Reminded again of the struggle for “freedom” by the person and symbolism surrounding the figure of Martin Luther King Jr. We still hear the term “freedom” today spouted by the patriotic, the religiously fervent, cliched by the media, etc. Do we still grasp the meaning of inherent freedoms or are we preoccupied with o…ur perceptions of our own individual entitlements? Today, why don’t we contemplate what “freedom” means and should mean for generations to come.

Attention all youth! The Progressive Dinner is just a day or so away.  If you have not RSVPed to me (Tim Smith) in the church office, please to so that I can let the people in charge (the powers that be) know that you’re coming.  Be sure to mention if you have friends coming.  Lots of good food and fun houses to go to.  Meet in the FPC north parking lot at 4:30pm!  Come hungry!  You will probably be out late!  If you have any questions, email me or call me.

tryan.smith@gmail.com

972-285-5602

Excerpts drawn from “Lord, Teach Us” – William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas

What is The Lord’s Prayer we pray on Sundays?

“It is the Lord’s prayer.  We, who are accustomed to thinking of prayer as a good strategy for getting what we want (“The family who prays together stays together” ) and an appropriate opening for football games and important civic meetings, may be surprised that we must be taught to pray.  This prayer is not for getting what we want but rather for bending our wants toward what God wants.  This is the Lord’s Prayer, prayer “in Jesus’ name,” which means that this prayer, unlike some other modes of prayer, is distinctively related to the one who teaches us to pray.  This prayer is the enactment of the story of a God who called a people into existence through Jesus.  In praying this prayer we become the people God has called us to be in Jesus.” (p.19)

“The Lord’s Prayer is a lifelong act of bending our lives toward God in the way that God has offered–”thy will be done, thy kingdom come.”  We have quite enough teaching in the various modes of achieving our will in this world.  We build our kingdoms all over the world and the wreckage is all around us.” (p.22)

“Our Father” – this prayer is meant to be said with others in community as friends:

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.  You dd not choose me but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit.” (John 15:3-16)

“Our Father” – Why Father?

“We say, “Our Father.”  In calling God Father we are speaking first and foremost about Jesus’ relationship to God, not our own.  that is to say, God is called Father because we have come to know Jesus as the Son.  “Father” and “Son” is the way we have been taught to name a certain relationship within the inner life of God.  The important thing is not that these two terms are of the male gender, for Christians have always believed that God is greater than any human conceptions of gender.  What is important is that these names attempt to describe the familial relationship that is part of God’s own life.  We can’t say “Father” without remembering the Son; we can never know the Father unless the Son reveals the Father to us.” (p.29-30)

“So when we pray, “Our Father,” we are in a decisive way challenging the status  of the family as it is known in our culture.  For those who learn to pray like this, our first family is not our biological family but those who have taught us to pray, “Our Father.”" (p.32).

“Hallowed be your name.”

“All creation is meant to hallow the name of God.  We must learn the melody of adoration.  In learning the Lord’s Prayer, we are learning to hallow the name of God, rightly to praise God.  Everything that is exists to praise God’s good name.  This praise is constitutive of who we are.  None of us therefore lives unto ourselves.  None of us us, “just a man,” or “only one woman,” or “merely an accountant.”  In praying “Our Father,” each of us is being commandeered by God, each f us is watching our fate transformed into God’s good destiny.  We are counting for something in the larger scheme of things, enjoying ourselves being caught up in a larger adventure than the merely private or purely personal, joining our voices with those of all creatures in praising a Holy God who stoops to us, who enjoys our praise, who delights even to hear our songs.  The prayer teaches us, in all that we do, to hallow the name of God and, in so doing, we discover our true being” (p.43-44)…”We live as we pray” (p.49)

“Your kingdom come.” – a message of hope

“Christianity is forever mixing religion and politics.  Jesus is, as the prayer portrays, very “political.”  To the credit of the rulers of this world, they at least had the good sense to look at Jesus and see that, in him, they were in big trouble.  Matthew says that when Jesus was born, the moment King Herod heard about it, he called together his political advisors and was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him (Matthew 2:3).  Herod had been in office long enough to know a threat to his rule when he saw one.  Herod knew that, in this baby at Bethlehem, everything his kingdom was built upon was in mortal peril.  So Herod responded in the way rulers usually respond: violence.  Herod called out the army and they massacred all the Jewish boy babies (Matthew 2:13-18)–alas only one of many attempts by governments to rid themselves of Jewish challenges to their power.  In praying, “Your kingdom come,” we are in a power struggle that can become violent because the kingdoms of the world rarely give up power without a fight.”

“To say, “Your kingdom come” is to be willing to become part of the rather weird gathering of strange people, often people whom the world regards as outsiders, who are now on the inside with Jesus.” (p.55)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:3-5)

“Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” – a message of patience.

“We modern American people are so accustomed to thinking of life as choice or chance.  Life is what I do and decide or else life is a roulette wheel of sheer luck.  Is that why we often feel so helpless and hopeless?  If life is all up to us, then we know enough about ourselves and our brothers and sisters to know we are doomed.  A terrible paralysis comes from thinking that it’s all up to us.  If the fate of the world, the outcome of the future is solely of my doing, or even yours, then–a good freshman course in the history of Western civilization should convince us that we are without hope.  No wonder we feel frail and fearful before the bomb, AIDS, the ecological crisis, thinning ozone, or even the department of motor vehicles–it’s all choice or chance…We’re not talking about the silly notion that everything that happens, everything you do, occurs because God planned it that way.  We’re talking about the amazing resilience of God’s purposes.  God’s intent for the world isn’t stumped by our plans.  God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (p.63-64)

“To pray, “Your will be done” is to recognize that prayer is about achieving God’s will, not our will.  Jesus fervently prayed to be delivered from arrest and death in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39).  Jesus got “no” for an answer to his prayer…The ending of all truly Christian prayer is the same that Jesus prayed in Gethsemane: Not my will but yours be done.” (p.69)

Check back later for more updates.

The intellectual Christian academe in the post-modernist, post-industrial places in the world wonder why their faith seems to go stagnant in growth.  Why would people not believe what we do?  The answer…because it seems distant…it’s not tangible…it’s not real.  If we believe it so much where is our vitality in worship and in service?  Where is our passionate expression of faith:

Are we just going through the motions – the liturgical habits we inherit from our traditions?  Where is our passion, where is our love and expression of faith?

When I was in seminary, I remember a friend of mine writing a sociology of religion paper on the “Gospel According to Bob Dylan.”  It was outstanding!  Dylan does not always seem to be cognizant of his lyrics at times, but on many occasions they seem to echo the words of the Scriptures – perhaps because of the familiarity with the text or things he’d heard in passing.  I don’t know.  But at various times, songs of his catch my ear – sure, because of the tune, but also because of the relevance of the words.

This song, “The Times They Are A-Changing” grabbed my attention the other day and really spoke to many of my concerns for the present, my concerns as a servant of Christ.  A song of protest for the rooted-”Protestant” that I am.  While Dylan was perhaps protesting anti-civil rights activists, parents who did not understand their hippy sons and daughters during the sixties, government laxity…I find myself protesting stagnancy and perceived “normalcy.”  “The times, they are a-changing” is not a song title, but a declaration humanity can count on.  Biologically, socially, religiously, philosophically, methodically, epistemologically we are always changing.  Epistemology has to do with how we know things.  And I mention this in particular because as a follower of Christ and fairly humble person who accepts the fact that no one can fully understand God, knowing who and what God is and does always changes with the times.  A “traditional” (a word which has somehow become equated with “stagnant” and “same”) understanding of God defies our very roots as “Protestants” who take seriously the mystifying words of Scripture and our very nature as human beings that constantly change with time and experience.

Look for lines that sound much like Ecclesiastes in this song or the spot in verse 2: “The loser will be later to win…” and how it echoes Mark 10:31.  This song is a call for action, a call from normalcy and stagnancy to see truth and act accordingly – “the times, they are a-changing.”

Where do you all consider home to be?  Where the heart is? Your house? Your family and friends?  What does Daughtry think?  Just click on the big black box which will link you to the video. 

 

 

What do you think?

   

  Since I’ve been back in Mesquite, (maybe it’s fate, I don’t know) but I’ve heard two songs from The Fray constantly – “How to Save a Life” and “You Found Me.”  They keep emanating in the back of my mind and I can’t help but hum them aloud.  I’ve always liked the Fray and respected them as a group and I’ve heard these two songs many times before.  But having come back from Denver only a few days ago, these songs mean different things than they once did. 

Maybe all of you feel the same way about this sort of thing – you have a meaningful experience and somehow when it’s all over you find that you’re not the same person you were before.  Maybe you find yourself trying to incorporate the new you into your old life.  It’s like when all of you go to the Synod Youth Workshop in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  You all come back changed somehow. 

Well, the mission trip definitely changed my life in ways I don’t even truly understand.  But I get glimpses of how occassionally when I here songs like “How to Save a Life.”  We all went to Denver to serve in ways that we could.  We didn’t know what that meant or even how to do it.  We went to save a life – by feeding the hungry, conversing with people different from us, by fixing problems with homes, by befriending others in need.  And my hope is that your lives were saved – not in the sense of becoming a Christian or accepting Jesus – but saved from laziness and ignorance.  You all are aware of some of the horrible situations in the world and have experienced some of them.  Embrace that change.  Don’t let it sink away into your old lives, but embrace it and look for ways to love people.

How do we save a life?  You tell me…you know probably better than me. 

“You Found Me” – Perhaps what pops into your heads (and mine) is that God finds us – the parable of the lost sheep, right?  What did you all find in Colorado?  I’m curious…I’ll tell you what I found in return – humility, love, humanity, shame, myself…When God finds you, you find yourself – sometimes you find that you don’t always like yourself, and that you are imperfect and vulnerable in many ways.  But I found that I could still serve others despite all of that.   No matter your reasons for going on the mission trip, or how horrible you may think you are or how great you think you are, we found it in us to love others nonetheless.  Whatever you do in your lives, find ways to love others.  God will provide them.  Peace.

-Tim

I love this arrangement!!!! Listen to the whole thing and then hear the story behind the song.  This is a song about hope…can you hear it?