Prayer - being honest with God, honest with ourselves

I’ve spent a large part of today getting ready for next Sunday’s Family Service at YWBC. We’re continuing to look at the theme of prayer, and posing the question, ‘What should we ask for?’

One of the passages we’re looking at is 1 Kings 3, and the famous story of King Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. The opening chapters of 1 Kings are not pleasant reading – Solomon does not have a clear path to the throne and his power is consolidated only after a number of violent deaths, including that of his brother Adonijah and his father’s military commander Joab. The chapters make little attempt to hide the fact that the trail of responsibility for these murders ultimately leads back to Solomon.

But in chapter 3, we have a very different portrait of the King, to whom God appears in a dream. God instructs Solomon to ‘Ask what I should give you.’ Reading Solomon’s reply, I’m particularly struck by one claim which he makes: ‘I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.’ Considering the guile and ruthlessness Solomon has just shown in order to secure power, these words demonstrate either breathtaking nerve before God or a genuine humility in his presence, or both.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too quick to make judgements about Solomon. I wonder if all of us have played this game at one time or another, presenting ourselves as innocent victims before God, failing to acknowledge completely our own culpability where things have gone wrong. Perhaps, God is gracious enough to see beyond this sort of self-deception, recognising it as part-and-parcel of the human condition. He is certainly approving of Solomon’s request for wisdom, granting him ‘a wise and discerning mind.’

And yet the Solomon story does not work out well. For all his apparent humility in asking for wisdom, it’s hard to escape the feeling that a basic instinct for power and wealth is never really dealt with in his life. Ultimately, his life is not one characterised by humble rule or justice. Instead, he comes as acquisitive, for power, for riches, for women. It’s telling that when God appears again to Solomon in 1 Kings 9 the message delivered to him is one of warning about the danger of falling away.

So I wonder if 1 Kings 3 offers insights on prayer at all sorts of levels. At face value, we’re taught to ask for what is right. But beyond that there’s another lesson, that if our prayers don’t really reflect a true depth of changed character then their long-term impact may be much less than might otherwise be expected.

Exodus 32: Prayer as a means of shaping our future

This morning we began our new teaching series on prayer, reflecting on the astonishing story of Moses’ prayer to God in the aftermath of Israel’s building of the Golden Calf, a betrayal which brings God perilously close to getting rid of Israel, and starting again with a new people. Hopefully the talk will appear soon on YWBC’s audio page.

Reading Exodus 32 again over the past week, I’ve been struck again by how significant Moses’ prayers were. Filled with hurt and anger, God tells Moses to ‘let me alone,’ so he can come to terms with Israel’s idolatry and proceed with plans to get rid of them, starting afresh with a new people borne of Moses. But Moses doesn’t give God the space he’s looking for. Instead, he encourages God to think of his reputation (what would the Egyptians think if God brought the Israelites out of slavery only to annihilate them in the future?) and also the promises made to forefathers such as Abraham and Isaac.

This isn’t the only biblical story where God’s mind appears to be changed by human pleading. In Genesis 18 Abraham negotiates with God and persuades him not to destroy Sodom, and in 2 Kings 20 we read of Hezekiah’s life being prolonged for another 15 years because of his prayers.

The question is, how do we live differently in the light of such passages? In his excellent book, God of the Possible, Greg Boyd suggests: ‘Many Christians do not pray as passionately as they could because they don’t see how it could make any significant difference. They pray, but they often do so out of sheer obedience and without the sense of urgency that Scripture consistently attaches to prayer.’

Sometimes it feels as if we’re passively sitting, waiting, wondering when the renewal we all hope for is going to begin. But as James writes, ‘You do not have, because you do not ask’ (James 4:2). Shaping the future of our church begins with prayer, not presuming upon God’s blessing, but starting to show God how dissatisfied and demanding we are.

It would be good to hear the thoughts of others of others on this issue, and good to hear of anything you sense God saying as you pray.

Mark 13: ‘Beware that no one leads you astray.’

Last Sunday our journey through Mark brought us to the book’s most controversial chapter. In Mark 13 Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, a magnificent structure only just rebuilt at massive cost by Herod. The Temple is reckoned to have occupied the space of 35 football pitches, a vast expanse of gold, marble and other expensive materials. For most Jews of Jesus’ time, this was the building that provided a concrete symbol of national pride and hope in God, including the aspiration that one day all the peoples of the world would come to worship Yahweh on Mount Zion.

But Jesus delivers an astonishing, shocking verdict: ‘Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown done.’ He goes on to warn the disciples of the danger of being led astray by false leaders, a probable reference to the Jewish revolutionary movement who took over the Temple in 67AD to further their own agenda, and invited the backlash from Rome which eventually led to the building being razed to the ground by Titus in 70AD.

As Ben Witherington has commented, this chapter is ‘primarily not about the end of the world, but the end of a world – the world of early Judaism as a temple-centred faith.’

By coincidence, I read this week about the impending 100^th anniversary of the Ulster Covenant, a document signed by over 470,000 people, pledging opposition to the prospect of Irish Home Rule and a continued determination to remain citizens of the United Kingdom. Controversially, the document wasn’t just signed by individuals but was also supported by the Presbyterian Church, who even suggested amendments to the wording which were accepted by Unionists.

I owe a huge debt to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, in which I grew up and found faith. And we need to be wary when sitting on judgement on people in divided societies, who sometimes make the wrong choices when feeling their very survival is at stake. But it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that this alignment with Unionism was ultimately destructive for the church. Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, my abiding memory of church is of a people with a militant, closed spirituality, a defensiveness which reflected their precarious political situation, a feeling of being unwanted in both London and Dublin. Having made little contribution to peacemaking, this church now has little stake in building the new Northern Ireland which is developing in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.

So who are we putting our trust in today, and how will history judge us? I currently hear a number of colleagues in ministry wax lyrical about the opportunities offered to the church by the so-called Big Society. May be it’s understandable that, like the 1912 Presbyterians, we sense how the political situation is developing and feel the need to involve ourselves. But will future generations look back on a period of unprecedented cuts in welfare and budgets which caused great hardship for the most poor and vulnerable in our society, and ask why the church saw government policy as an opportunity to further its own evangelistic agenda?

Mark’s Big Story: was Jesus submissive?

So we’ve completed our three evenings looking at Mark’s Big Story. Our focus last night was on ‘creating a new community,’ the values and practices of the new kingdom movement ushered in by Jesus. What’s interesting about Mark is the way in which his Gospel contains no major teaching section, like Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Instead, when it comes to lifestyle, we’re left to look at the actions of Jesus and his disciples.

Closer inspection leads us to a couple of interesting discoveries. Firstly, the task of Jesus and his disciples is constantly one of exorcism in Mark, with numerous examples of Jesus coming face to face with the strong man who is holding people captive. When Jesus calls and commissions his disciples in chapters 3, 6, and 16, the job of casting out demons is central to the kingdom mandate.

Secondly, there’s the method. The Jesus movement are vulnerable (they depend on the hospitality of others and they don’t take lots of equipment or resources with them on the journey). Jesus also models a response of compassion, and the kingdom values are such that the important people are those who would not be considered significant by others – slaves, servants, children.

And the ultimate example of the method is found in Jesus himself, whose victory is not brought about through a show of strength, but in the moment of surrender on the cross.

And that conversation led to one of the big questions of the evening. Was Jesus submissive? Is that the best word to use to describe the man who openly challenged the practices of the Pharisees and turned over tables in the Temple courts?

Reflecting on this question this morning has brought me back to Hebrews 5:7: ‘In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.’

I wonder if these words offer a clue to the underlying, guiding principle of Jesus’ ministry... that the decisions which led to every miracle, every parable, every gesture were all, ultimately, underpinned by a desire to submit to his heavenly Father. Jesus did not understand himself to be making up his own plan, but fulfilling the mission of God.

So what implications does this have for us, for the confrontations and challenges we find ourselves making in the name of Jesus? When we examine the protests we take part in, or our political affiliations, can we honestly say we understand everything we’ve done to be a part of a life fully submitted to God?

As Martin Luther famously put it, when preaching on discipleship: ‘Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire - that is the road you must take.’

Petitions and taking on the establishment

Last night was the second of our three evenings at church reflecting on the big themes in Mark’s Gospel. We spent two hours looking at Jesus’ relationship the establishment, the likes of the Temple authorities, the Pharisees, the Herodians and Romans, all of whom were threatened by his presence and ministry, and all of whom formed the coalition which gathered to ensure his execution at Easter.

Reading through Mark again, it’s striking how polemic Jesus’ actions are when facing up to the ‘powers that be.’ There’s an attack on the Pharisees’ ‘human tradition’ which concludes an incitement to the gathered crowd who are told that ‘nothing outside a person... can defile’ (Mk 7:15). There’s the turning over of tables in the temple and an attempt to shut down the buying and selling of goods in its precincts (Mk 11:16).

It’s troubling to compare the practices of Jesus with that of so many of our own churches, especially within our Baptist tradition, where we seem to have lost so much of the edge of our protesting, non-conforming heritage.

And it’s also interesting to think about the current debate on the redefinition of marriage which is causing so much angst within the evangelical community. Lots of churches, including our own, have offered members the opportunity to sign the Coalition for Marriage’s petition voicing concern about the government’s planned changes. But what are we actually doing when we sign a document like this? Are we taking a prophetic stand, asserting our obedience to God and not the state? Or are we asking the state to stay on our side, making sure the establishment rules are still on our terms? Are we trying to have our cake and eat it?

Theology and Twitter

A recommendation: Steve Holmes, Baptist Minister and theology lecturer at St Andrews University, has just announced his plans to ‘post a complete outline of Christian doctrine (in a generally classical, broadly Reformed, Evangelical and Baptist mode...) through a succession of tweets.’ Steve will be starting this series on Monday 2^nd April, but for now you can find out more here. 

Mark’s Big Story: Freedom and The Jesus Way

Last night, around 30 of us spent two hours reflecting together on the theme of freedom in Mark, particularly how the actions and teaching of Jesus would have been received by the crowd who appear on a regular basis in the Gospel, the ‘common people’ whose daily lives were blighted by problems of Roman occupation, debt, and the ‘purity code’ which was so vigorously policed by the Sadducees and Pharisees.

At the end of the evening, we talked about the issues which impact people in our local community in Billesley, the ways in which people here are ‘trapped’ because of family problems or financial problems and the lack of opportunity. And then we asked ourselves the question: how would Jesus have responded?

Among the various comments people made, I was particularly struck by the observation that, throughout Mark’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t appear to be tackling ‘underlying’ problems. He heals people, feeds people, teaches people, but there’s little evidence that he wants to attempt a root and branch reform of structures in 1^st century Palestine. Instead, he is usually reacting to the cases of need which present themselves to him. I’m not sure that analysis covers the whole story – for example, at the beginning of Mark we read of Jesus attacking the ‘tradition of the elders,’ using provocative language, and of course there’s also his cleansing of the Temple. However, this is definitely a question we need to consider.

Mark only provides a brief summary of Jesus’ temptation, but perhaps it’s in the longer accounts of Matthew and Luke that we find an insight into the reason for Jesus’ lack of a big programme. He faces three different temptations, each of which threaten to distort the agenda of his ministry. He resists the idea of turning stones into bread, because his mission is not just about feeding people’s empty stomachs. He rejects the notion of a circus-style leap off the Temple pinnacle, because he knows the crowds need more than a ‘showman Messiah.’ He turns down the offer of political power because the Kingdom’s rule cannot come about through earthly structures.

In his introduction to his wonderful book The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson writes: ‘The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular, local. The ways employed in much of our Western culture are conspicuously impersonal: programmes, organisations, techniques, general guidelines, information detached from place.’

So here’s the question: how do tackle injustice but do this in a personal way? All answers gratefully received.