Praying Psalm 51

Psalm 51 is a prayer of confession and faith. It begins with a cry for mercy and forgiveness spoken from a sense of guilt.  The writer is keenly aware of the power of sin in his life.  He knows his wrongdoings.  He offers no excuse.  He does not try to wiggle out of responsibility or pass blame on to others.  His courage to see himself as he is, with this mark of sin, attests to his confident trust in God’s forgiving nature.  Trusting that God will forgive, the writer faces his own sinfulness and need for grace.  The honesty of this psalm is a refreshing witness to the powerful work of grace.  He trust God to welcome honest confession, a broken hearted cry for grace. (See verse 17)

The writer prays for forgiveness, to be washed clean of his sinfulness.  He asks for a transformation of his heart and spirit.  “Create a clean heart for me, God; put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me!...Return the joy of your salvation to me and sustain me with a willing spirit.” 

So how might this prayer become our prayer?  One option is to pray, “Have mercy on me, O God.”   Become aware of confessions of wrongdoing,  words or actions brought hurt or harm to someone. Let this awareness  lead you  to confession.    Another option would be to pray, “Create a clean heart in me, O God; put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me.”  Allow these words to lead you to consider any situations or circumstances where you need this transformation to take place.

Cares and Prayers

I saw it on a church's marquee:  "Frequent prayers lessen daily cares."  It sounded, well, religious and truthful.  Certainly an invitation to develop a disciplined prayer life.  All good intentions.

Yet, for me, only a half-truth.  Prayer does lessen some stresses, but not always.  Frequent prayer can sensitize us more deeply to hear, listen for, pay attention to the hurts and groans of the world around us.  Frequent prayer may also increase our sense of human suffering, even our own.

Paul may have known prayer as a doorway into deeper suffering.  In Romans 12, he writes of having begged God three times to remove his "thorn in the flesh".  Was this Paul's attempt to lessen his daily care and hindrance through prayer?  The answer he receives is not a thorn lessened, but a thorn borne with the promise of God's presence to go with him.  "My grace is enough, all you need; my strength is made complete in weakness."

Though the marquee sounds comforting, it is only half-true.  The rest of the story is that frequent prayer deepens our sense of pain in our world and in our own souls.  Prayer does not protect us from cares or create carefree lives.

If prayer does anything, it plunges us head deep into the groans of life's journeys.

Reflections on John 6:1-21

The events of John 6:1-15 is found, to a lesser degree, in all four gospels.  John 6:16-21 is found in Matthew and Mark.  The writer of John gives us a significant detail: It is nearly time for Passover, the Jewish festival.  John’s gospel wants us to understand the underlying significance of these events of feeding the multitude with a young boys lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish (a meager resource in light of the size of the crowd) and the stormy boat trip of the disciples and Jesus walking on the water.  Both events are to be considered in the context of the Exodus experience of the people of Israel.

As God provided manna from heaven for the Israelites in the wilderness, so God through Jesus is able to provide for (feed and nourish) the crowd with meager resources.  There is more than enough with leftovers, even when the disciples fret over the limited resources.  Jesus uses what is made available to him. The disciples are delivered through the waters of the Sea of Galilee, just as the Israelites are delivered through the waters of the Red Sea.  Their fears are no match for the presence of Jesus in the storm.

Have there been times in your life, when faced with overwhelming circumstances,  you felt hopeless, felt your resources were no match for the enormity of the situation?  And what about the times when fears seemed to have the upper hand?

John connects these events with the Exodus experience of Israel to remind his readers of God’s continued faithfulness in the ministry of Jesus.  The crowd wants to force Jesus to become “king” and Messiah.  What is a better response?

Dry Spells

The summer weather with this intense dry spell is prompting me to consider the dry spells in faith and prayer we all will experience at one time or another.  Dry spells are times when we just seem to be going through the motions, when routines become burdensome, when prayers seem to be collecting on the ceiling, when worship seems to be dry, when passages from the Bible are a jumble of words, when the waters of life seem stagnant, when we feel stuck in a muck, spinning our life’s wheels and going no where productive.

The life of faith has those times.  The people of Israel called it exile or wilderness.  Christians have referred to this as a dark night of the soul.

Our tendency is to try to get out of the muck and mire.  We may “take a vacation” from prayer, reading scripture, worship, serving.  We may seek out some new or attractive option for investing our time and energy.  Resist the temptations to step away or to chase after “greener grass”.

 God is present in the dry spells!  It is through our experience of dry spells that God teaches us.  We learn to develop some of the virtues of following Jesus, being a disciple: faith, hope, love, humility, persistence, courage,  trust, sensitivity to the hurts and needs of others, wisdom and commitment in seeking to serve Christ and be part of the way of life (the Kingdom) God is bringing on earth.

Paul’s words to the Christians at Galatia are words of encouragement:  Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we will have a harvest if we don’t give up.  So then, let’s work for the good of all whenever we have the opportunity, and especially for those in the household of faith.  (6:9-10)