Living Wittily

Jesus shows us how to turn food into a means of grace....

Cooking is a humanising activity. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours preparing food for other people. Buying the ingredients, gathering everything together, using a trusted recipe for a dish I already know they enjoy and anticipate, adds to the sense that, in cooking for other people, we offer a different kind of gift. The cost of the ingredients, the time and energy preparing and cooking, the setting of the table (or trays), and the clearing up and doing the dishes afterwards. A meal to the grateful recipient is like a package holiday. You arrive, enjoy, and there's no tidying up before you go. 

I've always been moved and intrigued by the way Jesus handled food, welcomed guests, arranged meals and parties, and knew what to do with loaves and fishes and hungry folk. When he took bread and blessed it, poured wine and gave thanks, he was doing something deeply characteristic. That particular gesture of inclusion was enough to open the eyes of two disciples who couldn't see past their own sadness. But the Word who became flesh understood the wonder and fragility of human flesh. Through bread and wine He was respecting and caring for human bodies, serving and nourishing human beings, using food as a sacrament. Jesus shows his followers how to turn food into a means of grace, a tangible blessing which tells the other that they are welcome to this space, and to this food, and that the trouble gone to is a privilege, inconvenience being willingly enjoyed for the sake of blessing these others.

Celebration doesn't have to be tied to a special occasion; the coming of a guest is occasion enough. Not extravagance and anxiety to impress, but the simple offering of who we are and what we have, but with trouble taken to make the occasion happen as a memory in the making. And hand-made memories of food shared are later powerful evocations of gratitude which nourish the roots of friendship, making hospitality an essential activity in any community intentionally shaped around Jesus and his table. 

So two hours of my time, making Italian meatballs in a home made tomato and olive sauce and served with spaghetti and garlic laden buttered bread is the spiritual equivalent of attending serial prayer meetings. The sacrament of hospitality, the grace of welcome, the joy of food, the companionship around a table, the gratitude of friends in conversation and laughter accompanied by the clink of cutlery and glass, these are experiences impossible to replicate in any other way. A meal cooked and shared and enjoyed fills the stomach, but in so doing it courses through us to those deep places where life obtains its equilibrium, and roots itself in substance and builds sources of hope. Food does that. It instils hope.

Conversely, hunger undermines hopefulness, and those who have no food are often also those who have no friends to cook, share and welcome. A proper Christian theology of cooking presupposes food is for sharing, and will insist that we incorporate and embody, companionship. Com panus - sharing bread with; and I wonder what the consequences might be if Christians in their neighbourhoods were known as companions of the community, people who make and buy and share and eat bread with others.

A favourite poem is a reminder that bread is sacred as well as staple, and that the One who taught us to pray for our daily bread, also teaches us reverence for food;

Be gentle when you handle bread.

Let it not lie uncared for,

taken for granted or unwanted.

There is such beauty in bread,

beauty of sun and soil,

beauty of patient toil.

Wind and rains caressed it.

Christ often blessed it.

Be gentle when you handle bread.

The Lord's Prayer and a Vacuum Without Compassion

"There is a pressing urgency to the work of justice and compassion. As long as there is a shred of hatred in a human heart, as long as there is a vacuum without compassion anywhere in the world, there is an emergency."

Heschel writes with poetic exaggeration, sees the world with uncompromising eyes, is impatient with political realism, thinks with determined trustfulness in the human capacity, helped by God, to change the world. But that doesn't make him wrong, or justify dismissing his words as rhetoric without practice. Few have seen with such piercing precision, as Heschel saw, the emergency situation of a world where compassion was discounted to shore up an unjust status quo, and where justice was not an option at our convenience but an urgent moral imperative.

I guess I'm troubled by the way urgency and emergency seem to be monopolised by the economic crises of recent years. No one needs to underestimate the scale of consequence and cost when an entire economic meta-narrative suffers near fatal internal critique and collapse.

But there are other recessions. Already pressure is building for the UK to reduce its foreign aid budget. That suggests a humanitarian recession, which cuts into our sense of global responsibility for those whose need is of a different order. When Heschel speaks of justice and compassion he speaks as an echo of Micah, Amos and Isaiah. Selling the poor, grinding the needy in the dust, exploiting the vulnerable, protecting the interests of the powerful and rich - and by contrast rivers rolling with righteousness, communities acting justly and loving mercy, - these were the two poles of prophetic protest and visionary hopefulness that glinted like lightning on the horizons of the Prophets. And the same concerns illumine with uncomfortable critique of our own time, the words of Jesus at Nazareth and his own stated purpose in coming as Messiah, as both message and messenger from God to the poor, those incarcerated by economic systems locked from the outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever else the situation in Syria is, it is a humanitarian emergency given urgency by hatred. And non intervention is itself a political act open to the critique of justice, mercy and righteousness, three further recessional casualties in a world of economic stringency, moral insolvency and political expediency.

And what can we do? The Lord's Prayer grows out of the rich loam of Jewish faith and hope, and on Judaeo-Christian lips is a protest against the status quo, and a promised contradiction and reversal of those "principalities and powers" content with injustice as a static status quo. The Kingdom of God subverts stasis, confronts culpable complacency, levers against the stuckness of despair, resists self-serving inaction, opposes with an astringent holiness the worship of markets, money and the entire pantheon of economic idols.

So we can pray. And not muttered petitions vague in their content, or vapid in their emotional engagement, or as occasional as our personal convenience and preoccupied minds permit. To pray the Lord's Prayer is to yearn for a different kingdom, a world transformed by the will of the Father of mercies. It is to call in question the way things are, to recognise the emergency of hatred and the vacuum of compassion and to cry to heaven - to make our passion and compassion for God's children the world over, a gift on the altar of God. Christian prayer at times takes the form of passionate protest, persistent hopefulness and patient, resilient attentiveness to injustice. Such faithful prayer is one small part of what it means to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. 

 

Daily Bread and The Lord's Prayer.

Daily Bread.

Bread!

Give?

This day!

Hunger's name?

Daily breadlessness.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Breadless mothers starve, yet feed the child their life-blood milk.

 

Fathers whose potency once was gift of life, blinded through tears of impotent despair.

 

“Our Father, who art in heaven”, for these our brothers and sisters on earth, “Give [them] this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses…..”

Transfiguration and living to the glory of God

The memorial tablet of Michael Ramsey, 100th Archbishop of Canterbury reads,

 "The Glory of God is the living man and the life of man is the vision of God."

Ramsey's best book was The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ. It isn't so much a book of technical NT scholarship as a study that opens up the Gospel text with studied reverent care. In it a young Ramsey reflects on the ambiguity of that glory which both reveals and obscures the presence of God, but which in Jesus compels such attention as judges us all.

Out of his own praying he wrote this scholarly meditation on one of the most mysterious and transformative stories of Jesus. In Ramsey's own spirituality he grew in later years to contemplate further on  this Christ-enriched sense of glory. And by glory he meant the shining splendour of love diffused with holiness, and that dazzling holiness incarnate in the One in whom all the fullnes of God's love was pleased to dwell.

"The Glory of God is the living man and the life of man is the vision of God."

"Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever...."

Lord's Prayer Fibonacci

Fib: a poem of 20 syllables in which the number of syllables in each line is the total of the two previous lines  - thus 1,1,2,3,5,8. You can of course continue upwards so that the next line is 13, then 21,  then 34 after which it gets too silly I think.

Fib poems are based on the Fibonacci mathematical sequence.

This one could be better. But I still find the discipline of word control an effective way of clarifying some of the thoughts that come when praying the Lord's Prayer regularly, with eyes open to the world.

Hallowed be your name

Wait.

Pray.

Slowly.

"Our Father...."

Holy muttering.

Anamnesis. Daily reminder.

God's in His Heaven, and all's (far from) well with the world.

Pater noster. Bread for hunger, forgiven wrong, hearts resilient and set free.

Human life flourishing, name of God hallowed, the will of God who is Love lovingly lived. Let us pray, not for me, for us, "Our Father....."

The Lord's Prayer: Praying the Pronouns

Praying the Lord's prayer three times a day is a spiritual exercise. I don't mean that in the quietly grudging way that we sometimes refer to those spiritual disciplines and devotional habits that give shape and substance to our spirituality. I mean it more in the sense of knowing the day after unaccustomed exercise, that muscles I didn't know I had, actually and achingly exist.

Pronouns are an intriguing quality test of prayer. The first person plural is counter-balanced by the second person singular throughout the Lord's Prayer. So three times a day I'm forced to ask - excuse me, but who are the others whose presence turns my into our, and me into us? Who are the ones who gate-crash my prayer and turn I into we? The very first word of the Lord's Prayer displaces the ego, dismisses the singular, incorporates my individuality into something outside, beyond and more than me. To pray the Our Father is to be drawn into a life immeasurably richer than the inner life of the singular self. 

In the same way the address to God is second person, but always the possessive "Your", never the direct address "You". It is God's name, God's kingdom, God's will - and the three petitionary verbs are said to God - give, forgive, deliver. And yet again the counter-balance - because the giving, the forgiving and the delivering are, to use the old fashioned words, asked usward.

So every time I pray this prayer, I utter the insistent reminder that I share my life with others - with family and friends, with colleagues and neighbours, with the community of faith to which I belong, with strangers and foreigners, with Western and Eastern, Northern and Southern, men and women, young and old, all colours, all languages, people of many faiths and no faith. Our Father - the plural means I pray as a member of a vast family of humanity. And this vast family needs daily bread, daily forgiveness, daily deliverance from those tests of humanity that are so strong they could destroy us. And the One we ask is Our Father, whose name is to be reverenced, whose will is to be done, whose Kingdom comes secretly, subversively, unexpectedly....but surely.

So I go on praying persistently, noting the pronouns, allowing them to become the heartbeat and pulse of the prayer. Our Father ...your name...your kingdom...your will...give us...forgive us...lead us not... but deliver us...for yours is the Kingdom.

On a day when another wee boy's murder is national news, and child protection provision and overloaded social workers come under scrutiny yet again; when international cricketers are attacked and seven people, six policemen and a bus driver are killed; when Obama and Brown talk about how to prevent global meltdown without reconfiguring the model of global capitalism; on a day like this, I've said Our Father...give, forgive, deliver....for yours is the Kingdom. And done so as a follower of Jesus.

The Lord's Prayer: The difference between repetition and mere repetition

Simon and Tony in the comments on a previous post reflect a fairly pervasive resistance to the regular use of the Lord's Prayer, whether in Sunday by Sunday services, daily or even three times daily as private or personal prayer. Coming from a non-liturgical tradition, Baptists are almost inherently suspicious of anything that sounds like vain repetition. I hope you don't mind Simon and Tony, if I quote some of your words from your comments in order to explore them here:

"I sensed that she was suggesting the mere repetition of the words had value - something I instinctivly recoil against. (Simon)

"...fear of this prayer being a mindless mantra rather than an expression of a real desire to see God's kingdom come..... Perhaps, for some, constant repetition reduces Christ's words to meaningless mumbling. (Tony)

I think it's worth qualifying those hesitations, even subjecting them to some gentle criticism -as in fact Simon and Tony acknowledge in their comments. So these few observations are not so much directed at Tony and Simon's hesitations. Their comments provide an opportunity to say more about why I think regular use of the Lord's Prayer is an important and specific formative practice for those whose life goal is following after Jesus.

1. My experience of extempore prayer in many non liturgical services (in Baptist churches and other traditions) doesn't persuade me that they are a more spiritual, sincere or worthy offering in worship than prayers carefully crafted, formed into language that has beauty and rhythm, and read or spoken from memory. To speak from memory, or read from a text doesn't preclude the heart's responsive love to God nor the mind's thoughtful adoration. Conversely, extempore prayers can themselves become mere repetition of phrases and cliches shared in a particular evangelical sub-culture.

2. The Lord's Prayer in particular is placed in the Sermon on the Mount precisely in the context of contrast with mere repetition. A double irony is possible here. Either we refuse to use the Lord's Prayer lest it be mere repetition; or we use it unthinkingly and make it mere repetition. Both I believe misrepresent the meaning of Jesus' command - "after this manner pray ye....". To pray the Lord's Prayer regularly and meaningfully is nearer the stance of intentional obedience.

3. I trust the instinct of the early church where early on, daily praying of the Lord's Prayer was a formative practice.

"...this was a tradition maintained in the living liturgy of community worship (as the first person plural strongly suggests). Almost certainly, the early Christian disciples did not know this tradition only because they had heard it in some reading from a written document. They knew it because they prayed it, possibly on a daily basis." J D G Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Christianity in the Making, Vol. I, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 227 (Italics orignial).

The phrase Dunn emphasises, "they knew it because they prayed it", along with that important clause earlier, "the living liturgy of community worship", (Baptists like me take note - liturgy can be living), surely provides sufficient safeguard against reciting the Lord's Prayer from an empty heart and bored mind.

4. I trust also the practice of the church catholic through the centuries, across the world. As a Baptist I belong to a tradition that honours scripture - but then ironically balks at repeating the words of Jesus because they are liturgically embedded. But surely in approaching God as a forgiven sinner who is a follower of Jesus, I also do so as a self- concerned, earth-bound, horizon limited, ethically challenged, trying to be hopeful human being. And at such a time I confess I am more helped by the Lord's Prayer than the ad hoc meanderings of many an extempore pray-er.

5. As a young christian I learned the Sermon on the Mount by heart. I can still recite chunks of it in the Authorised Version! Amongst the benefits of repetition and regularity in reciting Scripture, especially the Lord's Prayer, are the slow absorption into mind, heart, conscience and will, of those essential values that define our discipleship and the way of the Kingdom of God.

These are just some of the reasons why it's important not to devalue repetition of scripture and prayers by prefacing them with 'mere'. Nor is it the case that such repeated enunciation of prayer and praise need be meaningless - in any case, meaningless to whom? It's God who sees most clearly into the hearts of those who mumble prayers - and whatever residue of meaning and genuine longing is there, midst the mumbling, we can be sure will be noticed, and blessed. 

Lent and putting the Lord's Prayer into practice

Our Father, who art in heaven,

Hallowed be your name.

                                                                 Reverence

 

Your Kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

                                                                 Obedience

 

Give us this day

our daily bread

                                                                 Trust

 

Forgive us our tresspasses

As we forgive those who tresspass against us

                                                                 Reconciliation

 

Lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil

                                                                 Resistance

 

For yours is the Kingdom,

the power and the glory, forever

                                                                 Doxology

For several years now, from birthday to birthday, I take a passage of the Bible and try to find ways to weave it into the way I live throughout the coming year. I try to live with, and live, the text. This isn't done in a pretentious or self-help way I hope; but as a form of prayer rooted in Scripture text, and within which to practice a life of deliberate response to the grace and mercy of God.

This year I want to try to live the Lord's Prayer. I don't want to "practice praying" by praying more. I want to align my life with what I pray when I pray the Lord's Prayer. So I've tried to distil each petition into what I think is its core value, or principle of action. The terms used are convictions intended to guide attitude and action rather than sounding like the non-disruptive aspirations of the vaguely pious. Values, practised as virtues, shape character.

So what demonstrable difference would it make to pray the Lord's Prayer by practising it?

What would happen if I let this brief and condensed text shape daily practice and everyday action?

Would the Lord's Prayer said each day, - morning, noon and night, - so remind me daily of the values of Jesus, that slowly, incrementally but definitely, life would be shaped to text, and heart shaped to practice?

What these values are, how they are to be lived, the existing attitudes they call in question, the life habits they must convert, the new life they make possible, the relationships they change - it is all an experiment in prayer, not as praying but as living what is prayed. To pray without ceasing may only be possible if understood as the orientation and daily re-orientation of the whole life towards God

by reverence for the holy,

     by obedient practices,

          by daily trust,

               by intentional reconciliation,

                    by resistance to evil,

                         and all this framed by doxology.

The Lord's Prayer: Exegesis by the daily practice of the text.

Been blogging now for over two years. Mostly I'm happy doing random postings from the lengthy serious to the shorter fun stuff, from theology to poetry, from unabashed baptist stuff to the essential correctives from other Christian traditions, from book reviews to political and cultural comment. I'd like to stick with the spontaneous and unpredictable daily diet - that way personal interests, daft impulses, serious reflection, can be combined with generally directive rambling around theological ideas. 

At the same time there's a couple of bigger projects I'd quite like to play around with. I've already started a weekly Brueggemann conversation Friday by Friday. During Lent I'll start another regular weekly posting as an experiment with biblical text. Nothing ambitious - just an attempt to exegete the chosen text by performative practices! And the chosen text is the Lord's Prayer.

Instead of trying to exegete the meaning of the text first - supposing I try to live it while also trying to understand it, allowing reflective study and reflective practice to shape each other?

It could be an experiment reflecting on and recording the cost and consequence of living out of a text that is itself living, and active, and pierces to the marrow - to the core of who I am, and to the heart of what's important.

Anyway my plans for Lent are to live daily with the Lord's Prayer. I'll say more about why and how in the next post.