Embodied Covenant and Kingdom

Jesus is the revelation of God: when we look at Jesus, we see God represented without any distortion.  Moreover, Jesus’ revelation is consistent with the two great themes that give structure to the story revealed in Scripture (that is to say, the living Word is consistent with the written Word), Covenant relationship and Kingdom responsibility.  Jesus taught that God is our Father, who provides what we need, and protects us (not least from ourselves); and King of the Universe, who passes judgement on our debts with justice and mercy held in perfect balance, and delivers us from his enemies.  But Jesus also lived out these truths.


The Gospel reading for this coming Sunday is Mark 5:21-43, the account of the healing of a woman who had suffered continual menstrual bleeding for twelve years (and as such was considered permanently ‘unclean,’ was permanently excluded from her family and wider community) and of the restoring to life of a twelve-year-old girl who had died (note: this is not a resurrection – the girl was not given an imperishable body and would have gone on to die at some point in the future; but it is the restoring of life that had been taken away by death).  In this account, I would suggest, we see can see Jesus as the revelation of God as Father and as King, in relation to both the woman and the girl.


Father
Jesus addresses both the woman – ‘Daughter’ v34 – and the girl – ‘Little girl’ v41 – in relational terms and with familial tenderness, driving out fear with love.


Provision
Jesus provides for the woman in the broadest and deepest sense, by restoring her to her community; and ensures that the little girl is given something to eat, v43.


Protection
Jesus sends the healed woman out to ‘Go in peace’ v34, to be led on the path of wholeness, to experience the guidance of God’s peace that keeps us within his will, that lifts from us to alert us when we are straying.  And he protects the little girl from become the centre of the attention of the crowd – a celebrity freak – by giving strict orders not to let anyone know what had happened, v43.


King
That Jesus reveals the kingship of God is seen both in the crowds who gather to see him pass by wherever he went, v21, and in the way he exercises authority over them, issuing orders that are to be obeyed, vv37-39.


Debt
That Jesus represents without distortion God’s kingly role as judge is seen in Jairus (the little girl’s father) falling at his feet and pleading with him, and Jesus going with him, vv22-4; and in the woman, likewise, falling at Jesus’ feet, trembling with fear, and Jesus responding with compassion, vv32-34.  We plead and tremble before one who judges us, who exercises power over us; and discover that our debts – here, debt includes the inability to pay for the healing sought – are not held against us.


Deliverance
Jesus delivers the woman from suffering, v34, and the girl from death, v42 – both of which oppose God’s will and neither of which will have any place in God’s future when his kingdom is fully come.


Unlike Jesus, we cannot reveal and represent God without any distortion; and yet, we are called to reveal God as faithfully as we can and represent him as fully as we are able.  Like Jesus, we are called to embody Covenant relationship and Kingdom responsibility, to live in and to live-out their implications and consequences.

Praying In Exile

Yesterday I posted on the Lord’s Prayer, through which Jesus reveals to us that God is our Father, who provides and protects, and also the King, who cancels our debts and delivers us from his enemies.


Today I want to take a look at Isaiah 40:1-11 (one of the Lectionary readings for this coming Sunday).  The context is this: God’s people are living in exile in Babylon; speaking through his prophet, God tells them that after judgement comes restoration, that they are to prepare to return home, and that the Babylonian empire (along with all other human empires) will not last, whereas God’s promises do.

Isaiah 40: 1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.  3 A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.  4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.  5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people together will see it.  For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’  6 A voice says, ‘Cry out.’  And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’  ‘All people are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.  Surely the people are grass.  8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.’  9 You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain.  You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’  10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him.  See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.  11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.


How, then, do we live in exile, as God’s people in a post-Christian society?


God is our Father, who provides and protects:


Father
We live knowing that God is our Daddy, who comforts us (v1) and relates to us with tenderness (v2).


Provision
We live knowing that God comes with his reward and his recompense (v10), his abundant provision.


Protection
We live knowing that God gathers us in his arms, carries us close to his heart, and leads us (v11).


God is the King, who cancels our debts and delivers us from his enemies:


King
We live knowing that God is revealed in glory (v5), coming with Sovereign power to exercise rule (v10).


Debts
We live knowing that God has paid our debts, has decreed an end to our debtor’s prison sentence (v2).


Deliverance
We live knowing that these verses as a whole proclaim God’s kingly will to bring his people out of captivity and bring them home.


These words are spoken to a people living in an alien culture, spoken in order to renew their hope, spoken to give birth to faith (Romans 10:17) – which is the concrete expression of hope (Hebrews 11:1), the transformation of potential future into actual present (just as cement mix can become one of many things – a path, a building block, a sculpture – but set concrete is a particular and lasting form).


These words are written down and handed on, in order that they might do the same for us.

The Family Prayer

We spent the weekend at the (six-yearly) global gathering of The Order of Mission.  If the New Wine National Leaders Conference a couple of weeks back was an opportunity to get together with our closest friends, a gathering of TOM members is when we get together with our spiritual family.  I am deeply thankful for both friends and family; though it is a bitter-sweet thing that both are so dispersed, and when we get together there is never enough time to spend with everyone.  But it was a joy to be with brothers and sisters we have known for many years, and to meet other brothers and sisters for the first time.


Among other things, our Senior Guardian Mike Breen helped us look together at the Lord’s Prayer, through two familiar lenses, as a tool for attending to our personal and communal lives.  Here are my notes/reflections on Mike’s structure/connections.


Lens 1: The two strands that run through Scripture: Covenant and Kingdom: relationship and responsibility, being and doing, identity and activity, coming to Jesus and being sent out by him.


Lens 2: Jesus sums up how to live life well in this way: love God (UP, passionate spirituality), love one another within your household (IN, radical community), and love those beyond your household (OUT, missionary zeal).


The pattern Jesus gave for prayer addresses these three dimensions of life (the flow is from UP to IN to OUT), each expressed in both Covenant and Kingdom terms (again, there is a flow: we need both covenant and kingdom, but responsibility flows from relationship, doing from being, activity from identity – not the other way around).




UP: Covenant: Father
God is our loving Father, who longs for intimate relationship with us as his children.  He is not distant, absent, aloof, or abusive.  We are children, not slaves.


UP: Kingdom: King
God is also King of the Universe.  Never less than Daddy, but more than just Daddy: “our Dad has a very important job” and we need to recognise his kingship over our lives.


IN: Covenant: Provision
Jesus reveals to us that God our Father wants to give us good gifts, that he is generous, that all he has (and he owns everything) he shares with us; we do not earn access to his provision.


IN: Kingdom: Debt
We tend to think of forgiveness as coming to our father, but Jesus describes it as needing to deal with the king, to whom we are in debt.  The question is whether we are under the king’s judgement, or whether our debt has been cancelled.  Jesus is clear that unless we show mercy and cancel the debts of our debtors, a just king cannot cancel our greater debt to him.


OUT: Covenant: Protection
One of the roles of fatherhood is to offer protection – sometimes by physical presence, and controlled aggression (having learnt mastery over our physicality); sometimes by establishing boundaries within which freedom can be enjoyed.  As a personal example, on holiday recently I spent time climbing over rocks with my children, sometimes leading ahead of them to follow my example, sometimes telling them where it was not safe for them to venture.  In this way, my children grow in confidence (especially the less adventurous) and wisdom (especially the more adventurous).


OUT: Kingdom: Deliverance
One of the roles of kingship is to deliver your people when they are in danger of being taken captive, or have been taken captive – as will be the case from time to time, given that another role of kingship is to deploy ambassadors who will represent him in the world and soldiers who will stand firm against his enemy.




As people (especially as people shaped by western society?), we tend to be creatures of division and over-reaction and demarcate our lives in ‘either/or’ polarities, but living life well generally requires of us that we see life in terms of ‘both/and’ continuums, not polarities.  Polarised categories tend to be our way of trying to create and maintain control over our lives; continuums – living with tension and paradox – bring us to the place of acknowledging our need for God, and allow the conditions needed for his creative new life to emerge.


Passionate spirituality is nurtured in the paradox of experiencing God as both Father and King; refusing to settle for impersonal legalism on the one hand, and cheap grace on the other.


Radical community is nurtured in the creative tension of experiencing the Father’s provision and the King’s cancellation of our debts; as we learn to be generous, and practice our responsibility to cancel debts.


Missionary zeal is nurtured in the continuum of experiencing the Father’s protection and the King’s deliverance; giving us confidence to go out into the world, and the backing we need to be ambassadors of heaven and soldiers in the spiritual battles we are engaged in.


If passionate spirituality, radical community, or missionary zeal is lacking in our lives, we have in the Lord’s Prayer a Jesus-given framework for conversation with God, a means of identifying together what we need to address...


As you create space to listen, what does the Spirit want to say to your spirit today?

Maundy Thursday Meditation

Maundy Thursday 2011: meditation on the prayer of Jesus at Gethsemane.

Readings: Psalm 116, Matthew 26:36-46

So here we are, in the final hours before Jesus will be nailed to a cross and hung up to die.  Here we are, in the darkness, in a grove of olive trees at the foot of the Mount of Olives.  In the distance, through the trees, we catch glimpses of the fires around which other pilgrims, here to celebrate the Passover, are camping on the hillside above us.  We can sense their presence: the background hubbub of a great festival; the night pierced by the singing of psalms; shouts of recognition; the cry of a man, zealous for God, encouraging those round him to praise his unspeakable name.

But here, at the foot of the hill, at a distance from the crowds, the mood is different.  Jesus, who always seems so sure of God with him, is disturbed, agitated, overwhelmed.  We’ve known him show all kinds of emotions – rejoicing at a village wedding; weeping at the tomb of his friend; sadness standing just further up on this very hillside, looking over Jerusalem on the other side of the valley; anger in the courts of the temple itself – but never anything like this.  This feels ... dangerous – dangerous, and more overwhelmingly sorrowful than anything else in the world.  Almost as if the cry of the psalmist, uttered a thousand years before, which we had sung at the end of our Passover supper had been written down with this very night in mind: “The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow.  Then I called on the name of the Lord: ‘Lord, save me!’” (Psalm 116:3, 4).

Why are we here?  Why is Jesus here?

He is here to watch and to pray.  And he wants us to watch and pray with him.

What is it that Jesus wants his disciples to watch for?  If they have any idea, it is probably the same assumption on our mind: that we are to watch for approaching danger.  Disciples always have had a knack for missing the point, now as then.

If not watching for danger, then what?  Well, what has Matthew written down for us, from start to end?  Jesus begins his public ministry with the statement: the kingdom of heaven is near!  He calls his disciples to him, and, sat on a mountain-side, tells them what kind of person the kingdom of heaven has been given to (those who are persecuted because of righteousness).  In time, he sends them out, into the towns and villages, to proclaim the same message: the kingdom of heaven is near!  Again and again, he tells parable after parable to tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like – in order that we might recognise it when it arrives.

And here, in the garden, Jesus tells his disciples to watch with him.  What is he watching for?  The kingdom of heaven!  Jesus is watching, not for those who exercise earthly authority, coming to take a stand against the kingdom of heaven, but for the kingdom of heaven – the rule of the heavenly king – arriving right here, right now.

And as he waits, Jesus prays.  He prays the way he taught his disciples to pray, the way he habitually prayed.  But tonight, his prayer is in conversation with a psalm, Psalm 116, one of the Passover psalms (Psalm 113-118).  And tonight, we will pray with him; and praying, learn more than we have known.

The Father’s Character and Kingdom:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven ...

God is faithful to his name.  His revealed identity is trustworthy: who he has been, he is, and ever will be.  That is why we recall this night the night long ago he brought his people out of Egypt.  That is why we celebrate the Passover.  That is why we drink four cups with the meal, to represent God’s declaration, his four saving acts: “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement.  I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:6, 7).  I will bring you out; I will free you; I will redeem you; I will take you.

At the third cup – “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm” – Jesus had done something new tonight.  He had called it his blood, covenant blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.  Was he referring to himself as the Passover lamb, killed in our place?  Was he referring to his own arm, stretched out for us?  Then he had said that he would not drink wine again until he drank it with us in his Father’s kingdom (see Matthew 26:27-29).  And then we left, came here: did not drink the final cup.

Jesus, a little farther on into the night, has come to the fourth cup, the cup we call the cup of salvation.  And he is wrestling with these familiar words, as if they were not familiar at all:

“What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfil my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.  Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of those who are faithful to him.  Truly I am your servant, Lord; I am your servant, as was my mother before me; you have loosed my bonds of affliction.”  (Psalm 116:13-16).

Jesus is praying that the kingdom of heaven would come, here, now.  He knows what that kingdom looks like: deliverance, freedom, redemption, a new identity.  But he also knows that when it comes, he will be required to die.

The Father’s Provision and Forgiveness:

Give us today our daily bread.  Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors ...

Jesus pours out his deepest hopes and fears, and his disciples sleep.  A fitful sleep, no doubt; a sleep which holds no restorative power; a sleep tormented by dark dreams: more a succumbing to the overwhelming sorrow than a choice to rest.  But not watching for the kingdom of heaven.  Not even for an hour.

Watch with me, Jesus enjoins Peter.  Don’t miss it now, having come so far.  And pray.  Pray that you won’t fall into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the body is weak: I know that, Peter: my body is weak too, weaker than it has ever been, weak to the point of death.  Pray with me: ask the Father for his provision for the body, for his strengthening, ask that he would supply all that you need this day, this dreadful hour, to live, to overcome.  And for the spirit, Peter: it is willing, but it needs nourishing too: we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.  Feed on the Passover psalms with me, that you will be strengthened, and that the Father would be glorified.

You sleep too soon, too lightly; but sleep is not the end.  Ask the Father for his forgiveness, where you succumb.  Ask the Father to forgive those who are coming, who will arrive here soon enough.  The kingdoms of the world live bound by debt, burdened by what we cannot hope to pay our creditors, burdened by what we are owed that our debtors cannot pay us.  Oppressed; enslaved; debtors: the very condition God comes to bring us out from, to free us from, to pay our debt – and to take us as his own.  The kingdom of heaven is gift: freely given; freely received; freely passed-on again.  Keep watch: the kingdom of heaven is near.  Receive it; extend it in the world: taste freedom; set captives free.

Peter, in what is about to happen, what will you see?  A man, a friend, bound; or a man, a friend, who is free?

The Father’s Guidance and Deliverance:

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Watch and pray, Jesus had said, so that you will not fall into temptation.

Are you still sleeping and resting?  Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is handed over into the hands of sinners.

The kingdom of heaven, for which he has been watching, is arriving.  And what does its arrival look like?  Jesus is handed over into the hands of sinners.  Handed over.  Our English translations tend to say, ‘betrayed’: that is, a human action, on the part of Judas.  But over and over in describing this moment the Greek says ‘handed over.’  Handed over: not by human hands, but by the Father’s hand.  Behold the cup of salvation, the cup that recalls God’s declaration “I will take you” – the cup that Jesus did not want to take up, asked to be taken from him.  This moment – which looks for all the world like unanswered prayer – is taking place to fulfil the purposes of the kingdom of heaven.  The Son hands himself over to the Father, becoming for us the cup of salvation; the Father hands over the Son; and the angels look on with baited breath: what will be done to him?

Rise, let us go!

For three years now, we have watched Jesus pray; have learnt to pray from him.  To ask for the Father’s guidance, that we might not be lead into temptation; to ask for the Father’s deliverance from the evil one.

And here is Jesus, walking in to danger, walking towards his death.  Pray, lads!  Pray like you’ve never prayed before!

Jesus, of course, is calm: calm and collected; focused, for the first time since we arrived in the olive grove, where only hours ago he had been visibly distressed.  Having called on the name of the Lord to save him, he has come to the place where he can say, “Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” (Psalm 116:7).  In walking towards those who have arrived – at the very same moment as the kingdom of heaven – to arrest him, he is being led away from temptation: away from the temptation to run, to hide, to live a long and peaceful life; led by his Father, into his Father’s will, that he be handed over to us, for us.

With the psalmist, Jesus can proclaim, “For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 116:8, 9).  And he will be delivered from the evil one.  But the Father’s deliverance is not away from evil, but straight ahead: a direct assault on the evil one: deliverance on the other side of a spent, defeated power of hell.

So let us watch, for the coming of the kingdom of heaven.  Let us learn to recognise what it is we wait for:

a God who comes to save us to be his people;

confronting false kings;

strengthening us in the struggle we find ourselves caught up in;

paying our debts;

leading us away from rebellion against his perfect will;

and delivering us from death itself.

And, standing in the dark hours of Gethsemane, let us pray that we might place ourselves with Jesus into the mighty hand of

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.  Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

(Matthew 6:9-13)

Learning 2.0 Pray

Would you help me collate a resource of simple prayers?

I am reflecting on prayer.  Prayer is foundational for accessing relationship with our Father, and the things of the kingdom.  When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray, the pattern he gives them reveals that our Father wants to enter into dialogue with us about his character, his kingdom, his provision, his forgiveness, his guidance, and his deliverance.

My observation – which I want to test and weigh – is that these six areas of dialogue lend themselves to six times of stillness through the course of the day, somewhat akin to the monastic hours:

The Father’s character: before sunrise; before the start of the day [1]

The Father’s kingdom: at sunrise; the start of the day

The Father’s provision: at noon; at the heart of the day

The Father’s forgiveness: at the end of the working day / the evening meal [2]

The Father’s guidance: at dusk; going into the dark

The Father’s deliverance: at night; in darkness

What I would like to collate is at least one simple prayer for each of the six times/themes.  The kind of prayer I am hoping to find is very simple, a well-worn pebble I can tumble in my mind which might wear other thoughts smooth; tested by time, rather than spontaneous.  As examples:

“Father, Father, holy Father; Father, Father, righteous Father” (a very simple prayer based on the six times Jesus addresses his Father in the high priestly prayer of John 17 – on character)

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (a prayer turned over, meditated upon, by Russian Orthodox priests as they walked from place to place – on forgiveness)

[1] When this is will vary throughout the course of the year, at this latitude; but I often awake around 5am, which may be a sign of age...

[2] It seems to me that the end of the working day is an appropriate moment to stop to ask for, receive, and extend forgiveness: for the things in which we have fallen short; the things we have left undone that ought not to have been left undone; the ways in which we have been wounded by the action or inaction of others.  But I am also struck by the different attitude towards our need for forgiveness displayed by Jesus, and my Anglican tradition.  In Anglican prayer, confession and absolution is up front and central: as if we have no right to come to God in prayer, and this needs to be dealt with before we can.  As opposed to believing that it is our right to come - given us by the Father in adopting us as his children; given us by the Son in reconciling us to God through his birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, ongoing intercession, and promise of his future return; given us by the Holy Spirit in raising us with Christ from spiritual death to spiritual life.  In the pattern of prayer Jesus gives us, forgiveness comes four-sixths of the way through.  I don’t see it as a list of diminishing importance; but forgiveness doesn’t seem to be the starting-point.  As Jesus put it elsewhere, in a culture where open sandals were worn, if you had a bath and then walked round to your friend’s house, you will need to have your feet washed, but you don’t need another bath.

Teach Us To Pray : Deliverance

“but deliver us from the evil one.”

God has committed himself to deliver his people from subjugation to evil, has revealed himself as deliverer. But Jesus reveals to us that the path of deliverance does not turn back from evil, or skirt around it: God delivers his people from the evil one by bringing then through death to life. This is the pattern of Jesus, who died and was raised to life. This is the pattern we are called to: to take up our cross and follow him; to lay down our lives for our friends; to be seeds that fall to the ground and die, in order to bring forth a harvest. This will be our ultimate experience: dying in this body, and being raised to a resurrection body: somehow recognisably us, in continuity with the present, but free from the constraints of our currently perishable and perishing bodies. But this is not a one-off event: it is God’s pattern.

When we pray, “deliver us from evil” God will answer, but his answer will look like a passing through death to life: whether that is through physical death to resurrection life, or through other deaths – the death of a dream, a vision, the death of the Self, of what I want.

And this has implications, both for us who are delivered from evil and for the evil out of which we are delivered.

The implication for us is this: like Jesus, who still bears the scars of crucifixion in his glorious imperishable resurrection human body, we will always bear the scars inflicted on us by the evil one. We will always bear the scars, and, over time, those scars will be beautified. And we bear the scars because it is the scars that carry our story: the scars that remind us and help us to tell others that we were once held captive by evil, in this form or that, and have been set free. Those scars might be physical, or emotional, or simply the evidence of things done to us: of the places in our lives where we experienced a tearing, and heard a testimony. And these scars become like the memorial stones of old: places where, whenever we pass by that way again we say, here we met God: places we return to in order to go on, further.

The implication for evil is this: for God, it is not enough to remove evil, so that it ceases to exist: rather, God always works to redeem evil, so that something good is brought out of it. Read Jesus’ genealogy: there is Rahab the prostitute, dedicated by her parents to a mighty chaos demon; Solomon, whose parents had committed adultery, David cheating on one of his closest friends, and then having him murdered in an attempt to cover his own tracks. And in Jesus’ mission, we see prostitutes and those guilty of adultery and murder transformed by the kingdom of God. This, then, is why deliverance cannot be away from or around evil, but must go straight through the middle, must pierce its heart, must break down the very gates of hell and claim it as a territory of heaven.

So, what is on your heart in relation to deliverance? From what do you seek to be delivered? Or who do you long to see delivered from some manifestation of evil or other?

And what does God want to say to you today?

Does he want to beautify your scars? To take you back to the place they were incurred, in order to hear again the testimony you first heard there – or perhaps failed to hear and still need to hear?

Does he want to see good brought out of evil, evil as you experience it redeemed rather than removed? To strengthen you, or the one for whom you pray, to endure the transformation? To pray for those who persecute you?

Teach Us To Pray : Guidance

“And lead us not into temptation,”

God wants to speak to us about his guidance.

Jesus reveals himself to be the good shepherd of his sheep – those who follow him – who calls them by name, and who sits in the entrance to the pen, making himself the gate between the protection of the pen and the provision of the pasture (John 10). He leads his sheep, by going ahead of them and because they know his voice; and the sheep experience an inward direction (in to the pen) and an outward direction (out to the pasture).

Jesus identifies himself with the image of God as shepherd found in Psalm 23. Here, the sheep are led from the winter pasture, which has been grazed, up the hillside gulley to the high summer pasture, the tabletop mountain covered in lush grass and strewn with wildflowers, where the shepherd rubs oil into any wounds incurred on the way. For the gulley is the place of death: of steep drops, fast-flowing flash floods, and predators lying in wait behind rocks. But in this place, the sheep are not afraid, because the shepherd has two sticks: one with which to steer wayward sheep back onto the path, and one with which to drive back predators. The shepherd’s rod and staff: the symbols of discipline (keeping us on the path) and freedom (safe from harm).

God’s love is expressed through discipline and freedom. Discipline trains us, to follow him, and to experience freedom in the world – even when our outward circumstances are constrained against our will by the actions of others, as persecuted Christians have testified in Nazi death camps, Soviet gulags, Chinese prison cells, Sudanese freight crates...

This, then, is how God guides us: through discipline and freedom.

There are times – as in the gulley – where God’s voice gives very clear direction, and our refusing to listen will only result in our harm: God will move to rescue us when we call, but we might wander a long way and get into all kinds of a mess before we swallow our pride. But in the pastures, there is considerable choice of where to wander.

God’s guidance is not narrow. He has not drawn out a line our life must follow, and if we get it wrong somewhere we go off into at best God’s second-best and at worst a life of irrelevance in his sight. There are times when God’s guidance is specific and clear, and many, many times when it is broad.
I do not believe that there is only one person out there made to be your soul-mate, and unless you can find this needle in the haystack (albeit with God’s assistance) you are condemned to loneliness or meaningless relationships. And yet, I do believe that God works in our lives to prepare us for the relationships we enter into. I don’t believe that my wife is the only person I could have married (though she may well be the only person who would have me); and yet I do not believe that it is a coincidence how well her gifts complement my gifts and her abilities compensate for my shortcomings. I do not believe that there is only one job we are to take up at any given time; though I do believe that God prepares us (through discipline and freedom) for the work we choose or are chosen to do – and I do believe that sometimes God makes it clear that we should apply for a particular job, while often he says, “I have gifted you in these ways: go invest as you see fit...”

There is, then, the temptation to not listen to the shepherd’s voice, and so be led away by another voice; and the temptation to be paralysed by choice-anxiety, not prepared to take the risk of moving without specific instruction. There is the temptation to mistake the gulley for the pasture, to be selective in which words of discipline we listen to, as if there was no danger of falling; and the temptation to mistake the pasture for the gulley, to live as though there was no healing and no provision. Submitting ourselves to loving discipline, and embracing disciplined freedom, is the way to follow the good shepherd, to go in and out through the gate for the sheep.

Where are you seeking guidance today? And what does God want to say to you?

His sheep know his voice.

Teach Us To Pray : Forgiveness

“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”

At the very heart of Jesus’ pattern for how we ought to pray is the acknowledgement of our need to receive forgiveness, and our call to hold out forgiveness to others. This prayer is about living in freedom, and setting captives free. It is, again, a conversation in which we experience invitation and challenge...and, again, a conversation that begins in the hidden place but moves into active involvement – God’s, and ours – in the publicly visible place.

Invitation: to living in freedom. Challenge: to setting captives free.

One of the things I observe of urban and Generation Y cultures (and Generation Y is a thoroughly urban culture, though they are clearly not the only urban generation, and for this among other reasons not the only urban culture) is a massive sense of entitlement: I am entitled to something for nothing, and entitled to complain if that thing is taken away, even though I contributed nothing towards it. (I have news for you: in another urban setting, Jonah got there first: Jonah 4:5-11)

‘Entitlement’ blinds us to true justice – which requires something of our participation if it is to flourish – and to true mercy – for mercy is the participation justice requires. As God has said, what is required of us is this: that we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

Forgiveness is totally alien to the culture of entitlement. The invitation to receive forgiveness challenges our cherished and unquestioned belief that we are those who are more wronged than guilty of doing wrong. The challenge to extend forgiveness to others invites us to let go of the identity built on that belief, the identity that places ourselves higher than those who serve us, and to be proactive in changing the world. Forgiveness is alien to us: both subversively attractive and downright terrifying.

Receiving forgiveness frees us to forgive others...and forgiving others causes us to realise more fully our own need for forgiveness. Invitation leads to challenge, which in turn challenges us to receive invitation, which leads to further challenge...The more we take hold of the discipline of forgiveness, the greater the freedom we experience, as a degree of freedom frees us to free others, and in so doing to recognise our need for and receive further freedom: it operates as a ‘virtuous circle’ by which the kingdom takes grip of our lives and will not let us go.

This is what we are called to: to live in freedom, and set those held captive – by resentment, by pride, by bitterness, by prejudice, by not being allowed another chance – free. And the extent to which God can bring freedom into our lives is limited only by the extent to which we are willing to go and do likewise. We were made to be free: and for this very reason the accuser has a vested interest in selling a false freedom: a freedom found in consigning those who have wronged us to judgement, while refusing to take responsibility for restitution towards those we ourselves have wronged. Burn your bridges, and keep on running. That is not the road to freedom, but to self-imposed solitary confinement. It does not deliver what it promises, however much it pours into the advertising campaign.

Forgiveness is perhaps the greatest of all expressions of God’s provision.

Forgiveness is the ultimate revenge of the wronged – whether God or human – and the most powerful weapon known to both: on the cross, the fully-God fully-human Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do...”

Where do you seek justice, or mercy? What might God want to say to you about that, about your role in bringing about what you long for?

Or what might God want to say to you about forgiveness?

Do you need to receive forgiveness today?

Do you need to extend forgiveness to someone else today?

Teach Us To Pray : Provision

“Give us today our daily bread.”

God wants to speak with us about his provision. This flows from his character – God reveals himself as, among other things, our Provider – and is made manifest in his kingdom – that is, wherever the rule of the Provider extends, there in that place there is provision for those who live in that place. As we experience God’s character and kingdom, we experience his provision as a daily reality in our lives: and as we share in God’s character and in the exercising of his kingdom rule, we become people who extend provision to others.

When God’s people lived in the wilderness, between being slaves in Egypt and entering into the land God had promised to their forefathers, God provided them with manna: the bread of heaven. It came with instructions: only take what you need for the day ahead; except on the day before the Sabbath rest, where they were to take enough for two days. Those who took more than they ate found that by the next morning what they had kept back had become riddled with maggots. But, we are told, those who took little did not have too little, and those who took much did not have too much.
Jesus reveals himself to be the bread of life, that comes down from heaven: manna: God’s provision for a people in the wilderness between slavery and the land they will inherit: which is a good way to describe the place those who follow Jesus live – those who have been set free, but do not yet experience what we hope for.

Jesus took five loaves of bread, blessed them, broke them, distributed them to feed a multitude, and instructed that what was left over be gathered up: twelve basketsful, one for each tribe in the wilderness (Matthew 14:13-21). Later, in a similar way, he fed another, slightly smaller crowd (4,000 men, plus women and children; as opposed to 5,000 men, plus women and children) with seven loaves, and had gathered-up seven baskets of leftovers, the symbolic number of perfection (Matthew 15:29-39).

If, moved by compassion, Jesus feeds crowds with bread, then he is concerned with physical provision. But if Jesus is himself bread, then he is also concerned with spiritual provision. Spiritually, he is enough for us, day by day: neither too little to satisfy, nor too much to be digested. Physically, he gives more than enough: in order to make a point: God’s provision is restoring the kingdom that is in turn the outward expression of his character.

If we are honest, we don’t really believe this. It is too offensive: we see people go hungry, and we listen to the whisper that says, “God does not always provide...” or we listen to the whisper that says, “How can you, who has so much, dare to ask God for anything when others have so little?” and so we fall silent. Instead, we feed ourselves – food, and more – and fail to satisfy our appetites: and so we consume and consume, or we lament absence in our lives, until we become sick.

Jesus tells us to pray asking that God would provide us with our daily bread. Jesus tells us to do so because the nature of our relationship is this: God is our provider, and we are to receive his provision, and to use what he provides to provide for the needs of others. As Jesus also says, freely you have received, freely give. Which requires two things of us: first that we receive what God wants to give us; and then that what we have been given, we bless, break and distribute...and finally gather-up the leftovers – the evidence of what has happened here, whatever that may be – as a testimony to God’s provision.

How would our experience change if we started to pray, “Give us today our daily bread”?

What does God want to say to you concerning his provision?

Does he want you to be able to receive something?

Does he want you to give away what you have received?

Teach Us To Pray : Kingdom

“your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

As we share in God’s character, so we share in the kingdom that flows out of that character: a realm within which spiritual orphans are adopted into God’s family and experience his love; a realm within which what is good is nurtured, and what is evil is destroyed.

God’s kingdom is being extended throughout the world, often coming up against resistance from the kingdom of the false prince of this world, the ‘satan’ or accuser, who delights in turning neighbour against neighbour in order that his agenda to steal, kill and destroy might run unchecked. The global trafficking of arms and drugs and human beings: brought home to us – made manifest – in the children carrying guns and the dealers and the pimps on our streets. But the very purpose of God’s kingdom is to redeem what has been lost, to restore what was stolen, to bring order out of chaos and life out of death.

This, God has been doing since the start of our story. And at the start of our story, he appointed us to exercise this kingdom rule on his behalf. We were tricked into abdicating, to the accuser; and yet, God committed himself to us, and promised...Jesus, who would restore us to our original calling to be co-heirs and ambassadors of the kingdom of God. And God’s future – where our present night will be completely overwhelmed by a new day; where there will be no more sorrow or sickness or sin or shame – is breaking-in to our present and will continue to break in to our future presents until the night is over and the morning comes. It does so as we participate in welcoming-in and publicly naming the manifestations of the kingdom that has come; in the struggle for the kingdom that is delayed in its coming; and in the anticipation of the kingdom that is to come. If you have ever got up while it is still dark and sat waiting for the sunrise you will understand something of the inevitability of this process; if the sun rose behind clouds, you will understand something of the delay, and – in back-lit clouds – something of the transformation of what is: but only if you have got up and gone out to wait.

Prayer is a conversation in the hidden place that moves into active involvement – God’s, and ours – in the publicly visible place. God does not want us to ask him to bring in his kingdom, and then wash our hands of responsibility. He invites us to listen to his will, in order to challenge us to participate in its manifestation. God’s will, outwardly expressed in his kingdom come, is like ten-thousand thousand splendid things: but not all in one place. Physical healing; emotional healing; streets cleared of litter; local youths, or senior citizens, befriended; NGOs supported; politicians lobbied to take measures against human trafficking, or to speak up for those falsely imprisoned. We are called to participate in his will: but we ourselves are finite creatures, utterly overwhelmed. And so we come to God asking, what is your will for this place, for these people, at this time, on this day? What, in your will, do you want me to participate in today? Jesus said that he only did what he saw the Father doing, but he didn’t do everything on one day: morning by morning he asked, what is your agenda here, now?

What part of his will does God want to reveal to you today, in order that you might participate in it?

What part of God’s will does he want to be made manifest in and through the life of your community?

Teach Us To Pray : Character

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,”

God wants us to know his character, and Jesus reveals to us that God is both Father and holy. Jesus will go further, unpacking what he means by father: not the abusive or absent father that sadly too many people experience in their earthly fathers, but what a father is meant to be: one who loves and delights in his children, who longs for intimacy with them, who loves to give good gifts; in whose presence there is un-self-conscious laughter, and the tender wiping-away of tears. The sort of father I fall so short of being.

And yet, God is also holy: and our flesh cannot approach him and live.

There is, therefore, a tension: that in God’s presence, something of who we are is called to live, to experience life in all its fullness; and something of who we are is called to die. We are invited, as we are, into the relationship we were always meant to know: and challenged to become who we were made to be, and are not.

Invitation and challenge: this is how God relates to us: this is how Jesus, who reveals God’s nature to us, related to men, women and children 2,000 years ago: and this is how Jesus still relates to men, women and children today, as he is present in the midst of his people, the body of Christ, through his Spirit indwelling us...

Indwelling us: this tension, this invitation and challenge, this call to live to God and call to die to self: within us.

God invites us to know him as Father, and challenges us to be holy as he is holy. Invitation, and challenge: invitation, and challenge: invitation, and challenge...the closer we draw, the more we are challenged – in order that we may draw closer still.

And this is so alien to us. To have invitation extended to us: to generations increasingly abandoned by our parents, who have learnt not to expose ourselves to another, not to allow ourselves to be hurt – or to have and inevitably hurt children in our turn. The invitation itself is a challenge, to grow into maturity.

This is so alien to us. To have challenge extended to us: to increasingly fatherless generations, who are so fragile as to see discipline as rejection; and whose parents have sought to keep us as friends, as peers, rather than risk losing us. The challenge itself is an invitation, to grow into maturity.

And the mark of maturity is the ability to reproduce. God – who is mature – does not want us to merely know his character, but to share in that character...and to see that character multiplied into the lives of others, as we ourselves grow into maturity. The prayer continues, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” – and this takes place as, among other things, God’s people share in his character, and in the kingdom that flows from that character. A kingdom in which the fatherless are fathered, and what is unholy is made holy...

So what does God want to speak to you about his character today?

A word of invitation, to one who believes themselves unloved?

A word of challenge, to one who believes themselves righteous in their own eyes?

A call to love, to father – or mother, for God is described as both mother and father – spiritual orphans?

A call to reach out and touch lives that are not holy – that are not made clean, and set-apart for God’s use, to fulfil God’s purposes in the world – and so to infect them with holiness?

Teach Us To Pray : Introduction

Jesus taught his disciples how they should pray. And if we, too, are disciples in the Way of Jesus, then we should give weight to his words: Jesus’ model is not merely one among many possible options, but the one we are to make our own. On the other hand, these words, recorded in Matthew 6:9-15 and Luke 11:1-4, are not a mantra: they provide the context for a conversation between God and God’s people. For that is what prayer is: a listening to what God wants to speak to us about, and a bringing to God our lives. And Jesus says that God wants us to bring our lives to him, to listen to him, in relation to six areas: six areas of interaction, beginning in conversation in the hidden place and moving into active involvement – God’s, and ours – in the publicly visible place. These six areas relate to God’s character, kingdom, provision, forgiveness, guidance, and deliverance. Over the following posts, I intend to unpack each of the six phrases a little.

Within the Rule of The Order of Mission – which is expressed in an iconic form using Lifeshapes* – ‘praying as a way of life’ is represented by the hexagon: each side of the shape recalling a phrase of the prayer. We seek to engage with this prayer in various ways. We might run through the familiar words, perhaps a number of times over, until we sense a check: and there we ask, is this the thing that God wants to speak to us about today, through his Holy Spirit; or the thing that is weighing on our spirit, which we need to bring before God and hear his voice address today? It may be one or the other, and as prayer is a conversation, the expression of a relationship, either is as valid a starting-point as the other. At other times, we might pray through the entire prayer on a Sunday, and then take each of the six phrases in turn and pray them through the rest of the week, Monday to Saturday.

* ‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.