For today's spiritual practice,
I would like to lead us in a body prayer.
Now,
A body prayer is an opportunity for us to engage the movements of our body in order to help us internalize the words of the prayer.
If I'm honest,
The very first time I was introduced to body prayers,
I thought it was a little bit weird.
At that time,
I had a very linear,
Rigid understanding of spiritual practices.
But now I have turned to body prayers quite often as a way of helping me find sacred space and be grounded in the moment.
As we begin,
Let's take a few deep breaths in and out.
Feel the sensation of our body.
Maybe our toes are cold.
Maybe we are a little bit stressed and carrying that within our shoulders.
We become aware of that.
And now that same body that is cold and that is stressed is going to enter into a posture of prayer.
And so we begin by placing both hands on top of our head.
And as we do this,
We pray,
God be in my head and in my understanding.
Next,
We move to placing both hands over our eyes.
As we do this,
We pray,
God be in my eyes and in my seeing.
Taking our hands from our eyes and moving them to our ears,
We pray,
God be in my ears and in my hearing.
Now placing both hands over our mouth,
We pray,
God be in my mouth and in my speaking.
Placing both hands over our heart,
We pray,
God be in my heart and in my feeling.
At this point,
Take both hands and put them on your thighs.
As you do this,
Pray,
God be in my legs and in my moving.
Next,
We place both of our hands open on top of each other.
And we pray,
God be in my hands and in my touching.
Finally,
Placing both arms at the side of my body,
With my hands open,
I pray,
God be in my life and in my journey.
Amen.
As we do this one more time,
I am going to pray through the words that I spoke.
This time there will be no guide in terms of where to put your hands,
But I think that you will be able to figure it out as we go.
We are going to spend a few more moments of pause reflecting on what it means to have God in our understanding or God in our seeing.
What does that mean?
So let's continue to pray.
God,
Be in my head and in my understanding.
God,
Be in my eyes and in my seeing.
God be in my ears and in my hearing.
God be in my mouth and my speaking.
God be in my heart and in my feeling.
God be in my legs and in my moving.
God be in my hands and in my touching.
God be in my life and in my journeying.
Amen.
Let it be so.
Let it be now.
Our body matters.
Our senses matter.
Our journey matters.
Our life matters.
And this reality is behind the blessings of Jesus that we have been looking at over the last few weeks.
We have been looking at the list of blessings that Jesus pronounces over the crowds.
And if you recall,
These crowds were not everyday people in the sense of the well to do.
They were everyday people when it came to being poor and marginalized and the outcast and the displaced and disenfranchised.
Those who lacked influence,
Those who were considered weak in the eyes of society.
These were the ones that Jesus directs his list of blessings towards in order to communicate that God is with them.
That God is for them.
That God's attention is directed towards them.
That the kingdom of God is coming to them.
That God's dream and vision for the world is being prepared for them.
These list of people are open to experiencing something different,
Something radically new because the world in which they know has forgotten them.
And so for today we move to looking at the blessing of Jesus towards those who are pure in heart.
Jesus says,
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Jesus is speaking to people who carry themselves in a broken world in a way of integrity,
In a way of vulnerability,
In a way that is integrated with their thoughts and their feelings.
Often times in life,
In moments of tragedy,
In moments of stress,
In moments of challenge,
It can be very easy to set aside our values.
It can be very easy to rethink the things that we have held dear for years.
Practically speaking,
Jesus is pronouncing a list of blessings to people who had been pushed out for the most part from the religious experience.
And this religious experience told them that their outside lifestyle needed to be blameless,
Needed to be pure,
Needed to be spotless.
And unless they could pull that off,
They were lacking something.
But here Jesus reminds us that our purity is not about an outside performance.
It's not about how squeaky clean we look on the outside.
It is about having a lifestyle that is rooted and grounded in honesty and vulnerability and integrity.
It's a lifestyle that allows us to push against the cognitive dissonance in our life and to say this is not right.
It is a lifestyle that even when we are pressed on all sides and are pushed by people to look and feel and think a certain way,
We say,
No,
This is not true to who I am.
This is not true to who I want to be.
And so even if it costs me,
Even if it costs me,
I will stay true.
I believe the idea of this blessing and the line that follows to say they will see God is saying that those who seek to live a fully whole,
Vulnerable,
Honest life of integrity are seeking,
They're searching for their best self.
And when they find their best self,
They will find God because God is the one who created them to be uniquely them.
And as they find their true self,
They find God.
So may we be encouraged to operate with this same mindset,
To carry ourselves in the world in the same way that we live lives of integrity that are integrated in the way that we think,
The way that we feel and the way that we practice.
Grace and peace to you.
