Learning to pray

"Lord, teach us to pray."

Jesus' answer to this request was The Lord's Prayer.  Memorizing its lines has been a rite of passage for Christians for a couple centuries at least.  Even though different denominations use slightly different wordings, it is one part of any service where you are able to participate.

But don't allow that to be the end of your prayer life.  God doesn't need such formal or stylized talk; God is ready to listen to those ill-formed mutterings and half uttered cries.  God watches as we struggle with our own covetousness or lust or greed, and would love to talk with you about it - to help you find a way past these temptations and to move to the light.

The apostle Paul writes in Romans that all creation cries out to God and the Holy Spirit prays for us with moanings too deep for words.  So when we are tongue tied, God's is at work, for our sake out of love.  Talk to God.  Talk about your day, it's highs and it's lows.  Talk about your dreams and disappointments.  Talk about your joy

Someone's knocking at our door......

 

What do we do?  We Welcome them.

At least, I would hope, as a church, we would Welcome them into our fellowship.  Come, have a seat. Here's what we are doing, let me know if I can help.  Let me introduce you to....  Coffee is downstairs, please join us.

Welcome!  It's wonderful to receive and although it takes some energy to be intentionally welcoming week after week, it is what we want to do here.  So we will review our bulletins to be sure they make sense to a newcomer.  We will renew our invitation to communion when someone seems hesitant.  We will help newcomers find coffee or Sunday School and sometimes both.

I just want to point out, however, that Welcome only applies to those folks brave enough to step through the door.  Perhaps it is time for us to stretch into the realm of Inviting.

Gettin' down and dirty

"As you have received Christ Jesus, continue to live your lives in him,

 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith,

just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."     

 

Well, maybe the author of Colossians had something else in mind, but you get the idea

If you want to grow strong and tall, you need deep roots. 

You know this and have seen the consequences of shallow rooted trees

when a big wind comes along and they are ripped from their down and dirty home. 

 

So, if you want to live strong and grow tall in this relationship with God through Jesus, you need to be deeply rooted in Christ.  You can start anywhere: in fellowship with other believers, sharing your blessings with God's beloved ones, listening and studying all those parables and stories Jesus taught, practicing praying for others, serving those in need. 

 

Start anywhere - but keep on going.  You need to get those roots deep into the fertile soil of life with Jesus in order to be sustained when the rain dries up or the wind blows.  So today, share with someone, talk to God, touch base with a friend, do a good deed.  Exercise your faith and your roots will be deep and strong.

Forgiveness hoarder: all the ways I fail to measure up

You and I know about measuring up.  Sometimes we do; many times we don't.  We aren't the smartest or fastest or strongest or kindest or wittiest or.....well, you fill in the blank.  No matter what, we just aren't. 

So when we get to that petition in the Lord's prayer which we Lutherans translate as  "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" we either race past or stumble over this place where we clearly don't measure up.

We are not the best at forgiving others.....and it is a bit off-putting to think that God forgives us with the same measure we use with others.  That's the way we read it:  God is measuring out our forgiveness with others, and will give us just the same amount of forgiveness back.  And I know two things:  I am short on the forgiving others side and in great need on the forgiveness needed.  My scales are way out of balance.

What if we turned this upside down?  What if God's great gracious generous love is the starting point of God's great gracious generous forgiveness?  How would that change the manner in which we balanced the debts that others owe us?  What if forgiveness isn't a tool to control others but rather is given and received without any measure  or expectation - because we are family, we are one in Christ, because that is how life moves forward?

What if we stopped being forgiveness hoarders?  Could it change our lives?  Could it change the world?

The stuff I want today

Maybe that's what you are thinking when you get to that petition of the Lord's Prayer which says "Give us this day our daily bread."  Perhaps you seriously believe it includes the latest Apple product, luxury car, promotion at work or even winning the lottery. 

It doesn't.

In the wilderness (see Exodus), Israel was hungry.  They cried out to God and God blessed them with manna.  They were to leave their tents each morning and gather this food into baskets - but just enough for one day.  If they gathered more than what they needed for one day, it would spoil and be useless the next morning.

They got enough for one day; it was their daily bread.

Each time we pray the Lord's Prayer we pray that God will continue this act of love and sustain us for one more day - whatever we need.  Jesus was trying to teach us that we are dependent on God - and God loves us enough to feed us in the desert.  Iphones are rarely included in the bargain.

If I only knew how to pray....

I hope you are not looking for some magic formula - just the right words or tone of voice, the most appropriate quoting of scripture or maybe some fancy phrases like the pastor uses.  I pray that you are not seeking some precise balance of piety and boldness so that God will do what you want God to do.

Because if you are, I don't have it.  Never have; never will.  I do know that you can meditate in silence or sing your praises to God.  You can gather with the whole community or carve out a few moments during your morning commute.  You can include religious words or simply cry out with moaning and groaning too deep for words. 

You can stand up, lie down, sit in your pew, kneel at the altar, walk in the woods, drive in your car,  raise your hands while you're at it.  Many prayers have ascended during football games, before Math tests, on icy roads and after crushing medical diagnoses.  You can use English, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and even gibberish.  God's ear is turned towards and tuned into creation's cries.

But if your heart is wandering in the land of lust or greed or anger or just plain selfishness you're going to have a hard time of it all because it is the heart that speaks most clearly to our God.  This you know:  the God who graciously gives us all, wants us to grow into just such gracious giving people.  Because God is gracious, we are free to ask, seek and knock any time we want and with a whole lot of silliness in the mix. 

This I do know.  The more you pray, the deeper, stronger, and richer your life in Christ grows.  Use up your iphone minutes in conversation with God and before you know it, your eyes and your heart will be opened.  So we ask, just as the disciples did long ago,"Lord teach us to pray."

Anyone interested in being a prophet?

A prophet says things no one wants to hear.  That includes me.  That includes you.

A prophet is blessed (or some would say, cursed) with such clarity of vision that all the broken, stained, deceitful places we manage to overlook are as real as a cow in the middle of the highway.  You simply can't ignore it and getting around it is a tricky business.

A prophet speaks in God's name and calls us to turn away from our practices that dishonor God and God's purposes in this world.  "Stop doing that!" says the prophet and the people throw stones. 

We don't want to give up our comfortable habits; our settled in routines; our positions of power and authority.  We pretend the problems don't exist (racism or sexism) or aren't that bad or will go away in time (civil rights).  "Stop doing that, NOW" the prophet says and we call him/her a crank or a crazy. 

Jesus was recognized as a prophet among his own people.  We recognize that Jesus calls us to stop living the way we are.  Worst of all, we recognize that if Jesus was right, we would have to work hard to live as he lived.

So, people say to me, 'all the church does is make you feel bad.'  Well, yeah.  God calls us to live an authentic life in service to God and our neighbor (which we only do haphazardly) and a prophet makes sure we know God is talking to us.  Interested in the job?  We're not even interested in the prophet's advice!

Geography according to God

 

Humans draw the lines around each other.  Humans assign people to categories.

 

Some people are in - because of their nationality, gender, body type, style of dress, social graces.

And some people are out - for the same 'reasons.'

 

Some are friends; some are enemies.

 

We create these categories and use them to sort people out - literally 'out' - of our sphere of obligation or responsibility.

 

It's one of those things Jesus would like to see change; it's one of those things which will not exist in Christ's kingdom.  Neighbor love knows no boundaries; no categories; no 'in' and no 'out.'

 

When we re-read the Good Samaritan we remember again why we need Jesus to walk with us into a new way of being and doing and living.

 

Stingy at heart...a look at the Good Samaritan

Stingy - always counting the cost, cutting a corner, leaving stuff behind, refusing to share....is a condition of the heart.   Stinginess like generosity has little do with the state of your wallet.

There are lots of ways to be stingy - with our love, in our relationships, with our commitment, in our service or care of others.  There are an equal number of ways to be generous - always looking for a way to do more, leaving more behind for others, using our resources to ease the burden of another.

Underneath the parable of the Good Samaritan is this contrast between stingy and generous.  The lawyer was stingy.  In asking Jesus, 'Who then is my neighbor?' he reveals a very narrow worldview, one might even say a 'stingy' worldview where he is looking for people he can eliminate from his 'obligation to love' list.

Jesus answers his neighbor question with the parable of the Samaritan whose great outpouring of care and concern has made him a literary icon.  This Samaritan not only cares for an anonymous stranger - he goes over and beyond anything expected of him.  He secures the beaten man's safety and then secures his healing with his own money.  The lawyer is left looking very, very small while the Samaritan becomes larger than life.

The Good Samaritan is one way that Luke demonstrates God's abundant, over-the-top, never stingy love for those God has created.  When Jesus asks us to follow him this is the way he is going...down that road of generous, over-the-top, overflowing store of mercy, thankfulness and forgiveness.  Let us follow where he leads.

What must I do? the lawyer asks

It's not a bad question really.  It focuses the conversation and spells out the way forward. 
What must I do, Lord?

Now, as long as you are not substituting your work (you know, those good deeds which you convince yourself will make you acceptable in the sight of God) for the work of Jesus (who makes us acceptable on the cross, by forgiving and redeeming each and every one of us) then it is, in fact, a very good question.

Because God is meant to be practiced; not just talked about, but practiced.  Your core values are crystal clear in the deeds of your day to day life.  Jesus calls us to align our core values with God (to give life, to bring life to others, to forgive) - and then act out those core values every day.  To do God.

Like when you see a man beaten and robbed and left on the side of the road to die, and you choose to stop, bind him up and arrange for his care.   The lawyer who prompted this telling of the Good Samaritan parable started it all with the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"  In the end, even the lawyer recognizes that the Samaritan, the one who did mercy was most closely aligned to God's purposes.

Go and do likewise.                                                                                        Luke10.25-37

Who can I ignore?

Just to clarify, Jesus, who precisely can I ignore and still consider myself on the right track with God? 

Who really doesn't count when we talk about that 'love' commandment?

That what the lawyer was asking Jesus in Luke 10.25.  Jesus used the parable of the Good Samaritan to help him see the way.

Don't we ask the same question ourselves? 

The sky is falling, the sky is falling......

Thus said Chicken Little when an acorn fell on his head.  Off he ran to warn the King, and on the way Chicken Little shared his anxiety, fast growing into hysteria, with Foxy Loxy, Henny Penny, Goosey Loosey, and a host of others until the King had an hysterical mob on his hands.

It's a grand story and one can't help but laugh at the antics of this misguided chicken.  Until, of course, it is your sky that is falling and you see only disaster on the horizon.  We do it in the church as well.  In fact, we are smack in the middle of a 'sky is falling' season where everyone is spilling ink and wasting time worrying about the future of the church. 

Numbers are falling.  Attendance in down.  Giving is off.  Buildings are closing.  What are we going to do?  Can't you see the end times just down the road?

Luther's Small Catechism is helpful in just such situations.  It tells us that we cannot by our own strength or understanding come to faith but the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies each of us and the whole Christian church on earth.

Did you really think that we had to do it ourselves?  Isn't that attitude what separated us from God in the first place?  Are we still trying to be God instead of being God's servants?

It is Jesus Christ who called the church into being in the first place - so we might tell his story of love and redemption and serve those whom God loves.  So let us go about being faithful to this mission and allow God to take care of the small stuff.

Do not weep.....

 

She was a widow.  She had one son.  The son was dead.

It wasn't a particularly unusual story even if it was a sad story with darkness in the future for this aging woman.

She never asked Jesus to help her.  The crowd never asked Jesus to intervene.

He saw her situation and simply touched the bier on which her son lay.

 

  "Do not weep."

No one can tell you why this woman's son was raised and not the sons of 1000 other widows in Israel.  No one can say why Jesus' heart broke open at the sight of her loss and her need.  But it did and the folks all around noticed it.

"God has looked favorably on his people" they said.

Oh, my friends, you have no idea.  God's favor abounds through this Jesus: generous with compassion and, ultimately, for us all with the gift of life.  No one sees it coming their way.  No one truly expects that the generosity of God can not only fill the space where our loss lies, but fill it to overflowing.  That's the way grace works.   Luke 7.11-17

Exactly who is crazy here?

He was naked, living among the dead, unable to engage in anything resembling socially acceptable behavior. 

They had tried binding him with shackles.  He broke them; the power driving him could not be controlled by mortals. 

Someone else was needed.  Someone with greater power.  Someone not afraid.  They needed Jesus, the Son of all Creative Forces. 

So Jesus came; to the tombs; to the company of a naked crazy man; to bring life.

The neighbors found the man clothed, sitting at Jesus' feet and in his right mind. 
So then they sent Jesus away.

Not everybody sees the gift of life in the same way.  Not everybody wants to have their shackles loosed and their mind set free. Nor do they want that for the neighbor they have spent their time pitying or forcing out of sight.

Jesus left that town without an argument; but he left behind a witness - a man who had been as good as dead, and now was as good as life.  Maybe the townsfolk will figure it all out some day down the road. 

Crazy Bill: The Gerasene Demoniac Revisited

a poem by Tim Melton

 

I was only eight years old, when I first heard The Voices
Seductive whispers in the night,
Painted horror blinded light
Perversion led to dark delight
When I was just a boy of eight, and I first heard The Voices

 

see the conclusion at

http://sacrosanctgospel.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/crazy-bill-the-gerasene-demoniac-revisited/