Join us as we “live” into
Lent. I will try to post 40 days of Lenten study using the Lord’s
Prayer through the Book of Faith. Enjoy and use this time to get
closer to your Lord.
Day 40
– Holy
Saturday
(April 11)
Amen.
We come to the end of our Lenten journey with a resounding “Amen!” This
little word affirms that this is our prayer. Amen is a Hebrew word that
carries the meaning of certainly, verily, truthfully. When it
follows a prayer or hymn of praise, this little word indicates the
assent and desire of the one who prays. It could be translated as a
confident “So be it!”
So be it – God’s name shall be made holy, God’s kingdom shall come,
God’s will shall be one on earth as it is in heaven. So be it – God
does and shall continue to provide “daily bread,” God does and shall
continue to draw us into a circle of forgiveness where we forgive as we
have already been forgiven. So be it - God stands with us in times of
trial and when faced with evil. The kingdom and power and glory are
God’s alone, forever. Amen! So be it!
The central words in this prayer – Father, name, kingdom, will, bread,
forgive, trial, evil – are shorthand, symbols that convey worlds of
meaning for people of Christian faith.
We have played around the edges of these meanings for forty days, but
we have not by any means plumbed their depths. That is the work of a
lifetime of prayer and meditation, reading and study, and living
faithfully in the places and relationships where we spend our lives.
I suggest that you begin and end each day with the Lord’s Prayer. If
you live alone, let it be your first words upon awakening and your last
words before sleeping. If you have a spouse, begin and end the day
praying this prayer together. If you have children, begin and end the
day as a family with this prayer. And then,
throughout the day,
in the situations and circumstances of your daily life,
meditate on one petition each day (there are seven – one for each day of
the week).
You might begin with “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” on
Sunday, then move on to “your kingdom come” on Monday, and so on. Daily
examine the events and relationships of your life in the light of this
prayer. In this way, your life becomes
prayer.
Now to him who by the
power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than
all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ
Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians
3:20-12)
Questions to ponder:
·
In what ways is the Lord’s Prayer a summary of Jesus’ teachings?
·
How can the Lord’s Prayer guide the mission of the church?
·
How can the Lord’s Prayer serve as a lens through which we critically
view our society?
Prayer for Today:
Jesus, as we finish our Lenten Journey and live into Holy Week,
we
know that you are our constant companion. Thank you.
Amen.
Day 39
-
Good Friday
(April
10)
For
the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.
The oldest manuscripts of Matthew and Luke do not have these words at
the end of the Lord’s Prayer. It seems they were probably added by the
church at a later date.
This little addition to the Lord’s Prayer makes it “our” prayer, the
church’s prayer. Jesus has taught us to pray, and the church’s doxology
(words of praise) signals that we have learned our lesson well: it is
“your name,” not my name; “your kingdom,” not my kingdom; “your will,”
not my will – “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,
now and forever.”
It is a seditious thing to say in the twenty-first century. There are
many who arrogantly claim the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong
to them
-
and them alone. By tacking this little doxology on to the end of the
prayer that Jesus taught them, the church was putting the world on
notice that Caesar is not Lord
-
God is Lord. Whether Caesar lives in Rome or Washington, D.C., in
Moscow or London, in Beijing or New Delhi or Paris, Caesar is not Lord,
God is Lord.
First-century Christians let the “powers that be” know where their
allegiances lay every time they prayed this prayer. They lived under
the rule of God, not the rule of Caesar. When the rule of Caesar and
the rule of God did not conflict, there was no problem. When the rule
of God and the rule of Caesar did conflict, they lived under the rule of
God.
When we pray this prayer and end it with the church’s doxology, we
remind ourselves and others where our allegiances lie. Christians
should not make good nationalists - they are citizens of a kingdom whose
moral boundaries completely transcend the geopolitical boundaries where
Caesar falsely claims the kingdom, the power, and the glory.
It is a radical claim and it has gotten uncounted followers of Jesus
into trouble with Caesar for
more than 2,000 years now. It
is a claim we are bold to make:
“Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand
without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only
God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power,
and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude
1:24-25).
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his
glory, the glory as of a a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Questions to Ponder:
* What is “glory”?
* Was it appropriate for the church to add these lines to Jesus’ prayer?
Why or why not?
* Is it seditious to declare that the kingdom, the power, and the glory
are God’s? Explain.
Prayer for today:
Let my life show that the power and the kingdom and the glory are yours
alone. Amen.
Day 38
-
Maundy Thursday
(April 9)
And deliver us from evil
In our plea to be delivered form evil we return to the first three
petitions
-
our prayer for God’s name to be made holy, for God’s kingdom to come,
for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven. When those petitions
have been finally and fully answered, we will have been delivered from
evil. So there is,
in this last petition,
a hint of longing
-
the longing that things will finally come out all right for the world
God loves. There is a yearning for God to put things right, to replace
human sorrow with joy, human tears with laughter, human fear with peace.
The vision of John on the island of Patmos in many ways sums up what we
who pray the Lord’s Prayer long for:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away...And I heard a loud voice from the throne
saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them
as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with
them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have
passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am
making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are
trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give
water as a gift form the spring of the water of life.” (Revelation
21:1-6)
It is a profound vision, and we who live between the vision and the
coming true of the vision have the prayer Jesus taught us as a roadmap
for the journey.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your
gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about
anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication and with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of
God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians
4:4-7)
Questions to Ponder:
*Why do vision and poetry, music and art often express spiritual truth
better than a sermon?
* In what ways is human creativity a powerful and appropriate response
to evil?
* In what ways might worship be seen as a “divine drama”?
Prayer for today:
Creator God, you are light and in you there is not darkness at all; of
what shall I be afraid? Amen.
Day 37 -
Wednesday (April 8)
And deliver us from evil
When
Jesus taught this prayer, his followers would have had no trouble
accepting the idea of evil personified in the devil and his legions of
demons. The Greek word that translates into English as evil can also be
translated “the evil one”. In the minds of Jesus’ followers, prayer to
be delivered from the “evil one” would have made perfect sense.
The writer
of Ephesians expressed a commonly held belief when he declared, “For
our struggle is not against the enemies of blood and flesh, but against
the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this
present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
places” (Ephesians 6:12).
In our day
and age, we may be less inclined to personify evil, but there are very
few who would deny the existence of evil. The evidence is too
overwhelming. We may not see the “powers of this present darkness” as
demonic beings, but we know that there are indeed powers that rage
against the rule of God, powers that seem to take “possession” of us and
place us in conflict with the will of God - even those of us who pray
for the will of God to be done!
Racism,
sexism, ageism, classism, nationalism, homophobia, xenophobia - every
form of discrimination, bigotry, prejudice, hatred - are among the
supra-personal powers of evil that turn God’s good creation into a human
wasteland of unnecessary suffering. The powers that rage against the
rule and will of God build dividing walls that separate individuals,
groups, communities, nations. Those who pray to be delivered from evil
pray for the grace to say “NO!” to walls that divide, knowing that
Christ is about the breaking down of any and all dividing walls
(Ephesians 2:14). As Paul declared, “There is no longer Jew or
Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and
female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. (Galatians 3:28)
When we pray
to be delivered from evil, we pray for the grace to “not be overcome by
evil” and the grace to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).
In other words, for the grace to follow Jesus in the way of God.
The Lord
will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly
kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen 2 Timothy 4:18
Questions to Ponder:
*How
would you define evil?
*What
evidence do you see that evil is a supra-personal force and not jus the
acts of individuals?
*Do you
agree that bad institutions can make good people do bad things? Why or
why not?
Prayer
for Today:
God, no
matter what happens to me today, let me remember that I am baptized and
belong to you. Amen.
Day 36 - Tuesday
(April 7)
Save
us from the time of trial...
Although it doesn’t happen much in the United States, there are many
places in the world where people of Christian faith suffer great trials
simply because they are people of Christian faith. When you stand with
God, it stands to reason that those who stand against God will stand
against you as well.
Such
was Jesus’ experience. His faithfulness to God’s will led to his
humiliating and agonizing death on a Roman cross. It was not what he
wanted. In the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was killed, he
prayed with great anguish to be spared such a death-but he ended his
prayer by saying, “Yet, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
When
he had finished praying, Jesus returned to his disciples and found them
asleep. He woke them and asked, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray
that you may not come into the time of trial” (Luke 22:46). It is the
prayer of people who choose to follow Jesus in the way of God, knowing
that it could get them into trouble with those who don’t .
Jesus
was clear about what it meant to follow him: “If any want to become my
followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and
follow me”. No one can predict where taking up the cross and following
Jesus will take us. We can predict, however, that if Jesus was hated
for who and how he was, there is a good chance people won’t like who and
how we are either - if we live our faith (John 15:18). And so we pray,
“Save us from the time of trial.”
It is
important to note that Christians are not masochists - we don’t seek to
suffer for our faith and we know that there is no particular merit in
suffering for our faith. But , Christians are realists who understand
that, in a violent world, faithfulness to the Prince of Peace may well
lead to persecution, to testing, to the time of trial. We take the
risks inherent in faithfulness with the same confidence Paul had when he
wrote that nothing in all creation “will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
When
we pray to be saved from the time of trial, we pray that our faith would
not be tested, but if it is, we pray that God would be with us
throughout and beyond the trial.
Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help
those who are being tested. (Hebrews 2:18)
Questions to Ponder:
*
Given
how Jesus was treated, what conclusions might we draw from the fact that
the church and Christians are so often treated with ridicule or
indifference in our culture?
*
How
is Jesus able to help those whose faith is being tested?
*
Why
do you think that in parts of the world where the church and Christians
are persecuted, the church grows more rapidly than in places where there
is no persecution?
Prayer for Today:
Loving God, you are not ashamed of me; may I not be ashamed to show
others my faith. Amen.
Day 35 - Monday (April 6)
Save
us from the time of trial...
Although it may seem strange to us, one trial Jesus’ earliest followers
would have prayed to be saved from was that of the apocalyptic cataclysm
that was expected to bring terror to the earth before God would finally
cause God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth.
Once,
Jesus’ disciples asked him about the circumstances that would surround
the coming of the kingdom:
“Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is
about to take place?” And he said...”When you hear of wars and
insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place
first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then, he said to them,
“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there
will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues;
and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.” (Luke
21:7ff;cf. Mark 13:1ff.; and Matthew 24:3ff)
Despite the popularity of the Left Behind series of novels, most
American Christians do not spend much time worrying about end-of-time
catastrophes and the imminent destruction of the world. Nevertheless,
Jesus’ words ring a bell with us - they sadly describe the world we live
in. Think terrorism, think insurgencies all over the globe, think 9/11
and airplanes flown as bombs into buildings, think suicide bombers.
Think about wars in the Middle East, in Caucasia, in Africa, rumors of
war in the Balkans. Think genocide. Think tsunami, typhoon and
hurricane and tornado, earthquake and fire. Think HIV/AIDS. Think
global warming and climate change. Think about great and terrible
events, both natural and human made, seemingly beyond our control, that
threaten to overwhelm us, to turn our world upside down, to plunge us
into fear and suffering and sorrow.
Imagine the trials faced by the people of Darfur, of Israel and
Palestine, of Iraq. Imagine the trials faced by the people in
Bangladesh and Burma, in Indonesia and China, in New Orleans and
Florida, Kansas and Missouri, and all along a flooding Mississippi
River. Imagine the trials of people suddenly stricken with
life-threatening disease and no health care, of people whose homes have
been foreclosed, whose jobs have been lost, who can’t pay their bills.
When
we pray to be saved from the time of trial, we are praying for ourselves
and for all others to be saved from just such trials - and we are
praying for the grace to stand with those to whom such trials sadly
come.
I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed
to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of
the children of God. (Romans 8:18-19)
Questions to Ponder:
*
With
so many suffering from natural disasters and human evil, why pray to be
saved from the time of trial?
*
Is it
important for a Christian to believe the biblical prophecies of end-time
terror and tribulations? Why or why not?
*
How
does your church respond to people suffering from natural or
human-caused trials?
Prayer for Today:
Loving God, open my eyes to see your compassion in the love and support
of people around me. Amen.
Day 34 - Saturday (April 4)
Save
us from the time of trial...
In
the wilderness, Jesus confronted the temptations that are common to
humankind (Matthew 4:1-10). A hungry Jesus was tempted to turn stone
into bread, a metaphor for the temptation to make material comfort one’s
highest value. It is the temptation to live by the values and practices
of our materialistic, consumerist society, values and practices we
hardly question because they are so widely accepted.
Those
who succumb to this temptation live by the maxim that “the one who dies
with the most toys wins”. To Jesus’ mind, the one who dies with the
most toys loses: “What does it profit them if they gain the world world,
but lose or forfeit themselves?” (Luke 9:25). When we pray to be saved
from the time of trial, we are asking for the grace to say, “No! No
more! Enough is enough!”
Jesus
was tempted by power. The tempter offered him “all the kingdoms of the
world and their splendor” (a metaphor for political, economic, military,
personal power over others), but he would have to end his relationship
with God and worship and serve evil. Jesus said “no” to this
temptation. When we pray to be saved from the time of trial, we are
praying for the grace to resist the lure of power and to embrace the
humility that serves (Mark 10:52-45).
Vulnerable and at risk in the wilderness, Jesus was also tempted to test
rather than trust God. This is an insidious temptation. The temptation
for Jesus was in the suggestion that “if you are the son of God then bad
things shouldn’t happen to you, should they?” The temptation for us is
the same: “If I am a child of God, bad things should’t happen to me,
should they? So why do I have cancer; why did I lose my job; why did my
marriage break up; why does my child take drugs; why is my house being
foreclosed? So God, do something to prove to me that I am our child, do
something to make it right.” Jesus said “no” to this temptation; rather
than test God’s love, he entrusted himself to God’s love. When we pray
to be saved from the time of trial, we are praying that no experiences,
no circumstances, no disappointments would come between us and God. We
are praying for the grace to entrust ourselves to God’s love.
For we do not have a high priest who
is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in
every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us
therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may
receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
(Hebrews 4:15-16)
Questions to Ponder:
*
Does
it mater that Jesus has “in every respect” been tested as we are? Why
or why not?
*
In
what ways might a church be tempted by “bread,” “power,” and the desire
to test God?
*
In
what ways (and why) does conventional culture suggest that giving in to
these temptations is a good thing?
Prayer for Today:
Gracious God, today I will do my best to entrust myself to your love and
look for signs of your presence in the situations and circumstances of
my life. Amen.
Day 33 - Friday (April 3)
Save
us from the time of trial...
The
Lord’s Prayer is for ordinary people - not spiritual athletes. Once
Jesus told this story: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a
Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by
himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other
people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I
fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax
collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was
beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
(Luke 18:10-13). The Lord’s Prayer is for folks like the tax
collector.
It is
for women and men who know they are able to make choices but also know
that they often make the wrong choices in spite of their best
intentions. It is for women and men who work hard to build a good and
secure life but who also know that in many ways they are simply not in
control.
About
himself, St. Paul wrote:
I do
not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the
very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it,
but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:15-20)
The
Lord’s Prayer was for Paul - and for folks who read his words and nod
their heads in agreement. It is for people who try - and sometimes fail
- and feel bad about it. It is for people who have felt the pull of
obsessive compulsive or addictive behaviors and can’t resist them and
feel bad about it. It is for people who know Jesus was talking to them
when he said to his followers, “Stay awake and pray that you may not
come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh
is weak” (Matthew 26:41). It is for ordinary people.
“So I
find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close
at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see
in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me
captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that
I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God,
through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans
7:21-25)
Questions to Ponder:
*
Do
you agree that the Lord’s Prayer is not for spiritual athletes?
*
What
is the relationship between asking for forgiveness and asking for
protection from trials?
*
With
respect to trials, what are some of the ways in which we are not in
control?
Prayer for Today:
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen.
Day 32 - Thursday (April 2)
Save
us from the time of trial....
Once
again, we discover a plural pronoun. We do not pray “save me from the
time of trial.” We pray “save us” (which, of course, includes “me”).
And again, we are reminded that Christian faith is not solitary faith,
it is not individualistic faith - it is always faith in community, faith
with others, faith in solidarity with everyone who has ever been
enticed or attacked by evil (and that’s everyone!).
Jesus
clearly understood the radically relational nature of human life.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. What I do impacts others; what others do
impacts me. What happens to me affects others; what happens to others
affects me. As Paul noted, in the body of Christ (the Church), “if one
member suffers, all suffer together...; if one member is honored, all
rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). The same can be said of the
larger body of humankind. And so we pray “save us from the time of
trial,” for whenever anyone is hurt by evil, we are all hurt.
Nobody is immune to the lure of temptation. No one is immune to the
enticements and attacks of evil. We know from our own experience and
the experience of others how easy it is to give in to temptation; we
know from our own experience and the experience of others how quickly
and tragically evil can strike. All of which suggests that, rather than
disdain for the failings of others, and rather than indifference for the
plight of others, empathy, compassion, and a strong feeling of
solidarity with our fellow humans are in order.
And
so we pray for each other, not wanting anyone to be tempted into the
arms of evil or fall victim to those who have. When one suffers, we all
suffer. When it goes well with one, it goes better for us all.
Pray in the Spirit at all times in
every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always
persevere in supplication for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:18)
Questions to Ponder:
*
In
what practical ways can a community of faith provide help in the face of
temptation?
*
Churches, like all institutions, are also subject to temptations,
testing and trials. What resources are available to help the church?
*
Do
you see any upside to the experience of temptation, testing, and trials?
Explain.
Prayer for Today:
Gracious God, in times of trial and temptation, deep me focused on what
keeps me close to you. Amen.
Day 31 - Wednesday (April 1)
Save
us from the time of trial.....
The
words of the sixth petition could be read as, “Lead us not into
temptation”, or “And do not bring us to the time of trial” or “Save us
from the time of trial”. Which leads to an important question: Does God
lead us or bring us into temptation or trial? The Old
Testament tradition thought so - sometimes directly (for example,
Genesis 22:1-2; Exodus 16:4; Psalm 26:2), and sometimes indirectly, as
in the book of Job where God allowed God allowed Satan to test Job
severely. At first glance, Jesus’ prayer seems to reflect this ancient
tradition. But this tradition raises a problem.
Given
that temptation is the temptation to sin, and given that we all too
often give into temptations, if God leads us into them, wouldn’t that
make God complicit in evil? Given that the trial or test is to see
whether or not we will follow the will and way of God, and given that we
all too often fail the test, wouldn’t that make God culpable in our fall
into sin? It would seem so, but that’s not something that people who
believe in the righteousness of God want to say. And so we find James
saying:
No
one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God
cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is
tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then,
when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin,
when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived,
my beloved. (James 1:13-16)
Which
is to say that God is responsible only in the sense that (for reasons
known only to God) God allows evil to exist. God does not directly or
indirectly tempt or test humankind, but in a world where God’s name is
not perfectly hallowed, where God’s kingdom has not perfectly come, and
God’s will is not perfectly done, the threats and enticements of evil
confront everyone, and every day we are tempted to yield. In this
prayer we pray that God would both protect us as we face this
inevitability and give us the wisdom and strength to make good choices -
choices that mirror the will and way of God disclosed by Jesus.
So if you think you are standing,
watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that
is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you
be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also
provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. (1
Corinthians 10:12-13)
Questions to Ponder:
*
Do
you agree that God does to lead us or bring us into temptation or trial?
Why or why not?
*
Today’s Bible quote states that God allows us to be tested, but won’t
let us be tested beyond our capacity to endure. What are the practical
implications of that?
Prayer for Today:
God,
don’t let me make any choices today that would harm my relationship with
you. Amen.
Day 30 - Tuesday (March 31)
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
During the last moments of his life, Jesus was faced with a situation
that would raise an unforgiving spirit in most of us - he was being
murdered. The soldiers mocked him and beat him and nailed him to a
cross. The crowds who watched were complicit in their silence. The
religious leaders who had arranged for this most unfitting end to a good
life hurled words of scorn and humiliation at him. And Jesus, looking
out over it all, said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what
they are doing” (Like 23:34). And then a short time later, he cried out
in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke
23:46), and he died.
“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Many
years ago, on a Good Friday evening, sitting in the silence of a dimly
lit sanctuary, listening to this text being read, it suddenly struck me
that no one had asked for forgiveness! No one. No one in the crowds,
none of the religious leaders, certainly not the soldiers. No one had
asked for forgiveness and yet forgiveness had been given. Such is the
way of God.
By
speaking the word of forgiveness before anyone even acknowledged the
need for forgiveness, Jesus created a sphere of forgiveness into which
anyone could walk - and anyone who entered that sphere of forgiveness
was free from the weight of sin, free to begin again. And it is worth
noting that everyone who truly enters the sphere of forgiveness,
everyone who truly breathes the air of God’s mercy, forgives even as
they have been forgiven.
As if
to illustrate the power of unasked-for-forgiveness to create a sphere of
forgiveness, in which those who enter are free to begin again, Luke
tells the story of the two thieves crucified with Jesus. One of the
criminals mocked Jesus, but the other stepped into the sphere of
forgiveness created when Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.” He said,
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”. And Jesus said,
“Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke
23:42-43). One criminal died alone, filled with anger, hatred, fear.
The other died in the embrace of a loving relationship. Both had
received unasked-for-forgiveness; only one entered the sphere of
forgiveness that Jesus opened up for both of then, and that made all the
difference.
I will put my law within them, and I
will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each
other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of
them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity,
and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:33a-34
Questions to Ponder:
*
What
happens when someone is told they are forgiven before they even ask for
forgiveness?
*
How
can silence make someone complicit in evil?
*
It
could be said that the criminal who asked Jesus to remember him had a
“deathbed conversion.” Does that seem fair? Why or why not?
Prayer for Today:
God of
mercy, let there be no “buts” in my words of forgiveness. Amen.
Day 29 - Monday (March 30)
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
One
of Jesus’ most loved stories is the parable of the prodigal son. The
younger son in this story deeply insulted his father by asking for his
share of the inheritance while his father was still alive. It was a
slap in the face, tantamount to saying, “I wish you were dead.”
The
father gave him what he wanted and, with it, the freedom to choose a
life quite different from what his father hoped for him. The word
prodigal means wasteful, reckless, dissolute, profligate,
uncontrolled, spend-thrift, squanderer, self-indulgent, immoral,
debauched. He was all of threat. Totally self-absorbed. Not the kind
of boy to make his father proud - and yet the father loved him.
His
life goes form complete self-indulgence to self-pity when his money runs
out and his “friends” run away. Close to starvation, he comes to his
senses and realizes that his father’s hired hands had plenty to eat
while he has nothing. So, he decides to go home, hat in hand. On the
return journey he practices what he will say to his father: “Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be
called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” The way the
story is told, it is easy to see that he probably doesn’t mean it. His
confession is little more than a ruse to get him back in his father’s
good graces.
He
needn’t have worried. While he is still a ways off, his father sees
him, is filled with compassion, runs to him, and kisses him before the
boy can get a word of his confession out! He was forgiven, welcomed
home, given the opportunity and responsibility to make new and better
choices (Luke 15:11-32). And Jesus is telling us, That’s what God is
like!
And
we need to be told. Human history demonstrates that we have a tendency
to project our own smallness onto God. We think of God as angry and
condemning, wrathful, bitter, resentful, needing to be appeased. But,
that’s not the way God is and it’s not the way we should be. As Jesus
told those whose image of God was skewed, “Go and learn what this means,
‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13).
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I
said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Psalm 32:5
Questions to Ponder:
*
Write
a short meditation titled “The Upside and the Downside of Freedom.”
*
In
what ways (if any) can you identify with the prodigal son?
*
Imagine yourself in a similar situation to the father in the story.
What would you do?
Prayer for Today:
Jesus, thank you for giving me the space to learn from my own mistakes.
Amen.
Day 28 - Saturday (March 28)
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Forgiveness is dynamic, always happening, always needing to happen
because we live in a far ‘less than perfect’ world and we are far ‘less
than perfect’ people. Like daily bread, which we share with others as
an expression of God’s justice, we receive forgiveness daily, and we
share it with others as an expression of God’s love. How could we not?
We have been given a chance to get things right. How could we deny
that chance to others?
In
the Gospel of John, we are told of a woman, caught in the act of
adultery, who was dragged by a group of angry men to Jesus. They
reminded Jesus that the law commanded them to stone such a woman to
death. They stood there, stones in hand, wanting to know if he agreed.
In
the anger-filled silence that followed their question, “Jesus bent down
and wrote with his finger on the ground.” the text doesn’t tell us what
he wrote, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he scratched “Where is the
man?” into the dust. Be that as it may, Jesus finally stood up and said
to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw
a stone at her.” He bent down again and went back to writing in the
dirt. Again we don’t know what he wrote, but I wonder if it might have
had something to do with God’s mercy, compassion, forgiveness.
One
by one, the men dropped their stones and left. Jesus looked up and said
to the woman: “Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one sir.” To
which Jesus replied, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from
now on do not sin again” (John 8:2-11). She was not condemned; we are
not condemned; we are not to condemn. She was given the freedom to make
new and better choices; we are given the same freedom and expected to
offer that freedom to others.
My friends, if anyone is detected in a
transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a
one in a spirit of gentleness. Galatians 6:1
Questions to Ponder:
* What do you make of the fact that
the woman caught red-handed in the act of adultery was not condemned by
Jesus?
*
Luther said that the law should be used to restrain the wicked (civil
use of the law). Does this contradict Jesus’ teaching? Why or why not?
*
How
can someone be both forgiven and held responsible for their actions?
Prayer for today:
Un-condemning God, if I am carrying any stones today, help me to drop
them. Amen.
Day 27 - Friday (March 27)
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Relationships matter to God - and so relationships should matter to us.
“Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one
another” (1John 4:11). It is important to remember this. Much damage
has been done by those who think God cares more about “the rules” than
relationships.
Once
Jesus told his followers, “So when you are offering your gift at the
altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against
you, leave your give there before the altar and go; first be reconciled
to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew
5:23-24).
Imagine a pastor confronting a man who shows up in church on a Sunday
morning, offering in hand, scowl on his face, and his wife absent. The
pastor asks where his wife is; he responds that they had an argument and
are not talking to each other. Now imagine the pastor telling him,
“Well, take your offering with you and get out of here! Go back to your
wife, make it right with her, and then come together, hand in hand, with
your offering.” Hard to imagine,isn’t it? And yet that is exactly what
Jesus told his followers to do.
Jesus
once told Peter that if someone kept sinning against him, he should just
keep forgiving (Matthew 18:21-22). Relationships are that important.
Such
gratuitous forgiveness neither condones the offense that is forgiven nor
welcomes continued offense. Forgiveness takes the offense with great
seriousness, but takes the relationships involved with equally great
seriousness. Forgiveness does not necessarily restore a broken
relationship (some relationships are so destructive they are better not
restored), but it does create the conditions for people to make new,
better, more just choices and, thus, to make new relationships.
Jesus
counseled against the ancient but conventional wisdom of “an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth” - or as we say today, “Don’t get mad, get
even”. He substituted for it the unconventional wisdom that calls us to
love our enemies and do good to those who would harm us (Matthew
3:38-45; cf. Romans 12:17-21). As Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said, “An
eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
Put away from you all bitterness and
wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and
be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in
Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:31-32
Questions to Ponder:
*
In
what ways does our culture discourage rather than encourage forgiveness?
*
Are
there some sins (and thus people) that should not be forgiven? Explain.
*
Are
relationships really as important as Jesus makes them out to be? Why or
why not?
Prayer for Today:
Jesus, grant me the courage to say
“I’m sorry” and the courage to say “I forgive you” whenever these words
need to be said. Amen.
Day 26 - Thursday (March 26)
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
If we
are in debt to God and in need of God’s forgiveness, then it stands to
reason that we are in debt to each other and in need of each other’s
forgiveness. Our failure to love each other as God loves us runs up our
debt to God while at the same time running up our debt to each other.
As
St. Paul wrote, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another”
(Romans 13:8). When we do not love, we are in debt to those we owe
love. When we are not loved, those who have failed to love us are in
debt to us. We cannot pay the accumulated debt, and neighbor can they.
The only answer to this spiral of debt is forgiveness, a clean slate, a
fresh start, a renewed relationship.
As
God forgives our sins, we forgive those who sin against us, and we pray
that those we have sinned against will do the same - forgive us. As
this cycle of forgiveness replaces the spiral of debt, everything old
passes away, everything becomes new (2 Corinthians 5:16-19).
Lots
of ink has been spilled trying to explain away the apparent conditional
nature of God’s forgiveness in this petition. It can be (and has been)
argued that God will forgive us only to the degree that we forgive
others. That would suggest, however, that our forgiveness of others
earns God’s forgiveness of us. Such an interpretation smacks of
“works righteousness,” the notion that human behavior trumps God’s grace
and “merits” God’s forgiveness, salvation, blessing. It doesn’t.
We
forgive as a grateful response to God’s already granted forgiveness, and
in recognition of the fact that forgiveness is the royal road to renewed
relationships. That God freely forgives us in no way means that sin
doesn’t matter to God. It does, and so do sin’s consequences, which
usually continue way past forgiveness-consequences that demand our
attention.
God
forgives, not in spite of sin, but because of sin. Sin is a disrupter
and destroyer of relationships and God wants a healthy relationship with
us. And so, God forgives. God wants us to have healthy relationships
with each other. And so, God calls us to forgive as we have been
forgiven. When we pray this petition, we are saying, “God, you keep on
forgiving us and we’ll keep on forgiving others because that’s the only
thing that makes sense in a broken world.
But God proves his love for us in that
while we still were sinners Christ died for us - Romans 5:8
Questions to Ponder:
*
In
what ways are our debt to God and our debt to each other interrelated?
*
How
does forgiveness break the spiral of debt?
*
What
does it mean to say that God forgives because of sin and not
in spite of sin?
Prayer for Today:
Forgiving God, as far as it depends upon me, may there be forgiveness in
all my relationships. Amen.
Day 25 - Wednesday (March 25)
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
The
fifth petition in our Lord’s Prayer is about a subject dear to the heart
of Jesus - forgiveness. Jesus both declared divine forgiveness (for
example, Luke 7:47; Matthew 18:21-22). He saw forgiveness as a two-way
street: God freely forgives us, and, within the ethos of divine
forgiveness, we freely forgive others. That’s just how things are under
the rule of God.
Although Matthew’s Greek is often translated “Forgive us our
trespasses,” the word literally means “debts”. In this prayer we ask
God to forgive our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. In
Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to “forgive our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” So what is
all this talk about debts?
It
doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to realize that we are
deeply indebted to God. God has created this planet in such a way that
it bountifully provides all that is needed for a meaningful and happy
life for all people. We are in debt to God in that we have a moral
obligation to recognize God’s beneficence with the gratitude it
deserves. We rarely do. We “owe” God trust and love and a life lived
in keeping with God’s gracious will - it is a debt that keeps growing as
we turn our trust and love toward the things of this world rather than
toward the creator of this world.
God
deals equitably with us and expects us to deal equitably with each other
- our lack of justice is rolled into the debt that we owe God.
God has compassion on us and treats us with mercy - our indifference to
others adds to the debt that we owe to God.
Our
failure to pay our moral obligations, our “debt” to God, is one way to
define sin, and that is why in some translations of the Lord’s Prayer we
ask God to forgive our “sin” and in others we ask God to forgive us our
“trespasses” (a word that literally means “to commit an offense, to
transgress, to sin”).
Our
debt to God is so great that we cannot repay it, and so we have no
recourse but to ask for forgiveness - a forgiveness that God is quick to
grant (for example, Luke 23:34, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19; Psalm 103:10-12).
In granting forgiveness, God grants the gift of relationship, the gift
of a future not chained to or determined by the debts and sins of the
past.
If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,
he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-9
Questions to Ponder:
*
Which
word do you prefer: trespasses, sins, or debts? Why?
*
In
Matthew’s Gospel, why do you think Jesus used a word that literally
means “debt” instead of a word that literally means “sin”?
*
Does
it make you feel any different asking God to forgive your debts instead
of sin?
Prayer for Today:
Forgiving God, thank you for removing
the weight of my debt. Amen.
Day 24 -
Tuesday (March 24)
Give us today our daily
bread
When Jesus
taught his followers to pray for daily bread, he probably did not have
the sacrament of Holy Communion in mind. Given the nature of Jesus’ own
life and teaching, his command that we pray for daily bread was most
likely a command that we pray for simple ordinary bread, food for the
day, the material necessities of life.
Nevertheless, the experience of the church in the years following Jesus’
death and resurrection has encouraged people of faith to see the daily
bread for which we pray both as ordinary bread and as the bread
of Christ’s presence in Holy Communion. We pray for ordinary bread to
strengthen our bodies. We pray for the bread of Christ’s presence to
sustain our spirits.
When we come
to the table of Christ to receive bread and wine, our minds (and faith)
are drawn in three directions - the past, the future, and the present.
When Jesus blessed bread and wine and gave it to his followers during
his last supper, he told them to eat and drink to remember him (Luke
22:19). When we come to the table of Christ, we come remembering what
Jesus said and what he did how he lived and how he dies, and why.
After giving
his followers the bread and wine Jesus said to them, ”I tell you, I will
never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink
it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). When we
come to the table of Christ, we come anticipating the great feast when
“people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat
in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 13:29)
In speaking
of the sacramental bread, Paul declares, “Because there is one bread, we
who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread”(
1Corinthians 10:17). When we come to the table of Christ, we don’t come
alone. We come as “one body”, men and women and children bound to each
other in the present moment as those who need the spiritually nourishing
“daily bread” of Christ’s presence in order that together we might have
the faith, strength, and courage to daily follow Jesus in the way of
God.
When we come
to the Lord’s table for daily bread, we come remembering, anticipating,
and following.
They
devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:42
Questions to Ponder:
*
Does it
make sense to you to add Holy Communion to the meaning of “daily bread”?
Why?
*
Usually, we
think of communion in terms of remembrance. Do you agree that communion
also focuses our attention on the present and the future?
*
What does
it mean to say that because we all eat of the “one bread” we are all
bound together in “one body”?
Prayer
for Today:
Enlivening God, thank you for satisfying my hungry soul with bread of
Christ’s presence. Amen.
Day 23 -
Monday
Give us today our daily
bread
Today we
ponder a much deeper meaning to the prayer for daily bread. Yesterday,
we noted that we do not live by bread alone, “but by every word that
comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). This can be taken to mean
that we live by Jesus, the “Word [that] became flesh and lived among us”
(John 1:14). Jesus is Word of God - the one who makes God known.
In the
mystical and poetically beautiful language of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus
declares, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be
hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).
We hunger
and thirst for so much - and so much of what we hunger and thirst for
dies not satisfy. So much of our time, so much of our work, so much of
our efforts and planning go into securing this, that or the next thing
that we hope will satisfy our hunger- but they don’t.
Our true
hunger is for God, and the baubles of our culture will not satisfy this
hunger. As St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century, “God, you have
made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their
rest in you.” Our prayer for daily bread must be accompanied by the
recognition that bread alone will not fill the gnawing emptiness within.
The prophet
Isaiah well understood this human restlessness that only God can still:
Come,
all you who are thirsty,
come
to the waters;
and
you who have no money,
come,
buy and eat!
Come,
buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why
spend money on what is not bread,
and
your labor on what does not satisfy?
(Isaiah 55:1-2)
Abide in
me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I
am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them
bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5
Questions to Ponder:
*
What does
the image of vine and branches tell you about our relationship with
Jesus?
*
What
cultural evidence is there of the “restlessness” of the human heart?
*
How do we
know when our hunger has been satisfied, our thirst quenched, our
restless heart finally at rest?
Prayer
for Today:
Jesus,
teach me what it means to abide in you, to be nourished in you, to bear
fruit in you. Amen.
Day 22 -
Saturday
Give us Today Our Daily
Bread
It is
possible to make too much of bread - both in its literal and figurative
sense. It is also possible to confuse needs with wants.
We have
noted that “bread” is a metaphor for the material necessities of life.
Safe and nutritious food is a necessity. A $200 meal is not. Safe and
clean water is a necessity. “Designer” water is not. A good and safe
place to live is a necessity. A million dollar house is not. A safe
way to get where we need to go is a necessity. A $75,000 automobile is
not. Safe and affordable health care is a necessity. Elective cosmetic
surgery is not. When we make too much of “bread” and confuse genuine
needs with wants, we make a mess of things for ourselves and others. We
get distracted by things that might be nice to have but really don’t
matter and, in our distraction, we miss much of what makes life truly
meaningful and happy.
At the
beginning of his ministry, Jesus went into the wilderness to pray and to
confront the temptations that are common to human kind. He ate nothing
during his time in the wilderness, and when it was almost over he was
famished. “The tempter came and said to him,’If you are the Son of God,
command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It
is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that
comes from the mouth of God”’. (Matthew 4:3-4)
We are
strange creatures. On the one hand, we are flesh and blood, biological
creatures who cannot live without “bread”. On the other hand, “bread
alone” is not enough. We are ensouled flesh and blood, spiritual
creatures who truly cannot live without “every word that comes from the
mouth of God” - words such as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (the fruit of
the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23).
When we pray
for our daily bread, we should not make too much of bread; we should
remember that “bread alone” is not enough, and so we should also pray
for the “fruit of the Spirit”.
No, the
word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for you
to observe. Deuteronomy 30:14
Questions to Ponder:
*
In what
ways does our culture “make too much of bread”?
*
What
criteria can we use to distinguish between real needs and wants?
*
How do we
“consume” every word that comes out of the mouth of God?
Prayer
for Today:
God,
nourish me with your Word, sustain me with your Word, correct me with
your Word, guide me with your Word. Amen.
Day 21 -
Friday
Give us today Our Daily
Bread
Could there
be anything more important than food in making life worth living?
Perhaps only one thing - food eaten together. From the family meal to
the village festival, from dinner out with someone special to a lunch
break in the cafeteria, from the church potluck to the wedding east,
from sitting around a campfire toasting hot dogs to inviting friends
over for pizza - eating together is one of the best things we do.
Relationships are formed around food. We get to know each other, we
discover our commonalities, we laugh and cry, we celebrate our joys and
share our sorrows - all around food. In so many ways, sharing food is
the “tie that binds” us together.
Jesus ate
with anybody who would eat with him. And he was criticized for it.
About himself he said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and
they say “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and
sinners!”’ (Matthew 11:19). No one was excluded from Jesus’ table
except those who excluded themselves. The only ones who didn’t
experience the good food, good wine, and good times at Jesus’ table were
those who thought they were too good to eat and drink (let alone talk
to) the folks who joyfully sat down to the table with him.
Jesus’ meals
with “tax collectors and sinners” were a powerful symbol that in Jesus
God’s rule had begun. For centuries, the “great day of the Lord”, the
coming of God’s kingdom had been symbolized by a great banquet where
everyone had their fill of the inest food. One of the great
prophecies of this “great day of the Lord” comes from the prophet
Isaiah, and there is no doubt but that Jesus knew it well:
On this mountain the
LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a
feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with
marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
(Isaiah 25:6)
Jesus’ open
meals with “tax collectors and sinners” were a foretaste of the feast to
come. Our daily bread, our meals together, are also a foretaste
of the feast to come.
Now all
the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And
the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow
welcomes sinners and eats with them. Luke 15:1-2
Questions to Ponder:
*
What do
church potluck suppers have to do with Jesus’ open meals?
*
Do you like
the idea that Jesus was criticized as a “glutton and a drunkard”?
*
Why do you
think that a banquet or feast was used as a symbol for the fulfillment
of God’s hope for the world?
Prayer
for Today:
God of
such abundance, thank you for common meals in which that abundance is
shared. Amen.
Day 20 -
Thursday
Give us today our daily
bread
Bread means
bread - but it also means much more than bread. It is a metaphor for
the material necessities of life. When we pray for daily bread, we
recognize our dependence upon God for “bread”, for all those things that
sustain life, that bring security, that make the experience of being
alive a good experience. For all too many people, the experience of
being alive is not a good experience. And that matters to God.
Christianity
cannot be reduced to a concern with spiritual things alone. It also has
to do with the earthy, the fleshly, the bodily, the physical. When
Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”
(John 10:10), he wasn’t only talking about eternal life, he was also
talking abut this bodily life we live right here and now.
This life we
live right here and now is a gift of God, but it is a fragile,
vulnerable gift - we so easily suffers and die from want of bread - and
so we pray for daily bread, for whatever is needed to protect the gift.
In the Hebrew book of Sirach (written about 180 B.C.E.) we are told,
“The necessities of life are water, bread, and clothing, and also a
house” (Sirach 29:21). In our globalizing world, we might add to the
list: health car, education, the arts, equal opportunity, freedom from
political and military violence; in short, whatever gives security,
happiness, and meaning to human life. When we pray for daily bread, we
pray for it all - for ourselves and for everyone else. No exceptions.
And God is able
to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that
by always having
enough of everything, you may share abundantly in
every good work.
As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor,
his
righteousness endures forever.” 2 Corinthians 9:8-9
Luther:”
[Daily bread means] everything included in the necessities and
nourishment of our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house,
farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright
children, upright members of the household, upright and faithful rulers,
good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good
friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
Questions to Ponder:
*
Look again
at Luther’s definition of daily bread above. Have you thought about
“daily bread” this way before?
*
What might
you add to Luther’s list to make it more twenty-first century?
*
When it
comes to people suffering for want of “bread”, do you agree that it is a
problem of distribution and not scarcity?
Prayer
for Today:
Giving
God, grant me and all people sufficient bread for the journey through
life. Amen.
Day 19 -
Wednesday
Give us Today Our Daily
Bread
For the past
three weeks we have focused on God’s name, God’s kingdom and God’s will.
Now our focus shifts. In the last four petitions of the Lord’s Prayer,
our attention is drawn to human needs - our need for bread, our need for
forgiveness, our need for rescue and deliverance.
First, we
pray for “our daily bread”. Again, the little word our is worth
thinking about. Christian faith is personal in the sense that we all
stand personally before God, are all loved personally by God, and are
all personally called to follow Jesus in the way of God. But Christian
faith is not individualistic. It is never only about me. We always
stand before God as part of both the community of faith and the larger
community of humankind. Christian faith connects us to everyone. When
anyone suffers, we all suffer; when things go well for anyone, things go
well for everyone. As the seventeenth-century English poet John Donne
so beautifully put it:
“Any man’s death diminishes me
because I am involved with mankind.”
To be
Christian is to be involved in humankind. In the Lord’s Prayer, we do
not pray for “my” bread; we pray for “our” bread. We pray that no one
would go to bed hungry, would suffer from malnutrition, would die for
lack of “bread”.
The
celebration of Holy Communion gives us a powerful symbol of what it
means to pray for “our” bread. Have you noticed how the sacrament
levels the playing field” The wealthy and the poor, the strong and the
weak, the powerful and the powerless, those who have the “good life” and
those for whom life is a constant struggle - everyone comes to the table
of Christ and everyone eats. Everyone, regardless of his or her station
in life, gets the same small piece of bread, the same small cup of wine.
The “haves” do not get the whole loaf while the “have-nots” get the
crumbs, as so often happens in the world outside the church. The bread
and wine of Christ’s presence is food for the journey, and no one gets
left out.
When we pray
for “our daily bread”, we are praying that the fairness and justice of
Holy Communion would become the fairness and justice of our world.
Those who are generous
are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.
Proverbs 22:9
Questions to Ponder:
*
Do you
agree that Christian faith is “personal” but not “individualistic”?
*
What does
it mean to you to stand before God in the larger community of humankind?
*
In what
sense is John Donne correct when he says that anyone’s death diminishes
us?
Prayer
for Today:
Lord
of the harvest, thank you for “bread to strengthen the human heart”. May
everyone’s heart be strengthened with bread. Amen.
Day 18 - Tuesday
Your
will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Once,
when Jesus was asked if he was hungry, he said, “My food is to do the
will of him who sent me” (John 4:34). He hungered and thirsted for
God’s will. We, on the other hand, hunger and thirst for so many things
that have little if anything to do with God’s will.
With
our mouths, we say the words “your will be done,” but all too
often our lives say “my will be done”. If we are going to pray
this prayer rightly, we will need to take Paul’s advice seriously:
Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests
of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with
God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the
form of a slave. (Philippians 2:4-7).
Impossible? It would seem so in our culture, which encourages us to be
full of ourselves, self-centered, self-absorbed, selfish - quite the
opposite of the mind of Jesus.
Paul’s advice that we think with the mind of Christ, that we look first
to the interests and needs of others, would indeed seem like hard, if
not impossible, advice to follow if, six verses later, he had not
written, “It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and
to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). This is something
that every baptized Christian should know, claim, and experience
for themselves. God is at work in us.
Perfection is not in the cards for finite human beings. That being
said, it is nevertheless true that, open to the enlivening, empowering,
guiding presence of the Spirit of Christ within us, we are capable of
living a lot closer to the will of God than we usually do.
As God’s chosen ones, holy and
beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, and patience. Colossians 3:12
Questions to Ponder:
*
What
are some of the major “hungers” and “thirsts” of our culture?
*
What
are the cultural values and forces that work against our having the
“mind of Christ”?
*
What
would you say is evidence that God is at work in your faith community?
Prayer for today:
Holy God, help me to sort out my
hungers and thirsts so I know which are in keeping with your will and
which are not. Amen.
Day 17 - Monday
Your
will be done, on earth as in heaven.
If
God’s will is that we should all walk humbly with our God, then God’s
will must be that those of us who are doing just that help others get to
the same place. Not by coercion, not by button-holing them, not by
pestering or intimidating them - but by the persuasive power of love.
As Jesus told his followers, “By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
According to Paul, God “reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has
given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was
reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against
the, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Corinthians
5:18-19). God’s reconciling of the world was a pure act of love and the
message of that love is ours to live out and share in a largely loveless
world. As Mother Teresa once said, we are all “a little pencil in the
hands of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
Evangelism is at the heart of God’s will for us. The word
evangelism, however, troubles many Christians. It conjures up
images of aggressive proselytizers, religious fanatics or extremists who
self-righteously demand to know if others are “saved”. But this is not
evangelism, and there is no need for people of faith to tremble at the
sound of the word.
True
evangelism is simply sharing in one way or another what’s real for you.
Evangelism is speaking and living the good news of God’s love,
God’s justice, God’s forgiveness, God’s compassion and God’s salvation.
Usually, living the good news will come before speaking the good news.
To paraphrase the saying “Build it and they will come,” “Live it and
they will ask about it”. And then with “gentleness and reverence,” you
simply give an account “for the hope that is in you,” for the love that
drives you, for the faith that gets you up in the morning and sees you
through the day (1Peter 3:15-16a). To pray that God’s will be done on
earth is to pray for the faith and courage both to live under the rule
of God and to invite others to do the same.
But you are a chosen race, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may
proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9
Questions to Ponder:
*
How
is God’s will that Christians be evangelists expressed in your faith
community?
*
What
do you think is the content of the “message of reconciliation” God has
entrusted to us?
*
Many
Americans feel that faith is a private matter not to be shared. Do you
agree?
Prayer for today:
God of invitation, I want to live in
such a way today that I am an expression of your message of
reconciliation. Amen.
Day 16 - Saturday
Your
will be done, on earth as in heaven.
If
there is one thing that is clear from the beginning to the end of the
Bible, it is that God desires to be in relationship with us. We have
already seen that one of the things God wants from us is that we “walk
humbly with [our] God.” Throughout the Bible, God beseeches his people
to “return” to God, return to following God. Isaiah 44:22 represents a
constantly recurring refrain:
I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud,
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you.
“Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” When we pray that God’s will
be done on earth, we are praying that we (and everyone else) would
return to God, trusting and celebrating the forgiveness and redemption
that have been freely given to us.
Jesus
came to make God known. He knew that the only truly human life is life
lived with God the only life that finally makes sense is life lived with
God, the only life that truly is life is life lived with God.
On
the night before he died Jesus prayed for his disciples, “And this is
eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Knowing God and following the
God you know is what the life of faith is all about. Walking humbly with
God - a life of prayer, immersion in the Bible, learning to love (1 John
4:7-8), and living faithfully - is the path to such knowledge. Walking
that path is the will of God for us.
We
might also say that God’s will is that we should live lives that are
good for us and good for others. Walking humbly with God is just such a
life. As God said through the prophet Jeremiah, “For surely I know the
plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for
harm, to give you a future with hope” (29:11). When we pray that God’s
will be done on earth we pray for such a “future with hope”, a future
grounded in and dependent upon our deepening relationship with God.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also
be guided by the Spirit Galatians 5:25
Questions to Ponder:
*
In
what ways does your community of faith foster a humble walk with God?
*
How
do worship and the community activities of the church cultivate and
nourish a humble walk with God?
*
While
waiting for church to begin, read the Sunday bulletin and church
newsletter looking for examples of the ways in which the church does
justice. Where might you get involved?
Prayer for today:
God, I do not know where today will
take me. I only pray that, wherever I go I walk with you. Amen.
Day 15 - Friday
Your
will be done, on earth as in heaven.
At
first glance, it may seem somewhat strange to hear that God wills us to
love kindness. In our impersonal, high-powered, high-pressured,
high-tech, high-maintenance world, it seems that there would be more
productive, more efficient, certainly more important items on God’s
agenda. At second glance, maybe kindness is just what we need to make
the world more humane.
Kindness is listed as one of the nine “fruits of the Spirit”, one of the
nine characteristics of those who “live by the Spirit” and are “guided
by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-25). Kindness is the goal of those who
pray “your will be done on earth...”.
Jesus
was kind. He told the crowds who gathered around him, “Come to me, all
you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and
humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew
11:28-29). Over and over again, we are told that when Jesus saw the
crowds with their questions, their suffering, their need, “he had
compassion for them” (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32). On two occasions, in
arguments with religious leaders who were angry with Jesus for not being
fussy about the “rules,” Jesus said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”
(Matthew 9:13, 12:7). Jesus did not have a rules-based understanding of
religion; he has a relationship-based understanding. What was good for
people mattered and so he told his followers, “Blessed are the merciful”
(Matthew 5:7).
It is
a radical kindness that Jesus asks of us for he knew that kindness as
the will of God is rooted in the very nature of God: “But love your
enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward
will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind
to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is
merciful” (Like 6:35-36). When we pray this prayer, we pray that we
would come to see kindness not as law but as gospel, as a grace-inspired
quality in human relationships that we seek to learn and to live.
Thus says the LORD of
hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and
mercy to one another, do
not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or
the poor; and do not
devise evil in our hearts against one another.
Zechariah 7:9-10
Questions to Ponder:
*
Does
it seem strange to you that kindness is included in the will of God?
*
Think
about a time you were treated with unexpected kindness.
*
In
our impersonal, high-stress, competitive world, kindness might seem a
luxury we can ill afford. Is it?
Prayer for today:
Jesus, let me back in your kindness
today and find rest for my soul. Amen.
Day 14 - Thursday
Your
will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Today, and for the next two days, we will take a closer look at God’s
will through the lens of Micah 6:8. Jesus’ own teaching was right in
line with Micah 6:8. For example, at one point he sharply criticized
some religious people of his day who were fastidious about observing
religious rules and rituals while they “neglected the weightier matters
of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). Sounds a lot
like justice, kindness and walking with God.
The
demand for justice in the Bible is grounded in the nature of God. God
is just; it is God’s will that we be just (for example, Deuteronomy
10:18-19). And as the prophets and Jesus make clear, justice is not a
question (as we often mistakenly believe) of civil or criminal law - it
is about equity, fairness, sharing the abundance that God has so
graciously provided. As we hinted at on day nine of this forty-day
journey, in a truly just world (one living under the rule of God),
nobody would have more than enough of the material necessities of life
until everyone had enough. Then, it would be all right to have more
than enough - but only then. As folks who live in a society that has
been diagnosed as suffering from “affluenza”, we would do well to
ponder God’s will for justice.
Justice for the oppressed means deliverance; for the oppressor it means
judgment. Justice overturns the gross political, economic, and social
inequities that diminish, damage or even destroy the lives of some for
the benefit of others. This matters to God. It mattered to Jesus. It,
therefore, matters to those who follow Jesus.
Both
Matthew and Luke declare that the Spirit of God anointed Jesus to
“proclaim justice” and bring “justice to victory” (Matthew 12:18-21,
Luke 4:16-21). It’s what he was about. It is what we are to be about.
It is why we pray, “Your will (not my will) be done on earth.”
16 Wash yourselves; make
yourselves clean;
Remove the
evil of your doings from before my
eyes; cease to do evil,
17
Learn to do
good; seek justice,
Rescue the
oppressed,
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the
widow.
Isaiah 1:16-17
Questions to Ponder:
* Is it possible for something to be
legal and yet unjust?
*
Do
you agree that American society suffers from “affluenza”?
*
Jesus
gives priority to doing justice over observing religious rules and
rituals. Do you think that religious rules and rituals might be used to
mask injustice?
Prayer for today:
Loving
God, today, in the decisions I make that get me from morning to night,
may I seek to be fair in my dealings with others. Amen.
Day 13 - Wednesday
Your
will be done, on earth as in heaven.
It
seems important - doing the will of God. At on time Jesus told his
followers, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete
his work.” (John 4:34) At another time, when told that his mother and
brothers had come to see him, he declared, “Here are my mother and my
brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and
mother” (Mark 3:34-35). It seems that being a part of the family of God
involves doing the will of God.
So
what exactly is the will of God? One might point to the Ten
Commandments as the will of God. One might point to all of Jesus’
teaching. One might also point to Micah 6:8 - the best one-line
description of both the will of God and a truly Christian lifestyle that
can be found in the Bible. It is a text that sums up both the Ten
Commandments and Jesus’ teaching:
[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
The
will of God in a nutshell.
Naive
though it may seem, one wonders how the world would change if
politicians and diplomats, business leaders and economists, and all the
other powers that be would ask themselves three questions before making
decisions that affect the lives of countless people: What does this have
to do with justice? What does this have to do with loving kindness?
What does this have to do with walking with God?
Given
the broken, sinful nature of humankind, it’s not going to happen anytime
soon. But what if these questions guided the agenda, decisions, and
actions of every Christian faith community, and of each individual
Christian man, woman, and child? How would the world change - given the
fact that there are some two billion Christians in the world - if people
who pray “your will be done” took God’s will a bit more seriously? What
would happen if we all were a bit more serious in taking the will of God
as “a lamp to [our] feet and a light to [our] path” (Psalms 119:105)?
Do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern
what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2
Questions to Ponder:
*
At
this point in our Lenten journey, what do you think it means to “do
justice”?
*
What
do you think it means to “love kindness”?
*
What
do you think it means to “walk humbly with your God”?
Prayer for today:
Jesus,
you are the light of the world, and you have declared your followers to
be the light of the world. Let it be so. Amen.
Day 12 – Tuesday
Your
kingdom come…..
It is
terribly important that we recognize that the kingdom has broken into
(and continues to break into) human reality – first in the life of Jesus
and second in the lives of those who follow Jesus. But there is
also a “not yet” dimension to the kingdom. Even as we live now under
God’s rule, we wait in hope (and pray) for the final coming of the
kingdom in all its completeness.
When
we think about the coming kingdom, we think of human life brought to
perfection. We think about the reign of perfect justice and perfect
love; we think about goodness, truth, and beauty. We think about seeing
God face to face and finally knowing what is now too great for human
minds to grasp. “Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see
face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as
I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
When
we think about the coming kingdom, we are reduced to vision and poetry:
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
A feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged
wines,
Of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged
wines stained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain
The shroud that is cast over all peoples,
The sheet that is spread over all nations;
He will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
And the disgrace of his people he will take away
from all the earth,
For the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 25:6-8)
It is
for this we pray when we say “your kingdom come”. It is the hope that
sustains us as we work now under the rule of God to turn this old world
“upside down”. (Acts 17:6-7)
Questions to Ponder:
·
What
are the signs of the kingdom that broke into human reality in the life
of Jesus?
·
What
signs do you see of the kingdom, breaking in through the lives of Jesus’
followers?
·
Which
dimension of the kingdom – the “now” or the “not yet” – gets the most
attention from you?
Prayer for Today:
God of today and tomorrow, today and
tomorrow I want my life to be a sign of your kingdom. Amen.
Day 11 - Monday
Your
kingdom come...
There
are many images of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching, but dominant
among them are images of eating together, of food and drink, of growth
and of value beyond measure. In Matthew 13:31-33, 44-48, Jesus tells
five short parables that give us word pictures of the way he thought
about the kingdom.
First, the kingdom is like a mustard seed. A tiny seed is
planted. It grows. It takes time, but it grows. It becomes a shrub
and then at last a tree - and birds find refuge and food, a place to
call home in its branches. From the planting of a tiny, seemingly
insignificant, practically worthless seed, over time shelter and
safety for others come. Such is the kingdom.
The
kingdom is like yeast. A woman making bread mixes a small amount
of yeast into the flour and it changes things. Over time, the dough
rises and there is bread to feed the hungry. No yeast, no bread. Such
is the kingdom.
The
kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field. A man finds it,
sells all that he has, and buys the field. Nothing that we think has
value and is worth striving for comes anywhere close to the value of the
kingdom. It is the only treasure worthy of our striving, worthy of our
prayer. Such is the kingdom.
The
kingdom of God is like a merchant who finds a pearl of great
price. He is a man who knows a good deal when he sees it. He sells all
that he has and buys that pearl. With great joy and single-minded
devotion he goes after that which has great value. So it is in the
kingdom where men and women of faith live with great joy and
single-minded devotion under the rule of God because no other life makes
sense. Such is the kingdom.
The
kingdom is like a net thrown into the sea. It catches fish of
every kind. That’s the net’s job. Such is the kingdom - radically
inclusive, drawing everyone in, good and bad together. Separating the
good from the bad? That’s God’s job, not for us to worry about, for
only God knows which is which. Such is the kingdom for whose coming we
pray.
At daybreak [Jesus] departed and went
into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when
they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. But he
said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to
the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.”
Luke
4:42-43
Questions to Ponder:
*
Why
do you think Jesus chose ordinary things to use as symbols of the
kingdom?
*
Which
of the images of the kingdom in today’s reading speak most powerfully to
you?
*
Jesus’ images of the kingdom come from his world. What images might we
use from our world to describe the kingdom?
Prayer for Today:
Lord, today I intend to be as
welcoming and inclusive as a “net” of the kingdom. Amen.
Day 10: Saturday
Your
kingdom come....
When
we pray for the kingdom to come, we are, in a profound way, praying for
love to come. Jesus rejected the then-popular notion that God’s kingdom
would come through violence against those opposed to the coming of the
kingdom. At one point, he told his followers, “You have heard that it
was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say
to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that
you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45). Like
Father like child - or so it is supposed to be.
The
way of God is the way of love. The early Christians seemed to know
this, and their life together, while by no means perfect, demonstrated
it. (for example, Acts 2:44) Paul knew it. He tells us, “Owe no one
anything, except to love one another.” (Romans 13:8) Martin Luther knew
it. He tells us, “A Christian lives not in himself but in Christ and in
his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ
through faith, in his neighbor through love.”
The
rule of God is the rule of love. A scribe (an expert in the law) once
asked Jesus which commandment was the most important. To paraphrase his
answer, Jesus replied that the first was to love God who made you and
the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. The scribe agreed:
“You are right Teacher; you have truly said that ’he is one, and besides
him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with
all the understanding, and with all the strength’, and ‘to love one’s
neighbor as oneself’, - this is much more important than all whole burnt
offerings and sacrifices.” To which Jesus replied, “You are not far
from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:28-34)
Not
far? Why not in? Perhaps because Jesus saw a difference between
knowing the right answers and living the right answers. The distance
between “not for” and “in” is the distance between talking about love
and loving. After all, he did tell his followers, “Not everyone who
says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the
one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
Little children, let us love, not in
word or speech, but in truth and action.
1John
3:18
Questions to Ponder:
*
Jesus
asks us to love our enemies. Why, then, is there so much physical,
psychological, and spiritual violence done in the name of religion -
even the Christian religion?
*
What
do you think Luther meant when he said, “A Christian lives not in
himself but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a
Christian?
*
What
differences do you see between understanding Christianity as a way of
belief or thought and understanding Christianity as a way of life?
Prayer for Today:
God of love, today I will see to
follow the rule of love in all my relationships, trusting in your Spirit
to guide my way. Amen.
Day 9: Friday
Your
kingdom come......
Most
of us worry a lot. We are fearful creatures, full of anxiety. There
seems to be good reason. We live in a competitive if not cutthroat
world, and we wonder and worry if there will be enough for us. It is
hard to feel secure when financial institutions fail, when prices go up
and salaries don’t, when the housing market collapses, when pensions
fold, when healthcare costs skyrocket, when both personal and national
debt goes through the roof. Most of us worry a lot - both the well-off
and the not-so-well-off. When we pray “your kingdom come,” we are
seeking a way out of worry, a way beyond fear.
In
the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows a deep understanding of human
anxiety. He pinpoints our many worries about what we will eat and what
we will drink and what we will wear - metaphors for the many fears,
anxieties, desires, cares, and distractions that constantly consume is.
Then he asks a question that we would all do well to ponder: “Is not
life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25-31)
It is - if life is lived under the rule of God.
Rather than worry about what we will eat or drink or put on, Jesus
suggests that we trust God for all that. If we did, we would discover
that we need much less than we think we do to have a life that is good
for us and for others. God knows what we need, and rather than
focus on all that, we should “strive first for the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
(Matthew 6:33)
In
the Gospel of Luke, right after telling his followers to strive first
for the kingdom, Jesus tells them: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for
it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke
12:32). Another paradox. God gives us the kingdom; we must
strive for it. God gives us the kingdom. God has created the world
in such a way that if everyone were satisfied with ‘enough’, there would
be enough for everyone. It is for us to strive for such a reality.
When
we pray “your kingdom come”, we pray that God would bring about equity
and fairness and dignity and richness of life for everyone. And we pray
that we would not take more than enough of what God provides until
everyone had enough.
I do not mean that there should be
relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair
balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their
abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair
balance. As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.”
2
Corinthians 8:13-15
Questions to Ponder:
* Is
it true that we need much less than we have to live a happy, meaningful
life?
*
If,
as Jesus suggests, life is more than food and the body more than
clothing, what is life really about?
*
In
what ways does your faith community both receive and strive for the
kingdom of God?
Prayer for Today:
God, let me cast my worries on you,
trusting you know better than I what I truly need. Amen.
Day 8: Thursday
Your
kingdom come.....
People are interested in power, interested in being in control, in
calling the shots, in setting the agenda. People care about position
and privilege. But not the kingdom of God.
Once,
when Jesus’ followers were worrying about divvying up the positions of
power and privilege in the kingdom, Jesus set them straight by saying,
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their
great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but
whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.” (Matthew
20:25b-26) Jesus turns things upside down. That’s the way it is under
the rule of God.
On
another occasion, his followers (who were often a bit slow to catch on)
asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” His answer:
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this
child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:1-4)
The
kingdom of God is a relationship between us and God, in which we
acknowledge our dependence upon God. Children are good at this.
Children are very relational creatures. Indeed, nothing matters more
than their relationships with parents, siblings, relatives and others
who love them and care for them - and who they love back. They don’t
need to acknowledge their dependence; it goes without saying. And it’s
not a bad thing - it is just the way the world is for them. And (in a
good family) the very young live joyfully in the confidence that the
“rule” of their parents is naturally good.
As
children grow from toddlerhood to adulthood, however, this broken world
of ours teaches them different ways of being. Power, position and
privilege become quite important - as they were to Jesus’ earliest
followers. Perhaps that’s why Jesus’ announcement of the good news of
the kingdom or rule of God was accompanied by the call to repent, the
call to turn around and return to the childlike faith that what God
wants for us and from us is and always will be good.
Jesus said, “Let the little children
come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the
kingdom of heaven belongs.”
Matthew 19:14
Questions to Ponder:
*
Why
is power (the ability to control others) not a characteristic of the
kingdom of God?
*
When
Jesus calls us to be “humble” like a child, what do you think he means
by humility?
*
Is
Jesus’ call to repent a threat or a promise (law or gospel)?
Prayer for Today:
God, help me become aware of the ways
in which I exercise power in my relationships and give me the grace to
serve rather than be served. Amen.
Day 7: Wednesday
Your
Kingdom come...
Now
we will study for a week what we could profitably spend a year - or
more. We will be thinking together about the one thing that Jesus
seemed to think about most - the kingdom of God. In the Gospels, the
work kingdom appears some 123 times, Jesus uses the word 98
times. It is at the heart of his message. Mark - the earliest of all
the Gospels - records the beginning of Jesus’ ministry this way: “Jesus
came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time
is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe
in the good news.”’ (Mark 1:14-5)
And
the “good news”, of course, is that the kingdom is for everyone. The
only ones excluded are those who exclude themselves, those who - for one
reason or another - do not want to live under the rule of God.
Which
brings us to a paradox: the kingdom both is and is not. It has begun in
the life of Jesus, and it continues to spread in and through the lives
of people who follow Jesus - but it has not yet come in its fullness and
completeness. The world is still mostly a mess. All creation does not
yet live under the rule of God. When we pray “your kingdom come,” we
are praying for God to make his rule complete, we are praying for
God to clean up the mess we have made. But, we are also praying that
God’s kingdom would come to and through us; we are praying that we would
live faithfully under God’s rule, that we would be part of the clean-up
team.
Even
a quick reading of the Gospels is enough to show that the kingdom of
God, the rule of God, is the rule of love and justice. The rule of God
is the rule of compassion and mercy, the rule of forgiveness. The rule
of God is the rule of equity, of dignity, of peace and prosperity for
all-not for the few at the expense of the many, but for all. The rule
of God, in short, is the rule of life - fullness and richness of life
for everyone. That’s what we ask God to make happen when we pray “your
kingdom come.” And we also ask for the grace to help make it happen.
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees
when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God
is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say,‘Look,
here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among
[and within] you.”
Luke
17:20-21
Questions to Ponder:
*
What
is your relationship to God at this moment?
*
What
does it mean to you to live under the rule of God?
*
In
what ways is “the kingdom of God...among [and within] you”?
Prayer for Today:
God of justice, remind me today that I
am living under your rule, within your kingdom. Amen.