Prayer For Health Care Reform

Lord Jesus, you are the Divine Physician, and the source of all life and health. Guide our nation at this critical moment, as our government seeks health care reforms. Thank you that this nation is giving attention to this critical problem. Give our elected officials the humility to know that they are servants, not masters. Give them the wisdom to realize that every life has equal value. Give them the strength to resist the idea that some lives can be sacrificed to save others or that killing the unborn is a part of health care. Give your people the courage to speak up and to hold public officials accountable for their actions. Save us, Lord Jesus, from a culture of death, and let every reform in our public policy be based on the reform of our hearts and minds in the light of your Gospel, for you are Lord forever and ever. Amen.

Imagining We Are Who We Pretend to Be

To one extent or another, each of us pretends to be something we are not. Whether it’s pretending we actually know the meaning of that word the teacher just used, or leading people to believe we understand the directions they are giving, we all struggle to admit ignorance or weakness. All of us hide what we know ourselves to be especially from those we hope respect us. This “pretending” is really a form of lying, and becomes most significant when we “pretend” with God and God’s people. I believe one of the most crucial steps in the Spiritual life is the courage to admit our brokenness and to understand as Brennan Manning says, “God loves us as we are and not as we should be because we are never as we should be.” I was thinking of these things as I read these words this morning.

And so, like runaway slaves, we either flee our own reality or manufacture a false self which is mostly admirable, mildly prepossessing, and superficially happy. We hide what we know or feel ourselves to be (which we assume to be unacceptable and unlovable) behind some kind of appearance which we hope will be more pleasing. We hide behind pretty faces which we put on for the benefit of our public. And in time we may even come to forget we are hiding, and think that our assumed pretty face is what we really look like (Simon Tugwell).

May Grace save us from the idolatry of believing we are not broken and selfish sinners, who helplessly stand in Egypt needing redemption.

The Lord’s Supper as Gospel Proclamation

“For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
(1 Corinthians 11.26, NIV)

We evangelicals of the 20th and 21st centuries have been especially fond of creative metaphors used to explain the Gospel to the “un-evangelized” (the cross as a bridge and faith as sitting in a chair to name only two). For reasons I will not attempt to evaluate, our motivation to proclaim the gospel seems directly related to the perceived effectiveness of our canned presentation, including the catchy metaphors.

According to 1 Corinthians 11.26, we have been given an image or specifically a drama that Paul tells us when engaged “proclaims (a word used of what evangelists do in the NT) the Lord’s death until he comes.” So here’s what I’d like us to do. PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL USING THE TABLE AS THE CONTROLLING METAPHOR. Put another way, “How would you present the gospel to someone by explaining the Lord’s Supper?” Paul says the gospel is proclaimed when we eat the bread and drink the cup. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?

Sadly, the manner in which many “Christians” approach the Table reveals a works salvation or at least a works sanctification. I believe if we understand this sacred meal is designed to proclaim the gospel, we will be headed toward understanding and enjoyment and proclamation. So how would you go about proclaiming the gospel from the Table?

Top Five Songs From the Top Band?

What are your top five songs from the Irish rockers U2 and why? Here’s mine in no particular order. 

1. “Walk On” – No matter the artist, this will always be one of my favorites, because of these first lines. “Love, it’s not the easy thing, the only baggage you can bring, It’s all that you can’t leave behind.” Also, this song was used through America’s grieving process after the World Trade Center attacks, to convince at least a segment of our country that avenging this evil would head in the opposite direction of redemption. 

2. “Miracle Drug” – Have you heard the story behind this song? The band met a young quadriplegic boy for whom was developed a special medicine that allowed him to write poetry! Check out the video where Bono tells the story.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSd2KSoR4RM This song also rightly denies that our ultimate need is for “romantic love.” What we all need is the Father/Son love God offers us in Jesus through adoption. 

3. “Where the Streets Have No Name” – No need to explain. 

4. “Pride In the Name Love” – As both John the Baptist and Jesus and MLK have proven, when the Kingdom of Heaven advances on earth, sometimes its boldest witnesses surrender their lives in the name of love. But they could not take your pride! 

5. “Grace” – I’ve never heard a better, more artistic, more true definition of grace than the story told by this song. 

So what are your top five U2 songs and why?

Praying the Lord’s Prayer as Americans?

As we continue our study, Eternal Prayer Apprentices: Learning to Pray With Jesus, and as we especially move along in our exploration of the Lord’s Prayer, I continue to struggle with the likelihood that our prayers our self-centered, that we truly desire our own name to be hallowed and that we really want the American kingdom to advance (and the kingdom of our enemies to fail), etc. Thus, I am further convinced that we must participate in the prayers of Jesus if our selfishness is to be dissolved. In this light, I think it is helpful to shine the light of the Lord’s Prayer upon our common prayers for our nation, specifically, the United States of America. At the outset let me emphasize there is much biblical precedent for praying for the nation in which we find ourselves. It is important to remember however, that these admonitions are always given to a people who are in exile and under the “oppression” of foreign powers. People who are citizens of another city are implored to pray for the earthly city in which they temporarily reside.

With that said, one book that I believe excellently communicates the danger of joining the Church (or more broadly the kingdom of Jesus) to earthly kingdoms (Rome, Greece, Persia, America) is Greg Boyd’s small book, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church. My plan is to blog through the book inviting honest and soul-searching dialogue. Throughout, Boyd highlights the radical difference between all other kingdoms and the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus proclaimed. What do you think of these words? 

The governments of the world seek to establish, protect, and advance their ideals and agenda. It’s in the fallen nature of all those governments to want to “win.” By contrast, the kingdom Jesus established and modeled with his life, death, and resurrection doesn’t seek to “win” by any criteria the world use. Rather it seeks to be faithful (pg. 14). 

What are your thoughts? How does the nature of an earthly kingdom make it impossible to join that earthly kingdom to the kingdom of heaven, proclaimed by Jesus? What does it look like when people try to join the kingdoms of this world (John 18.36) to the kingdom of Jesus?    

Of Conversion and the Sweetness of Honey from Jonathan Edwards

The pulpit ministry of American Pastor/Theologian, Jonathan Edwards, was largely devoted to describing evidence that the supernatural work of the Spirit had indeed been done in the life of the professing believer. Edwards ministered in the American colonies to a people who struggled to differentiate between 1) English citizenship and the consequent membership in the Church of England, and 2) the miraculous new birth wrought only by the Holy Spirit that is the work of salvation. The quote below comes from his sermon, “A Diving and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God.” And you thought my sermon titles were long!! In the sermon, Edwards is contrasting the individual who has intellectually ascended to the truth of the gospel and the individual who has that inward sense that the gospel story is the truest of all. In contrasting the two, Edwards compares the former to one who believes honey is sweet because trusted individuals have told him. The latter he compares to one who knows that honey is true because he has been told and because he has tasted honey for himself! I encourage you to do the work of reading this excerpt. Then allow the Spirit of God to ask you, “Have you tasted that the Lord is good?”

Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance. There is a wide difference between mere speculative rational judging any thing to be excellent, and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. The former rests only in the head, speculation only is concerned in it; but the heart is concerned in the latter. When the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension. It is implied in a person’s being heartily sensible of the loveliness of a thing, that the idea of it is sweet and pleasant to his soul; which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is excellent. 

The Lord’s Prayer (Part 2 – cont.) Community Bible Study

Continuing to welcome discussion as we move forward in our exploration of the Lord’s Prayer. Just a bit of review. The Lord’s Prayer is Jesus’ invitation to make his story our story. Jesus’ story is that he was sent by his Father to accomplish Exodus for the world. The reason the world needs Exodus is because we are in Adam (i.e. Egypt). All creation needs redemption from slavery to the strongest of tyrants – sin.

As we are “in Adam” we are committed to our own self-centered agenda. But the Lord’s Prayer is an invitation up into the agenda of heaven. So we need to ask ourselves, “What does the Lord’s Prayer reveal the agenda of heaven to be?”  From this starting point, meditate on the “Thou petitions” from the Lord’s prayer. 

Our Father who is in heaven…

Hallowed be Your name…

Your kingdom come…

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

I can’t wait to hear the ideas that spring from your meditation.

The Lord’s Prayer (Part 2) – Community Bible Study

As we discussed Sunday morning, the Lord’s Prayer is Jesus’ invitation to his followers to make his story their own. The Lord’s Prayer tells the story of Exodus. It communicates a great deal about Jesus’ mission – namely, that the Father sent him to accomplish Exodus for the world. We will now begin a two part exploration of the actual prayer – devoting June 14 to the “Thy petitions” – Matt 6.9-10 and June 21 to the “us petitions.” But before our cyber-discussion begins, I’d like us to consider a contextual question. WHAT CONTRIBUTION DOES MATTHEW 6.1-8 MAKE TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE LORD’S PRAYER? In other words, if praying to be noticed by others is the problem, how does the Lord’s Prayer solve that problem? I look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible!!