A prayer of Daily Offering ...
O Lord, take and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess, you have given me; I surrender it all to you to be disposed of according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more. Amen.
I'm struck by its boldness through its character of surrender. Am I strong enough to pray it for myself? Are we caring enough to pray it for our families? Are we daring enough to pray it for our church(es)?
It's Maundy Thursday, the day when the Church remembers the new commandment (Mandatum, where we get "Maundy") of Jesus--love one another as I have loved you. May we open ourselves to the surrender that Jesus showed to his Father so we, too, may receive eternal life--now, here, today.
Yom Kippur: A Day of Atonement
I went with a friend to Yom Kippur services today. It was my first Yom Kippur prayer service, though not my first worship with a synagogue. My friend explained it to me as the "Jewish Good Friday."
This Reformed Jewish worship was filled with petitions of repentance and pleas for God's mercy. Admonitions from the prophets calling Israel to a truer service to God were read. Individual confession was made by reading in silence two pages of internal self-reflection. We confessed our failure to love, failure to serve justice, and failure to live with Truth. Sexual immorality, not feeding the hungry, twisting the truth to fit our agendas--all of it was confessed and given to God.
And we heard the pronouncement: God forgives you out of his steadfast love and his unending patience.
There's many places I could go with this and our parallels with the Christian faith. But what I think is so striking about this Festival worship is its pertinence to our social condition now. Our systems are crumbling about us, and we need to repent. Our self-support puffed us up to think the bottom could never fall out, but it is. And instead of pushing blame, we need to look inside of ourselves to see how we are all entangled in this mess, and how repentance is the only true path to a better future.
Imagine if Wall Street participated in a collective repentance. Imagine if Congess passed a bill that said, "We're sorry." Imagine if the President held a press conference and apologized.
Imagine if we turned to the person we cut off in the Starbucks line and said, "My bad." And to our spouses, and to our children, and to our neighbors, and even to our Home Owners Associations. One big day to say, "We messed it all up, and we commit ourselves to pursuing God's path."
Would the stock market level off if we did? Would bipartisanship get a chance if we did? Would families speak lovingly instead of yell harshly if we did?
This focus on repentance makes it even more important that we, as the church, focus on the very first words of Jesus after his baptism: "Repent, for the time is at hand."
Today, millions of persons across the world will apologize to God and await forgiveness. May their pardon permeate everything, and may creation move a step further to wholeness, to Shalom.
The Hunger Tipping Point...
Widespread riots in Haiti broke out this week from desperate people who can no longer afford the simplest of foodstuffs: rice. You can contribute to the UN's food assistance plan and raise your vocabulary by going over to FreeRice.com.
I was in Haiti in January, and we ate pretty well. There wasn't any mention of food prices soaring and people having a hard time providing for themselves.
That was January...since then, rice prices have increased 20% each month. A BBC report last night noted that rice prices have risen 75% (!!!) since March 2007. When you're poor and food takes up 75-80% of your budget already, this increase now puts food from beyond your reach.
Like much in life, the rising in prices is driven by market fear rather than current reality. A UN spokesperson on the same report noted that rice production in our world will increase an estimated 1.8% this year. There's plenty of rice, just like there's plenty of oil in reserve right now. But, countries are concerned that their people won't have enough to eat so they're taking rice (and oil) off the market. Some rice importers are beginning to hoard rice (and oil).
The problems are numerous to address. Developing countries don't invest in local agriculture and most import their food. Importers are taking advantage of growing prices and passing it on to those who can't afford it.
But the problem is simple: people can't eat and are dying. What can we do?
Pray for the impossible-making God who raises Jesus from the dead will lead people to address and answer this problem.
Pray for the impossible-making God to work through you, somehow, to help. If it were someone in your family, would you change and help? How about in God's global family?
A Prayer for Good FridaySouth Korean hostages in Afghanistan ...
I've been on a search to find good information on what's happening with the South Korean hostages in Afghanistan. Our USmedia coverage has been slight on them, although, amazingly, I know where Britney Spears is at all times of the day and who she's threatened most recently. It's so pitiful.
I heard that the hostages were Christians, and I began asking myself, if they're Christians, why isn't the church speaking more loudly on such a subject? Here we have our brothers and sisters caught by terrorists and we are wondering if Barry Bonds is pure enough to have the Homerun title.
My search has led me to a fellow pastor, Eugene Cho, of Q church in Seattle. I haven't heard of him before, but as I read his blog, I'm liking his approach to the faith more and more. He's a Korean-American, and because of that, he's got more resources in this internet world than I have, which has given me many of the answers I've been looking for.
He's taken to a blogging vigil for information on the hostages. Today, he included a prayer from a fellow saint at his church. I include the link here, and I highly recommend carving out 5 minutes to pray through it. It's simple, beautiful, and pointed. The pray-er certainly has the Spirit's gift of prayer. It's a living example of the Spirit interceding in our sighs to deep for groaning.
We'll be praying for the hostages in worship this weekend. Two are confirmed dead. Some of the women are gravely ill, from who knows what has been done to them. Continue the prayers. And may their witness to the resurrection strengthen our own.
The Forces of this World Have Been Upset ...
Our church sent out 80 servants of Jesus in the last month across the region from New Orleans to Austin and Juarez, Mexico. Most of them were teens, who happen to be some of our most active disciples of Jesus. They're the ones quick to invite their friends to come to worship. They're the ones quick to come to the next Bible Study. They're the ones who sacrificed a week of their summers to bond with friends, get away from parents, and, oh yeah, make a difference in our world for God's kingdom. And people say, "They're the future of the church." News flash *** they're not. They're the church right now!
We really messed with the kingdom of this world this last month. You see, the kingdom of the world has this project to conform all of its citizens into a strict mold that rules out sacrificial love and unabridged compassion. And we seriously messed with 80 of its citizens.
Who knows what kind of impact their week of service will have on their lives today and into the future.... And who knows how their service will impact those whom they served this week and into their futures. We might have set off a revolution that will gain its momentum beyond our watch. We just don't know. God only knows. And this month, God threw another knuckleball to the project of this world that wants nothing to do with a God that loves it. Steee-rike!
Those folks could have been out at the mall buying something they don't need. But they were instead praying with children in apartment complexes who hadn't heard the word of God before. Those folks could have been at another fast food restaurant putting on more calories they don't need. Instead, they were laying cinderblock for an orphanage in one of the poorest communities in the West. Those folks could have been relaxing by the pool, but instead they were burning brush for a camp that gives inner city kids the opportunity to get out in nature and away from the gunshots, the sirens, and the drugs.
We really messed with the world. And I'm happy and scared at the same time. The world doesn't like to be messed with. Look at what they did with Jesus. It doesn't like people who offer another alternative beyond the world's agenda. So, we need those prayer warriors out there to unite over these 80 servants to pray off the attack that the world will launch at them now that they're home and back in their comfort zones. Seven days of intentional Christian community will be the focus of this attack. The world will woo them with temptations to take up the consumptive lifestyle again, with temptations to take a sluggish approach to the faith, and with temptations to 'unholy living' where they can degrade each other with their judgments and their speech.
I pray over them that God's kingdom will embed in their hearts and minds. I pray that their eyes that saw Jesus this week will be the eyes that they use at school and at home and at the playground (which means soccer fields, gyms, and hockey rinks since our kids don't really go to playgrounds anymore). Won't you join me in this prayer?
Peace out!
(the following is from an email I received earlier today from the Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Palestine; it highlights why we must work harder than ever to be God's peace and justice in our world. and, if we truly are the church, then the grief experienced in the Middle East is our grief; our joy their joy.)
Middle East Call to Prayer: A Call for Prayer to Partner Churches All Over the World on Maundy Thursday, From Middle Eastern Christians
Greetings to you during this blessed Lenten season!
In the spirit of Maundy Thursday, as Jesus gathered with his disciples to celebrate the Paschal Meal, your sisters and brothers in Christ in the Middle East are asking you and Christians worldwide to join them in prayer & supplications.
This call comes after a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches (FMEEC), where Middle Eastern Evangelical representatives from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, the Sudan, and the Holy Land gathered to discuss the
concerns of the Evangelical Testimony in the Middle East. Although there is encouraging work going on in the ministry of these churches, we are very worried that the unstable political environment is fueling extremism, endangering civil peace, and causing increasing emigration of indigenous Christians. The ongoing occupation, violence, and land confiscation in the Palestinian territories, and the worsening quagmire in Iraq, only add fuel to the fires of extremism, and threaten to turn political problems into religious wars. The carnage in Lebanon, and the heightened tension with Iran, are viewed in the same manner.
For these reasons, we Christians in the Middle East ask you to join us in prayers for our troubled region, which is in dire need to keep alive a vital Christian witness of love, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.
We Christians have been here since the first Pentecost and Evangelicals since the early 19th century. We must not allow the lights of Middle Eastern Christianity abate.
Please, pray for the Testimony of the Evangelical Churches in the Middle East, and stand with us in spirit and prayer. Learn about what is happening here. Stand against extremism in all forms, including our own Christian extremists who often undermine the work of local churches here.
God Bless you,
On behalf of FMEEC Executive Committee:
Bishop Munib A Younan, Rev. Habib Badr and Mrs. Rosangela Jarjour
(President, Vice President and General Secretary)
A prayer
Gracious and loving God;
On the eve of your Great Sacrifice, you sat at table with your disciples, sharing your life in the Holy Meal of bread and wine. We join our Christian brothers & sisters in the Middle East in your One Uniting Spirit, praying that their witness remains effective, their spirits high, and their hearts steadfast.
Draw us all together, Lord - sisters and brothers across the globe, so we can receive your forgiveness, healing and new life poured out for us, and pass it on to others in this conflicted and broken world. Make us instruments of peace, ministers of reconciliation, and apostles of love. In your name we pray, Amen.