That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. Joel 2:12-13 (NLT)

I had the opportunity to participate in an Ash Wednesday service this morning (complete with an ashen cross rubbed onto my forehead) and was struck by the words of Joel, specifically “…tear your hearts…”, which were read aloud to the congregation.

How might I live out this scripture over the coming days of Lent?

Over the past few hours, a few thoughts on this have bounced around my head and heart:

• First, I look to all the words of this scripture and am reminded that whatever the Lord calls us to, he calls us to out of his mercy, compassion, and unfailing love. This is his character and it does not change. Understand it or not, in calling his people to honest repentance he is calling them to his love.
• Second, I do not believe I can rend my own heart open on my own power. I need to ask for the support of grace in coming to him honestly, in the ashes of repentance for whatever I have done and whatever I have left undone, be the doing or “non-doing” conscious or not.
• Third, I will benefit as I remember that I am part of the catholic Church. I am joining in the fellowship of the Body of Christ, a fellowship that extends beyond language, borders, and even time. I humble myself during Lent just as many who have gone before me have done, just as many who share this world with me today are doing. There is a willingness to let your soul be searched by the One who loves us when we know that others are doing the same!
• Finally, I need to lean into the ancient-present practice of Lent by adding a daily prayer to my life (scripted below) and as I fast from something that will be missed (and will therefore be reminded to turn my hunger, my desire, to the Lord so that he can have my heart to do with as he pleases). Both of these practices will, I believe, create an opening in my life for Him to whatever work he needs to do in this man’s soul.

The Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian

O Lord and Master of my life, keep from me the spirit of indifference and discouragement, lust of power and idle chatter. [kneel/prostration]

Instead, grant to me, Your servant, the spirit of wholeness of being, humble-mindedness, patience, and love. [kneel/prostration]

O Lord and King, grant me the grace to be aware of my sins and not to judge my brother; for You are blessed now and ever and forever. Amen. [kneel/prostration]

May my heart be broken open before Him…

Imagine that God is light and that God is love. Now imagine that God’s Being is the lens through which the light of his love shines.

Last week I was talking with a friend about Jesus’ parable of the prodigal. It’s beautiful story (and if you’ve not read it, do so right now, you won’t be sorry) that captures the extravagant love of a father for his wayward sons. In the midst of the conversation it became apparent that there’s no indication that the father had to try to love his sons well, he just did it. And that got me thinking: why didn’t he have to try and why do I have to try so hard to love well (and yet fail so often in doing so)?

I don’t believe that God, represented as the father in Jesus’ parable, has to try to love us. He loves perfectly, all the time, without fail. His perfect love arises from who he is, rather than an effort of the will on his part. His love of his creation and his love of his children just comes naturally, even in the hardest of times like when Jesus does the loving thing even for those who happened to be crucifying him at the time.

The bible says that we are created in God’s image, that is, we are created to be the image-bearers of who he is, what he cares about, and how he acts in goodness and love. We are created in his likeness. When I hear this, I think of a lens and begin to imagine that we are the lenses through which God meant to project his light and love out into his creation. The problem is that we don’t do that too well. Try as we may we don’t love perfectly, or even close to it.

Why? Why can’t we be who we want and know we should be?

From a Christian perspective, the problem comes down to the belief that God’s image in us, the lens through which he wishes to shine the light of his love into his creation, is damaged. It’s scratched up, it’s spider-webbed, it’s broken into pieces; any projection through it – any effort to shine the his love through our being – will be distorted; the light of love just can’t shine through cracked lenses without distortion. And so, I believe this is the reason we can’t love God, others, ourselves, or creation except in a sometimes less, sometimes more, distorted fashion.

So what’s the hope?

The only hope for a lens that projects imperfectly is for that lens to be repaired and restored. If that could be fully restored then we would love naturally like the father in the parable and like the God who loves us. As I read the bible, the initial repair work on that image comes as we entrust our lens to the master lens-maker, and as we draw nearer and nearer to him, he reshapes his image-bearers to project his character, his love, his desires, better and better over time (1 Corinthians 3:16-18).

Yet, we still don’t project all that well right now, do we? And so God uses other tools around us, if we let him. The truth is that while we sense that we are broken image-bearers, we are too close to the problem and too inept to know how to fix our own lens. So we need to receive the corrective the input of his word to us regularly. We need to be open to what the natural consequences of our choices might teach us. We need the best input of others and what they see to help us, too.

Together, all three of these tools help us realize when we cast a distorted attempt at love and goodness into the world and onto others, ourselves, or God. But even more than that, if we cooperate with the Lord in his use of these tools, the broken lens of our being might just be polished here and there, or angled just a little differently now and then, or be pieced together a little better every once in a while, so in the end we grow better able to be a vehicle for the love God desires to shine into the world. And as we let that happen, perhaps we’ll have to try less and less to love better and better because we are being reshaped in his image, the image we were meant to reveal all along.

“I contend that to be saved is to be renewed in the true image of God as women and men in Christ, to have our relationality restored so that our sinful selves, hopelessly incurvatus in se [turned in on themselves], are set free to be new creations in true divine and human koinnia.” Cherith Fee Nordling via A Community Called Atonement: Living Theology

Lord, help me to cooperate fully with your efforts to restore your image in me. Help me be open to the work of your Son, my Savior, and the Holy Spirit toward this end. Help me also to read and receive your word and to be open to the insights of those in the Body of Christ about my brokenness. Please, let your work be done through this so that I can better reveal your love and goodness in the world.

In the next week we will all be preparing as a church to quiet our hearts and listen for God’s lead through The Infrastructure Project.

Participation is easy!

• You can go to Facebook.com/ColumbiaRidge and find it posted there, every day. 
• You can come to my blog every day and see the next devotional posted and ready for you to take in.
• You can to receive them via email.
• You can download the whole booklet from the link at the bottom of this post (for those who didn’t pick one up at church and still want to hold paper in your hands while you read).
• Or you can do a combination of the options above…just do at least one of them!

So many ways to take in one little week of preparation. See you next Sunday morning…can’t hardly wait!

The_Infrastructure_Project_{Devotionals}.pdf
Download this file

]]> http://teammueller.com/r/the-infrastructure-project-devotional-pack/feed/ 0 http://teammueller.com/r/bending-and-knowing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bending-and-knowing http://teammueller.com/r/bending-and-knowing/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 06:38:27 +0000 Reed http://teammueller.com/r/?p=65 Over my life as a Christian I have grown – though still need to grow substantially more – in my ability to bend in the direction of God’s Word and in knowing the God in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). On these themes, this quote seems quite true to me intellectually and experientially:

We need to be constantly reminded … that theological knowing is inseperable from the life of obedience and faith. It is fostered through worship and prayer – those practices by which we submit ourselves to the Word and Spirit of God – and is borne of humility before the Word. (Murray Rae, 163) Courtesy of Chris Tilling via this entry.

the special commemoration of Christ’s institution of the Lord’s Supper [and] is attested to as early as the fourth century. The English name Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin mandatum novum, “a new commandment,†in Jesus’ words to his disciples as he washed their feet on the night of the Last Supper: “A new command I give you: Love one another†(John 13:34).

Webber, R. (1993). The Biblical foundations of Christian worship

In my message last weekend, I spoke about this event (download or listen online /podcast feed/ iTunes.). What I tried to convey, but what we still may not realize is that Jesus was already in anguish even before the episode we observe in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-39). He was in agony even before his prayers alone in that Garden: the agony of being betrayed, of knowing his disciples would scatter and deny, and of a world loved so much yet going so wrong.

John Cogdell reflects on this agony in these words:

We usually think of Jesus in the upper room as calmly and patiently preparing his disciples for their coming crisis; only in the garden are we shown his deep anguish over what lies ahead for himself. But if this verse (“They hated me without a cause.” Psalm 69:4 as quoted in John 15:25) occurred to Jesus as describing his enemies, surely he was also identifying with the rest of the Psalm with its vivid description of overwhelming troubles and importune cries to God for deliverance. What in the upper room was still under the surface was openly expressed in the garden. (Source: CQOD.com)

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched.
My eyes fail, looking for my God.
Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head;
many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me.
I am forced to restore what I did not steal. – Psalm 69:1-4 (NIV)

In this context Jesus’ mandatum novum carries all the more weight: love as he loved on this day.

These are the silent hours of Holy Week (as the gospels don’t record any of the events of that day). Perhaps this is fitting. After the triumph of Sunday and the contentions and planned betrayal of Monday and Tuesday, this is the calm before the storm – a storm that Jesus will walk through on his way to the cross (and beyond).

This day…

• spend a few moments to sit … and rest … in silence, just as the gospel writers do;
• then ask God to prepare you
  • for what is to come in what remains of this week’s 168 hours
  • and to prepare your heart to sit at the foot of the cross, meditating on its mysterious, heart-wrenching grace and power.

• Sunday / Hours 1-24: The Picture of a King – A Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem
  • Matthew 21:1-11 as well as all other Gospel writers
  • Message post and audio

• Monday / Hours 25-48: The religious elite begin their plot
  • Jesus curses the barren fig tree (Mark 11:12-14 as well as Matthew)
  • Jesus cleanses the temple (Mark 11:15-18 as well as Matthew and Luke)
  • Jesus meets with the Greeks and predicts his own death (John 12:20-50)
• Tuesday / Hours 49-72: Open confrontation
  • The barren tree is withered (Mark 11:19-25 as well as Matthew)
  • Jesus challenged as a teacher (See Mark 12 for single chapter overview)
    • In the city
      - The rulers challenge Jesus’ authority (Luke 20:1-19)
      - Pharisees and Herodians try to trap Jesus (Luke 20:20-26)
    • In the temple court
      - About the resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33)
      - About the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:34-40)
      - Jesus silences his challengers (Matthew 22:41-46)
      - Jesus denounces his challengers (Matthew 23:1-39)
  • Jesus observes and teaches on the poor widows gift (Luke 21:1-4)
  • Jesus teaches on the end of the age in the evening (Matthew 24-25)
  • Jesus predicts his crucifixion, possibly at Bethany (Mark 14:1-2)
  • Jesus anointed in Bethany (Mark 14:3-9)
  • Judas sets the stage for betrayal back in Jerusalem (Mark 14:10-11)

I came into this day thinking that I had challenges ahead of me. After reviewing the events of Jesus final Tuesday before the cross, I am humbled. As you meditate on the events of Holy Week outlined above, perhaps even just Tuesday’s events in Mark 12, may you be humbled as well.

Traveling with you…

In his epistle, James makes the following assertion:

14 Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. James 5:14-18 (NIV)

Reading this passage at face value seems to imply that prayer can heal people. Not only that, but it can also shut and open the skies. This makes many uncomfortable (and not because they don’t believe in God’s ability to work through prayer of in God’s goodness). Rather, it makes many uncomfortable because they don’t understand why, if this is indeed the case, only some prayers change the weather and the health of our loved ones.

In light of this, some interpret this passage in purely spiritual terms; however, most scholars looking into the intricacies of the original language find this to stretch James’ words beyond a reasonable point. Their consensus is that James believes he’s talking about physical healing. For sure, the spiritual and physical are linked in this passage (and linked in reality), but to completely eliminate the possibility that James believes that prayers offered for the sick can be part of their physical healing seems inappropriate given the text.

Since this is arguably the case, what are we to make of the fact that many millions of prayers fail to produce the results that James discusses? Let me offer three main thoughts as to why this might be:

1. It is not God’s will that everyone should be physically healed. The fact is that sometimes affliction reveals God to both the afflicted individual and to his or her community (consider John 9:1-4 and 2 Corinthians 12:6-12) and to heal that person prematurely (if at all) could short-circuit that revelatory expression.
2. Sometimes the “righteous man” to which James refers doesn’t pray a prayer that leads to physical healing. It could go without saying that Paul could be nominated as a “righteous man.” It could also be said that he had prayed a healing prayer in faith and as a consequence healing did indeed occur (Acts 28:8). But there were also instances in Paul’s life where his prayers for another didn’t produce such results (Philippians 2:25-27 and 2 Timothy 4:20, if we assume that he prayed for them at all). Does this mean that Paul didn’t pray for them? No, I believe he most certainly would have, yet, he didn’t pray a prayer that led to physical healing for them. This brings me to my third thought.
3. For James, a “prayer offered in faith” is a prayer offered in response to the revealed will of God. In this passage, James is in no way saying that every time that the elders are called to the bedside that they should pray a prayer of faith for the physical healing of that person. Rather, if the elders are fulfilling their God-given role in the community that is Christ’s Church, they will seek out God’s will and lead the people of that faithful community with thanksgiving into that will. That is, they are to first pray for wisdom and God’s will in the moment (James 1:5) and if they perceive together that God will reveal himself through a miraculous healing, then – and only then – should they pray a bold, convinced prayer of faith for healing (which will simultaneously be humble because they are praying in accord with God’s will rather than their own ideas or even hopes). As Barrier and Goetz, who have challenged my thinking here, suggest, “The prayer of faith can only be prayed after God reveals his intentions.”
   This then is what a “prayer offered in faith” means in this passage: it is a prayer in response to the will of God revealed to his saints and that is why it produces healing. It doesn’t produce healing because the pray-er worked themselves up into “greater faith” or “stronger belief” or said the right words in the right way.

Does that mean that other prayers aren’t prayers offered in faith? No, rather, I believe James is using “a prayer offered in faith” as a sort of technical term in this context. In reality, all prayers that are willing to submit to God’s will are prayers of faith, the only difference is that sometimes we know that will and sometimes we don’t and we should pray differently in those two situations. When we know the will of God it takes faith to step out in that promise and pray what has been revealed; when we don’t have the wisdom to know God’s specific will in a situation, then it takes faith to pray for what we desire (James 4:2, Matthew 7:7-11) and then to close with “yet, not my will, but your’s, Father” (Mark 14:36). We do this because we are ready to submit to his will if it is different from what we wish.

What do I do if I don’t know God’s will for someone who is ill?

• First, pray for wisdom and for God to reveal his will in the situation (James 1:5).
• Then, if you still don’t have a sense of his specific will, which may be the vast majority of the time, pray for complete healing (in light of James 4:2) because sometimes we don’t have because we don’t ask. But we must be faithful in doing so, trusting in God’s will, whatever it is in light of the passage in Mark quoted above.
• However, if God does reveal to you that he will be working a miracle, pray with humble boldness – humble because it is in submission to God’s will and bold because in response to God’s will you will be praying for a miracle.

Okay, that’s my thinking so far on this passage. Let’s chat. Post a comment of question by following this link.

Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys. Exodus 40:36-38 (ESV)

The wonderful thing about having God rest in the midst of your community – in the midst of your life as a person of faith – is that they knew he would be leading every next step. Because he was “tabernacled” with them, they had confidence that they would move to a new place, and that they would take that next step, at the right moment in time – no sooner, no later.

So often in our lives we long to take some next step on our journey of faith. It may be because we feel somewhat restless where we are at or it may be because others have suggested it’s time to move on. In reflecting on the lesson we find in this passage, it behooves the people of God to wait on him before they walk.

In a sense – a deeper sense – those who are in Christ have the Lord “tabernacled” with them too, only in a more intimate manner: the Holy Spirit really lives inside of us! The key, then, is to wait not on the “perfect timing” for our next step as we or our friends might appraise it, but rather to wait on the next step that the Spirit indicates, even if that seems somewhat counterintuitive (if called to move forward) or frustrating (if called to wait). In this way we can live out both Galatians 5:25 and James 4:13-16 simultaneously.

Easier said than done… but true.

To post a question or comment, follow this link.