Sunday’s sermon at BCC used Genesis 12 as a primary text, focusing on Abram’s life of faithfulness… while (thankfully) also acknowledging his intermittent failures along the way. None of us are prefect, but this is not my point today.

I was distracted by the promise God made, specifically the words recorded in verse 3:

I will bless those who bless you,

I will curse those who treat you with contempt,

and all the peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.

In my experience, people tend to split this verse in half, using either the first couplet or the second, but never both. (Today, Dave wasn’t focusing on the promise explicitly, but the one time I recall him referring back to it after the initial full presentation of the verse, he did limit himself to the second couplet. I don’t think he writes his sermons out verbatim, so this was probably done out of expediency vs. an intentional separation of the couplets.) I suspect the reason people divide the two is because one couplet seems to contradict the other. The first indicates a curse of some people; the second a blessing on all people. Generally blessings and curses are considered opposites, and I can’t think any alternatives to this opinion.

So, what gives? How can the whole verse be true? I thought I’d think thru the possibilities over the next few days and invite comment. If I have time, I’d even like to speculate about the nature of the blessings and curses promised.

The Epistle to the Ephesians ends with Paul’s admonition to put on the “full armor of God,” a list of metaphoric items that concludes with “the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.” Every sermon, every commentary, every devotion I’ve ever read or heard identify this item as the Bible, the holy scriptures. The allusion is drawn back to Jesus’ wilderness temptation and his use of scripture to rebuke Satan. I recently had another thought.

Scripture does not, to my recollection, self-identify as the “word of God.” This is a phrase used only of Jesus. So then, the sword of the Spirit is not the scriptures, but rather the Christ. This transforms Paul’s message. His council becomes: When you go on the attack, do so in the manner of the Word, who was with God and was God. Fight as Jesus fought.

And how did Jesus fight? He remained silent before his accusers. He suffered all things, even unto death. He overcame the violence of others not with violence of his own, but by bearing the full brunt of that violence in himself, so that the power behind the violence might be exhausted and the power of God might be displayed. This is how the sword of the Spirit was wielded.

It wasn’t.

The sword of the Spirit “which is the word of God” yielded himself up to those who would do him and others harm. He laid down his life while we were yet sinners, dead in our transgressions. Jesus emptied himself on the cross, and that is the model for us as we continue the fight.

One purpose of the Law is to point out sin. I’ve only ever heard this elaborated in terms of the individual and his or her inability to meet the Law’s standard. This line of thinking goes on to say such failure is necessary, for it demonstrates our need to be saved. Some extend the position to cover the community as well as the individual.

I’ve got no problem with this; but something else occurred to me, another way to elaborate on the sin-illustrating purpose of Law.

Sin is shortcoming, the failure to meet God’s standard and expectation. The Law, in addition to pointing out the shortcomings of individuals and communities, illustrates the shortcomings of itself. A system of law – unthinking, unfeeling rules and regulations – cannot meet God’s standard, namely love. It is impossible to codify love among humankind with its near infinite diversity, (a diversity that we must expect, for we are made in the image of an infinite God.) Not even a Law handed down by God is up to the task.

The standard of love forces us to rise above the mere application of law.

So you’re a regular Sunday morning, gather-round-the-praise-band kinda church. You have several small groups that are doing really well; but the heart and soul, the identity of the church is still found in what happens in the building on Sunday morning.

…AND you want to change that. You want to be a network church, a church whose identity is rooted in these home groups. Furthermore, you want the Sunday thing to become a gathering of these many small churches.

How do you get from A to B? Well, here are some questions that come to mind:

1. How are you staffed? (Setting aside my personal opinion on the matter), are the paid positions defined in such a way to create and support the network of home groups OR are they defined around the Sunday thing? How many staff hours are focused on home groups vs. Sunday stuff? What about the volunteer positions?

2. How are you budgeted? How much of the collection goes to developing the home groups vs. maintaining the Sunday thing? How much autonomy/freedom are the home groups given to collect an offering and decide where it goes? Are there systems in place to facilitate this?

3. How are activities and events planned? Do they come from the home groups or from the staff? When a home group gets an idea – say, a big idea – how do they get help to pull it off? Or do they hand it off to a centralized group?

4. Speaking of activities, how are the home groups networked? Are systems in place to permit the flow of information among the groups? When one group gets a big idea, how do they let the other groups know they need help or just want to invite them along? Is the information flow like the post office – everything comes whether you want it or not – or like the internet, driven by the user who downloads at her discretion? What minimum level of connection to the network is required for a home group to be considered “on-line?”

5. Finally, what about the Sunday thing? Do the home groups feed into the Sunday event OR does the Sunday event feed into the home groups? Which is supporting which? What it the best rhythm to stand behind the home groups and provide a sense of connection among them WITHOUT overstepping and replacing the home groups as the focus. Do the home groups have a say in what happens on Sunday, perhaps rotating the planning responsibility among them? Or is there a multi-lateral committee with representatives from most or all of the home groups who plans the Sunday thing?

GodStalker asked me to clarify a comment I made in this post. My remarks were getting long, so I’ve made them here. A few excerpts for context:

GodStalker asked:

Why would we want to change the thoughts of God? Doesn’t it seem a bit self-centered and arrogant to think our thoughts
are better than His and we need Him to see things our way.

to which I replied:

I don’t know what else to do with the Scriptures. If I give God credit for sincerely and transparency…then God truly changes his mind.

GodStalker responded:

Again, why would you want to change God’s mind? And where in Scripture is God described as transparent?

to which I now hope to be more clear….

By transparent I mean that God is without deceit and full of truth.  We need not root around for hidden subtext or true motivation. This is not to imply that God can be fully known or understood. There are mysteries upon mysteries that will remain beyond us, but to the extent that God reveals himself, he does so transparently. I think this is fairly clear from Scripture.

For example, in the desert when God says he intends to leave the Israelites, I believe we can take him at his word. God is not playing at some game in order to provoke a particular response from Moses. He truly intends to abandon them.

Let me use a metephor, which I believe was introduced by C. S. Lewis. We live in a house, and we look out thru windows that give us a view of God. These windows, (Scripture, nature, mathmatics, community, etc.) however, are neither large enough nor numerous enough to give us a complete view of God. We see only in part. Within this metaphor, then, by saying God is transparent I mean that God is truthfully and accurately displayed behind these windows. (Whether or not the windows are transparent or translucent or something else is another question that has just now occurred to me.)

At this point I have to agree with GodStalker: It does need arrogant and presumptuous to assume that our choices are better than God’s, but this is exactly what Abraham pleaing for Sodom and Gomorah)  and Moses (pleaing for the Israelites) do. Why are thy not rebuked? Instead, God changes his mind, compromising or going along with entirely. And these men are heralds for the faithful.

It seems that the windows aren’t quite as big as we’d like.

Does anyone else have a comment or alternative interpretation? Is there some way to reconsile these two ideas? Or must we live with the tension?

I’d like to change tact for this last installment and ask you to indulge me. I realize I run the risk, but I think it will yield some benefit to us.

For just a moment, let us walk in God’s shoes. Let us consider what it is like to be the one to whom prayer is directed. God is, after all, a person. Well… sort of. We must think of God as a person on some level if we are to have any understanding at all. So, with care, I think it is fair to consider how we might respond if every prayer were directed to us. Let’s give ourselves the benefit of divine patience, so we don’t get overwhelmed by sheer volume. So, what might it be like?

Any parent whose children have begun communicating has a starting point for this exploration. Samantha’s litany is endless: “Mommy, can I have this? Daddy, can I have that? Why can’t I have this? When can I get that?” ad nauseam. I am amazed though at how clever Samantha can be at times. Beyond begging, she attempts to reason and persuade. Jacob is less eloquent, though no less direct. He prefers to open his mouth, lean forward, and say, “Aah!”

Some requests, such as those for product stocked in the grocery store check out lane, are trivial. They can be dealt with or even ignored with no harm. Now, I say they’re trivial, but to Samantha that bag of Peanut M&Ms is the end of the world.

Other times, the issue is more complex. For example, last week Samantha wanted to go to her friend’s birthday party. That had been the plan until she came down with a cough and a fever. “You can’t go,” we said, “because we don’t want the other kids to get sick.” This was an explanation she at the same time both understood and didn’t as four year olds are able to do. “That’s not fair!” she said. All we could say was, “Your right.”

I think we can make the connection to prayer and God’s responses. There are times when children are beyond reasoning with, and aren’t we all really children when we get down to it? Christians are (supposedly) people of a child-like faith, one full of hope and trust as well as a hint of naivete and pomp. Should we be surprised to find ourselves acting as we do sometimes? Further, should we be surprised to find God, the Heavenly Father, acting as he does?

Sometimes I think we’d rather God were a machine, perhaps a video game like my old Nintendo Entertainment System. If we could just find the right combo for prayer – up, up, down, down, A, B, A, B – then we could unlock the response we desire. But God isn’t a machine. That’s probably a good thing. My NES won’t work unless you blow on the cartridge just right.

*****

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 1

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 2

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: A Poetic Interlude

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 3

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 4 (Last)

Continuing on, I’d like to try and talk about faith. It usually comes up in the following question: Why doesn’t prayer work every time?

Sometimes we know why before we even ask. I mean, are any of us surprised when God doesn’t get us out of a speeding ticket or some similar situation? We hope for a little kindness, a little mercy; but we don’t really expect it. We made our bed, and we know we’re probably going to have to sleep in it.

But there are other times when this is a legitimate question. Why did this marriage fail? Why did that child die? Why did this have to happen now, or ever? Why didn’t prayer work? These are real questions that can shake a person to the core of her soul.

Unmeasurable damage has been done by those whose answers have been poorly constructed. The faith card – the one that says God fails to respond because the person praying has too little faith – is perhaps the most harmful, for it turns prayer into a means of abuse. Prayer is meant to bring comfort and hope, yet with this callous answer, prayer is transformed from a conduit of grace into one of guilt. Rather than freeing the one who prays, the weight of doubt and self-hatred is added to the burden that first drove the individual to prayer.

The very act of praying is one of the surest evidences that faith exists. One doesn’t pray to a God who isn’t there or who doesn’t listen or who can’t respond. (Does one?) Prayer is the perhaps the fundamental work of faith. It is, for example, the first active step of faith for the evangelical. His faith begins with a prayer of repentance. Prayer is faith’s breath, its heartbeat, its first evidence of life.

Jesus himself said that our faith didn’t need to be great in order to affect change. It just needed to be the size of a mustard seed.

Jesus also said, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Told you this path had thorns.

How do I respond? Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t know why some prayers are not answered. I don’t know how both these statements can be true at the same time.

What I don’t want to do is say something off the cuff, something dismissive and trite in an attempt to explain Jesus’ words away. When Jesus made these statements, he spoke truth to those listening. And when the Gospel writers included them in his book, he, too, was communicating truth to his readers. Somehow, that truth (Perhaps I should say those truths. While I am certain that Jesus and the gospel writers were both communicating truth, it may be unfair and inaccurate to assume that Jesus and the gospel writer were communicating identical truths.) can be pulled forward thru time and culture, and it can say something to us, something equally true now as the original was then, something consistent with and connected to Jesus’ words and the gospel account.

Unfortunately, I haven’t the foggiest what that is.

So there you go. I hope this wasn’t too anticlimactic for you. It may not be profound, but I assure you it is honest. May God have mercy on me.

*****

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 1

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 2

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: A Poetic Interlude

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 3

Does Prayer Change God’s Mind: Part 4 (Last)