Prayer

September 29, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Frustration

(Adapted from a sermon preached September 6, 2020.)

Remember the movie Bruce Almighty, about the man whom God allows to be God just for a while? There’s a scene, early in the movie, in which Bruce is done, just done. He’s tired of his mediocre job, his mediocre apartment, his mediocre life, and he blames his mediocrity on God.

“God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”

Bruce may have not been altogether wrong. Bear with me.

This is a meditation on frustration. [Read more…]

September 19, 2020 | 1 Comment

This black swan event

Halloween, 2019. I had the collar, I had the robe, why not? Of course, I outweighed her by thrice, but, you know, I pulled my hair back and did my best. RBG.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death is heartache for her family and many Americans. It’s a cause for celebration for a handful of others.

More to the point, her death is being called a black swan event. That was a new term to me. I googled. A black swan event is “an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences (Jim Chappelow, “Black swan,” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp). Is any death really that unpredictable? No. Was RBG’s death unpredictable, given her long battle with cancer? Not at all.

Yet, does her death have potentially severe consequences? I fear, yes. I fear it will unleash even further vitriol, during a season of such meanness and spite within America as I have not witnessed in my lifetime. I fear that ugly things I will hear and read out of people whom I have, until now, known to be kind of soul and demeanor.

I wonder if, instead, this black swan event may in fact be an opportunity for us as people of faith to walk our talk. Love your enemy (Matthew 5:44). Practice mercy (Luke 6:36). Love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30).

My prayer for followers of Jesus in America is this:

That we followers of Jesus will put our allegiance to Him above party loyalty
That, out of that allegiance, we will recognize that every person–even those with whom we profoundly disagree–is a child of God, made in His image
That, out of that recognition, we will commit to stopping the name-calling and mud-slinging and yet be brave to speak the truth in love without fear of public shaming
That, out of that commitment, we will witness to the goodness and grace of our Savior and His hope

I invite others to join in this prayer, this allegiance, this recognition, and this commitment, so that Jesus will be glorified indeed.

April 8, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Contagious prayer

I’ve come to dread the afternoons. It’s in the afternoons and evenings when bad news seems to land in my news feed: New cases of COVID-19 nearby. The stay-at-home order extended. The restaurant recently closed. John Prine died.

I try to stop each time to pray for those affected. If only for a moment, long enough to inhale, and say, “Please, God…” once again.

Prayer is our basic response to trust in God. In prayer, we acknowledge our limitations in the light of God’s limitless power, goodness, and love. On our knees (or wherever we’re praying), we confess, “I can’t do this, God, but You can. Please, please, please.”

Bodies fail us, relationships come to an end, bank accounts run negative, anxiety overwhelms, and yet still God’s promise stands. He sees us, He knows us, He cares for us.

Amedeo Capetti is a physician in Milan, Italy. Milan has been the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in Italy for months. In a letter to the editor of his local newspaper on April 1, he described that challenge and necessity of faith in such a time and place. Along with the virus, he writes, prayer is contagious, too.

“Yesterday a woman from Crema phoned me to get news about her grandmother who is hospitalized and in serious condition at the Sacco. She told me of her other grandmother, who died of COVID, and of her mother, who is in intensive care in Crema, and then she said, ‘You see, doctor, at the beginning I was praying, but now I’ve stopped.’ I answered, ‘I understand, ma’am. Do not worry. I will be the one praying for her.’ When she heard this, she was moved and said, ‘No, doctor, if you are going to pray, I’ll do it as well. Let’s pray together for my mother.’” https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/prayer/grateful-for-each-breath

Physicians know better than any of us the limitations of human power. It’s only fitting that Dr. Capetti should be a teacher of prayer.

It was another teacher of prayer, Meister Eckhart, all the way back in the 13th century, who wrote, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

He’s right. You see, on the other side of prayers beginning, “Please, please, please,” are prayers beginning, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

For all the bad news, there’s been good news too: The grandfather breathing again on his own without a ventilator. The unexpected kindness of a neighbor. (A package of toilet paper on the shelf when we need it!) The resilience of us all, moving forward, loving still, and carrying one another through the hard days.

And behind all the news–good and bad–is the great good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ who promises to save and restore us in faith.

Maybe, we can all stop when we hear the good news and exhale, just long enough to say, “Thank You, God”? I hope so. I pray so. “Please God…thank You, God.”

And the day goes on.

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