Preaching at PCC

The following message was delivered at Pescadero Community Church by Kerry Lobel, Executive Director of Puelte de la Costa Sur, Pescadero on January 24, 2010.

Kerry Lobel: "Praying with our Feet"

Sound Recording

Click above to play or click here to download the mp3 file (20.5MB)

Reading: Coretta Scott King

For my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. prayer was a daily source of courage and strength that gave him the ability to carry on in even the darkest hours of our struggle.

I remember one very difficult day when he came home bone-weary from the stress that came with his leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In the middle of that night, he was awakened by a threatening and abusive phone call, one of many we received throughout the movement. On this particular occasion, however, Martin had had enough.

After the call, he got up from bed and made himself some coffee. He began to worry about his family, and all of the burdens that came with our movement weighed heavily on his soul. With his head in his hands, Martin bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud to God: "Lord, I am taking a stand for what I believe is right. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can't face it alone.

Later he told me, "At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear a voice saying: 'Stand up for righteousness; stand up for truth; and God will be at our side forever.'" When Martin stood up from the table, he was imbued with a new sense of confidence, and he was ready to face anything.

Coretta Scott King from "Standing in the Need of Prayer" as published by The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.

Reading: Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The beginning of prayer is praise. The power of worship is song. To worship is to join the cosmos in praising God. . . . Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision. "

Congregational Response

Prayer is a ladder on which our thoughts mount to God. 
Prayer takes our mind out of the narrowness of self-interest. 
Prayer clarifies our hopes and our intentions. 
Prayer, like a gulf stream, imparts warmth to all that is cold. 
Prayer is a dialogue with God. 
Prayer is an answer to God. 
Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in our lives. 
Prayer is our desire to let God's will prevail in our affairs. 
Prayer is opening our soul to God. 
Prayer is our intention to make God the master of our soul. 
Prayer is to sense God's presence. 
Prayer is a gift to God. 
Amen.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

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