A Little Help Here

I remember a phrase that comes from playing sports as a youth. When a baseball got past the outfielder at practice, and a passerby was beyond and close to where the ball stopped, the fielder would say “A little help here, please?” This was in hopes the person would toss the ball and save the player some steps.

That was just a little social courtesy in the context of our national pastime. The game of life is bigger, so the help we seek is bigger. The course of life is not without its challenges. There are many steps and many missteps. I get to the end of the day and sometimes say to myself, “Oh I shouldn’t have handled that the way I did” or, “I wish I had worded that differently.” Nobody bats a thousand. Is it all up to us, or do we get help from above?

I know we must take responsibility for the efforts and decisions of our lives, and I know we must do our level best. Still, as Christians, we think of God as quite involved with us through the Holy Spirit. God is both transcendent and beyond us in some important respects, as well as present and available to us. So, yes, we should ask for a little help. Frankly, we should ask a lot of help from God. That is exactly what we do when praying the Collect of the Day for next Sunday:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Addressing God in the first clause of this prayer describes God. We address God as one who is our protector. God is the one who makes strong all that has strength and makes holy all that has holiness. The second clause is the ask. We ask that God increase and multiply divine mercy upon us. To what effect? So we can make it through this realm of time and space, on to the life of the eternal. We ask for a blessing in the present, with eternity in mind as well. That is asking a lot of help, not a little. That is asking for mercy and more mercy.

I like the way the prayer uses the phrase “increase and multiply upon us your mercy,” because the Collect is paired with the story of the feeding of the multitude. Jesus took the young boy’s five barley loaves and two fish and gives thanks. Then as the food is distributed it increases and multiplies such that the five thousand gathered on the grassy field were fed. There were twelve baskets of food fragments left over. It is a story of the God of abundance.

We need God’s mercy and help in abundance to make our way in this life. Our challenge is to identify ways that God helps us. Specifically, how do you avail yourself to the help and mercy of God? Whether it is little or big, our prayer is “A little help here, please, O God.” Over and over again we can ask this. As you receive Communion on Sundays God comes to you in a profoundly special way. As you study, you are helped, and as you pray. Conversing with friends and fellow Christians, God is there. As you meditate in silence, the mercy of God flows. With God, a little help is huge.