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Pocket Prayers: Part Six
Take a word or verse or idea and tuck it in your pocket or purse to guide you through this week. Ask God to show you how this word or phrase speaks into your life. Watch for mention of your word or idea in other contexts. Trust that God is present to you at all times, no matter what is happening.
Look at him. Give him your warmest smile. Never hide your feelings from him.
God’s angels set up a circle of protection around us when we pray.
If you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.
He poured great drafts of water down parched throats; the starved and hungry get plenty to eat.
Let it be with me, according to your will.
We’re waiting and watching, holding our breath, awaiting your word of mercy…Mercy, God, Mercy!
Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her and is found by those who seek her.
Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-11
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Verse 9:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (NRSV)
You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family. (The Message)
Blessed are those who plant peace each season; they shall be named the children of God. (Aramaic, Neil Douglas-Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos)
Your place of grief teaches you compassion and invites you to treat others with compassion. The peacemakers are those who seek to bring peace to their own hearts so that their interactions with others come from a place of peace. They are those who extend the practice of shalom into the world. Where in your heart do you experience the longing to make peace? (Christine Paintner, The Artist’s Rule)
Who does Jesus commend? Not the ones who have necessarily found peace in its fullness but the ones who, just for that reason, try to bring it about wherever and however they can—peace with their neighbors and God, peace with themselves. (Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark)
Reflections on this beatitude
Which of the options resonates with you the most? Why?
How are you doing with finding peace within your own heart?
Where in your world does peace most need to grow?
How do you experience God’s peace?
What is Church? Why Church? Part VI
This week I’ll post several six-word answers and two longer essays by two people who teach at different seminaries. They are from different walks of life so their take will be interesting. One is a mostly-Irish male with a mixture of religious backgrounds and the other is an African American woman with her own mix of religious experiences. Intriguing…
6-word answers (at least those were the guidelines!)
A community of adherents
I tell my kids that church is a place where people who believe the same answers to certain big questions come together to spend time with one another. I wanted to give them an answer that is respectful of those who attend church, but that left room for me to explain why we don’t. (More than six words but, oh well!)
I’m there on the road with you.
That Which Is needs no walls.
I enjoy pointing out to those immersed in the work of the church, and said to be deep scholars of the Bible, the following: Genesis 4:26 “…at that time, men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” To answer your question in six words, then, from this first mention of organized church in the Hebrew OT: ‘ A community calling upon the Name.’
The first essay is by Rev. Phaedra Blocker, an African American woman who teaches at Palmer Seminary of Eastern University in Philadelphia and directs spiritual formation at a Baptist church there.
What is Church? My answer to that question has been evolving and unfolding over the years. For a very long time I understood it as something you were supposed to do. If you were a Christian, you went to church on Sunday. If you were a good Christian, you also went to Bible study, got involved in activities and ministries sponsored by the church, prayed, and supported the church financially through tithes and offerings. Even the concept of being the Church revolved a lot around what one did. Being the body of Christ was strongly attached to the way that one behaved, especially relative to non-Christians. The places one could go and the places we couldn’t. The clothes one wore. What one read and listened to. Who one was allowed to befriend and who one shouldn’t.
This was the “spiritual worship,” the “reasonable service” (as Paul puts it in Romans 12:1) that you returned to God to begin to pay God back for saving you. Of course, from an instructional standpoint, we were taught that salvation was a “free gift,” but functionally it often felt like the “gift” had strings attached. To be fair, some of the strings were exciting and fun; and others did bring one a bit closer to God. But like any club—membership had its privileges, but it also had its rules. And Heaven help you if you break the rules (pun intended).
This understanding of “church” began to be problematic for me, however, (and Janet’s Stage Theory later helped me understand this) when God began inviting me into a spiritual journey that, necessarily, shattered a lot of rules.
In one sense, the call to preaching and pastoral ministry was the first turn in the road. As an African American woman worshipping in a tradition that has been slow to support women in ministry, I saw few role models who could help me make sense of my call. That improved as I moved to another church and entered seminary, but I was still very steeped in the idea of “doing” church in a certain way and following the “rules.”
In seminary, however, God got “bigger” for me. And the understanding of what it meant to be in relationship with God loomed larger and pushed deeper. God simply refused to stay any longer in the boxes I had been given (or created) to contain the Divine. I began to experience the restlessness and “unsettling” that Janet describes as part of Stage Four of our faith journey. This restlessness continued as I served as part of a pastoral staff in a large congregation, and deepened as I moved on to focus on teaching in a seminary. As God was calling me in to a more intimate relationship, where my places of brokenness could begin to be healed and transformative growth could take place, I found that this journey also encouraged me into revisit my ecclesiology (among other things). It was a Wall place that required me to face some things and surrender many of the assumptions and attitudes that would no longer serve my deepening life-in-God. One of the results of that time was that I find that my definition of “church” has steadily become much more relational than institutional. Much more dynamic than static.
“Church” is wherever I am, relating in loving ways to the people around me. It is also being part of a community of believers in Christ (outside of the local congregation), as we experience what it means to be in the process of being and becoming the image of Christ. It is joining with others to learn and practice what it means to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-3) It happens around a crowded dinner table filled with good food, oft-repeated stories and laughter, and it happens over a quiet cup of tea. And yes, “church” happens in the local congregation. I can both be church and do church as I immerse myself in worship and service, sharing in the many forms of leitourgia that turn our collective attention toward God, refresh our spirits, and empower us to become our truest selves that we might then be the eyes, ears, hands, feet and heart of Christ in the world.
The second essay (actually a sermon) is by Mike McNichols. He served for ten years as a pastor and is now Director of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Regional Campus in Irvine, California. He is author of Shadow Meal: Reflections on Eucharist, the Bartender, and Atonement at Ground Zero.
The Church as the People of God
The Bible unfolds the story of a world gone wrong. It is a world created and sustained by a creator-redeemer God, one that a nomadic people had come to know through their rescue from slavery in Egypt. These people knew what it was like to live in a broken, hostile world—they were slaves for generations in a uniquely religious culture. Through the long experience of rescue from slavery and wandering in the wilderness of the ancient near east they came to understand that they had a special identity, one that began with the calling out of their earliest remembered ancestor—a wandering Aramean named Abram. They remembered that the calling came from the mysterious God who identified himself only as the I AM—the LORD. The calling was for Abram to have a family that would grow and prosper, becoming a nation of people that would be special to God. They would not, however, be special simply for their own sake, but because they would represent the entire world to God—and they would represent God to the world. They would be God’s people for the sake of the world. It would be through this nation of people that the families of the earth would find blessing (Gen. 12:1-3).
The history of this nation—even after experiencing God’s great rescue from their captivity in Egypt—would be a roller coaster ride of worship, obedience, rebellion, unfaithfulness, disaster, promise and rescue. The surrounding nations would watch as this special people would struggle and wrestle with God—thereby earning the name Israel—acting the faithful bride one day and the sultry whore the next. But even after suffering the devastating consequences of their unfaithfulness—military defeat and exile—the scattered people continued to hear the LORD speak out words of hope and promise, drawing them back into a relationship of forgiveness and faithfulness. Even after the people came home from exile, remaining under the boot heels of a series of conquering nations, they looked for God’s ultimate rescue. They looked forward to the day when God would vindicate his people, scatter Israel’s enemies and restore Israel to its former glory in the unhindered presence of God.
When Jesus appeared on the scene, Israel was still a nation in exile. The people were, for the most part, living in their homeland, but remained in a kind of house arrest under the control of the Roman Empire. Jesus spoke repeatedly of Israel’s hope for vindication and rescue but he did so in a new way. He claimed that God’s vindication was at hand, that God’s kingdom had come. God’s rule and reign would put to rest all competing claims for power.
But Israel was still struggling with God. The people were divided within themselves. Some sought to preserve the purity of the nation’s religious practices while keeping political peace with Rome. Others aimed to force the hand of God by cutting as many Roman throats as possible and fueling any number of rebellions. Still others retreated to the desert wilderness to keep themselves pure and separated from all contact with the unfaithful and the unclean.
Jesus understood the uniqueness of Israel—he was a family member. But he also saw the fractious nature of the people and their inability to reclaim the call of the I AM to be God’s people for the sake of the world. Jesus claimed that God’s rescue was indeed coming, but it would not look the way the people expected. It would come only through death and resurrection.
In a very important way, Jesus would stand as the representative of the nation of Israel, about to do for Israel what the nation could not do for itself: Die and then rise again, reformed by God’s intention and purpose.
If we begin to think about how God’s intention to rescue the world was enacted in the life of Israel and fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then we are able to see the church, potentially, as the people of God who are summoned by God to proclaim and demonstrate the message that in Jesus, God is making good on his promise to bring life and blessing to all the families of the world.
Pocket Prayers: Part Five
Take a word or verse or idea and tuck it in your pocket or purse to guide you through the week. Ask God to show you how this word or phrase speaks into your life. Watch for mention of your word or idea in other contexts. Trust that God is present to you at all times, no matter what is happening.
Sing him songs, belt out hymns, translate his wonders into music.
Take it easy on the journey; try to get along with one another.
Finish what you started in me, God. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now!
All the things I once thought were important are gone from my life.
Then he led his people out like sheep, took his flock safely through the wilderness. He took good care of them; they had nothing to fear.
So this is my prayer; that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well.
This is God’s work; We rub our eyes, we can hardly believe it.
Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-11
Blessed Are The Pure in Heart
Verse 8:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (NRSV)
You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. (The Message)
Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of love; they shall see God everywhere. (Aramaic)
To be pure in heart means to live in congruity between your inner life and your outer life; it means to live from an awareness of the Sacred Source who is pulsing in your own heart and in the world around you, moment by moment. Where in your life do you have a longing for integrity and for seeing God more clearly in each moment? (Christine Paintner, The Artist’s Rule)
Who does Jesus choose to commend? Not the totally pure but the “pure in heart,” to use Jesus’ phrase, the ones who may be as shop-worn and clay-footed as the next one but have somehow kept some inner freshness and innocence intact. (Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark)
Reflections on this beatitude
Which of the five versions appeals to you now in your life?
When has your life radiated from a place of love and you noticed?
How has it felt for you to have your inner life and outer life be congruent?
How do you show a longing for more of God?
How do you keep an inner freshness, despite all of life’s challenges?
What is your prayer for yourself and others around this beatitude?
At Rivers Edge by Janet Hagberg 