Today, I’m beginning a new series called Praying with Thomas. For the next several weeks we are going to take a close look at the disciple known to us as Thomas. We don’t know a lot about Thomas but I have always felt a kindred spirit with him. I hope these reflections and prayers will be helpful in your own spiritual journey.

The Thomas Story

I’ve never been a big fan of Biblical character studies. I’m not sure why, except that sometimes I hear these characters presented as “ways to live the spiritual life” or “pitfalls to avoid in living with God” or some such emphasis. Characters in the biblical story can help us in this way sometimes but too often emphasizing what people did or didn’t do in the story takes our focus off what God is doing in the story. The Bible’s main character is God and we must always begin there. That being said, as you can tell from the title of this series, I am perhaps breaking my own rule here by focussing in on the story of Thomas. I do believe it is a story about Jesus and I don’t choose Thomas because he is some exemplar but because I see myself in him in so many ways. He is my “patron saint” if I were inclined to have patron saints!

As I have written elsewhere, I believe Thomas has received a raw deal in church history. He is often referred to as “Doubting Thomas.” None of the other disciples get a “title” like this: “Bumbling Peter,” “Beloved John,” “Arrogant James.” These are not monikers we use when referring to these disciples. But Thomas is known as the doubter. It is an unfair characterization, as we will see in this series, and yet it is the thing that draws me to him.

I’ve heard many people liken themselves to other characters in the Jesus story. “I feel so much like Peter. Rushing in like a bull in a china shop.” Or, “I’m such a Martha. I have to keep busy.” But I rarely hear anyone describe themselves as a Thomas. Perhaps the reason is obvious. Who wants to be known as a doubter? Outside the church, being a skeptic can carry a certain credibility, distinguishing one (supposedly) as a non-gullible, analytical, sophisticated thinker. But within Christian circles, doubting is often frowned upon. Or, at least, is not encouraged. We are supposed to have faith. We are the ones who believe. Well, my experience is that many of us struggle with unbelief, skepticism, doubt—all of it—a lot! And we need places to be honest about this. That is why I gravitate towards Thomas. My doubts and skepticism have been an important part of my journey with God, and a place where God has met me in important ways. Reflecting on the Thomas story is an invitation for each of us to bring all that we feel, our faith, our doubt, our courage and our skepticism to Jesus.

I believe Thomas was a man with strong desires and a deep commitment to Jesus, who was honest about his struggle to hold on to Jesus when his whole world had fallen apart. The more time I spend with his story the more I see myself reflected in it. Perhaps you will, too. It is a story about bravery and courage, commitment, confusion, waiting, skepticism, and yes, doubt. But it is also a story about how Jesus receives all of this from Thomas, inviting him to come close, to bring his courage and his doubts and offer them to Jesus.

Over these next several weeks we are going to dive deeply into Thomas’ story as found mostly in John’s gospel. It is still a story about Jesus, but I want us to inhabit, if you will, the character of Thomas and receive what Jesus would have for us as we enter into these stories. As has become my practice here at Thursday Thoughts, I will include a prayer exercise at the end of each post, a way to prayerfully embody Thomas’ story and listen for how the Lord may speak to us in our own story as we engage with him through the eyes of Thomas.

Thomas the Chosen

Most of the Thomas story is found in John’s Gospel but the first time he is mentioned is not in John but in the other three Gospels. Perhaps because of the late date of writing, near the end of the first century, John doesn’t feel it necessary to include a list of the men who were chosen by Jesus to be his disciples. Everyone in the Jesus’ community would know these names well. But Matthew, Mark and Luke all give a list of the ones Jesus chose to be his inner circle of disciples and friends. Thomas is on this list. No information is given about him in this initial introduction, only that he and the others were chosen by Jesus to “be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mk 3:14)

If you know the story, you will recognize some of these names. Peter, James, and John are listed first. They get mentioned more than any of the others throughout the story, Peter especially. Philip gets a couple of mentions, and John tells us about Nathaneal’s calling story. Then, of course there’s Judas, but the rest of the disciples are left fairly anonymous. Thomas appears three times in the text of John’s Gospel and we will look at each of these stories. But for now, I want to reflect briefly on Thomas’ place as a disciple, one of the Twelve.

We don’t know anything about Thomas before he was chosen. Peter, James and John were fishermen. Matthew was a tax collector. Simon, a zealot, meaning he might have been a mercenary of some kind. But about Thomas we know nothing. He simply appears on the list. We can surmise from this that his past life was not important to the story of Jesus the Gospel authors were writing. But it was important to him. He came from somewhere. He heard Jesus preach, perhaps saw a healing, and was intrigued enough to stick around. We can assume, fairly, I think, that he was not one to cower at the back of the crowd. He was not content to blend in with the nameless masses around Jesus but made his way to the front; watching, observing, listening.

And then the day came. Jesus spends the night praying and, in the morning, names twelve among the ones who had been following him to be his core disciples. What an amazing honor this was. Whatever job Thomas had or trade he practiced now had to make room for this apprenticeship to Jesus. He would be on the inside track to what Jesus was thinking and doing. It’s hard to imagine what this must have felt like for Thomas. He was chosen.

Your Story

Have you ever been chosen for something you desired? There is the simple choosing that takes place on school playgrounds, to the university acceptance letters, to the job promotion you’ve been waiting for. Perhaps your mind goes first to relationships, chosen as a friend, a marriage partner, a confidante. When we are chosen, we feel seen and affirmed. Our skills have been recognized, our character affirmed, our identity endorsed. To be chosen is to be loved.

The pain of not being chosen can be devastating. If you’ve been passed over, set aside, fired—these experiences can do serious damage to our hearts. The longing to be chosen seems a deep need in us. Thomas experienced this feeling of being chosen by Jesus as a disciple, apostle, and friend. And what Jesus does with Thomas he does with each of us. His experience was unique to him, of course. We are not chosen to walk with Jesus around 1^st century Palestine, but we have all been chosen. God is a choosing God. We do not simply sign up for some course or exercise regimen. Jesus looks us in the eye and says, “Will you follow me?”

In Romans 8, Paul tells us that each of us have been chosen, adopted into God’s family by God’s Spirit if we call on the name of Jesus. The Spirit we receive draws us toward the Father in intimacy. “Abba, Father,” we cry, knowing that we are part of the family, an intimate relationship of love and covenant. “Now, if we are children,” Paul goes on to say, “then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” This is an astounding promise. Whatever Thomas must have felt by being chosen into the community of Jesus’ closest disciples is a model for our own chosen-ness as co-heirs with Christ. Thomas, as an apostle, will enjoy the unique recognition that comes with that office. But that does not necessarily set him far and above the rest of us, in some “super-Christian” category. Remember what Jesus said about John the Baptist. Even though he was the greatest of the prophets, even the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. (Luke 7:28) God’s upside-down kingdom has a different way of calculating these things so we are invited, I believe, to stand next to Thomas and express our gratitude for being chosen by Jesus.

Subscribe now

Now, let’s pray the story.

Praying the Story

Audio Prayer only:

Imagine that you are among a group of people listening to Jesus teach. He has been in and around your area for a few days and you’ve heard snippets of his teaching. You’ve also heard the rumours going around that he healed the beggar you see every day on your way to work. It’s true the man hasn’t been there the last few days but could he really be healed? People you trust have seen him up and walking around, full of life. You’re intrigued.

You’ve made a special effort to make time to be here today. You want to hear what Jesus has to say.

As you listen, something happens for you, something happens in you. This is not like any teaching you have ever heard before – and you’ve heard lots. Jesus speaks with an authority that seems to fill the air with light, with freedom, with life. The way he speaks about his Father makes you want to meet this Father. It sounds so different than other things you’ve heard about God, things that make God seem far away, unreachable. The way Jesus talks, this Father seems like he is right here, right here with you.

Jesus brings his teaching to an end. You are still pondering some of the things you’ve heard when you notice Jesus walking directly toward you. Those around you have dispersed and the crowd is moving away in all directions, but Jesus keeps walking toward you. Your heart speeds up a bit, like it would if you were meeting someone important, someone famous.

Jesus stops directly in front of you. His eyes meet your eyes. You realize his eyes have been on you the whole time.

“Would you like to follow me?”

What does it feel like to hear Jesus ask you this?

“You are welcome to join us. Come.”

Take a few moments to savour this invitation. What kinds of thoughts and questions go through your mind? What are you feeling? How do you want to respond to Jesus?

You may have said “Yes” to Jesus a long time ago. What does it feel like to be reminded that you have not simply said Yes to a faith system, or a church community. You have said Yes to Jesus who continues to look at you and say, “Come, follow me.”

Amen and amen. Thanks for listening and praying. Until next Thursday.

Share

I am sure friends have asked you about your favorite movies, your favorite food, maybe even your favorite names, but have you ever thought about your favorite sounds? A few of mine are the oboe, the silence after a snowfall, and the sound of waves hitting the shore. This last one always draws me in. If I can, I sit and listen and marvel at how this prairie boy got here, to this beach, to listen to these waves. Their rhythmic gentleness, one after another; waves capture me every time. It is one of the gifts of water in the world.

Water in Scripture

Water is a predominant theme in scripture. It is central from Genesis to Revelation. Either the presence or the absence of water plays a significant role in the story of God, both physically and metaphorically.

Water makes its first appearance in the second sentence of the Bible, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Gen 1:2) The second creation story, in Genesis 2, tells us more, “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” (Gen 2:5-6) Before any life happens, water happens.

We all know the truism: no water, no life. When other planets are being explored it is water they are looking for. Without water, no life is possible. Like air, water is essential for life and just as air, breath, and wind are used in scripture to speak about the presence of God, the giver of life, so too with water.

Water plays a central role in Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, as God parts the waters to provide an escape route out of slavery. The New Testament picks this up as a central symbol of casting one’s allegiance on Jesus, by entering into the waters and being freed to new life in baptism.

There are significant meetings that occur around water. Moses, Isaac, and Jacob all find their wives at wells. Water becomes a symbol of new life, new family. When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a well, we are meant to see this symbolism, a new family is being created around Jesus. New life is forming.

And the final vision of the new heavens and the new earth contain descriptions of the river that flows from the Temple to all the people. Ezekiel 47 describes a bountiful land fed by the water flowing from the Temple, so deep, eventually, no one can cross it. The water feeds the trees that are constantly in season, turning even salt water fresh. “Where the river flows everything will live.” (Ezek 47:9) Zechariah picks up the imagery, “On that day living water will flow out of Jerusalem . . . the Lord will be king over the whole earth.” (Zech 14:8-9)

And John’s vision in Revelation brings the all the symbolism home. He writes, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.’” (Rev 22:17)

So, when Jesus stands up and says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink,” (John 7:37) he is speaking directly in line with this entire thread of water symbolism. It is believed that Jesus said this at the time of the water ceremony of the Festival of Tabernacles, that act symbolising God’s provision of water to Israel in the desert. Jesus is saying he is that living water. Just as he is the bread of life, coming from heaven to feed the hungry, he is also the living water of life coming to those who are thirsty.

Thirsty for God

I have seldom experienced real thirst in my life. Years ago, when out in the bush as a treeplanter, we were very short on water and, being miles away from any stream, were reduced to scooping up small handfuls of stagnant water, swishing it around in our mouths then spitting it out, simply to get a bit of moisture and the illusion of water. We were thirsty and the water that finally arrived was the best water I had ever had.

Have I been thirsty like that for God? Maybe, at times. I want to be but often fall short, content to sip from other fountains, thinking I can provide what I need myself. Jeremiah speaks to this exact temptation, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jer 2:13)

The psalmist cries out in Psalm 63, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” I want to want God like that but can often find it difficult. I far too easily quench my thirst elsewhere.

But to me, and to you, Jesus says, “Come!” He is the Lamb who offers us himself, living water, “springing up to eternal life.” Jesus is the water we need. Only he can quench our thirst.

Now, let’s pray with this image.

Share

Praying the Image

If we were together at a retreat, we could gather around some water and allow the physicality of it to minister to us as a prayer. You may want to do that now. Get a glass or bowl and fill it with water as we enter into prayer together

With each of these scriptures, take a few drops of water and sprinkle them with your fingers into the palm of your hand, feeling the coolness as God’s life being offered to you.

Waters of Creation

“Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” (Gen 2:5-6)

Where are you feeling the need for the fresh water of life to water your heart? You might imagine yourself standing under a waterfall, arms outstretched, receiving the gift of life, of God, in the form of water.

Waters of Cleansing

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezek 36:25-26)

What is the cleansing you need from the Lord? Receive the clean water of his forgiveness and renewal.

Living Waters of Jesus

Hear Jesus say these words to you:

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” (John 7:37)

“Whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)

Spend some time talking with Jesus about your experience. What do you want to say to him?

Amen and amen. Thanks for praying. Until next time.

Share

I wrote last week about that universal longing to come home and referenced the dual Biblical dynamic of our longing to go home to God and God’s promise to come home to us. I had a few more thoughts about that second half of the movement – God coming home to us – that I thought I would share this week.

The New Jerusalem

I learned something recently about the New Jerusalem that John speaks about in Revelation 21. It had always struck me as odd that the angel who was showing John the vision of the “new heavens and new earth” takes out a measuring rod and measures the city.

That seems a strange thing to do. Granted, there are many strange things in Revelation but as a basic movement in the story, this seems an odd thing to do. Until we are told what the measurement is. The city is a perfect cube, 12,000 stadia in length, width and height. This is massive. About 2200 kilometres. But the measurement is not meant to represent anything physical. The number 12, as you may know, is a significant number in scripture, signifying perfection, wholeness, completeness. There are 12’s all over this city, 12 gates, 12 foundations, 12 jewels. It is the place of God’s completeness. But that is not the primary symbolism of the city. We are meant to see that it is a perfect cube and the only other significant cube in scripture is the Holy of Holies.

Holy of Holies

The Holy of Holies was the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle and temple where the ark of the covenant was kept, the place where God’s presence dwelt.

There were strict rules surrounding this Most Holy Place. God’s presence called for complete and utter reverence and devotion. Only the High Priest was allowed to enter this space, and then only once a year, on the Day of Atonement.

The image John sees is this Most Holy Place, the complete and magnanimous presence of God, now open to all to come and live with God. (Remember, the curtain that separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple was torn in two as Jesus died. The Holy of Holies is now open!)

There is no temple in this new city because the city is the temple. God already resides there, and he has come to bring his home to his beloved daughters and sons. “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them.” (Rev 21:3).

It was God’s intention from the beginning that we would live with God, that heaven and earth would be one, that we would stroll with God in the cool of the evening. But we were wanderers. We believed there was a better home out there somewhere, a home we could create for ourselves. Jesus’ story of the prodigal son tells this story.

The truth is, we can’t find our way home. We can find temporary homes, places of rest and nurture but none satisfy the longing for communion with God built into each of us. God must bring home to us. The first stage of this homecoming is Advent, the coming of Jesus. Without being asked, God comes as a human. He comes to find us, to bring home to us. That is why Jesus uses all the “in me” language. “Remain in me as I remain in you.” Our home is in God. And this “in-God-ness” is made real by the living Holy Spirit within us.

So, we might say, we are already home. Yes, at the culmination of all things we will live with God in the New Jerusalem, but that vision is already operative in the world through those who follow Jesus. I have wondered if the “New Jerusalem” is not so much new because it is a new place, but new in that all evil has been vanquished and God’s way is our way, all the time. Your “New Jerusalem” might look a lot like the place you now live, but with you in total union with God. That would make anything look new!

“The kingdom of God is within you,” Jesus said. The “new heaven and new earth” is already alive in you! He might have said it this way: “God’s home is already in you. You are already home. Your longing for home, that feeling of not-at-home-ness is not a longing to be in another place, another realm, in heaven. That is the longing for more of God. And that longing is music to God’s ears.

Share

Praying the Image

How to pray with this truth of God bringing home to us? So many of us have been raised with a sense of “going to heaven when we die” that the notion of God coming to us rather than us escaping to be with him can be disconcerting. If we can’t wait to get out of here, we might feel disappointed. We long for something better.

And better is offered to us, but better in the form of God’s Spirit, God’s life, alive and operating within us to bring beauty into God’s creation the way God intended. The earth was not created as a temporary housing project until we could all be shipped off to heaven. No, God created and is creating a place where we can commune with God and with each other in love and friendship right now. That has not reached its fullness yet but someday will.

How are you being invited to live in and care for God’s home that is already within you? These scriptures might act as an invitation as you ponder God’s home in you.

“[Jesus said] Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)

“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:15-16)

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, . . . may have power, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. “(Eph 3:16-17)

Amen and amen. Until next time.

Share

Longing for Home

As I began reflecting on “home” as a possible metaphor this week, I realized this is the primary theme of this summer’s blockbuster movie The Odyssey. The poem by Homer, and thus the movie, have as their central premise Odysseus’ longing to return home to his wife, family and country. It is a primal yearning within us. Emily Wilson, a modern translator of The Odyssey, has Odysseus express his longing thus: “I myself know nothing sweeter than a person’s home.”

This theme exists within the biblical tradition as well, in fact, one might say it is central to the story of human beings – the longing to return to their rightful home. The biblical story begins in a garden home, Eden, where God enjoys friendship with humans, walking “in the cool of the day.” It ends in a new home, the New Jerusalem, where God brings his home to his people. John’s vision in Revelation culminates with this scene: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them.” (Rev 21:3). The entire Biblical story might be read as a longing for home, a yearning to come home to God, but continually being thwarted by enemies without and within.

A Restless Longing

I left home when I was 18, moving from the safety and loving presence of my childhood home, to seek … well, I’m not sure what I was seeking. The beach and warmer weather, mostly.

That was all I was able to articulate at the time. I think I wanted adventure but was not very adventurous. Moving cities to go to school and living with friends was the extent of that initial adventure-seeking. Underneath it all, though I hardly knew it at the time, I was seeking something.

Over the years I have often felt a deep restlessness when it comes to home. My childhood home no longer feels like home. I left a long time ago. And I can feel a disconnect to my current home, though I have lived in this city over 40 years, the same house for nearly 30. When I traveled to Ireland earlier this year, I wondered if I would feel any sense of home there, it being the home of my ancestors. There were slight inklings but nothing profound.

I have, over the years, had glimpses, tastes, echoes of what I have named as “home”—a profound sense of being where I am supposed to be. I imagine you have felt that, too. That sense of a deep and abiding calm, a restful kind of “rightness” that you are where you are meant to be, that you were made to be here, that everything is aligned within you and around you.

The God Longing

I wonder if this is what Peter felt when he wanted to build tents and camp out on the Mount of Transfiguration. Perhaps something was touching him in that moment that expressed his longing to remain there. “Why would I want to leave this place?”

Many of the psalmists express this longing.

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” (Psalm 90:1)

“How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. (Psalm 84:1-2)

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

Jesus himself spoke to this yearning in John 14.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

The longing for home is a longing for God. It is the place of ultimate belonging, of secure identity, of intimate rightness. It is the place of God’s shalom.

It’s interesting to note that as much as I, and perhaps you, too, feel the longing for home as one of getting from here to there - the Odyssean journey to find our way home - the Bible ends with God coming home to us. As much as we desire to live with God, God desires to live with us. God desires to live with you.

Share

Now, let’s pray with this image.

Praying the Image

This dual dynamic of God coming to us and us longing to go to God will inform our prayer today.

First, take a few moments to imagine Jesus arriving at your home and asking if he could come in. Think of your actual house. Meet him at the door and invite him in. Then, slowly but deliberately, show Jesus around your house, going into each room and noticing Jesus’ response, and your own. Take him to the kitchen, the living room, the office, the bedroom.

What do you notice as you walk with Jesus around your house. Take some time to talk with him about what you feel.

Then, imagine, as well as you are able, Jesus inviting you to his home with his Father. Psalm 27 might help us here:

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. . . Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “’Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord I will seek.”

And remember, that as you seek the Lord’s face, he is already seeking yours, for his face is already turned toward you, shining upon you, and offering you peace.

Amen and amen. Thanks for listening and praying. Until next time.

Share

One day, when Jesus was confronted by the religious authorities about healing on the Sabbath, he responded by saying, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). What was the work they were doing? We would not be far wrong to say they were at their work forming and shaping us into people who live God’s life of love in the world.

The age-old problem is that we would rather form ourselves. We would rather make all our own decisions and create our own futures.

Something about this is right and good. As kids grow, we want them to take responsibility for their lives, not to simply do what others tell them to do, or become what others say they should become. This is hardwired into us. This is growth and maturity.

But the problem arises when we think we are the only actors in our stories, or, worse, that we are the main character and are wise enough on our own to create our own best life.

The Clay

Many authors in scripture use the image and metaphor of clay to describe who and what we are, clay in the hands of the Potter who forms us and shapes us. If you have ever seen a potter at her wheel, shaping the clay, forming its edges, using her fingers to create, you can appreciate the elegance and beauty of the metaphor.

But you may also feel the pushback. I can feel in me even though I like this image. “This is who I am? A lump of clay? Dependent on God to shape me into something useful, something purposeful, something beautiful? I will make my own life, thank you very much!”

One of the reasons we feel the sting of this is because we live in a world that denies that we need God. We have believed the lie that we are fine on our own. We live under the illusion that we create ourselves. But this is not who we are. Our fundamental nature is pliable, mold-able by outside influences. Not completely, but largely.

Think of a child who does not receive any instruction on how to live, how to be kind, how to think of others – all forms of shaping. None of us would want to be around such a child.

We tend to think everything we think and believe is the result of our own choices and decisions. The reality is we are constantly being shaped and influenced by our communities and friends, our history, by advertising and the media. None of us are independent thinkers. We are all being shaped all the time.

I remember conversations I had with a friend who was a PhD candidate well versed in the history of philosophy and theology. Every time I would mention something I was thinking about, or some doctrine of faith I held to, he would tell me where that belief or thought had originated. It was extremely annoying – and humbling. None of my personal beliefs and values had been invented by me. They all had a history. I had been shaped by the world more than I wanted to admit.

Do we form our own lives or are we actually being formed? Dallas Willard was fond of saying,

“The question is not whether or not we will engage in spiritual formation. We are all getting a spiritual formation. The question is who do you want forming you?”

Do I want to leave this to the forces in the world all around me, most of which I hardly notice are forming me all the time? My friends, who are themselves the products of shaping influences? My community? The media? I suspect most of us revert to thinking, no, we will form ourselves. But why should I trust myself? I am filled with all kinds of fears and anxieties and falsehoods. Am I really a reliable creator of a human life?

The Potter

Happily, we are not left on our own to shape our own lives. The Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah one day and said,

“Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.” (Jer 18:1-5)

Isaiah uses the same image. “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (Isa 64:8)

And then Paul, in Ephesians, talking about the work Jesus and the Father are doing in us says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). The word for “handiwork” is “poiema” where our word “poem” comes from. We are God’s poem. We might also think of ourselves as God’s living sculpture, clay in the hands of a loving Father.

All this requires humility, a willingness to admit we do not have it in us to create and form our own lives. The world tells us the opposite, that the height of mature personhood is becoming more and more independent and reliant upon ourselves. The Bible calls such a person a fool, one who is deeply unaware of its own nature. We are but clay, in need of a potter.

We are invited to participate, of course. We make decisions and plans. We take responsibility. But we also recognize upholding us are the hands of a loving Father longing to form us into people who live the life of God in the world.

Share

Praying the Image

Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Ask the Spirit to help you pray.

Let’s begin in Genesis, where it all begins. God takes the dust of the earth and forms a human being, breathing life into its nostrils. Life!

Now, to Jeremiah 18. You are clay. God is forming you into a unique vessel, fashioning you to express God’s love in the world in ways only you can do.

Finally, Ephesians 2. You are God’s poem. You are God’s living sculpture, formed to do all God desires you to do in the world. God already knows these things. God has prepared a way for you.

Amen and amen. Thanks for listening and praying.

Share

The Canyon

I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon but it has become a strong spiritual metaphor and symbol for me of my need for love. I imagine standing on its precipice and looking far down into its cavernous depths with a certain kind of soul pain. The canyon is vast, spacious, yes, but the wrong kind of spaciousness. It is a chasm of need. Merriam Webster defines “chasm” as “A wide opening or pit that looks bottomless.” That captures it well for me. Bottomless, endless, with no way to be filled. My need for love has felt like this: massive, colossal, endless.

We are creatures who need love. We are made in love and for love and our need for love is meant to be filled, to be met, to be received. For me, the emptiness of the canyon symbolised what I perceived was the emptiness of my own heart. Though I was well loved by those around me, I continued to feel this vast need. Rather than pay attention to it, I have more often tried to push it away, thinking it unseemly, a deep lack in me I wanted to avoid.

For years I did not want to admit this. This kind of need felt weak to me, lacking an important measure of maturity and development. I could admit that we all need love, we were created to give and receive love, but my own need for love seemed too much, too vast, too bottomless. I didn’t know why it was there. I could look back on my childhood and feel like I had no reason to yearn for love the way I did. I grew up in a loving home. My parents were not perfect and there have been issues I have had to work through, but the degree of longing I felt seemed, to my way of thinking, to be reserved for someone who had never known love at all, someone who had been abandoned, rejected, discarded. I didn’t really fit those descriptors which made me even more ashamed of my own vast need for love.

I thought getting married would solve this sense of lack, a lack I felt more than understood. But it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, my wife knows how to love, and has loved me beautifully for many years, but she intuited very early in our marriage that what I was needing she could not give me. She could see that I was longing for a love that only God could fill. I had not been wise enough to see that. I remained staring out over the emptiness of the chasm.

Waves of Love and Longing

My wife and I were at a weekend conference years ago and one of the speakers was giving a short version of his testimony. The line I still remember from his story was his description of “waves and waves of God’s love” pouring over him, over the course of a few hours.

I didn’t really hear anything else he said. I had never known anything like that. I wanted that. I yearned for that. The only waves I had experienced were waves of, well, nothing. Air, space, emptiness. The thought of “waves of love” stirred my desires, touched my longing. My conversion had been much more of a heady thing, as I remember it. “God’s love,” for me, were two words on a page that I was supposed to believe in but had never deeply experienced. An experience like that, waves of love, could begin, I thought, to fill this vast emptiness of the chasm.

The Psalms

There are two psalms that I have gravitated toward as I have felt this longing. Psalms 63 and 42.

Psalm 63 begins this way: “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

Psalm 42:1-2 uses similar imagery: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

To be honest, I don’t know how much I’ve been “earnestly seeking God” or intentionally asking “Where can I go to meet with God?” These verses have more often conjured up a self condemnation that I did not really want God all that much. I have often wondered why I don’t seem to desire God at all. At other times, I have simply felt my unquenchable need for God’s love that seems to rarely be met. I have named the parched land and the thirsty soul of these psalms, my “chasm of need.”

But these psalms have served as an invitation to pay attention to this need, to look square at this chasm rather than trying to hide it or pretend it isn’t there. That is a recipe for succumbing to all kinds of temptations that promise to fill the emptiness with sweet fulfillment. I’ve fallen for that trap too many times.

The Invitation

More recently, I have been sensing Jesus’ invitation to walk with me into the chasm. I have been avoiding it, then noticing it, naming it, and journalling about it for years now. But it seemed like Jesus wanted to go for a walk directly into it. At first, I resisted. Why would I want to go in there? That seemed only to promise pain, unmet need, frustration. I realized I thought I could control all the painful yearning if I stood simply looking at it rather than entering it. Walking in there felt far too vulnerable.

But this is what Jesus does. He is unwilling to let our understanding, in this case my sense of longing and emptiness, rule the day. By naming it the way I had, I was neglecting to see what Jesus was doing. This was a description of my heart from my point of view only. He was inviting me to trust that he saw this chasm very differently. Jesus was writing a different story. Would I come with him to listen to it?

Slowly, we have begun to walk into the chasm and I begin to discover that the “emptiness” I have felt is not empty at all, but is a space waiting to be filled with God. I am reminded of the passage from C.S. Lewis’s Out of a Silent Planet, where the hero has entered outer space and discovers it is not empty at all:

“. . . the very name ‘Space’” Lewis writes, “seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it ‘dead’; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. . . He had thought it barren: he now saw that it was the womb of worlds . . . No: Space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they made it simply the heavens. The heavens which declared the glory.”

I have seen my chasm of need as a place of emptiness and longing. Jesus sees it as longing and desire, yes, but not empty. Paul writes in Ephesians 3,

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:17b-19)

The emptiness of the chasm, the depth of my longing for love, is slowly being reimagined as the space for the “width, length, and height” of God’s love. My need, and yours, is real. But God’s love is real-er.

Share

Praying the Image

Take a moment now to place yourself at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Perhaps you have visited there. Stir up your memory, or your imagination, for the experience of looking out over this vast expanse of canyon space, waiting to be filled with God’s love.

Wait here. Ask the Spirit to show you your own places of longing and desire for love. What has this looked like and felt like in your life?

Now, let’s return to Psalms 63 and 42 to pray them, with a couple more verses from these psalms:

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

Allow yourself to feel and remember the thirst for living water, the longing and panting to quench your thirst for God.

Now some further verses from these psalms:

“I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.”

“How I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.”

Allow your memory to go back to a time when you did experience God’s love, perhaps in worship, perhaps in prayer.

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.”

“. . . Put your hope in God for yet will I praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

What do your lips want to say to God as we pray?

Amen and amen.

Share

Images in Prayer

When I was writing my book about using our imagination in prayer, I would often get caught up in the question, “Is this OK?” Some Christians would discourage it, I knew. At times I would doubt myself whether it was appropriate. Then I would remember the Psalms. The Psalms are chock full of images that are meant for prayer; trees planted by rivers, chaff blowing in the wind, rods of iron, broken pottery. (That’s just from the first two Psalms!). Images are everywhere in the Psalms. No, God intends for us to use our imaginations in prayer.

Not all images are created equal, though. We find many images and metaphors in the Psalms that are easily lost on us. Psalm 92:10, for example: “You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox.” I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be grateful for there. Or, Psalm 51:7; “Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean.” I could look up why “hyssop,” but the image is not immediately clear.

A Strong Tower

An image that was very clear to me one day in prayer was that of a protective tower. Psalm 61:3 says, “For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.” The image occurs in Proverbs as well: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” (Prov 18:10).

There are not many strong towers around these days for us to run into but there was a time when this was a very real necessity for those under attack. Ireland is famous for its round towers, built as far back as the 7^th century, that would be a place of safety from attacking armies, usually the Vikings.

(Side note: the current craze among Norway fans at the World Cup where hundreds would sit together and row as a way to cheer on their team was fun to watch, until you remembered it was the Vikings who pillaged and ransacked Ireland many times over back in the day. But I digress . . .)

The towers the Irish built were places of refuge, often with the door built many feet in the air so the enemy could not enter. The villagers would climb a ladder and enter the tower before the ladder was pulled in, leaving the attackers with no way in. A clever design.

The Prayer

This image of a tower came to me one day as I prayed in anguish about my losing battle with temptation. It felt to me like I was trying, and failing, to fight off these ghoulish-looking “temptation-demons” with a sword, slashing and hacking my way through wave after wave of them.

Sometimes my blows would land (a momentary flash of victory) but mostly I was being overwhelmed. I was defeated. I felt stuck, weak, guilty. I could not see a way out of this overwhelming pattern in my life.

As I sat lamenting this and asking for help, I had a sense that the Lord was saying to me, “Dan, that’s what you think is going on. Let me show you what is actually going on.”

What came to my mind was the inside of a stone tower, round, expansive, stretching high into the air. It was empty inside except for me and, I soon realized, Jesus. There was a door, at ground level, that was locked from the inside. I could hear the fighting going on outside, the temptation-demons were still there, but I was safe inside the protective walls of the tower. The only thing Jesus said to me was, “Don’t open the door.”

“For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.” (Ps 61:3)

The change in the image was significant for me. I could see that I was trying to fight off this temptation alone, thinking I had to be better at waging war and defeating the enemy. The truth was, I was losing. I wasn’t even engaging the battle half the time, and the “temptation-demons” were swarming me. Jesus reminded me that day that I was already safe, with him, inside his protective walls. I had a choice to open the door and allow the “demons” in, but why would I do that?

This did not fix me immediately. The image was a reminder, not a cure. When that particular temptation came again, and it did, this image would come to mind. I hardly knew how to pray about it anymore but I could hold this image in my mind. The image became my prayer. Slowly, I began to believe that the image was telling me something true. It enabled me to withstand the onslaught of temptation.

Many times I would forget and get caught up again in the fighting - believing the lie that it was up to me to defeat this enemy - and then I would remember the image and relax, able to trust that Jesus was with me. I was safe inside his strong tower.

One thing this new perspective did for me was allow me space to be curious about the nature of this temptation, what I was looking for in my life, why was this temptation so strong and persuasive? There was still work for me to do. I was not led into passivity. But somehow, mysteriously and graciously, it felt easier to keep the door closed and locked, than to wage war with the temptation-demons.

“For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.”

Our Enemies.

Before we pray the image, I want to say something about the “enemies” in Psalms. The reason the Psalmist needs a strong tower is because enemies are swarming and he is in trouble. For David, the author of many of the Psalms, real human enemies were out to get him at various times in his life. His life was often in mortal danger.

Chances are, we do not face enemies like that. We may have people who don’t like us, perhaps we would characterize some people in our lives as enemies – I don’t want to dismiss that outright – but most of us would be hard-pressed to real human enemies who are out to get us. This reality can keep these Psalms at a distance from us and difficult to relate to.

One way I have learned to pray these psalms is to name the “enemies” as those internal enemies of our soul, those thoughts, temptations, and lies that act like enemies, intent on destroying our joy, defeating our spirits, ruining our lives.

These internal enemies are very real. The Psalms invite us to name these enemies in prayer, to imagine these personal enemies as the thing, or things, that are trying to destroy us. These are the enemies from which we need protection. This is where we need God’s strong tower.

Share

Praying the Image

Let’s take some time to pray with this image.

“Father, help us now to bring to mind and pray with this image, your image, that you have given us. Speak to us, Lord.”

Close your eyes and imagine a strong, stone tower. What does it look like? How big is it? You stand not far from it in the open field. You see your enemy approaching.

Take a few moments to name what these enemies are in your life.

They may be things like accusing voices, telling you that you are not enough, that you are unlovable, that you are insignificant.

They may be temptations of many kinds, toward food, sex, power. Or temptations toward anger and rage, or temptations to believe that God is not for you.

They may be other enemies, like discouragement and despair, cynicism and bitterness, resentment and pride, fear and shame.

What are the enemies you see?

All these and many more are enemies of your soul, bringing you down, diminishing your sense of life and joy.

As you are remembering and naming these enemies, perhaps already feeling their attack, turn and see the strong tower just there, with Jesus inviting you to come. “Come,” he says, “run into the tower. There is safety here for you.”

“For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.”

Spend a few moments receiving the protection Jesus offers you. What do you want to say to him?

Amen and amen.

Share

I’ve never thought of myself as particularly creative or artistic. I live with a woman who is an amazing artist, and she passed on her creativity to our kids in many ways. I have usually thought of myself as more the rational, analytical type, a bit stuck in my head, a little disconnected to my emotions – too much left brain, not enough right brain.

Visual, creative, or imaginative experiences with God were the purview of other people. I tell you that because for years I would have said that the experience I’m about to recount would never happen to someone like me. But it did.

God has brought me a few images that have been powerful experiences of encounter, helping me to expand my understanding of God and experience the wonder of God. One such image was what I call The Wall of Self.

The Prayer

One day in prayer I saw before me, in my imagination, a huge sheet or wall hanging in front of me and on the wall were all my thoughts and feelings. It was beautiful in a way, all these crisscrossing words and colors, some of them insights I had learned, others more mundane knowledge about myself and the world. Somehow, I knew this was meant to symbolize everything I knew, all the thoughts I had, all the things I believed, all my doubts and fears. All my emotions. Everything.

I stood and looked at that wall for a long time. It contained some things I was very proud of, some things I had said that seemed important. It also contained many things I was ashamed of: doubts, unbelief, skepticism, fear. It was all there. It felt like I was looking at a reflection of my brain and everything that was in it. But not only my brain. It felt like I was looking at Me.

Then, I noticed Jesus standing just beyond the wall, a short distance away, with outstretched hand inviting me to come to him. It’s hard to describe the dread I felt in that moment. Perhaps counter intuitively – who doesn’t want to be invited to come close by Jesus? – I sensed what was being asked of me. I knew he was asking me to come to him beyond my thinking. That felt impossible. That wall was me. Everything I thought and felt and had done was represented on that wall. All my beliefs, all my doubts, my fears, what I liked and disliked about myself – all of it. What could it possibly mean to go to him beyond all that? There was no “me” beyond all that.

Visually, that “nothing” was represented by, well, nothing.

A dark abyss, a bottomless emptiness stood between me at the wall and Jesus. He stood suspended in midair, it seemed, yet standing somehow, unconcerned with the lack of foundation for his feet. (images of walking on the water – I know!). His arm remained outstretched toward me, the invitation stood. Come.

But there was no way to get to him. To step out beyond the wall was to step into nothingness, to fall into the abyss. It felt like death. I couldn’t do it.

For days I returned to the image, knowing there was something profoundly true in it, wanting to go to Jesus but paralyzed by the fear of leaving “me” behind. What would it even mean for me to do this? How could I step beyond “me”? That seemed like death.

It was supposed to.

It was a kind of death I was being invited into. Death to self. Not death to my existence but death to my reliance on self to form an identity, to be somebody, to be worthwhile, to be loved. To say “yes” to Jesus and grab hold his hand meant to step beyond all that I thought “me” needed.

After several days, I sensed the courage to respond to Jesus’ outstretched hand.

There was an opening in the wall – had that always been there? – and I slowly inched up to it, one slow tenuous step after another. I stepped through the wall and moved toward Jesus. When I got to him – I hadn’t fallen into the abyss surprisingly – I fell at his feet and was reminded of these words:

“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)

I could add to that list my own thinking, my doubts, my fears – these too are not stronger than God’s love for us in Jesus.

Jesus Went First

When Jesus stood before his friends and said, “You must deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow me,” I think he knew this would feel like a kind of death and would seem impossible to do. He had said as much to them earlier. “It is impossible for you. But all things are possible with God.”

It is not our strength, our faith, our courage that compels and energizes us to approach God. It is God’s unstoppable, undefeatable, invincible love, manifested in Jesus, that pulls us beyond ourselves into God’s loving embrace. That is where we belong. That is home.

When Jesus said these words to his friends, “You must deny yourselves,” it was immediately after he had told them he was going to be arrested, mocked, and killed. His own “self” was about to be denied. He was not asking them to do anything he was not going to do himself. He would lead the way.

Praying the Image

One way to pray this idea and image of “denying ourselves” is to imagine handing over aspects of ourselves, things we think and feel, to Jesus. This is one way to “step through the wall” as it were. We recognize these realities about ourselves and “deny” them by loosening our grip on them and handing them over. This is, of course, symbolic, but it can be one way to make real our intention to listen to Jesus and follow him.

Close your eyes now. Notice your breathing. Ask for the Spirit to help you pray. As best as you are able, imagine that you stand now in front of Jesus and begin to hand him these aspects of who you are.

Here is my love for you, Jesus.

Here is something I am afraid of. (be as specific as you can)

Here is something I am struggling with.

Here is something I love about you.

Here is something I’m anxious about.

Here is something I can’t seem to believe about you.

Here is that hurt that will not go away.

Here is what I really want from you.

Perhaps there are other things that come to mind. One by one, hand them over to Jesus. Or, if you can’t seem to loosen your grip. Maybe Jesus has something to do or say uniquely to you about that thing.

And now, receive these words from Jesus.

“I am for you. Who can be against you? Who can bring any charge against you? I have chosen you. You are mine.

No one can condemn you for I hold you tight.

Nothing can separate you from my love. Nothing.”

Amen and amen. Thanks for listening and praying.

Share

Words are powerful. And the images they evoke can be more powerful still. Every once in a while, a few words strung together on a page will create an image in my mind that strikes me with such force that I am left reeling.

This happened for me some years ago when I was reading a book written in a conversational style, one character being the sounding board for the other who was expressing difficult spiritual questions he was wrestling with. He was a Christian but going through a deeply troubling spiritual crisis and needed a friend who would walk the tumultuous terrain with him.

I was in a place in my own life where I was battling with many of the same questions this character was voicing. At one point in the conversation, the troubled character was talking about his spiritual life as one of endless climbing toward God but never quite finding God, of constant trudging toward some elusive promise of an “answer” that would bring about much needed relief. The effort was burdensome. The longed-for prize seemingly unattainable.

The friend who was listening patiently finally spoke up and said, “It sounds like what you need is to fall into God.”

When I read those words, I dropped the book and was overcome with emotion. “Fall into God.” That expressed perfectly what I was longing for but finding impossible to do. I wanted to let go of all my inner angst, all the questions, all the doubts, and simply free fall into the loving embrace of God. But how could I?

It was difficult for me because right in the center of my crisis was the question, “Are you there, God?” Was God even real? I had lived my whole life believing in God – I did still, yet I longed for some kind of knowing, some measure of experience of God that I could lean on, that I could fall into. Other similar images had lived in me for years: being at the end of a rope and wondering if I could just let go, standing at the edge of a cliff and needing to jump. These and other similar images all centered around the same question, ‘Was God actually there to catch me?’

Falling into an unknown abyss is terrifying. Have you ever had those dreams where your bed tilts and you slide off and fall into nothingness? When that happens to me, I jolt awake, my brain unable to withstand the fear that image evokes. Falling into God was what my heart yearned for but the fear of no one being there to catch me kept me clinging tightly to, well, what was I clinging to?

You may know of the image of the trapeze artist that was deeply meaningful for the spiritual writer Henri Nouwen. He was watching a routine one day and marvelling at the skill and artistry of the gymnasts. He wondered out loud how the one flipping and twisting in the air could possibly find the arms of the one hanging to catch him. His friend from the troupe corrected him. “Oh no,” he said, “the flyer must simply extend his arms and allow the catcher to catch him. Otherwise, he could break the catcher’s arms.”

The image embedded itself into Nouwen’s mind as a beautiful picture of God the Catcher. We seek God, we cry out for God in all our troubled twisting and flipping – and hope and pray that the Catcher knows how to catch us. This image spoke to me as well. Falling into God held the added dimension of being caught by God. Could I trust God like that?

For me, it’s been an ongoing journey, this learning to trust. Trusting God does not happen overnight, nor is it something we accomplish. It is something we receive. Trust needs time to grow, from a tender shoot to a tall tree whose roots extend deep into the soil of love. We inch toward it, receiving what we can, asking for help when we fail. Slowly, slowly we find within us the strength to let go of ourselves and yes, fall into God.

What might it look like for you to reach out in trust and allow God the Catcher to “catch” you?

Praying the Image

I thought we could take a few moments to pray this image using some scripture that invites us to trust that God will hold us and sustain us. I have adapted a couple of these so they are in the first person.

Sit back, close your eyes, ask the Spirit to open your heart to receive your gift from these words.

Deuteronomy 33:27: “I, Yahweh, the Lord, am your refuge and my everlasting arms are underneath you.”

Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

1 Peter 5:7: “Cast all your anxiety on me, because I care for you.”

Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Amen and amen. Thanks for listening and praying. Until next Thursday.

Share

One of the things I appreciate about scripture is the imagery the authors use to paint pictures of God’s love and care for us. Simple proclamations of God’s love can be helpful but there is nothing quite like a powerful image or metaphor to convey to our hearts the depth of God’s love and care. The old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words” has certainly been true for me in my spiritual life. Examples in scripture abound. God tells Jeremiah to go watch the potter at his wheel before he tells him about shaping his people the way a potter shapes the clay. (Jer 18)

Paul talks about the gospel as a growing seed that needs watering: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God makes things grow.” (1 Cor 3:6)

There are hundreds of these types of metaphors and images in scripture that help to draw us into the experience of God’s love and speak to us at a deeper register than mere words. I thought for the next few weeks I would explore some of the metaphors that have been meaningful for me in my walk with God. Perhaps some of them will resonate with you.

The House

Home. I wonder what that word evokes in you?

Of course, there is the physical environment where you live but we can live in places that do not feel like home. Home is a place where you are fully known and loved. Home is the place where you can put aside all the costumes you have to wear in the world - employee, boss, student, teacher – and simply be yourself. Some of us live in places like that. Some of us long for places like that.

At one time in my life, the metaphor of God’s house was evocative for me. The difficulty was I felt that I was outside the house. The image that seemed to resonate with me was one of me sitting out on the curb in front of a house, unable to get inside, feeling, at times, that I was not allowed inside. God lived in the house. It was full of life and love, laughter and joy, and many other people lived there with God, enjoying his presence, living in the home of God’s love. But not me. I was out on the curb and I did not know how to get in.

Last week I spoke about the dynamic of thinking of God as “over there” somewhere, out beyond my grasp, inaccessible to me. This image of being outside the house is similar. God is there, close at hand, but out of reach. He is in the house, but I am outside.

The Longing

As I reflected on this image, I began to notice my deep longing to be inside the house with God. I would linger on passages like Psalm 27:4,

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

I resonated with David’s longing to live at home with God.

Very quickly, though, the shame and doubt came thundering into my mind. Who was I to think that God would allow me inside? Surely that was reserved for the disciplined, the obedient, the righteous among us. Perhaps I was meant to be a yard-dweller, and be content with that.

The only option before me was to try to get myself into the house. What would that require? Stronger convictions, more faithful living, greater acts of service? I soon realized that none of these was what I needed. What I needed was truth, and that truth was that I was already inside the house. God had already brought me in and given me a place of home there.

I needed to believe what Moses told us in Deut 33:27, “The eternal God is my dwelling place.” And what Psalm 90:1 confirms, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout the generations.”

Not only is God already here, but I am already “in” God. The question is not “How do I get in?” the question is “What do I do now that I am already in? What does it mean for my life that God has already brought me home?

What I have discovered as this truth has slowly taken root in me, is that from inside the house, I am free to wrestle with God, to bring my questions, my doubts, my shame, my frustrations. If I am still out on the curb, wanting to get in the house, I will undoubtedly edit my prayers significantly, not wanting to say the wrong thing, not wanting to ruin my chances of getting inside. Knowing that I am already in, and safely so, I discover a new freedom to lay aside my edits and move toward a deeper honestly with God.

Share

Praying the Metaphor

Last week, we prayed using an adaptation of Psalm 139. This week, I invite you to pray using two short passages from Colossians and John. Again, I have placed them in the first person so you can hear them as spoken to you by Jesus.

Since I have already raised you up with me, set your hearts on things above, things about me, as you remember that I sit at the right hand of the Father. Set your minds not on earthy transitory things, but on heavenly, eternal things. This is the rightful place for your thoughts because you have already died, because of the cross, and your life is now hidden with me in the Father. When I appear, and you know I am your whole life, you will also appear with me in glory. (Col 3:1-4)

And you will soon realize, if you haven’t already, that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. If you love me, you will listen to me and follow my teaching, then you will know that the Father loves you, and that the Father and I have come to you and have made our home with you. (John 14:20, 23)

Take a moment or two to respond. What do you want to say to Jesus?

Amen and amen. Thanks for listening and praying.

Before I begin, let me put an invitation to you for comments about what you would like to see in Thursday Thoughts. As I finished the “Praying the Gospel of Mark” Series, I didn’t have another series in mind and am still pondering some possibilities. I’m open for ideas!

And thank you for your patience. June has been a busy month, and Thursday Thoughts needed a little rest.

There . . and Here

I was at a retreat centre near our home recently. Walking across the property, I came upon a small bridge traversing a creek running through a copse of trees. I stopped in the middle of the bridge to look downstream and was captured by the beauty of the scene, gentle water flowing over rocks and roots, luscious trees lining the meandering creek. It called for a photo. As I was taking a few shots it came to mind how often I had done this in Ireland, stopping to capture beauty with my phone camera.

Then it struck me. I had traveled a long way to see a beautiful scene when there was beauty right here, in my backyard!

I had a similar thought on the trip home, having recently experienced the beauty of Ireland, I was now introduced to the beauty of Canada, in the form of the flight instructions on the small seat back screen. Like Ireland, Canada is full of beautiful waterfalls, exquisite landscapes, breath-taking mountains. If I did not already live in Canada, I would want to visit!

The Allure of Over There

These experiences got me thinking about this proclivity in us to admire the far away over the near at hand. What exists or is happening “over there” always feels more exotic, more tantalising, more exciting. The near at hand easily becomes over-familiar and loses its vibrancy.

This dynamic lives in our spiritual lives as well. God always seems to be doing something exciting and powerful “over there,” in some other city, in some other country. Here we experience a lot of silence and hiddenness from God. It is this dynamic that causes some to travel, often many miles, to get to the place where God seems to be moving. I get it. When we are hungry for a taste of the Spirit, or desperate for healing, we will do anything to get to the place where we feel we are more likely to receive it.

It is this dynamic that energizes many to go on pilgrimages or visit holy sights. Again, I get it. When we feel empty, depleted, or spiritually bored, we long to be filled with God again and places where others have experienced God might offer something to our spirit. I felt something of this on my trip to Ireland, standing in the places where monks of the 7^th century stood and prayed. There is a connection one feels both with those faithful ones from centuries past, and the God to whom they prayed, still listening to us. If that is the invitation for you, go for it.

Another Invitation

But I would offer an alternative invitation, one immortalized by Abba Moses in this short story from the Desert Fathers:

“A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him, ‘Father, give me a word.’ The old man said to him, ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”

I think the brother was hoping for some powerful word, some instruction around the demand for a grand spiritual adventure, a heroic spiritual feat that would impress God and bring him close, perhaps with blessings or gifts or wisdom. Abba Moses says, in effect, ‘No, simply go and sit. Wait. The silence will teach you what you long for.’

Elisha was visited by a man whose train of thinking followed a similar path. Namaan, the successful commander of Aram’s army, goes to Elisha to be healed of his leprosy. Elisha tells him to do something very simple – wash yourself seven times in the river. Naaman is insulted. He is used to grandiose gestures, heroic deeds, pomp and circumstance. Surely his healing deserved some measure of this? He walks off in a fit of rage. But his servants were wiser than he.

“Namaan’s servants went to him and said, ‘My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean!’ So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean.” (2 Kings 5:13-14)

I have discovered in my own life that the desire to find God “over there” often hides a deep seated fear that God is not here with me now. If I make some noble effort, if I sacrifice something to get to God, if I work a little harder to find God, then, maybe then, God might come to me. There’s nothing wrong with effort, or sacrifice, but I think God would have us know God is not over there somewhere. God is right here. Moses said this many centuries ago:

“Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” (Deut 30:11-14)

As I ponder the beauty of the creek already near me, I am reminded once again that God is already here. Far off places and thin spaces around the world are legacies of God’s movements in those places, but God also moves within you, right where you are. Perhaps the cell of your heart is waiting for you.

Share

Praying the Story

How might we pray this idea? In the “Praying the Gospel of Mark” series I invited you to pray with your imagination the stories we came upon. We can also pray with this idea that God is right here, right now. I will adapt part of Psalm 139 to help us pray.

Close you eyes now, where you are sitting. Notice your breath. In and out, in and out. Let’s pray.

“Father, I admit that I often feel you are more present somewhere else than you are with me where I am. Can you open my eyes and unstop my ears, now, that I might see and hear your nearness?

The Lord says, ‘I have searched you and I know you. I know when you sit and when you rise. I discern your going out and your lying down. I am familiar with everything about you. Before you say anything, I know it. Before you think anything, I know it. There is nowhere you can go where I will not be there with you. Likewise, you do not need to go far away to find me. I am right here, with you.’

Now remain for a few moments in stillness. Ask the Lord to help you see or hear the gift he has for you today.”

Amen and amen. Until next Thursday.

Share

For the past couple weeks I’ve been reflecting on the idea of “dropping everything” to follow Jesus. In Luke 5 we see Simon’s and then Levi’s response to Jesus described in this way. The notion has always intrigued me, and terrified me, at the same time. It has mostly exposed in me a fear of letting go of my own life, of trusting Jesus beyond what feels possible, of allowing myself to, as one author put it, “fall into God.” I’m on a journey with all this and have been for a long time. I have given my life over to Jesus, yes, and I continue to cling to it voraciously.

I wasn’t planning on making a series of this topic. As you can likely tell, I am no expert in it. Perhaps this is why I am drawn to spiritual direction – knowing that we need companions on this journey of following Jesus. But I was in Ireland for a couple weeks recently and the idea remained firmly entrenched in my mind as we were introduced to the lives of two saints, St. Kevin of Glendalough, and St. Fionan of Skellig Michael. These two, from the 6^th century, were men who were dedicated to a life of prayer so fully that they sought places of solitude in order to live simple lives of work, prayer, and study. I only just learned of their stories, and know only a smattering, but the lives they led speak to a deep conviction that life is primarily for prayer.

St. Kevin made his way to the valley of Glendalough to live a life of solitude, finding a cave above a lake in which to live. The story goes that he lived there for seven years before a farmer found him and convinced him out of his solitude. He moved to the land and ended up founding the monastery and community now known as Glendalough. The community thrived for centuries before eventually being abandoned.

Less is known of St. Fionan. His name is associated with Skellig Michael but there is uncertainty as to his exact identity. Whether it was him or someone else, a group of monks did make their way to the remote island of Skellig Michael, 12 kilometers off the coast of Kerry, Ireland, and set up a monastery there near the peaks of the island.

Tours will take you there to walk where these monks walked 1400 years ago. Weather did not permit us to get there but watching a short film was enough to astound us with the courage, tenacity, and engineering prowess of these monks. Somehow they were able to carve and build 618 steps of slate rock, without mortar, to a small flat area where they could construct their beehive huts. The huts still stand today. It is absolutely incredible what they were able to achieve. And all in order to form a life of prayer and community dedicated to seeking God.

Learning the stories of these men has not evoked a desire to move out into the wilderness to live alone in austere conditions. I am far too attached to my 21^st century comforts for that. I confess that for years when I would hear stories of people like this I would think of them as far off spiritual celebrities, living lives unattainable to the rest of us. There was even a tinge of looking down upon them as missing the point of Jesus altogether, isolating themselves from a broken world in order to indulge their idiosyncratic prayer initiatives. I think differently now. Now I see them as people who caught a glimpse of a particular way of life, a life devoted to prayer, and they were willing to do whatever it took to seek and live that life. As much as Peter dropping his nets and Matthew walking away from his collection booth, St. Kevin and St. Fionan set aside whatever else life was offering them in order to seek God’s face in prayer and solitude. I am thankful for such men.

Rather than comparing my spiritual life to theirs, a pointless endeavor, I want to see them, and the thousands like them throughout history, as ones who point the way toward a life that places prayer at its center. I want to live a life like that. Perhaps you do as well. Each life will look different, and God’s call and invitation in this regard is unique to each of us, but I want to be open to what God may invite me into. Can I, in the very least, live my life facing God, open to what he may lead me into, seeking to follow given my particular set of circumstances? Might I see St. Kevin and St. Fionan as ones who hold out the invitation to seek God with all my heart, that such a life is well worth living, whatever it might look like in the end? I hope so.

May God have mercy on us all as we seek him to the degree we are able.

Until next time.

Share

If you are of a certain age, you will remember the ads that encouraged you to “Be like Mike” – Michael Jordan, that is.

In what ways we were to be like him, I can’t remember. Its one of those earworm ditties that sticks with you and can take on any number of uses.

This came to mind as I continued to reflect on “dropping everything and following Jesus” from last week’s Thursday Thoughts. The reason that response struck terror into me as a kid was the underlying assumption that I was, we all were, supposed to “be like Simon” or “be like Levi.” That is an interesting move to make in reading a story.

What we have in the gospels, and throughout scripture, is the actions of people responding to God in various ways. Some of these ways are applauded by the narrator and some are frowned upon. Mostly, though, the narrator simply tells the story without comment about the rightness or wrongness of the character’s actions. This then leaves the reader to discern the wisdom, or lack thereof, of the response described.

We get into difficulties when we read these descriptions as prescriptions. If we think the story is primarily about these people, written to teach us to respond likewise, then that makes sense. But the story is not primarily about them. The story is about God and the ways God interacts with particular people in particular circumstances. The responses people have are varied and diverse. The Bible is not a manual on how to act. It is a story about God’s coming to us and the varied way people respond to that coming. As we read the story, we are encouraged to seek this God ourselves. How do we respond to God?

I remember my uncle telling me once that he saw his job as a public school teacher, who was forbidden to speak about faith in the classroom, as one of stirring up his student’s desire for God. He wanted to pique their curiosity about life, the universe, relationships, and ultimately God without overtly mentioning God.

I see John doing something similar to this in his gospel. While Luke records the responses of some of the disciples as dropping everything to follow Jesus, John paints a slightly different picture. When two of John the Baptist’s disciples approach Jesus and ask where he is staying, he responds, “Come and see.” When Nathaneal is originally skeptical about Jesus, Philip encourages him with the same invitation, “Come and see.”

There is no “dropping everything” in these stories. Rather, there is curiosity. Who is this Jesus? What is he about? What happens within me as I listen to him? This is a posture worth cultivating, especially if we have been Christians a long time. Am I still curious about Jesus? What is he saying to me at this stage of my life, with all the realities that I am facing?

If we are finding ourselves stuck in our spiritual lives, if prayer seems lifeless, if the spiritual life has lost its allure, perhaps this is the invitation Jesus extends to us. Rather than “Be like Mike” I think Jesus would say, “Come and see.”

There is an imaginative prayer around the theme of “Come and See” in the audio version of this post, beginning at approximately 4:45. Enjoy!

Share

“Drop what you’re doing and come now!” Have you ever had a call like that? You know instantly that something urgent is happening, perhaps a crisis or emergency, perhaps something amazing that will pass quickly if you don’t hurry.

This is the call that echoed in my ears, and gave me shivers, as a kid whenever I would come across those words in the gospels, “they dropped everything and followed Jesus.” I took that on as some kind of litmus test for what it meant to become a Christian – one had to drop everything, change your whole life, and follow. This took on different iterations as I grew up. As a teenager it sounded like “being sold out for Jesus.” Then, in the language of a well-known mega church in the 80’s and 90’s, being a “fully devoted follower of Jesus.” All these mantras haunted me. They sounded good, even right. I just knew that whatever I was doing in my feebly Christian life could hardly be described in those ways.

I wrote about this in my book, Friendship with Jesus; this call to abandon everything to follow Jesus when we weren’t even sure who Jesus was, nor what “abandoning everything” even meant. There, I spoke about the more usual slowly developing friendship that we see with Jesus and the disciples. But, truth be told, there lingers that initial response of dropping everything. Hard to get around that.

I came across this again this week as I was writing something on Luke 5 which has two stories of disciples dropping everything and following. The first is Simon Peter. He encounters Jesus at work, on his fishing boat, after a long, hard and fruitless night of fishing. Jesus asks him to go out one more time. Simon was ready to pack it in, but he goes. And the fish poured into his boat.

His response? “Go away from me for I am a sinful man.” Simon felt something deep and profound when he sees this miracle; the power, the holiness, something that causes him to fall to the ground and ask Jesus to leave. He is not worthy to be in the presence of one such as this. But Jesus does not leave. He calls. “I will make you fish for people, Simon. And your friends are welcome to come, too.” At this, Luke tells us, they dropped everything and followed.

What would compel them to respond this way? Perhaps they were looking for a change in career and this seemed to fit the bill. Perhaps they saw the opportunity to be the apprentices to an almost-but-not-quite-yet-famous rabbi. Maybe. In that culture that would be an amazing honor. We’ll never know for sure because Luke tells us nothing beyond their rash and immediate decision. They dropped everything and followed.

Just a couple stories later we see the same thing with Levi. Jesus wanders up to his tax collecting booth and simply says, ‘Follow me.” And Levi does! No miracle required. No response of shame or fear, he simply “drops everything and follows.” Now we might think Levi had more reason to act this way. Here was a chance to leave this job that only caused public shame and ridicule. The money was nice but maybe he was realizing the stigma wasn’t worth it anymore. Whatever the reason, he drops it all and follows Jesus.

Dropping everything seems like a drastic move. We’re impressed by it. It speaks of committed resolve and resolute conviction. But who among us can imagine doing such a thing? Maybe you can. Maybe you have. But for most of us, I imagine, this notion of dropping everything and following seems out of reach. We read of it in the disciples and think of them as a separate class of people, somehow – people who knew, if only sub-consciously, that Jesus would transform their lives and the lives of millions through them.

These days, rather than taking on the guilt of not dropping everything, or ignoring the entire idea and leaving it to the super-Christians, I try to remember to listen for Jesus’ invitation to me in this story. As I place myself in that boat, or at that booth, I try to imagine what it would have taken for me to respond this way. Perhaps the look in Jesus’ eyes would have compelled me to “drop everything” and follow him. When a friend calls and asks us to drop everything and come now, we do it. We trust our friend. We know they would not lead us astray. We know they want to include us in their joy, or they need us in their trouble. Either way, we come. We drop everything. Whatever we happen to be doing is less important than our friend in that moment.

I like to think of Luke as a friend like that. As he tells us the story of Jesus he wants to include us in his joy of discovering Jesus. As he tells us of others dropping everything to follow, he stirs in us the desire for something more, Someone more, someone who will speak to the deep loneliness and ache of isolation that haunts us in our quieter moments.

What do you hear with these words, “they dropped everything and followed”? Do you want resolve like that? Do you set it aside for others more spiritual than you? Do you wonder what it would take for you to respond like that?

All this is good for conversation with Jesus.

What comes to mind for you as you watch others respond to Jesus this way?

Thanks for reading!

Share

Catch Phrase

In the world of entertainment and pop culture, a catch phrase can be gold. Phrases from movies or TV shows that make it into common conversation can mean increased popularity, revenue – all the things! How often have you heard someone saying, “yada, yada, yada” as a way to shortcut a long list of uninteresting items? You may know this comes from a Seinfeld episode. Or, when someone asks for the truth about something, and the reply comes, “You can’t handle the truth” – a famous line from the movie A Few Good Men.

I suppose if you were the actor who first uttered these words it would be strange but oddly satisfying to hear other people using them in everyday life.

I often use a “catch phrase” of sorts in the realm of prayer and our spiritual life - notice what you notice. Last week I wrote about paying attention to what God is doing in your life, rather than only thinking about what God is not doing. This phrase – notice what you notice – stands adjacent to that. It can be a helpful reminder to notice the things that catch your attention, that seem to call out to you, that invite you to notice and ponder. These are often things that the Spirit is highlighting in our lives and inviting us to “bend an ear” and listen further.

Noticing the Fire

In Exodus 3 we read about Moses tending his sheep on the mountainside when he sees this amazing site – a fiery bush that is not burning up. It’s quite natural to think you would go to investigate such a thing but the narrator points us to something that is worth pondering with this sentence: “When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from the bush.”

It was not until Moses made the effort to notice and respond to the sight that God spoke to him. In this story, God made it pretty easy for Moses – he could hardly miss the bush on fire. I suppose he might have continued walking along, noticing the bush but not bothering with it. But he doesn’t do this. He notices and walks over to look. We like burning bush experiences where we can hardly miss the invitation to “Pay attention!” But many times, the invitations are far more subtle, don’t you think?

How God Speaks

In my life, I have often been frustrated with the advice “God will speak to you through the Bible.” I believe this is true but if that’s all you have to go on, the experience of trying to hear God can be frustrating. You might read a sentence like, “Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat” (Num 11:18), and wonder what in the world God might be saying to you in that! That is a ridiculous example, I know, but don’t we often read the Bible and come away completely confused as to what God is saying to us?

This is where the catch phrase is helpful. Notice what you notice. When I read and pray with a story from the Bible, what stands out to me? What emotions get stirred? What elements in the story seem to loom large? What character am I drawn to? Noticing these things opens us to ponder how the Spirit might be speaking to us and invites further dialogue in prayer.

This was highlighted for me one day as I prayed with John’s Gospel. At the end of chapter one there are three stories of Jesus calling the first disciples to follow him. As I entered this scene, I heard and experienced Jesus calling me, but then immediately noticed my hesitation. I wanted to say “Yes” but I didn’t think I could.

This hesitation surprised me – I thought I was all in with Jesus – but it revealed something deeply true. I was afraid. I felt like Jesus was calling me to a deeper commitment that I was unsure I could make.

I sat with this for several minutes, trying to pay attention to my fear. I started to go around and around in my head in a lot of self accusation, so I returned to the text to help me move forward and noticed something I had overlooked. In each of the three stories, Jesus is not calling one individual but pairs of friends and brothers, Peter and Andrew, Philip and Nathaniel.

I returned to the scene and heard Jesus calling me once again. This time, I imagined a friend with me. The experience was completely different. My friend and I looked at each other and together said, “We’re coming!” The fear was gone. The hesitation was non-existent.

I learned something valuable that day. Jesus does not call us in isolation. He calls us, with others, into a family. This is what God was saying to me. Noticing my emotional response and the ordinary detail in the story helped me listen to the Spirit and see my heart in a new way. It was my small experience of noticing the burning bush and going over to pay attention to it.

Share

This kind of noticing has been so helpful for me in my life with God. I often forget to pay attention in this way, but God is merciful and patient, continuing to whisper in my ear, “notice what you notice.”

The next time you sit down to pray, notice what comes to mind for you, what feelings get stirred in you. Ask the Spirit to say more about what you are noticing.

Your local news outlet may have a segment called something like “Simon on Your Side” where the host investigates various consumer issues - fraud, nefarious corporate behaviour – to bring some justice to the consumer.

There is a certain “gotcha” factor in these stories that appeals to our sense of justice and righteous revenge. We assume that the host is “on the side” of the consumer and the evil corporation will be taken down a few notches. Our side wins!

For Us Or Against Us?

There is a story in the Bible that evokes this “our side/their side” dynamic that I have been pondering lately - perhaps because of the insistence recently by some political and military folks that “God is on our side.”

When the people of Israel were about to embark on their first military action in Canaan, after crossing the Jordan river, Joshua comes face to face with a man blocking his path with a drawn sword. He asks him, quite understandably, “Are you for us or against us?”

We have been told that Joshua and Israel’s army are very close to Jericho, the first city to be taken in their conquest of the promised land. This man might well be an emissary from that city, or some other nearby army. Joshua, perhaps with his hand on the hilt of his own sword, asks this man’s allegiance.

The response comes. “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.”

Joshua realizes this man is no man but an angel and he falls facedown in reverence.

Really?

As readers, this response is shocking. Neither? God has been leading the people to the promised land of Canaan for a generation. God has rebuked the people countless times for their fear and distrust in God’s leadership in this plan. And now Joshua is on the brink of realizing their destiny and wants to know if God is on their side. Of course God is on their side, right? The whole story has been about God’s love and leadership of this people despite their resistance and rebellion. Of course this angel represents God’s coming to the aid of his people, bringing heaven’s reinforcements to ensure victory. Of course God is on their side.

But this is not what the angel says. He wants Joshua to know from the outset that the only side that matters, is God’s side. This is God’s story. Will Joshua be with God or against God?

I wrote a piece recently reflecting on the first line of the Bible, “In the beginning, God . . .” Right from the first line of the Bible we learn it is God who takes center stage. The story of the world is God’s story. The angel is reminding Joshua of this fact.

If you’re like me, you feel the resistance to this making its way up your back. “What about me? What about my story? Doesn’t my story matter?” Of course it does, just not in the way we usually think. We often think that in order for my life to matter, God must come along side me, encourage me, comfort me, fortify me. This is our way of asking, “Are you on my side, God?”

I think God responds to this by saying, “The first question to ask is ‘Are you on my side?’”

When faced with that question, our allegiance is unmasked. We are faced with the reality of our trust, or distrust, in God’s goodness. We feel the vulnerability involved in laying down our life to follow God. Whatever you notice about that reality in your own heart is worthy of conversation with God. God is not interested in simply shaming you or exposing your lack of trust. He uses questions like that to draw us closer, even if it begins by us confessing we don’t actually trust him enough to follow his lead. That is a worthy beginning.

Praying the Story

What are the ways you are assuming God is on your side in your life - spiritually, relationally, emotionally? Ask the Spirit to help reveal this to you. God is for you, yes, but perhaps he is asking a different question?

What would it look like for you to listen to the Lord ask, “Are you on my side?”

Until next time.

Share

Walking and praying our way through the gospel of Mark was a wonderful experience – for me, anyway. I hope for you as well. I kept being surprised by new things in the story I had not noticed or pondered before. That is the wonder of scripture, and of story – there are always new things to see, perhaps because we are always new people coming to the story, with new experiences, new questions, new wonder.

As I walk with you into this Resurrection season, I’ve been pondering something that struck me from an article I read recently. The author was making the correct observation that the text we have of the Lord’s Prayer would not have been the words Jesus actually spoke. Jesus did not speak Greek, as far as we know. He spoke Aramaic and he would have recited and taught this prayer originally in Aramaic. The author of the article has reverse translated the prayer from Greek – somehow - into what they offer as the “original” prayer in Aramaic which reads, when translated into English, quite different from what we all know.

There will always be things lost in translation and the church has been translating and writing commentaries on the Bible for centuries to bring the original texts of Hebrew and Greek into the world’s languages. New translations abound as scholars try to bring the original text into as close a rendering as possible in the new language. Things are always being tweaked.

Wondering what Jesus actually said in Aramaic is a legitimate thing to think about, though there is no way we can ever know for sure. The thesis of this article is that the primary thrust of the Lord’s Prayer has been lost to us through translation and we are missing what Jesus actually taught in this prayer.

I can be intrigued by this sort of thing. I probably have an unhealthy attraction to the “new discovery” about some passage of scripture or some word found in the gospels. Of course, there is always more to learn but there can be something ego-driven and less than humble about thinking I have discovered something new that no one has ever thought of before.

But apart from the dynamic of “This is what it really means,” what came out as the supposed “original” that Jesus taught was, as might be expected in our day and age, a rather universalist, “O Divine Vibration” kind of thing. I won’t quote the whole prayer but here is the first line. Rather than, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” we should read,

“O breathing life of all existence, you who dwell in the dimension of light and vibration from which all things emerge.”

Now, I am no Aramaic scholar, nor do I read anywhere in the article how the “original Aramaic” was produced from a Greek manuscript, but I don’t think this rendering can be correct and here is why. Aside from the “you” in the middle of this sentence, this reads to me like one is addressing an impersonal cosmic energy, a universal life force “from which all things emerge.”

This is the type of thing that one hears a lot these days. “God” is much more palatable to us humans if God is a force, an energy, a vibration that offers life, and perhaps even love. That kind of “God” is much easier to deal with, like the wind, which I can go outside and bask in, or turn away and ignore. “God” can be a nice summer breeze that makes me feel refreshed. And if this summer breeze is the energy behind the entire universe, all the better.

But coming out of Easter as we just have, this is not the picture of God that scripture portrays. We have seen a picture of God as One who hangs dying on a cross, who offers body and blood for our redemption, who looks us in the eyes and says, “Follow me.” The God scripture speaks of is a personal and relational God, not a force, not a vibration, not a cosmic energy. The God of the Bible speaks to us and listens to us. The God of the Bible bends to wash our feet, kneels to touch our wounds, stands to lift us up.

To be fair, it is always difficult to speak of the transcendence of God. One might well use words like “energy” and “force,” but these concepts are only useful as they find their foundation in a Person, the One who is named Yahweh, the One who was fully manifest in Jesus of Nazareth. (The “of Nazareth” is important. It is a way the gospel writers keep reminding us that Jesus is a real person who was born in a real town to real people and walked the roadways of Judea).

John keeps the personhood of Jesus squarely before us as he begins his first letter:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1 John 1:1)

On that first Easter morning, the disciples were not amazed because they all felt something wonderful, a beautiful energy of life-wafting vibration. They were amazed because this one who was killed now stood alive in front of them. “Put your hands in my side and believe,” Jesus says.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.

Share

This is our final week of Praying through the Gospel of Mark.

We prayed the ending of Mark’s gospel on Sunday, Resurrection Day. I wanted to use the post today as a look back on where we have come from in this journey with Mark’s story of Jesus.

Before I do that, though, I noted, and we experienced, the sudden and abrupt way Mark ends his story. The other gospel writers offer a few more stories of encounters with Jesus after the resurrection. I have found these stories powerful in my own life and wanted to give you the opportunity to sped time with them if you wish. I wrote about many of these stories last year in my Eastertide series which I have included links to below.

Matthew tells us that Jesus appears to the women as they flee the garden and then to all the disciples in Galilee where he gives them their great commission, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” You can find it here:

Luke tells us about Jesus appearing to two friends on the road to Emmaus and opening the scriptures to them. “Were not our hearts burning?” Find it here:

And finally, John tells us two beautiful and profound stories. The first is Jesus meeting with Thomas in the upper room, “Reach out your hand and put it into my side.”

and the second when Jesus has breakfast with John on the beach, “Do you love me?”

You may want to engage with these stories as a way to keep the resurrected Jesus before your eyes this week.

The Journey

When we return from a trip we often scroll through all our pictures and relive the best moments of our adventure.

I wonder if you might want to do the same with this journey we have been on? What sticks with you in this experience of accompanying Mark as he tells us the story of Jesus?

Perhaps you remember Jesus’ original word to all who would listen after his baptism, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” Maybe you remember the opposition Jesus faced from the Pharisees right out of the gate. Maybe some of the miracles stand out to you – feeding the thousands in the wilderness (twice!), calming the storm, walking on the water. Perhaps it’s the healings that touch you – the demon possessed man in the Gerasene district, the man with leprosy, the woman bleeding for 12 years, wily old Bartimaeus. Or perhaps his teaching has remained with you – the mustard seed of faith, the centrality of the heart, the image of a child as important for understanding God’s kingdom. When we enter into these stories with our imagination, I think you will notice how they remain with us, going far deeper than simple information.

The Turn

I have always been struck by the turn that happens in the center of this story, the first climax that Mark brings us to in Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?”

The entire gospel places this question before us, who do I think Jesus is? He upsets our notions of power, of love, of sacrifice. He expresses an image of who God is that many have never seen, especially if we harbour a sense of God as malicious, angry, or vindictive. Jesus destroys all that, revealing a God willing to go to the death because of love.

At the turn, Peter steps forward boldly. “You are the Christ!” Can you remember seeing him do this? Or perhaps it was you doing it? We soon realize that Peter, and the other disciples, misunderstand what this entails. They, like us, are caught in an image of God who comes in and takes over, using power and strength to accomplish his goals. This is what power means to us, and we are caught in a world that longs for this kind of power. But Jesus reveals a much different kind of power.

He can calm storms and produce food from nowhere, yes. There is power there. But Jesus embodies a power that serves rather than coerces, that lets go of privilege, rather than exerting it, that remains silent rather than defending itself. Jesus uses power to release people into life, to free people from bondage, to love people who are suffering. It is this Jesus that the tomb cannot contain.

Worldly power can always be overcome by more power – and there is always someone with more power, more strength, more ability. But, it seems to me, that Jesus’ kind of power cannot be overcome for it always acts subversively, it always does the unexpected, it always looks for ways to forgive, to heal, to love.

As you stand at the empty tomb with this message - that Jesus has risen - ringing in your ears, what will you do? How will you respond? And whatever your answer to that question is, may I invite you to tell Jesus about it? Even if you are not sure, even if you are scared, even if the whole thing confuses you and disturbs you – tell Jesus all of this. He is waiting to hear it.

We have already prayed the whole story that Mark has written so for our prayer this week, I thought I would invite you to reflect on your own life, listening for how Jesus’ story is intersecting with yours and speaking life to you. I will simply read some lines taken from Mark’s Gospel with some space for you to listen for how the Spirit might be speaking life and healing to you.

Let’s pray.

Prayer: Praying the Gospel of Mark

(You can listen to the prayer by itself here. The text follows, if you’d rather read it.)

“This is the good news about Jesus, the King, the Son of God”

“’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said.”

“And Jesus healed many who had various diseases”

“Some people came, bringing a paralyzed man to Jesus, lowering him through the roof.”

“It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.”

“Stretch out your hand!”

“What shall we say the kingdom of God is like? It is like a mustard seed.”

“Why are you so afraid?”

“But Jesus kept looking around to see who had touched him.”

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

“How many loaves do you have?”

“Take courage, it is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“What about you? Who do you say I am?”

“You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”

“And a voice came from the cloud, ‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

“Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

“Can you drink the cup I drink?”

“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

“Be on your guard!”

“A woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.”

“Take it: this is my body.”

“Abba, Father. Take this cup from me, yet not what I will but what you will.”

“But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.”

“’I don’t know this man you’re talking about.’ Then the rooster crowed.”

“Are you the king of the Jews?”

“Crucify him. Crucify him!”

“Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him.”

“With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.”

“So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in the tomb.”

“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away.”

“Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene. He is not here. He is risen!”

“Bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.”

Amen and amen. Thanks for praying. Until next time.

Share

When we walk slowly through Mark’s account of the final days before the cross, the air seems to thicken, the darkness deepen, and the tension and pain of what is coming rises to a level of foreboding and doom. And finally, death. Jesus’ friends have been living there throughout the hours of Friday and Saturday. But the darkness of the night sky, like the anguish in their hearts, begins to give way to a dawning light, as the women approach the tomb.

Here’s the story:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Because our main purpose here is to pray this story, I will not go into all the scholarly and theological debates that exist about the strange way Mark ends his gospel. The question is, of course, did Mark intend to end his gospel here or has a longer ending been lost? Opinions abound.

Your Bible probably includes verses beyond verse 8 but with a note saying the earliest manuscripts do not have this section. Even to the untrained eye, though, verses 9-20 do seem to have been added by someone who is eager to sum up the story. They just don’t sound like Mark.

But, let’s not get pulled into all that. We want to pray the story we have here in verses 1-8. A couple of brief reflections:

Again, The Women

As mentioned yesterday, the only disciples we see in this final chapter are the women who have faithfully remained present to Jesus in his final hours, the two Marys and Salome.

If someone was making up this story, and hoping to use it to convince others of an empty tomb, these would not be the witnesses one would choose. It speaks to the authenticity of the account.

I am struck by how many times, women must have sat in church and listened to a sermon express the idea that all the disciples abandoned Jesus, when the text is very clear – and all the Gospel writers agree on this – that all the disciples did not abandon Jesus. These women remained til the very end, even willing to do the unpleasant duty of preparing the dead body for burial. Mary Magdalene does not appear in Mark’s Gospel until these final moments of Jesus’ life. This is where she shines, pushing past her personal pain in order to serve her Master. I could use more of that in my own life.

The First Day

Then, this verse: “Very early on the first day of the week,” Mark writes. I have written about this in last year’s Easter post here:

I do not know if Mark is saying anything theologically significant here, or whether he is simply reporting the time. John makes more of this in his Gospel, but once you see it it’s hard to unsee it. In Genesis, human beings were created on Day 6. Then God rested. That was the Sabbath day. In the story of Jesus’ passion, he is put to death on the day before the Sabbath, or, day 6. The day of rest is Holy Saturday, and then, on the first day of the week, or, as I like to think about it, the first day of “new creation,” Jesus, the first fruits of this new creation, is raised to new life. And it is not a simple “coming back to life,” and things continuing as they were before. Jesus is not simply resuscitated. He is resurrected! There is continuity with his old body - he still bears the wounds - but he is living an entirely new form of life, a life animated by Spirit rather than flesh, life rather than death, hope rather than despair. A whole new reality has opened up and Jesus leads us into it.

My father used to quip that today is the first day of the rest of your life. How true that is on Resurrection Day!

A Story Left Unfinished

And finally, this ending. All the speculation about the ending of Mark’s Gospel comes about because it reads like it is unfinished. The young man announces that Jesus has risen and will see them in Galilee, and the women flee from the tomb, “trembling and bewildered.” There is no sighting of Jesus, no scenes of forgiveness and restoration, no commission for telling the world about Jesus. The women run away afraid – hardly a satisfying conclusion to the story.

What it does do, though, is invite us to pay attention to our own response to Jesus. All that we have seen and experienced of Jesus over these many weeks has, hopefully, gotten into us. We feel all kinds of things. We wonder about all kinds of things. We have walked with Jesus across the roads of Palestine, sailed with him across the Sea of Galilee, marvelled at his attention to the poor and weak, wondered about his call to deny ourselves and follow him. Then, we followed him as he went to the cross, confused, perhaps, about why he would choose this way, why he was willing to submit to this evil, how he was able to follow his Father’s will even to his own death.

What do you think of such a man as this?

I wonder if Mark has ended his story like Jesus ends the prodigal son story, inviting the older son to come in and celebrate but not telling us what he did – wanting his listeners to respond. Here, Mark tells us the women ran away trembling. Perhaps he is turning to us and asking, ‘And how do you respond to this empty tomb? How do you respond to this word that Jesus is no longer dead but waiting to meet with you?’

This is where the Jesus story as told by Mark comes to an end. I will have some final reflections next week as we bring our prayer experience to a close.

But for now, let’s pray the story, spending some time outside the empty tomb and pondering our response to Jesus. What do you want to say to him? What is your sense of what he is saying to you?

Father, animate my spirit and imagination as I stand here outside your empty tomb, Jesus, on first day of new creation. Open the eyes and ears of my heart, Spirit, that I might receive what you want to reveal to me today.

Prayer: Resurrection

(You can listen to the prayer by itself here. The text follows, if you’d rather read it.)

You haven’t slept. The night, like the day yesterday, seemed to go on forever. You have heard that some of the women are going out to Jesus’ tomb this morning and you feel compelled to join them.

You meet them outside in the cool night air, a glimmer of light on the horizon. The air is cool but you can already feel the warmth emerging.

You walk slowly. Mary and Salome lead the way. They saw where Jesus was laid so you know they know the way. Everyone is lost in their own thoughts. Someone asks in a whisper, “What will we do now? What will become of us?”

“Shhh, sister. There will be time for that later. Let’s concentrate on the task before us.”

You walk in silence, gentle footfalls on the path. A morning bird in the distance, the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze.

“We have the spices,” someone says eventually, “but how will we get to the body? Didn’t you say Joseph closed up the tomb with a stone?”

You had heard this report as well. You’re surprised, now, that no one thought about this before. You have seen these stones in graveyards. They are usually very large – and heavy. How are you going to move it?

“Should we go back and get the others?” someone asks.

They barely get their words out when you turn the final corner in the garden to see the tomb straight ahead of you. The massive stone is rolled to the side and the tomb stands open.

Your step quickens to get to the entrance, but then, caution, as you think perhaps graverobbers are nearby. You look all around. No one.

You step closer. The entrance to the tomb stands open, inviting you to draw near, to come close. Mary goes in first. You follow her.

You are startled to see a young man sitting there, bathed in white, calm, reassuring somehow.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says. “I know you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen! See the place where they laid him.” At this, he moves his arm across his body, motioning toward the obvious emptiness. “He is not here.”

“You are to go now, tell his disciples, and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

You stand speechless. How do you respond to this news? What do you feel? What do you imagine saying to Jesus when you see him?

Spend some time with all you notice.

Amen and amen. Thanks for praying.

Share