Technorati Tags:
Monday, March 10, 2008
On this Day, One Year Ago...
I love you so much, Sara. You're my lifelong love. It has been a terrific first year together, and I pray for many more adventurous years to come.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Why Live Simply?
Technorati Tags:
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley, Jr.: 1925-2008
Kind. Warm. Generous. Magnanimous. Brilliant. Truly faithful.
RIP.
National Review's editorial tribute is here.
Video of Senator Joeseph Lieberman's tribute on the floor of the United States Senate here.
MORE: This funny little tidbit comes from the WSJ online:
RIP.
National Review's editorial tribute is here.
Video of Senator Joeseph Lieberman's tribute on the floor of the United States Senate here.
MORE: This funny little tidbit comes from the WSJ online:
A precocious controversialist, William was but 8 years old when he wrote to the king of England, demanding payment of the British war debt.And let us not forget that Buckley was the man who popularized the theologically rich statement (originally penned by Eric Voegelin): "Immanentize the Eschaton."
Technorati Tags:
Monday, February 18, 2008
The Prayer Jesus Gives Us
© 2008 by Christopher D. Drew
Sermon Focus: The prayer life of the church finds its source in God, who by grace desires to be near to us and to hear both our praises and our pleas. Our prayer life, however, is clouded by our modern misconceptions about what prayer is, coupled with our own false starts and fears.
Sermon Function: To encourage listeners to pursue a life of prayer, and to provide insights from Matthew 6:5-15 for how we might structure our prayers.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
Technorati Tags:
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Unbearable Cuteness of Being
For Valentine's Day, my sister sent these pics of our new niece, Lauren:
I'd say someone is pretty darn happy today!
I'd say someone is pretty darn happy today!Technorati Tags:
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Worshiping the Lord God
© 2008 by Christopher D. Drew
Sermon Focus: Jesus temptations by the devil are designed to test his spiritual maturity. Whereas Adam and Eve failed the testing of the devil, Jesus Christ prevails, relying on God’s very word to parry the attacks of the tempter.
Sermon Function: To encourage listeners that we should strive to turn away from the idolatries that tempt us to worship someone or something other than God; to encourage listeners to renew their spiritual commitment to Christ; and to remember the great hope we have in Jesus, the one who did withstand all the temptations of life, and who, at the cost of his life, secured our eternal salvation.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
Introduction
We are now in the season of Lent, a season of introspection and repentance. Starting with Ash Wednesday, the Christian community is reminded of its sinful nature, and of its finitude – its mortality.
Today’s text takes us into the wilderness, a place long associated with isolation, loneliness, and temptation, where Jesus has an encounter similar to the one that beset Adam and Eve at the dawn of creation.
Let’s listen now to God’s word to us.
[Read Scripture - Matthew 4:1-11]
Introductory Comments
The story of Jesus’ temptation by the διάβολος, Satan, is an appropriate text to start off the Lent season. We are in the great forty days preceding Easter, and Jesus was himself taken up, immediately after his baptism, into the wilderness for a period of testing lasting forty days. Moses was in the mountain for 40 days and nights in order to receive the Law, Elijah was tested for 40 days and nights, and the people of Israel wandered in the dessert for 40 years. Wilderness, isolation, and temptation are all elements related to the idea that we are tested by God.
Jesus is presented by Matthew as being in a state of physical duress. He has fasted throughout his time in the wilderness, and is now famished. This is a potential weakness, and sure enough, the temptation comes.
The First Temptation – You’re Hungry, So Eat
Matthew records that the tempter first tests Jesus by suggesting “if” he was the Son of God, why not turn these stones into loaves of bread. Jesus is tested hear to satiate his immediate need, food. Are you hungry, Jesus? All you need to do is get a little bread in you. There are actually two parts in the devil’s first temptation. The first part of the question is meant to induce doubt. “If you are the Son of God,” the devil said. Jesus has just entered the wilderness having heard the divine voice proclaiming him to be the Son, the Beloved, at his baptism. The deceiver first sews doubt, and then moves on to the matter of Jesus’ hunger pains.
Writing in Presbyterians Today, Kenneth Bailey notes that this first temptation can be thought of as the very human need to have things.1
We all have human needs that must be fulfilled for us to survive. And that’s okay. We’re created beings and as such have basic needs that require our attention. But what of other things that we need, or just want? What effect do these things have on our lives of faith?
In fact, our perceived needs can be destructive. Even one of our most basic needs, eating, can be destructive, because it can devolve into gluttony and guilt. And we are all time persuaded that we “need” things that we really don’t need.
Our perceived needs can overwhelm us, in fact. Our needs can become so important to us that we forget the One who already knows what we need – the One who provides food for living creatures. The One who gives us life itself. And when our needs take over and we forget the source of our lives, we have committed one of the most basic, commonplace sins of all – idolotry. We sin when our perceived needs take the place of God.
Jesus responds to the slander’s temptation by quoting scripture, Deuteronomy 8:3 to be exact. “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matt 4:4 NRSV). The temptation was bested by referring to the great repository of truth we have in the Holy Scripture.
The temptation to have is put down by Jesus with the use of a Book. About this fact, Dale Brunner writes:
“If Jesus found his way into ministry and around temptation through the faithful remembering of Scripture and sacrament, the church should not think that she can find better ways.”2And I think the same can be said of us individually. All to often we neglect the discipline of reading and reflecting on the Word of God. The season of Lent affords us the opportunity once again to reinvigorate this practice.
Temptation Two – Supernatural Displays of Power
In the next temptation, the scene shifts and the devil says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone’” (Matt 4:6 NRSV). Interesting that the devil, having heard Jesus quote Scripture, now quotes Scripture himself, this time from Psalm 91.
A good friend of mind once sought spiritual direction at a silent retreat. A silent retreat is what it sounds like – silence. My friend had reached a point in his life when he felt like he was “stuck” spiritually. He went to a monastery far away, and was placed under the spiritual director of one of the monks. For him, the silence was very awkward. Silence was expected everywhere, including during mealtimes. My friend shared with me that it took him several days to figure out the appropriate way of asking one of the brothers to pass the green beans. You first had to get the attention of the monk closest to the beans, and then through as series of silent nods, winks, and gestures communicate that you wanted him to pass the beans.
The only time talking was allowed occurred during one-on-one discussions with the spiritual director. My friend expressed his frustration at his current spiritual state. The monk looked at him for a moment, and then asked him the question: “What does your heart desire the most? Think about this for the next day, and then let’s meet again.”
My friend went back to his cell and reflected on the question for some time, and then again the next day. When he met with his spiritual director, he answered by saying, “I want to be the most faithful servant of Jesus Christ that I can be.” Again, the monk observed my friend, and then said to him, “Take another day to think about it, and then let’s talk.” My friend was taken aback, initially, but followed his director’s advice and reflected some more on the question about what his heart most desired.
He arrived again at the office of the spiritual director, and was asked the question about what his heart most desired. This time my friend knew the answer. He said this:
“What I most desire is to be famous, to be popular and well-liked, to have people look to me as a leader, and to be respected and admired for who I am. I want to be viewed as a person of high achievement. I want to be known in my community as a success.”
This second temptation is the temptation to do, to be a person of accomplishment, to be spectacular, famous, high-achieving. To have your posse, your entourage around to catch you when you fall, to push those pesky photographers out of the way so that you have unobstructed access to the VIP room at the most popular club in town.
Here’s that sin of idolatry once again. This time, however, it’s more like idolatry of fame rather than of things. And fame become idolatrous when it causes us to take our eyes off what ought to be the true object of our worship, almighty God.
Jesus quotes Deuteronomy once again when he corrects the devil’s abusive use of Scripture and replies, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Matt 4:7 NRSV).
Dale Brunner writes, “Where the first temptation had tried to reach Jesus through his week spot, he now tries to reach Jesus through his strong spot, his faith in God’s Word.”3 We have our own strong spots, areas of expertise and achievement, but these can become idols when they start us down the road of sinful pride. Pride becomes the idol, and we lose sight of God.
Temptation Three – Power
In the third temptation, the devil takes Jesus up to a very high mountain, and promises him all of the kingdoms of the world, in all their glorious splendor and beauty. All that Jesus needs to do is fall down prostrate in front of the slanderer, and to worship him.
First it was idolatry of things, then idolatry of fame, and now it’s an idolatry of power that forms the basis of the test. Brunner calls this “the temptation to make our work God.”4 The risk here is thinking that what we do is an essential component of what God does. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it is God who is the source of everything we have in life. Jesus was likely tempted this time around. He knew his mission. Why not take a little short cut, make a small bow, and take everything in early, before God’s purpose has been fulfilled? One of the great risks of the social gospel, which got its start at the beginning of the last century, is that someone we could, through actions of our own will, bring the Kingdom of God to existence hear and now. All we needed to do was get hold of the powers of the world, the governments, schools, and ecumenical organizations. “Our work, however, while important, is not God and must never be treated as God. We must not seek to be successful at any price or else we have made success our God.”5
Concluding Remarks – Lent and Spiritual Discipline
In each of the three temptations, idolatry is a big risk. Idolatry of the self, of fame, and of power and faith in our own works. Idolatry is worshipping something other than God. During this season of Lent, we have a wonderful opportunity to work together to develop ways of trying to forestall these temptations in our lives. We do this by rehearsing practices that have been part of Christian life for over 2,000 years.
An importance practice for many people during Lent is to give something up. I like the idea of giving something up, because it affords the opportunity to take something up that might have been neglected. In this case, it might be a good time to examine some of the historical practices that have guided the church. Together with members of First Presbyterian Church Corpus Christi, you are invited to take part in a five-week Lenten series on Christian Spiritual Disciplines. This year, we’re going to focus on five in particular: Meaningful Worship, our prayer lives, the ancient tradition of meditation, living simply, and acts of service.
The first practice, meaningful worship, is really what this sermon is all about. Whom do we worship? How do we remain focused in worship, so that the temptations have less of a chance to sidetrack us, so that we’re not left worship meaningless idols, or worshipping ourselves? These fives weeks are meant to be a practical examination of what we’ll be preaching each Sunday. The schedule is in your bulletin, and you are invited to come and be a part of this joint experience between our two great churches.
The Good News
The good news in today’s text is this: Jesus saves! This story illustrates that when we fail our testing, as our first parents Adam and Eve failed, Jesus Christ passed them all with flying colors. And that means his perfection covers over our own imperfections. This passage, then, is really a wonderful foreshadowing of the wonder and joy that is Easter.
Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
1Bailey, Kenneth. “The Temptation of Jesus.” Presbyterian Outlook. January 16, 2008.
2Bruner, Frederick. Matthew: A Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1987, p. 106. ↩
3Ibid., p. 108. ↩
4Ibid., p. 112. ↩
1Ibid., p. 112. ↩
Technorati Tags:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Introduction
One of the constant frustrations many Christians feel, including myself, is not really knowing how to pray. I have heard many times, in church life and in seminary, that prayer comes only with great difficulty. “My words aren’t adequate,” says one person. “I’m not good at it,” says another. Yet another says, “I don’t pray because I’m not worthy enough.”
For those who find have struggled to maintain their lives of prayer, there is frequently another kind of problem. Many find that their prayers end up just being laundry lists of requests. And of course, one of the most common complaints is that a person’s prayer life is reduced to bargaining – that is, the person only seems to discover the acute need to prayer when something huge is at stake. “Oh God, if only you would do [promise here], I promise that I’ll faithfully attend worship each Sunday.”
This week, we get some guidance from the place where we should usually turn first, Scripture! As we continue with our Lenten series on spiritual disciplines, I’ve been eagerly waiting for the opportunity to preach on this text, which is about prayer.
Let’s listen to God’s Word to us.
[Read Scripture - Matthew 6:5-15]
Advent Disciplines – Prayer
This past week, almost 70 people came to a kickoff our joint Advent Series on Spiritual Disciplines for our congregation and the congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Corpus Christi. What a great time we had! I was particularly pleased to see so many familiar faces in the crowd. Bob Malsack, Sara, and I presented our thoughts on worship and its rhythm, practical guidance for making our worship more meaningful, and comments about how we can extend our worship into our everyday living.
This week, the topic is prayer. Our scripture text from Matthew is actually a portion of the lectionary reading for Ash Wednesday. Here we receive Jesus’ words about prayer. And you may have noticed that the text is organized into two big chunks. The first chuck tells us what we should not do when in prayer. The second chunk with what we ought to do.
Prayer is the lifeblood of the Christian, and an incredibly important privilege. And I do mean it is a privilege. As created beings, made in the image of our heavenly Father, we are encouraged to actually speak with Him. What a great privilege! It should inspire awe in us. More often than not, however, it inspires feelings of inadequacy and even fear. But Jesus, our Savior, here tells, in very practical terms, how to become more fully engaged pray-ers. And as I’ve read about this text and prepared to write this sermon, I have to tell you how exciting it is to once again revisit these familiar words with fresh eyes. I hope in some way that I might let you see these words with fresh eyes as well – because what we have here in our text is solid gold assurance and encouragement in prayer, if we only open our eyes and take it in.
Part One – What Not To Do
A couple of things can be said about Jesus’ admonition to pray in private. First, it would have been the custom at the time to pause during the course of daily life to offer up prayers. In particular, pious Jews at this time would have stopped what they were doing to offer up specific prayers at about three p.m. each day – the time when sacrifices were made at the temple.
Jesus doesn’t very much like this practice, even through it was common. Private prayers given in public had two audiences – God and everybody else who might notice the pray-er. And that’s the rub. For Jesus, prayer to God should be offered to God alone. As Dale Bruner notes, “Prayer is not a form of evangelism, addressed to other people. Prayer is addressed to God, exclusively.”1 No mixed audiences. Jesus is of the opinion that prayer is to be addressed solely to God. To do otherwise runs the risk of ostentation, of trying to look good, to look pious, to be, in some fashion, the object of admiration and worship ourselves. That’s a non-starter, says Jesus, “Go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt 6:6 NRSV).
After making it clear that prayer is most appropriately offered to God alone and in private, Jesus then makes some statements about the words we use. Specifically – You don’t need to use a lot of them. Why would Jesus say something like this?
This is the first of two “antirules” for prayer. The first addresses an issue that certainly was a problem among pagan religious traditions during this time – use a whole bunch of words to try to demonstrate your piety to God, in order to convince God to grant your request, which can have the effect of reducing God to a grudging giver.2 No, says Jesus, don’t babble on in prayer. Keep is short and simple.
The next “antirule” is this: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matt 6:8 NRSV). The obvious response to this saying is: So why pray at all? If God already knows everything, why bother?
The fact that he knows everything ought to be liberating for us. The reason our closest relationships with our closest friend, family members, and spouses are the closest is because these people know us the best. We can tell people in our closest circle almost anything. Because God does know everything, we ought to feel encouraged to approach him with everything that might be weighing on our minds.3
Keep it short, says Jesus, and don’t worry too much about the content, because God is closer than your closest friend. You really can share anything with Him. What a liberating thing! The quality of prayer isn’t something you can calculate by worldly standards like word count or word choice. Just be honest.
Martin Luther put it this way:No need to babble on, says Jesus, and feel free to talk about anything.
Part Two – The Model for Prayer
We recited this next part of our Scripture today earlier in our worship. This is the Lord’s Prayer. Having given us a couple of things to avoid – don’t use lots of empty words, and you Father already knows – Jesus then gives us a model for prayer. He says, “Pray then in this way” in verse nine. We could also translate this bit, “Pray like this.”
Following this are an address, three petitions about God, and three petitions regarding our needs.
“Our Father in heaven,” is the opening address. It is a short opening, as you might expect given what Jesus just said about wordiness. But the statement is actually a tremendous gift. You see, Jesus is God’s only Son. We are God’s children by adoption, by God’s grace. So here Jesus is inviting us to pray to God as if he were our own Father. God, then, is the Father all. With this simple phrase we become a member of the divine family. What an amazing gift!5
The other thing to notice about this opening address is the Jesus’ use of the word “our.” The Lord’s Prayer may be said individual, but the use of the word “our” reminds us that our prayer is a prayer not just for me, Christopher Drew, but a prayer for the entire community.
God, Please Be God
The first petition is then raised. “Hallowed be your name.” To be hallowed is to be set apart from the rest. I like Dale Bruner’s view on this. To be hallowed is to be made central, the central focus of our prayer and our lives.6 Here we ask God to be who God is – Holy, and the central focus of our lives.
We then ask for God’s kingdom to come. This is the Kingdom that we’re talking about – the one that comes on the last day, when Jesus returns in glory. This is actually a big deal – an “intense” request, to paraphrase Martin Luther. This is a prayer for the replacement of our current reality and history with something entirely new from God.
“Your will be done,” is the next petition asking God to be God. Let your will be done, Lord, as you want it to be done. “On earth as it is in heaven,” applies to the entire first three petitions. Let your name be hallowed here on earth as it is in heaven. As your kingdom is known in heaven, let it be so also on earth. As you will is executed in heaven, let you will prevail over the earth.
In each of the three petitions, then, we are asking God to be who God is, and to do whatever it is God wants to do. Be the central focus, God. Be the one who brings the kingdom to full fruition. Let your will be enacted. The first three petitions are all about God being God.
Our Needs
The next three petitions address critical human needs. Not personal needs, but needs that all humans have.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” Another way to translate this is “give us bread today for tomorrow.” We have the critical need for sustenance each day, and by this prayer we ask for that need to be met. I think that this is a very challenging petition for us, however, given that none of us likely has to worry much about where the next meal will come. The “our” of this petition then becomes very important. If we are confident that we know where our next meal will come from, then the only real honest way of praying this petition is by remember those in our community and in our world who do not have such luxury, and for whom the next day’s meal is never a certainty. When we pray for God to give us our daily bread, we are praying not just for ourselves, but on behalf of the entire community.
Debts and debtors. This is another incredible part of the prayer Jesus gives us. You see, by the very fact that we are sinful people, we stand in debt with God. We need forgiveness. This petition, that our debts be forgiven, means that we are asking God for an amazing grace – the grace of having our debts written off the divine balance sheet. This is an audacious request – as audacious as someone calling Citibank and asking them to forget that you have an outstanding balance. That kind of thing just isn’t done, but with God, Jesus encourages us to ask for such forgiveness. And we are also reminded in this section that our forgiveness is consequent on our forgiveness of others.
And finally, “Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one” (Matt 6:13 NRSV). We are all the time surrounded by temptation and trials. We are here asking God to preserve us from the worst of these, and to “rescue us,” perhaps more literally “snatch us up”7 from the evil one. Bruner sums this petition up nicely, “Dear Father, please lead us in such a way that we will be able to resist the temptations that both consciously and unconsciously surround us; please constantly swoop down and rescue us from all the wiles of the evil one and all his evil works – we need your help.”8
Those are the six petitions of the prayer. With the first three, we humbly ask God to be who God is. Only after this do we move on to our own communities needs. The need to be fed. “Please give us the food so that we can stand up; please give us forgiveness so that we can stand up straight.”9 And finally, once we’re standing up straight, lead us forward as only You can.
Concluding Remarks
This is a prayer, friends, about God, and about us. It is not a personal prayer where we present God with our list of things. It is a prayer we say on behalf of the whole community, even as we pray it in the locked closet away from the crowds.
The Lord’s Prayer is an outline. You can shape a prayer like it using words that you create. But when those words are lacking, you’re more than welcome to simply recite the very words Jesus gives us.
I hope, by spending some time in greater detail with this wonderful gift of a prayer that we often take for granted, that you might have some new insights into how it is structured and what really we’re asking for when we say it. I also hope that you will join us for another engaging discussion about prayer this coming Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church, Corpus Christi, as we continue our Lenten series on spiritual disciplines. Let us pray.
Father in Heaven, we ask you again to be who you are, the central focus of our lives. We ask that your kingdom come sooner rather than later, so that our world might be transformed according to your heavenly will. Sustain us each day with those things we need, especially those of us who are at immediate risk. Let your forgiveness rain down and drown out our sin. Help us share your forgiveness with others. Lead us forward, we pray, and carry us over the traps dug for us by the adversary. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.
1Bruner, Frederick. Matthew: A Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1987, p. 106. ↩
2Ibid., p. 235. ↩
3Ibid. ↩
4Luther, Martin. The Sermon on the Mount (Sermons). Vol. 21 of Luther’s Works, p. 142-143. ↩
5Brunner, op. cit., p. 239. ↩
6Ibid., p. 241. ↩
7Ibid., p. 255. ↩
8Ibid. ↩
9Ibid., p. 252. ↩