IT'S OKAY TO BOTHER JESUS

Monday morning, I had an appointment with the dentist to put on my permanent crown.  The appointment was for 8 am and because of the distance I had to travel during rush hour traffic, I left early and got to the dentist at 7:40.  I checked in and sat down with a book.  I admit to being a little tense.  I had asked several friends to pray for me.  The tooth that was getting this new crown was very fragile.

Several times, I put down my book and looked up at the large screen TV they had on the wall.  It showed one scene, a mountain scene with a flowing stream.  I wondered if anything else happened or if it was just the same mountain stream flowing endlessly.

It was hypnotic which was probably the point.

Other people came and checked in for their appointments—they were quickly called back.  My appointment time came and went.  I looked at my watch at 8:08 wondering why they were running behind.  Normally they are right on time.  8:15 came along and I thought okay I’ll give them to 8:30 and then I’ll go up and ask them.

At 8:20, my phone rang.  It was the dentist office asking if I planned on coming to my appointment.

Now, I’m going to pause there because if this story sounds familiar to you, there’s a reason for that. 

This is not the first time this has happened to me.  It’s not even the first time it’s happened at the dentist office, though the last time it was a different dentist.

I explained to the woman that I was in fact sitting in their lobby, that I had checked in at 7:40.

If you’re thinking this added to my anxiety or made me cranky—it didn’t.  I was actually laughing about it.  So they took me back and the young woman assigned to take care of my crown fitting, got to work in removing my temporary crown.

Bless her heart, she could not get that crown off.  The irony being that I was only there because my original crown had popped off and a piece of the tooth broke off, so I needed a new crown. 

So she called in another woman who really got into it, to the point where I was starting make some uncomfortable noises and she pulled back and asked me if I would like to be numbed.  “Yes,” I said, “if we’re going to keep doing it this way.  It will probably be easier on you if I’m numbed.”

So then I had to be numbed and back to work she went rocking that crown back and forth, trying to loosen it.  At this point I’m thinking the tooth is not that strong and it may be a race as to which fails first, the crown or the tooth.

Finally, they got the temporary crown off.

And I was laughing.  Because if you know me, you know how much I love a good story.

Every week here at Morning Prayer, we take time for intercessory prayer.  We take time to offer up ourselves, our friends, our families, anyone we love to God in prayer.  But in doing so, we often find ourselves praying for strangers.  And what a beautiful thing that is to pray for strangers, what an amazing act of love to pray for someone not because they mean something to us, not because they mean something to someone else, but to pray for them with a Godly love because we know we are all children of God.

Years ago, at a friend’s church, I met a woman who liked putting puzzles together so much, she turned it into a contemplative activity.  As she put the puzzle together, she would pray for a certain individual.  And when she was done, she would preserve the finished project and frame it and give it to the person she had prayed for when she was making it.

She did that for me, someone she barely knew.

For however long it took her to put that puzzle together, an hour, two hours more, she thought about me.  She lifted me up to God.  For all those minutes, all those hours, she released my name into the cosmos and left God a very long voicemail about me. 

I did not know she was doing this, until after the fact.

And that’s how it generally works for me.  I don’t know that someone has prayed for me until after they have done so.

I’ve told the story before about my priest friend who told me one morning that she had prayed for me for a whole mile on the way to work.

And I wondered to myself if that was a “school-zone” mile or a “highway” mile because one of those means she was praying for me for considerably longer than the other.

But here is something I was thinking about the other day in regards to intercessory prayer—I have asked you here at Morning Prayer to pray for people who have no idea that they are being prayed for. 

Think about that for a second because I am willing to bet (and I don’t gamble) that everyone in this room, everyone reading or listening to these words, has been prayed for and not known.  They have been prayed for unaware.

Sit with that for a second.

Listen.

Listen with your heart, with your soul.  Do you hear it?  Someone has prayed for you.  Someone is praying for you.  Someone’s prayer for you when you were struggling through a rough period twenty years ago is still echoing through the universe.  It’s still good.  Prayers age well.  They don’t go bad, and a prayer said for you decades ago I promise is still working.

Monday morning, before I went to the dentist, I had texted several friends asking them to pray for me.  And you might say, “How did that prayer work out for you, Kendra?”

I mean, they took me back late—I had turned invisible apparently in the waiting room.  I will say that invisibility does seem to be my superpower.  When they finally got me back, they couldn’t the temporary crown off.  When they finally got it off, it took them about a dozen tries to get the new crown filed and polished down enough so that I could close my mouth properly.  At one point I told them, “Hey, with the way I grind my teeth at night, I’m sure I’ll have that crown filed down real quick.”

When they finally got the tooth in place, they sent me back to the woman I had checked in with at the reception desk earlier—the one who had forgotten me and she offered me a $10 gift card as an apology.  I didn’t need the gift card and in the end, I think I wound up taking it just to make her feel better.

And now that I’ve told you the whole story, let me ask you.  Were my friends’ prayers for me that morning ignored?  Were they unanswered?

I went to the dentist for a crown.  I spent the morning laughing and without being given nitrous oxide.  I got a story to tell.  And in that story was a message to give to you about intercessory prayers. 

And one more thought.  Please don’t ever be afraid to ask for prayers for yourself.  Please don’t ever think that your problems aren’t bad enough or serious enough compared to other people.  Look, our reading today was from Job.  He is the poster child for suffering.  But please don’t ever think that you shouldn’t bother God with your problems.

God wants to be bothered.

He wants to hear from you.

I was watching the comedian Kathleen Madigan the other day on Netflix.  She is an American comedian of Irish heritage who went to a Catholic school.

And she said that when she was a kid, she heard from her protestant friends how they all had a personal relationship with Jesus and when she questioned the nuns about this personal relationship with Jesus, they basically said, “Oh, no, don’t go bothering Jesus.  Here’s a list of who you should bother first.  First your guardian angel.  They are there for you.  Second, you can ask the saint who is in charge of your particular problem.  You can also go to Mary, Jesus’ mother and ask her to intercede on your behalf.  But don’t go bothering Jesus.”

And what I would say to you today is this.

It’s okay to bother Jesus.

That is my prayer for you.

Amen.