Prayer: The Heart of the Matter

Posted on July 13, 2022 by salooper57
Viewing time: 25 minutes (approximate)

In this message on 1 John 3:18-22, we learn what role the heart plays in prayer and how it can sometimes hinder our prayers from being answered. Yet, there is hope, for “God is greater than our hearts.”

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The Prayer We Repeat Over and Over

Posted on July 9, 2022 by salooper57

In the church circles in which I have moved, and lived, and had my being, people sometimes speak of “a life of prayer.” They have in mind a person who prays more frequently than others. But beyond a life of prayer there is a life that is prayer. As was said of Francis of Assisi, “He seemed not so much a man praying as prayer itself made a man.”

The prayer that is our life can contradict the prayer that is our words. For example, a person may say, “Hallowed be thy name,” while their life cries, “Honored be my name.” They can recite with their mouth, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” even as their life pleads, “My authority be established, my desires be done.” Though they pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” their life declares, “Get me as close to temptation as possible.”

A person’s life is a prayer, a request, and possibly even a curse. It is the prayer that we repeat over and over, parrot-like, to the heavens. It is our real voice. If God were to translate what that life is saying – for one’s life is saying something, and God hears it clearly – what might it be?

What God hears some people pray in their true voice is, “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.” Others say, “Let everyone adore me. I would be god.” Some people’s lives repeat idiotically, over and over, “It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.” Others say, like a broken record, “My will be done, my will be done, my will be done, my will be done…” to all eternity.

On the day of judgment, the real message of our lives will be dug out of us, and we will hear, beyond any shadow of a doubt, our true voice. We will know what prayer our lives have been repeating all along. What a farce it will seem to us then to remember how we punctuated our life’s unceasing mantra, “My will be done,” with the pious refrain, “If it be your will.”

A person’s life is a prayer which God hears and understands. Sometimes he hears a person’s life requesting twenty different things simultaneously, and all of them contradictory. They say thatthey want wisdom yet, when God gives it to them, they refuse to take it. God is prepared to do remarkable things in them and for them, but they are not ready or willing for him to do it. Their divided soul is demanding contradictory things.

What can be learned from this? We can learn that the divided soul, set on one thing even as it “prays” for another, is a problem for all of us – for the pastor and the parishioner, the sinner and the saint. In one sense, the job before us is to bring the life we live and the prayers we speak into agreement. As the two converge, we will see many more prayers answered, and we’ll remain hopeful about those that aren’t. Throughout the history of the church, the people who have been known for their answered prayers were men and women whose lives and prayers most consistently said the same thing.

What can be done about this? We can ask people who know us well to describe to us what they hear our life saying. We can ask, “If my life were a book, what would be its theme?” These friends will see and hear things we miss, things we need – but might not really want – to know. And yet we need to know them.

We can also set about bringing our life and our prayers into alignment. Or say rather, we can tune our prayers and life to the same pitch. This is not accomplished by tuning them to each other, which merely makes a person consistent, but by tuning both our lives and prayers to God and his ways, which makes a person beautiful. Then our prayers will be more consistently answered, and that has been God’s intention all along.

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Getting Married This Summer? You Need to Know This

Posted on July 2, 2022 by salooper57
Photo by RF._.studio on Pexels.com

When I was a kid, I hated to go to the doctor’s office. My doctor was a tall man who always wore a white coat and seemed to have an affinity for hypodermic needles. The only redeeming value I could find in Doctor Schafer was that he kept Highlights Magazines in his waiting room. And the best thing about the Highlights Magazines was the Hidden Pictures page.           

There was a big picture, and everyone could see what that was. But there were also smaller pictures hidden inside, waiting to be discovered. The big picture might be of a farmer’s market but, hidden in the umbrella, was a slice of pizza, and there was a porpoise in the clouds, and an envelope on the boy’s shorts’ pocket.

In a wedding, there is the big picture – “the joining of this man and this woman in holy matrimony” – which everyone sees. There is the bridal party, the beautiful bride, the nervous bridegroom, and all the flowers. But there are smaller pictures hidden here and there throughout the ceremony.

The wedding ceremony is haunted by something so old it could be a ghost – and some people have presumed it is dead and gone. It is the principle of covenant. It materializes at one place in the wedding ceremony, disappears, and then shows up in another. We might not realize it, but almost everything that happens in a wedding is built around the idea of covenant.

Ancient covenants included a sacrifice, which served two purposes: it provided the feast which celebrated the covenant and brought the parties together (the wedding reception does that today); and it provided a warning to the covenant partners. It was a way of saying, “If I don’t keep my covenant vows, may what happened to this sacrificial animal happen to me.” That is why there is solemnity as well as joy in the wedding ceremony.

Where are the covenant pictures hiding in a wedding ceremony? First, in the guests. The officiant welcomes the guest with words like this: “We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining of this man and this woman in holy matrimony.” You, the guests, are one of those hidden pictures. Guests are witnesses to a covenant.

At the heart of every wedding ceremony are the covenant vows that will be kept no matter the cost: “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until they are parted by death.” There are no disclaimers here, no back doors for escape; just promises.

By making such promises, the couple extends their reach into an unpredictable future and make one thing certain: they will be there even when being there costs more than they want to pay. A promise, as Lewis Smedes says, “creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty.”

Photo by wendel moretti on Pexels.com

In ancient covenant there was always a sign – a token that revealed to the world that two parties were in covenant together. In the marriage covenant, the rings are such a token. They let every other guy and gal the couple meets know that they are already in covenant with another.

Even the taking of hands is a hidden picture of covenant. The person making the vow takes the other person’s right hand in theirs. Taking right hands – the handshake – is a carryover of covenant.

Most people understand that it takes the power of love to hold a marriage together, But few grasp the power of marriage to hold love together. There will be times when a couple keeps their promises not because they feel affection for each other – that’s not what they’ll be feeling– but because they entered the covenant of marriage before God and witnesses.

But when we do that and keep doing it – when we love because it is our responsibility – we get to cherish as our reward. We can love even when we don’t cherish but we cannot cherish if we do not love. Experience teaches us that what we choose to love for years we get to cherish forever.

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Look Into the Life and Times of God

Posted on June 25, 2022 by salooper57

(Reading Time: 3 to 4 minutes.)

I bought two side tables for our bedroom, the kind made of pressed woods and veneer, and assembled them myself. They came with step by step instructions, complete with diagrams. Somehow, I could never quite understand the perspective of the diagrams. Was I looking at the pieces from above? Was it a side view and, if so, which side?

The written instructions were worse than the diagrams. I would say they were Greek to me, but I understand Greek better than I did them. The table pieces were, if I remember correctly, constructed in China. I suspect the instructions were written in Chinese, then translated into English by a Russian-speaker, and edited by a near-sighted proof-reader.

I had seen a picture – unless it was of a different table – so I had an idea of what the finished product was supposed to look like.  But how to make it look that way was another matter altogether. I am proud to say our bedroom now has two side tables, though I would discourage anyone from looking too closely at them.

Many people approach the Bible the way I approached that instruction sheet. They have a picture in mind of the finished product – usually admission into heaven upon death – and they open the Bible to read the instructions for achieving that end. But there are problems with this approach, which leaves people frustrated.

For one thing, they are working from the wrong picture. The Bible, contrary to popular belief, is not all about how a human can get to heaven, though it has important things to say on the subject. If we mistake the Bible as a set of instructions for getting into heaven, we will find ourselves wondering why the instructions were not clearer.

People who read the Bible this way get frustrated over their inability to understand it. (I have heard people say so many times.) They cannot help but feel as if the Bible were written in a different language. (It was.) They fail to grasp the perspective from which the biblical writers wrote.

The Bible is a daunting book. It contains approximately three-quarters of a million words. It is comprised of various genres. There are historical books alongside poetry. There are narrative, prophetic, and apocalyptic books. There is also, in spite of what I have written above, a good deal of instruction and exhortation.

These various genres, taken together, comprise a story. The Bible, one could say, is a biography of God. It is his self-revelation, an inspired look into the life and times of God. He is the hero of the story, and it is a big story. It covers eons of time and extends to the reaches of the spacetime continuum – and beyond.

When we read the Bible well, we gain insight into who God is, what he has done, and what he wants. We understand what is important to God, and how he operates – that is, we learn his “ways,” as the Bible itself puts it. If, after reading the Bible, we know how to get to heaven but don’t know the king of heaven or desire his better acquaintance, our Bible reading has been unsuccessful.

Coming to the Bible as an instruction book places me at the controls. The end product of my life then depends on how well I read and follow the instructions. I become the agent in charge. God is simply the technical writer who has composed the instructions—and couldn’t he have written them more clearly?

If, instead, we read the Bible as a book written by someone we know and love and want to know better, our experience with the Scripture is very different. We don’t find ourselves frustrated by difficult texts but intrigued. Instead of reading only enough to accomplish our goal, we read as much as we can to understand. We read carefully, not to prove a point, but to be able to know a person.

When I assembled the side tables, I eventually gave up on the instructions and did it my own way. It’s a shame when people do that with the Bible. They miss so much.

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Is Christian Lifestyle Instruction Odd?

Posted on June 21, 2022 by salooper57

It is easy to forget how odd some of the things serious Christians say and do must seem to people who are not familiar with the faith. I suspect there are times when people think Christians must be from another planet. Maybe that is why St. Peter calls them “aliens.”

Take, for example, the instructions Jesus and the apostles give regarding sex. It can be summarized this way: faithfulness in marriage, celibacy outside marriage. To people who are unacquainted with Christian teaching, this seems crazy. As C. S. Lewis said long ago: “Chastity is the most unpopular of our Christian virtues.”

The biblical proscription against profanity and foul language is another example. Many people, including Christians, think: “They are just words, so how can they be immoral?” But the contempt, anger, and arrogance that lie behind such words are the opposite of the humble, loving life Christ desires for his people.

But it is not just the proscribed behaviors that seem odd to people; it is also the ones that are prescribed. For example, the Apostle Paul, in line with his upbringing in Judaism, calls on Christians to rejoice, and even to rejoice always.

This sounds like evidence of a mental illness to people who are outside the faith. For example, when people who do not have a grasp of Christianity’s big picture hear Paul say, “We rejoice in our sufferings,” or stumble onto St. James’s command to “consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials,” it seems like madness.

There are times when it seems like madness to Jesus’s followers too. I recently missed a speaking appointment, which never got put on my calendar. When I learned what had happened, I was ashamed and humiliated. Would Sts. Paul and James say that I should rejoice in that situation? Wouldn’t that be tantamount to saying that faithfulness to my word is unimportant?

Not at all. Following the biblical injunction to rejoice does not downplay our failures nor does it make light of our sorrows. If I lose my spouse, for example, and continue to “rejoice in the Lord,” it does not mean the loss was not grievous or my love was not sincere. It means that I have reason to believe that things will be okay, and better than okay—for my spouse, myself, and God’s creation.

This example of a seemingly odd Christian teaching is particularly helpful because it illustrates how the lifestyle instruction given to Christians makes sense within a Christian worldview. Outside that worldview, those same instructions seem unworkable or unreasonable.

I can rejoice always, as St. Paul instructed, because the good news of Jesus promises that death has been overcome and that God will make all things new. I can rejoice because a day is coming for me and for all of God’s people when there will be “no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.” I can rejoice because God is making me more than I could ever be on my own and he is doing it not despite my failures and sorrows but in the midst of them.

Christian lifestyle teaching, which seems odd or antiquated to people who do not understand the Christian way, is intended to help the follower of Jesus enjoy life and be helpful to others, which in turn brings glory to God. This is obviously true when it comes to Christian sexual ethics, where faithfulness to my wife makes her life better, our children’s lives better, and my life better. But it is also true of instructions like, “Rejoice always.”

That command comes on the coattails of an instruction to do “everything without grumbling or disputing.” How much more enjoyable a life without grumbling and disputes would be for those who follow this instruction—and for those around them. But that instruction is impossible to follow apart from obedience to the command to rejoice.

The various lifestyle instructions given to Christians are interlocking, like the pieces of a puzzle. When they are in place, they lend support to the whole and they form a picture – a compelling picture – of the beautiful life of faith in God.

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Just Ask (Matthew 7:7-11)

Posted on June 20, 2022 by salooper57
Sermon length: Approximately 24 minutes

Does God want to answer our prayers by giving us what we ask for? The answer the biblical writers give is a resounding yes. Then are the prosperity gospelers right? What about the “name it, claim it” crowd? And, if God does want to answer our prayers, why do so many go unanswered?

Matthew 7 opens up a different way for us to think about prayer than the prosperity gospel crowd does, which nevertheless takes seriously Jesus’s extravagant promises. Prayer is more important than most of us have ever realized. It can be an adventure with God. Let’s enter the adventure!

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Watch Out for “Christian” Nationalism

Posted on June 18, 2022 by salooper57

Every day it is a new headline, but they all sound alike: “Christian Nationalism On the Rise.” “White Christian Nationalism ‘Is a Fundamental Threat to Democracy.’” “White Christian Nationalism Is at the Heart of ‘the Most Radical Fringe Groups.’”

I saw a headline yesterday that read something like, “Evangelicals Are Imperiling America’s Freedom.” As a Christian from an evangelical tradition, I want to object to being cast as the bad guy. But as an observer of the current political scene, I am not sure that I can.

Admittedly, the headlines are political hyperbole that expose an engrained distrust and misunderstanding of religious people. Further, such headlines reflect an editorial bias and serve a political agenda. Nevertheless, there is reason for concern, for there is an obvious link between American nationalism and evangelical Christianity.

To grasp what this is all about, it is necessary to understand the term “nationalism”. There is nothing necessarily religious about it. Nationalism has been around as long as nation-states have existed. It thrives in atheistic, irreligious societies as well as in religious ones.

Briefly defined, nationalism is an attitude that gives priority of place and standing to the nation. Nationalists subordinate other commitments to that of supporting the nation and seeking its wellbeing. This differs from patriotism, for a patriot can honor and sacrifice for their country without elevating its importance above other primary commitments.

It is all about what Augustine referred to as the “order of loves.” Nationalists elevate the nation within that order in a way that sets it at odds with Christian faith. When the nation assumes a place that belongs to God alone, when government crowds out the church in a believer’s thoughts, and when religion is used as a tool in the service of politics, then nationalism has become Christianity’s adversary.

Secularists denounce “Christian Nationalism” because they see it as a threat to democracy, or at least to their version of democracy. Committed Christians also denounce it, but for a different reason. They see it as a threat to the integrity of the faith.

A growing number of Christian leaders warn that nationalism distorts the gospel. This is true, but it could also be said that a diminished gospel causes, or at least leaves people susceptible to, an idolatrous nationalism. Both Christianity and nationalism have a gospel – a message of good news – but they are not the same gospel.

Nationalism, depending on which nationalist “denomination” one belongs to, proclaims the good news that the nation can bring justice, end poverty, rescue the oppressed (fetuses or LGBTQ folk, depending on one’s brand of nationalism), stop crime, protect our borders, punish the wicked (variously defined), bring prosperity, and defend democracy around the world.

The Christian Gospel, on the other hand, proclaims the good news that God has already acted through Christ to forgive our sins (some of which are listed above), to install his king, and to bring his kingdom which alone is peaceable, just, and secure. It is this kingdom that Christians are to “seek first.”

The nationalist longs for power over others. The Christian seeks submission under God. The nationalist serves as judge of the wicked (again, variously defined). The Christian leaves all judgment to God. Nationalists try to crush their enemies. Christians try to love theirs.

The willingness, even eagerness, of some evangelicals to embrace nationalism betrays a lack of confidence in, and even knowledge of, the gospel of Christ. They have relegated it to the religious sphere and to Sunday mornings. The rest of life belongs to the secular world, which is where they suppose the real power lies.

When the church proclaims a diminished gospel – one that is just about getting into heaven when you die – even Christians are drawn away to the gospel of nationalism, which promises to get things done in the here and now. Dressed up in religious attire, nationalism has been attracting liberal Christians for at least a century, and conservative ones since the 1980s.

The trend will continue in the absence of the proclamation of the authentic gospel of Christ, which is world-changing and life-transforming. Such a proclamation is our pressing need.

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Don’t Lose Heart – Pray! (Humility and Prayer)

Posted on June 13, 2022 by salooper57
Sermon viewing time: 25 minutes (approximate)

This is the first message in a series titled, Don’t Lose Heart – Pray! This message on James 4:1-10 explores the foundational link between effective prayer and humility.

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Do Not Wait for the Last Judgment

Posted on June 11, 2022 by salooper57

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “For judgment I have come into the world.” Yet, later in the same Gospel, he says, “I did not come to judge the world.” Did Jesus contradict himself? Did he come to judge or not?

On the surface, these claims seem contradictory. However, if we understand the context in which they were said and examine the specific language Jesus used, it becomes clear that he was talking about different things. There is nothing mutually exclusive about these claims.

Context is important here. Prior to the first statement, Jesus had been speaking to a man who had been blind but had recently been healed. The claim, “For judgment I have come into the world,” is only the first part of a longer sentence, which continues: “so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

It is important to note that Jesus is not claiming here that he will judge people. He says rather that it is for judgment that he has come. But are not those the same thing? They are not.

Jesus did not come, and explicitly says he did not come, to judge or to condemn. His coming nevertheless precipitated judgment on the world. How does that work?

His coming into the world became an occasion – and even an instrument – of judgment. We are familiar with instruments of judgment. A tape measure is one. A plumb line is another. In a similar sense, the coming of Christ into the world is an instrument of judgment for humankind.

The image Jesus chose to illustrate this truth is light. He says, “I have come into the world as a light.” Before his coming, the world was in profound spiritual darkness.

In absolute darkness, it makes no difference whether a person is blind or sighted. I was once on a tour of a cavern when the guide turned off the artificial lights. Everyone gasped. For those few moments, we were in absolute darkness. In that environment, it is impossible to judge whether a person has sight. But turn on the light, and it soon becomes evident which persons can see.

Jesus’ coming turned on the light. If people cannot sense that light or, sensing it, scurry away from it into the shadows, they have passed judgment on themselves. In a related passage in John’s Gospel, Jesus says: “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light . . .”

When Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind,” he was conversing with the man whose sight he had restored. When that man looked at Jesus, he saw goodness and truth.

A group of Pharisees was also present, men widely known for their piety. Standing in the radiance of the light of the world, they could not see past their own reputations to the goodness and truth that stood before them. The presence of Jesus became for them the occasion of judgment. Their spiritual blindness was revealed.

If I listen to the second movement of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, and hear nothing I desire, I do not pass judgment on Bach, but on myself. My musically deaf ear has been revealed. As the coming of Bach judges me, the coming of Christ judges humanity.

Judgment is, in the Bible, both a present reality and a future event. The future judgment will confirm the judgment that we now, by our response to goodness and truth, particularly as embodied in Jesus Christ, pass on ourselves. This is what people don’t understand who complain that it is unfair of God to judge. The judgment he will certify is the one they pass on themselves.

Albert Camus famously wrote, “Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.” In a sense he was right. We are not so much waiting for the last judgment as we are preparing for it, each day, by the kinds of faithful – or faithless – people we are becoming.

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The History and Mystery of the Gospel (Biblical Theology Class)

Posted on June 8, 2022 by salooper57
The History and Mystery of the Gospel

Did Jesus preach the gospel? Did he preach a different gospel than Paul? Was there a gospel in the Old Testament? What did Paul mean when he spoke of the mystery of the gospel? These and other questions are addressed in this week’s biblical theology class on the history and mystery of the gospel.

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