Prayer As Protest (1 of 4)

On Monday night my friend, David Swanson, pastor of New Community in Bronzeville, organized a prayer time that included dozens of clergy and hundreds of participants. It was a time of prayer at the Chicago Police Department’s administrative headquarters, prayer specifically and protest generally, insofar as prayer is a particular protestation.

I wanted to follow up to reflect on the action in a few posts. This one is meant to guide my thinking and stepping forward, perhaps, the first being an attempt to sit with and pray with the scriptures informing such prayerful acts.

I invite you to join me in holding some of these heavy words as you pray around some of the sad realities happening in Chicago these days. Where I’ve included only single verses, feel urged to visit the contextual addresses so as to pray more fully.

God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip…” (Exodus 3:17, MSG)

Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them (Judges 2:18, NRSV)

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted (Psalm 77:2, NRSV)

This is what the Lord says: “At just the right time, I will respond to you. On the day of salvation I will help you. I will protect you and give you to the people as my covenant with them. Through you I will reestablish the land of Israel and assign it to its own people again (Isaiah 49:8, NLT)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end (Lamentations 3:22, NRSV)

Even though the destroyer has destroyed Judah, the Lord will restore its honor. Israel’s vine has been stripped of branches, but he will restore its splendor (Nahum 2:2, NLT)

And I will deal severely with all who have oppressed you. I will save the weak and helpless ones; I will bring together those who were chased away. I will give glory and fame to my former exiles, wherever they have been mocked and shamed.(Zephaniah 3:19, NLT)

…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6, NRSV)

But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ (Luke 10:10-11, NRSV)

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him (Ephesians 1:17, NRSV)

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.(1 Peter 1:6, NLT)

 

 

Even Me

The other day, as I was walking through an alley from the office to the hospital, this song came up through me. I heard it in the way we used to sing it in the Soul Children. I was having trouble that morning, pressed against myself in some painful ways. I tried to pray. I needed to try since I was going to pray with and for others.

My prayers didn’t work and I took deep breath as I walked and smelled garbage and donuts and saw the hospital where I was suppose to bring grace to others. I remembered a concert where we sang this song; we sang it during my audition for the choir all those years ago. It felt in those moments like the first song I learned with a real choir.

The prayerful words stayed with me as I walked to the hospital and were my meditation as I was reaching for the One who felt too distant for what I was facing. I hope this song takes on meaning for you. Though she has back up, Yolanda Adams is her own choir with this rendition. I’m so thankful that she’s put this prayer and music to voice.

 

Advent Post #18

“My soul glorifies…” (Luke 1:46)

There is a load of material in this passage, Luke 1:46-56. A lot worth thinking through. Even more worth, simply, accepting and trying to live.

What stands out to me as I sit to write is the way these words lift up the simple human tendency to exalt some thing, to raise above oneself some deity, to worship and glorify some lord. I think Mary’s words are everybody’s words. Even if we don’t call our deity “God,” even if we’d never use the word “soul” in a sentence to describe anything other than music, we raise and exalt and glorify things.

It is often a subtle behavior, this lifting. But it is there. It’s in our schedules, in the company we keep or refuse to keep. This raising is in my own proclivity to draw and turn inward for strength when my best help comes from someone else.

Mary’s words are a kind corrective. She is not harsh here. After all, she’s singing. Her poetic lyrics themselves lift and inspire. “My soul glorifies.”

When I was a child, I sang with the Soul Children of Chicago. We would gather each week on Saturday mornings to rehearse. We’d study and, after warming up our vocal chords, practice our parts. We’d hear the band and combine with them to make music. We would sing. After a while, I’d come to expect my Saturdays to have a sound. Singing and Saturday went together. When I thought of the day, I’d think in musical terms. Singing was normal, natural.

Wednesdays became like Saturdays. During the summers and from the fall season and through the winter, we’d have the second rehearsal date and it would feel like we were filling our days and weeks with music. After a three-hour session on a Saturday morning, Wednesday night came quickly. Getting ready for a trip, practicing for a performance or a recording or a concert, my mind was given to music. My soul was too.

Those rehearsals and all those performances shaped me and my life. With all those other Soul Children, my soul was influenced, shaped, and made. I was made into a singer.

Come back to Mary’s words in her song. All those days she spent with Elizabeth impacted her. There was Mary with her kinswoman, being made into a mother. She watched this other mother through the last days of her gestation while awaiting the fulfillment of whatever God was doing. And Mary’s soul was influenced, shaped, and made. And in her words, her soul glorified.

Like the music we naturally made when we practiced first alto and second tenor, giving glory was what Mary naturally did. It wasn’t effortless. Any singer or poet or writer will tell you of the countless days behind a phrase, the long experiences underneath a line or flat or sharp. There was effort but there was also nature.

I wonder what my week would be like if I accepted that as fact. This is what my soul naturally does. Without toil, without increasing skill, without rigorous instruction or preparation or particular stress. There’s no sweat involved anymore, but nature. At this point, after these days, I commonly do this. I glorify.

So who will get my glory? Who will benefit or receive what I commonly do? What God will be for me a “Savior”? These feel like the pressing, relevant questions of the season.

Advent Post #8

“How will this be…?”

I find myself thinking often–and saying too–that God can handle our questions.

One of my preaching heroes said that the Bible is much more a “why” book, than a “how” book. It offers us more questions than answers. Now, that preacher’s way with words wouldn’t rest well with some folks I know. It’s really hard to read biblical question after question and not get an answer. We’d rather make up things to answer our deep wonderings than sit with the heaviness of a truly open-ended dialogue with God.

I think, in this question, Mary invites us to contemplation. Sure, she’s asking the angel to tell her how something so baffling will happen. She wants to know how a virgin can get pregnant. That belief is incredible, unbelievable! And consider Mary, the one to whom that “news” was first uttered after it had been discussed in the lovely tones of Trinitarian conversation. It had to be most unbelievable to her.

But beyond the baffling incredulity is an invitation. I think that we can ride on Mary’s curiosity into a moment of wonder. That is contemplation.

Contemplation is settling. Contemplation is settling on some sustained question or thought. A moment of contemplation is a moment where we wonder or wander into the thick things that God is doing in us and in the world. We consider God’s doings. We consider ourselves. And we sit.

Contemplation isn’t very productive, though it brings about all of life. It’s difficult to prove that you have been “in contemplation.” It’s hard to show the fruit of it, if that makes sense. But the fruit of living one’s questions before God is present. It’s there or it isn’t. We have a contagious, if unsettling, contentment when we’ve lived by placing our sustained questions and thoughts before God.

Look at what Mary did when she remarked to Gabriel’s strong promises.  She brought her first reactions and they came in the form of practical questions. This probably is off the mark, but I like to imagine Mary with a smirk, with a slight roll of her eyes, or with a bit of salt in her tone. Perhaps Mary placed hands of her hips, convinced that she’s got God’s messenger in a corner now. “Can he really think this is possible?”

We can bring our questions the way Mary did. Do you have things you must know, questions you’ve been afraid to ask God because God couldn’t hear them? I wonder if you can stretch your faith a bit, or have it stretched. I wonder if we can hear all those biblical questions, in the Psalms and in the lives of God’s people, and use those queries to encourage us to raise our own. Maybe our questions will become our best prayers, and maybe God can handle them.

Here are a few of my current questions:

1. What do you think and feel when you see so many black people being killed, in particular by law enforcement officers?
2. Are you still with those families whose relatives have been my patients?
3. How can I release my daily worries to you, the ones about raising my son?
4. Can you really do something about poverty, something more?
5. What do my prayers these days sound like in your ears?
6. What do you want me to do?

Advent Post #7

“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be…” (Luke 1:31)

In Gabriel’s words are promises, promises and warnings. I’m sure that God doesn’t grant us one without the other.

It would be wonderful if it wasn’t true, but unfortunately for those of us who are inpatient, it is true. Nowhere near the human experience do we get favor or grace or promise without the edge of angelic and prophetic pause.

When I was in graduate school at Wheaton, my first course was with Dr. Walter Elwell, and that class put me on a life course to get to know Jesus. It was entitled, “The Life and Teachings of Jesus,” and I’m pretty sure it was responsible for my abiding interest in this beautiful, misunderstood Member of the Divine Community.

We talked about who Jesus was, and even though it wasn’t a course on Christology proper, it was my basic introduction to a theology of Jesus, who he was, what he did, and what following him meant.

As I look at the angel’s words above in Luke 1, I remember Professor Elwell’s consistent reminder of the plain life of Jesus, the context of his life, the texture of his days, the culture surrounding him, and what some of the grand expectations for Jesus must have been.

He was to be great. He was destined to retain a kind of kingship that could only come as a result of God’s promise. But promise was also warning. God would never do the things the angel said without adjusting everything and anything to accomplish those high words.

The problem with God’s promise, as spoken through Gabriel, was the way “The Lord God” would fulfill those words. God would go about making good on the promise in unacceptable forms. Jesus would live a life of service and goodness only to be killed for that life. Jesus would forego life’s pleasures and take up what can only be called a humble, if not poor, existence. He would trade heaven for earth, and no matter how you slice that transaction, he lost.

His would be a life of substitutionary, exemplary, and saving significance, and yet, that life would cost him dearly. It would cost him all. He would be called Jesus but so many other, and worse, words. He would live up to the high words and be brought down by lower words.

In Gabriel’s promise was a warning, but I’m hardly ever close to the warnings of angels. I choose to hold the promises high. Still, a life of following Jesus is a life of being called by worse names, a life of being downgraded more than uplifted, a life of being undone by those you serve rather than truly exalted.

It is a life that is too much to ask for. It is, really, too much to walk in those steps. It is more than we can do. At least without the commanding clarity which comes from the chief communicator for the world’s best communicator. There is something there, and it does feel too great to be faithful to the life Jesus offers. Frankly, I feel very unsteady with Gabriel’s words, with Jesus’ later words, and with following.

May this Advent bring us the balanced reminders which always come with God’s words. We are more than what we gravitate to. The Christian life is longer and lower than grandeur. May we be brought to that life in its fullness, even when it offers us the most unexpected and unacceptable things. And may all the goodness and grace we need be there in those daily futures to sustain us.