Living Wittily

Shalom: A Prayer for the World and for Ourselves

Shalom.

Of course it means peace.

But shalom is a word that overflows the boundaries of its own letters and irrigates other words.

Wellbeing. Harmony. Justice. Fruitfulness. Righteousness. Welcome. Union. And yes, Peace.

"Shalom bears tremendous freight - the freight of a dream of God that resists all our tendencies to division, hostility, fear, drivenness and misery...It refers to all those resources and factors which make communal harmony joyous and effective." (Brueggemann, Living Toward a Vision.)

Shalom is when there are streams in the desert, and the wilderness blossoms. Shalom is an oasis of rest where there are green pastures and the refreshment of water. Shalom is when eyes are opened, the silenced burst into song, the lame dance in freedom, and the broken-hearted learn to smile again.

Shalom is when the heart opts for mercy rather than indifference, chooses compassion instead of blame, urges conciliation in place of conflict, argues that healing is always preferable to wounding, seeks unity and community above division and self-interest, nourishes neighbour love and resists the discourse of division.

For all who, today as every day, long for shalom, in our heart, community, and world, this is a good prayer:

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

TFTD Jan 20-26 "Trust and Obey..."

Monday

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

“Trust and obey.” For over a hundred years those two words have provided a condensed strapline of what it means to follow Jesus. A young convert at a D. L. Moody testimony meeting was unsure what the decision for Jesus would involve. He is quoted as saying, “I am not quite sure-but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey." Those words were later the basis of the hymn we will think about this week in TFTD. Faith and works, belief and practice, trust and obedience. As we trust and obey we are enabled by God’s love and grace, and so our own love and joy in Jesus grows.

Tuesday

When we walk with the Lord, in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way;
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Our daily walk is always part of an accompanied journey in which each day the direction we take and the destination we reach are guided by the Lord. Jesus told the disciples, “if you keep my commandments” and “If you abide in me” you will bear much fruit. The glory shed on our way is no more than the joy of obedience and the trust of faith. Discipleship is a shared journey with Jesus, who goes ahead of us. A later NT writer wrote about “looking to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  

Wednesday

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh nor a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.

There are going to be scary shadows and dark clouds at different times and in different places for all of us on our lives’ journeys. To trust would be unnecessary if there were never challenges, disappointments, anxieties, and losses. Life has its risks and surprises, and we won’t be exempt from troubling doubts and tears of sadness. In every human life there are times when faith comes hard and trust takes great courage and strength, such as only God can give. But in it all, and through it all, there is the promised presence of the Lord. Nothing changes God’s grace towards us and nothing can separate us from God’s love. It is that love, that grace, that Presence that we trust. “He who did not spare his only Son, will he not, with Him, freely give you all things?” (Romans 8.32) That includes the faith to trust, and the grace to obey.

Thursday

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.

The reward, the repayment, for carrying the burdens and sharing the hard times of others is the same as it always is in a relationship of love and trust. Love is strengthened, trust is deepened, and life is made easier for others. All around us there are situations of struggle that we can make easier for folk, things going wrong we can help to redeem, by bearing their burden or sharing their sorrow. To trust and obey Jesus in practical terms is to notice and enter into all those experiences around us where we can make a real difference, being blessed by being a blessing in Jesus’ name.

Friday

But we never can prove the delights of His love,
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favour He shows and the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

We don’t inhabit a culture where sacrifice, selfless service, costly compassion, or time-consuming commitment to loving our neighbour, are thought to be the road to the good life. Following Jesus in trust and obedience is the opposite of a zero-hour contract – it’s a life commitment and a new way of being in the world. Laying all on the altar is an act of reckless risk. Paul describes it like this: “The life I now live in my body, I live by trusting the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2.20) The obedience of faith is lived out in the ordinary routines and daily commitments of our lives, as by God’s grace we give ourselves in love and service to one another, to our neighbour, and so to God.    

Saturday

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet,
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do; where He sends, we will go,
Never fear, only trust and obey.

There’s a healthy balance here – sitting and walking. Like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus to listen, learn and love. But also like the disciples walking to Emmaus, listening and learning, before breaking bread and going out into the world to spread the good news. Prayer and action, learning and teaching, listening and proclaiming, serving and being served, loving and being loved – these are the beating rhythms of life that express the faith that trusts, and the love that serves. The rhythms of Christian service are like the diastolic and systolic rhythms of the heart, relaxing and contracting, bringing oxygen and energy to the body. We are in closest fellowship with Jesus when we live in that stabilising rhythm of trust and obedience, both of these energised by the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Sunday

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

So we return to the refrain and those two words that sum up the call of God. To trust is to put our faith in someone, to believe they are trust-worthy. But even then we need God’s help to have faith that risks life itself by entrusting our lives to Christ. Faith isn’t something we have to work up, it’s a work of God in our hearts.  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2.8-9) And yet. Faith is also the response of our heart to the call of God, to receive forgiveness, to be made new in Christ by the Spirit of God, and then to follow him in the obedience of faith. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way…” But what a Way!

Prayer for the Week

Eternal God and Father,

You create us by your power

And redeem us by your love,

Guide and strengthen us by your Spirit;

That we may give ourselves in love and service

To one another, and to you,

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Converting Zeal into a Ministry of Reconciliation.

When someone states the obvious, and it comes as a surprise, it's time to pay attention. I was minding my own business, reading this commentary on Paul's letter to the Galatians, nodding my head in agreement with the author, Richard Hays. Then I read this:

"The connection between zeal and persecution is another theme worth pondering in this passage. Religious conviction and passion can have an ugly side. Paul sadly recognises in his own past that his zeal for the traditions of his ancestors led him to sanction and  commit act of violence...Those who take seriously  the holiness of the one God find it difficult to tolerate people who blasphemously deny that God or transgress God's revealed law." (p.219)  

I've been a Christian long enough to immediately recognise the truth of that. The connection is obvious between passionately held religious convictions and a dangerous hostility to those who contradict, mock or are indifferent to those convictions. What I found interesting was I both knew this, and needed to be reminded of it. Those who hold religious convictions as the certainties on which they build their lives are likely to feel threatened or outraged when others just as strongly deny the reality or relevance of such strongly held beliefs. 

In a world where there are now deep fault lines of division between religious traditions, ethnic diversities, cultural traditions, economic powers and freedoms, and political commitments, the same principle holds. Differences deeply felt as a threat provoke hostilities. These are often expressed in combative rhetoric, defensive postures, and eventually a hard to resist push towards confrontation. What I found interesting in Hays stating the obvious about potential connections between zeal and persecution, is the way that obvious danger has often been ignored in the ways we organise our communal, economic, cultural and social lives. Which raises the practical question of how Christians deal with plurality, diversity and differences in fundamental convictions.

How as a Christian do I avoid defending Christian convictions by methods, attitudes, words and actions that alienates those from whom I differ? Is zeal a bad thing? Is tolerance unfaithfulness and even betrayal of faith, if I attempt to understand those who differ from me at deep levels of life commitments? Does dialogue merely risk dangerous compromise? Here is Hays further down the page:

"In the case of the Christian gospel, the cross is the central symbol that short-circuits justifications of violence: God's way of dealing with dissenters and adversaries was not to destroy them, but to give his Son to die for them."

To those who name Jesus Christ as Lord, zeal for the truths, realities and convictions of our faith is converted and authenticated by following the way of the cross. That means loving our enemies, praying for those who "despitefully use you" which at the very least means those with whom we strongly disagree; it means doing good to those who would do us and our faith harm; and yes, it requires of us the prayer, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!" As Hays concludes, "Our responsibility is not to eradicate the enemies of God but to announce God's reconciling power in the world. (See 2 Cor. 5.17-20)"

I am so glad Hays planted this way of thinking in the deep soil of those later verses of Paul to the recalcitrant, fractious, Corinthians with their conflicting agendas, competitive spiritualities, cherished certainties of their own rightness, and need to be reminded in no uncertain terms that God's love is both powerfully constraining and expensively generous. As those who have been given the ministry of reconciliation, zeal has a new focus.

To be zealous in the love of God in Christ, to be zealous in conciliation and peace-making, to be zealous in love for neighbour, to be zealous in living as well as speaking the good news of Jesus - that is to be converted at the central core of our identity as followers of Christ. Or as Paul will write later to those same Galatians: "I am crucified with Christ; I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live, I live in the body, I live by faith in the son fo God who loved me, and gave himself for me."    

TFTD Jan 13-19: Giving God His Place in the World.

Monday

Psalm 24.1-2 “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;  for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.”

Stewardship is very different from ownership. Earth with all its diversity and potential for life belongs to God. It is not ours to do what we want with it. Humanity is entrusted by God with the care of the whole environment in which we live and move and have our being. “All who live in it” includes, along with humanity, all living creatures. Creation care is not a ‘green thing’, it’s a God thing. You cannot love the Artist and waste his masterpiece. This Psalm ends by telling us that human glory is transient and limited; God’s glory is ultimate, radiates authority, and invites worship.

Tuesday

Psalm 24.3 “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?”

Two questions about admission to worship. What makes us worthy to come anywhere near a holy God? We come in the name of Christ, and by the grace of God. Yes, but. The faith we profess, the Name we confess, call us to a life that is faithful and obedient, showing integrity of life and sincerity of heart. What we do, how we behave, the values that matter most, the character revealed in our behaviour, the inner life of thought, emotion and conscience – God knows and sees all that. What practical evidence do we have of a life made righteous in Christ? Well, we could start with asking how well we ourselves have looked after God’s creation!

Wednesday

Psalm 24.4a “He who has clean hands and a pure heart…,”

Clean hands are about actions, and a pure heart about motives. Together in practical terms they come pretty close to “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Clean hands negatively do no harm, and positively act in compassion, kindness and generosity. A pure heart is a heart with a single intent – “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” Those who come to worship God do so as those who love God from first to last, and whose actions are consistent with the faithful mercy and steadfast love of God. Or, those who live on the assumption that, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all who live in it.”

Thursday

Psalm 24.4b “Who does not lift up his soul to an idol, or swear by what is false.”

Idolatry and lying go together. Both are an assault on truth. Whatever we make the most important and controlling thing in our lives is an idol, a usurper that takes the place of God. The three big idols are money, sex and power, and all of them have to do with our desire to possess. It turns out, what we think we own, actually owns us; what we think we control, eventually controls us. Whereas, true worship of the true God is what keeps us free, valued, and true to the purpose of our creation. Only when we lift up our soul, and give our very selves in love and service to God in Christ, does the heart find its true home.

Friday

Psalm 24.5-6 “They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Saviour. Such is the generation of those who seek your face, God of Jacob.”

True worship is not self-seeking, it’s not about us at all. Worship is an opening up of our minds to God’s truth, and the seeking of our hearts to know and acknowledge God’s presence in God’s world, and in our lives. We don’t seek God for his blessing, but for Himself, and yet in seeking God we are blessed. It follows then, that by ‘standing in his holy place’, with clean hands and a pure heart, we are serving and loving God. So our lives are vindicated, and shown to be rightly directed, by God.

Saturday

Psalm 24.7-8 “Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.”

The Psalm begins with the sovereignty of God over the earth and all who live in it. Now it ends in a blaze of royal glory in the presence of God Almighty. It would be wrong to think of God’s glory as being absolute, unconstrained power. When the glory of God passed Moses, God was described as “The LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Ex 34.6-7) God’s glory is not raw power, but the power to create, redeem, forgive and renew.

Sunday

Psalm 24.9-10 “Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty— he is the King of glory.”

Repeated for emphasis. Now go back to the first verse. God the Creator is none other than the Lord Almighty. Care of creation, stewardship of ‘the earth and all who live in it’ is not just a good idea, something we should maybe think about some time. Nor is care for the earth important only because our lives depend on this small, green planet. We care for our world as an act of reverence to the Creator, as evidence that our worship is more than words. Stewardship happens when we take responsibility before God for His beautiful world, and do so as the outworking of our worship.