting himself against anybody who is
different.
Brothers and sisters, it is good to stand for something. It is
fine to be clear about what you believe. But be sure that
what you believe is not just flattery and self-serving. And be
certain that your beliefs have love at their roots and
compassion for their fruits. In stressful times, it is easy to
become Darius, clamping shut the windows.
The conspirators came to the window to blow it out and
destroy a man of faith. They King came to the window to
clamp it down and shut out any new thoughts. But there was
Daniel. Daniel came to the window, praying. Whether the
window had been blown out or clamped shut, Daniel came
there, praying, waiting. There is a strength in this Daniel.
For Daniel knows that the mercy of God is available at all
times. God is good, all the time; and all the time God is
good. Do you hear Daniel?
(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
III
Daniel. In stressful times. Under the attack of conspirators.
Oppressed by bad religion. Yet Daniel prays on, sitting by
the window at the break of day, waiting to hear what God
might say.
Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he
continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room
open toward Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a
day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done
previously.
Just as he had done previously .. do you hear that? Prayer
was not an emergency flare, sent up by a distraught Daniel
when the windows blew out. Prayer was Daniel’s life and
breath. Prayer was his habit. Prayer was his way of being.
For Daniel, prayer was like breathing. He just did it,
instinctively, constantly. For Daniel, prayer was like eating;
sooner miss one of his three square meals than to miss
being on his knees thrice daily. For Daniel, prayer was an
open window, letting in light and refreshment. Daniel had
opened that window. It was not blown out. He opened it, on
purpose, regularly, gladly.
For although God is good all the time, and all the time God is
good, and although His mercies are always accessible, still
you and I need to practice prayer so that we are ready when
the times grow stressful. If you wait until the windows blow
out in disaster, God may respond, yes. But if you have
opened the windows of prayer a hundred times, a thousand
times, you will know His voice, you will hear His word, you
will see what He is doing.
Otherwise it is a little like staggering around in a darkened
house. My wife told me that Thursday night, after I had gone
to sleep, the power went out, and she had to fumble around
to find her way out of the den and into the bedroom. But
because we have lived in that house thirty-one years, she
could do it by memory. Had we been visiting somewhere, I
would be telling you about stubbed toes and bumped heads
by now. Daniel knew his way around prayer.
Daniel’s prayer was the prayer of constancy. He knew how
to respond to the attacks because he knew well who his
defender would be.
Daniel’s prayer was the prayer of intimacy. He did not fear
the mouths of hungry lions, for he knew that his God was a
God of love and compassion.
And most of all, Daniel feared not even the loss of his life, for
Daniel knew that He who has begun a good work in you will
be able to keep you from falling.
And so, brothers and sisters, be Daniel. Pray. Pray now
that you may be ready for times of trial. Pray today when it is
easy so that you may pray tomorrow when it is difficult. Pray
regularly while you have the time so that you may pray
instantly when you do not have the time.
In good times and in bad, pray. In season and out of
season, pray. When you have everything to be grateful for,
pray. When all you possess comes crashing down, then you
will be ready.
When all speak well of you, pray. When all conspire against
you, you will be ready to pray for your enemies and those
who despitefully use you.
When you feel generous toward others, pray. When you feel
as though you just want to pull out the rule book and clamp
down on them, you will be ready with a wounded heart to see
their need.
Pray, like Daniel, at the break of day, for night comes too,
when the powers of evil are afoot. But you must be ready.
Pray, like Daniel, at the break of day, for you will grow weary
and the burning of the noontide heat will sap your strength.
Pray, like Daniel, at the break of day, lest the day break you.
Pray, like Daniel, at the break of day, for you do not know
whether you will see the end of that day without being
broken.
Pray, like Daniel, at the break of day, at morning, at
noonday, and at evening. Pray when it is convenient and
when it is not convenient. Pray when it is popular and when
it is not politically correct. Pray when you feel inspired and
pray when your tongue is tied. But pray. Open the windows.
When the windows are blown out, and life is disastrous, you
will need to pray. God’s mercies will be available, for it
remains true that God is good all the time, and all the time
God is good. But far better if we open the windows on
purpose, and let in the sunshine of His truth and the
refreshing winds of His presence. Daniel’s testimony is:
My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they
would not hurt me
So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was
found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
