~ Chapter Seven ~
The Community
of Prayerful Love
Do Not Blame or
Condemn
The Golden Rule.
“[In Matt. 7:12 Jesus says,]
‘Therefore, treat others as you want them to treat you.’ This is, of course,
his world-famous Golden Rule, which every subsequent moral thinker has had to
come to terms with. It, Jesus says, ‘is the law and the prophets.’ In other
words, this is love, and everything
that is intended for us by God is included within it.” [239]
“If we would really help those close to us and dear,
and if we would learn to live together with our family and ‘neighbors’ in the
power of the kingdom, we must abandon the deeply rooted human practice of
condemning and blaming. This is what Jesus says when he says, ‘Judge not.’ He
is telling us that we should, and that we can, become the kind of person who
does not condemn or blame others. As we do so, the power of God’s kingdom will
be more freely available to bless and guide those around us into his ways.”
[239-240]
“[A] moment’s reflection is all that is required to
make one realize how terribly powerful condemnation is. It knifes into
vulnerable areas at the core of our being. That is why it hurts so badly and at
the same time why we rely upon it so heavily. The decision to step aside from
it, neither giving it nor receiving it, is a major turning point in one’s life.
If, as Christians often say, we really are ‘different’ as followers of Christ,
this is a point where it should be most obvious. We would not condemn, nor
would we ‘receive’ condemnation directed upon us.” [243]
“[Some] are troubled with giving up ‘judging’ because
of another sense of the word that marks an absolutely central aspect of life,
one that Jesus is in no way suggesting we omit. The term krino, a form of which Jesus uses here in Matthew 7, has as its
primary meaning ‘to separate, make a distinction between, exercise judgment upon,’
‘to estimate or appraise.’… We do not have to—we cannot—surrender the valid practice of distinguishing and
discerning how things are in order to avoid condemning others. We can, however, train ourselves to hold
people responsible and discuss their failures with them—and even assign them
penalties, if we are, for example, in some position over them—without attacking
their worth as human beings or marking them as rejects.” [247-248]
“When we enter the life of friendship with the Jesus
who is now at work in our universe, we stand in a new reality where
condemnation is simply irrelevant. There is before God, Paul says, ‘no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8:1). And as for the
condemnation we may receive from others, I endeavor not to receive it, to just
ignore or drop it. I have learned to look at it only while simultaneously holding in full view the fact that Jesus,
so far from condemning me, died for me and is right now intervening on my
behalf in the heavens. This helps me stay out of countercondemnation, with its
pain and anger.” [250]
“To correct another without [using blame and
condemnation] requires great spiritual and personal maturity. That is why Paul
wrote to the Galatians, ‘Brothers, if someone really is caught in a sin, the spiritual
ones among you are the ones to restore him. Do it in a lowly and
non-presumptuous spirit, considering yourselves, lest you too be put to the
test. Feel the weight others are feeling, and thus you will fulfill Christ’s
teaching’ (6:1). The wisdom that comes from Jesus to us through these words of
Paul is astonishingly rich.
“First, we don’t undertake to correct unless we are
absolutely sure of the sin. Here the language of 1 Corinthians 13 comes into
play: love ‘believes all things, hopes all things.’ If there is any lack of
clarity about whether the sin occurred, assume it did not. At least, don’t
start correcting.
“Second, not just anyone is to correct others.
Correction is reserved for those who live and work in a divine power not their
own. For that power is also wise, and it is loving beyond anything we will ever
be. These are the ‘spiritual ones’ referred to. Only a certain kind of life
puts us in position to ‘correct.’
“Third, the ‘correcting’ to be done is not a matter of
‘straightening them out.’ It is not a matter of hammering on their wrongness
and on what is going to happen to them if they don’t change their ways. It is a
matter of restoration. The aim in
dealing with the one ‘caught’ is to bring them back on the path of Jesus and to
establish them there so their progress in kingdom character and living can
continue. Nothing is to be done that is not useful to this specific end.
“Fourth, the ones who are restoring others must go
about their work with the sure knowledge that they could very well do the same
thing that the person ‘caught’ has done, or even worse. This totally removes
any sense of self-righteousness or superiority, which, if it is present, will
certainly make restoration impossible. To aid in this direction, the restorers
are to endeavor to feel the weight, the ‘burden,’ that the one being restored
feels as he or she stands trapped in the sin.
“[These] teachings were never intended to apply only
to church fellowships and community. They are most important for human life as
they apply to our closest relationships, to our mates and children, our close
relatives and associates of all types. This is the place where, in our twisted
and upside down condition, familiarity is most likely to breed contempt. Most
families would be healthier and happier if their members treated one another
with the respect they would give to a perfect stranger.” [240-241]
On Helping
Others
“’Do not,’ [Jesus] said, ‘give dogs sacred things to
eat, nor try to get pigs to dine on pearls. For they will simply walk all over
them and turn and take a bit out of you’ (Matt. 7:6)… [Let] us be clear once
and for all that Jesus is not suggesting that certain classes of people are to
be viewed as pigs or dogs. Nor is he saying that we should not give good things
and do good deeds to people who might reject or misuse them. In fact, his
teaching is precisely the opposite. We are to be like the Father in the
heavens, ‘who is kind to the unthankful and the evil’ (Luke 6:35). The problem
with pearls for pigs is not that the pigs are not worthy. It is not worthiness
that is in question here at all, but helpfulness. Pigs cannot digest pearls,
cannot nourish themselves upon them. Likewise for a dog with a Bible or a
crucifix. The dog cannot eat it. The reason these animals will finally ‘turn
and rend you,’ when you one day step up to them with another load of Bibles or
pearls, is that you at least are
edible…. [What] a picture this is of our efforts to correct and control others
by pouring our good things, often truly precious things, upon them—things that
they nevertheless simply cannot ingest and use to nourish themselves. Often we
do not even listen to them. We ‘know’ without listening. Jesus saw it going on
around him all the time, as we do today. And the outcome is usually exactly the
same as with the pig and the dog. Our good intentions make little difference.
The needy person will finally become angry and attack us. The point is not the
waste of the ‘pearl’ but that the person given the pearl is not helped.”
[251-252]
“[What] are we to do in our desire to help others?
Nothing? That would be unacceptable. It is not consistent with really loving
those around us. Thus Saint Augustine understood love of our neighbor as
requiring that ‘we must endeavor to get our neighbor to love God.’ He
understood this to apply to our family, our household, and ‘all within our
reach.’ And he is right. To a great extent, what matters in our approach to
people is not just what we do, but how we do it, and when. And we can count on
it that a superior attitude or condemnation will never help us help them. The
instructions that Jesus gave to his apprentices when, on one occasion, he sent
them out to minister the kingdom of the heavens to the needs of human beings
was this: ‘Have the practical sense of the snake, and be as undevious or
innocent as doves’ (Matt. 10:16). These homely images begin to open up the
positive side of an association with others that will help them without
condemning them or forcing upon them good things that they simply cannot benefit
from.” [253-254]
“What is the wisdom of the snake? It is to be watchful
and observant until the time is right to act. It is timeliness. One rarely
seeks a snake chasing its prey or thrashing about in an effort to impress it.
But when it acts, it acts quickly and decisively. And as for the dove, it does
not contrive. It is incapable of intrigue. Guile is totally beyond it. There is
nothing indirect about this gentle creature. It is in this sense ‘harmless.’
The importance scriptural teaching places on guilelessness is very great. One
of the traits of the small child, the greatest in the kingdom, is its inability
to mislead. We are to be like that as adults. These are qualities we must have
to walk in the kingdom with others,
instead of trying to drive them to change their ways and attitudes and even who
they are. These qualities are in turn founded in still deeper qualities, such
as patience, confidence, hopefulness, truthfulness, and genuine respect for the
freedom and individuality of others.” [254]
“As long as I am condemning my friends or relatives,
or pushing my ‘pearls’ on them, I am their problem. They have to respond to me,
and that usually leads to their ‘judging’ me right back, or ‘biting’ me, as
Jesus said. But once I back away, maintaining a sensitive and nonmanipulative
presence, I am no longer their problem. As I listen, they do not have to
protect themselves from me, and they begin to open up. I may quickly begin to
appear to them as a possible ally and resource. Now they begin to sense their
problem to be the situation they have created, or possibly themselves. Because
I am no longer trying to drive them,
genuine communication, real sharing of hearts, becomes an attractive
possibility.” [254]
“To understand Jesus’ teachings, we must realize that
deep in our orientation of our spirit we cannot have one posture toward God and
a different one toward other people. We are a whole being, and our true
character pervades everything we do… Life in the kingdom of God is not
something we do, like investing in
the stock market or learning Spanish, that allows us to reserve dominion over
our own life and use the kingdom for
our purposes. We have to surrender the inmost reality of the self to God as
expressed in Jesus and his kingdom. We cannot ‘use’ it while holding our inmost
self back from it.” [255-256]
Praying in the
Kingdom
“It is a great advantage of requesting and prayer that
it not be a fail-safe mechanism. For human finitude means that we are all
limited in knowledge, in power, in love, and in powers of communication. Yet we
must act. We must go on. Even disregarding ill will, it is small wonder that we
do not, and often cannot, grant or be given what is requested of us or by us.
We do not know enough, and our desires are not perfect enough for us safely to
be given everything we want and ask for.” [263]
Against ‘Heroic’
Prayer. “Prayer, like all of the practices in which Jesus leads by word and
example, will be self-validating to all who simply pray as he says and not give
up. It is much harder to learn if we succumb to the temptation to engage in
‘heroic’ efforts in prayer. This is important. Heroism, generally, is totally
out of place in the spiritual life, until we grow to the point at which it
would never be thought of as heroism anyway. There are, of course, people who
pray heroically, and they are to be respected for what God has called them to…
But that is a special calling and is for very few of us. To look to this
calling as the ideal for our prayer life is only to assume a burden of
uncalled-for guilt, and, quite surely, it is to choose an approach that will
lead to abandoning prayer as a realistic and pervasive aspect of life in the
kingdom. There will be heroic periods as they may be called for, but with no
intention to be heroic. Always, we are simply children walking and talking with
our Father at hand.” [265]
Prayer as
Supplication. “The picture of prayer that emerges from the life and
teaching of Jesus in the Gospels is quite clear. Basically it is one of asking,
requesting things from God. The relevant texts—for example, the Lord’s Prayer
itself—leaves no doubt about this, [and] is consistent with the remainder of
the New Testament and with the Bible as a whole… Nevertheless, many people are
uncomfortable with this picture, especially with the idea that we would be
requesting things we want from God…
[But prayer] is never just asking, nor is it merely a matter of asking for what I want. God is not a cosmic
butler or fix-it man, and the aim of the universe is not to fulfill my desires
or needs. On the other hand, I am to pray for what concerns me, and many people
have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for
wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even
knowledge of. Prayer simply dies from
efforts to pray about ‘good things’ that honestly do not matter to us. The way
to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for
what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow
in the largeness of God’s love.” [266]
“What prayer as asking presupposes is simply a
personal—that is, an experientially interactive—relationship between us and
God, just as with a request of child to parent or friend to friend. It assumes
that our natural concerns will be naturally expressed, and that God will hear
our prayers for ourselves as well as for others…. [The] most adequate
description of prayer is, ‘Talking to God about what we are doing together.’
That immediately focuses the activity where we are but at the same time drives
the egotism out of it. Requests will naturally be made in the course of this
conversational walk. Prayer is a matter of explicitly sharing with God my
concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life. And of course he is
concerned about my concerns and, in particular, that my concerns should
coincide with his. This is our walk together. Out of it I pray.” [266-267]
“What about
Praise?” “[Praise] is not prayer, though praise is a wonderful exercise,
and we will do very little praying unless our hearts are full of praise.
Indeed, for anyone who has a genuine knowledge of God, praise is the only
appropriate attitude in which to live. It is the only sane attitude. Only a
vivid assurance of God’s greatness and goodness can lay a foundation for the
life of prayer, and such an assurance will certainly express itself in praise.
The great ‘faith chapter’ in the New Testament, Hebrews 11, tells us in simple
words, ‘Those who come to God must believe that he is and that he becomes a
rewarded of those who seek him out’ (v. 6). Praise is the inevitable result in
the heart of the person who thus understands God and is actually living
interactively with him.” [267-268]
“What about
Thanksgiving?” “Thanksgiving too is an inevitable accompaniment of vital
prayer. The purpose is not to manipulate God into thinking we are grateful and
that he should therefore give us more. That unfortunate idea is quite
ridiculous, of course, and yet many people toy with it or even try to put it into
practice. Nevertheless, prayer in the manner of Jesus will have incredible
results, and thanksgiving will be a constant theme just because that is the
reality of our relationship to God. Thanksgiving goes hand in hand with praise.
We are thankful when we know we are
living under the provisions of the bountiful hand.” [268]
Does God Answer
Prayer?
“God’s ‘response’ to our prayers is not a charade. He
does not pretend that he is answering our prayer when he is only doing what he
was going to do anyway. Our requests really do make a difference in what God
does or does not do. The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does
regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many
who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically
impossible, replacing it with a dead ritual at best. And course God does not
respond to this. You wouldn’t either.” [268]
“What we see [with Moses in Exodus 32 and King
Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20] is a God who can be prevailed
upon by those who faithfully stand before him… There is no ‘silver bullet’
in prayer. Requests may be granted. Or they may not. Either way, it will be for
a good reason. That is how relationships between persons are or should be.”
[270]
Doesn’t this
weaken God? “God is great enough that he can conduct his affairs in this
way. His nature, identity, and overarching purposes are no doubt unchanging.
But his intentions with regard to many particular matters that concern
individual human beings are not. This does not diminish him. Far from it. He
would be a lesser God if he could not change his intentions when he thinks it
is appropriate. And if he chooses to deal with humanity in such a way that he
will occasionally think it appropriate, that is just fine.” [270]
Doesn’t this
weaken God? Part Two. “[Some claim] God is too ‘great’ to be bothered, like
‘great’ human beings, no doubt… This is a very old prejudice, at least as old
as Plato, who regarded the belief that the gods are ‘turned aside from their
purpose by sacrifices and prayer’ as one form of insolence toward God. That
prejudice is passed on through people such as Cicero and Hume[, and] it comes
to expression in many contemporary theologians on the left. We should admit, I
think, that some views of prayer are degrading to God, and perhaps of human
beings as well. We think, for example, of those that make his response
inevitable if we just get our words right. Or of those that have us buying him
off with sacrifices of various kinds. But that is not so of the view of prayer
that Jesus gives. To suppose that God and the individual communicate within the
framework of God’s purposes for us, as explained earlier, and that because of
the interchange God does what he had not previously intended, or refrains from
something he previously had intended to do, is nothing against God’s dignity if it is an arrangement he himself has
chosen.” [277-278]
“Prayer as kingdom praying is an arrangement
explicitly instituted by God in order that we as individuals may count, and
count for much, as we learn step by step how to govern, to reign with him in
his kingdom. To enter and to learn this reign is what gives the individual life
its extended significance. This high calling also explains why prayer
frequently requires much effort, continuous effort, and on some matters
possibly years and years of effort. Prayer is, above all, a means of forming
character. It combines freedom and power with service and love. What God gets
out of our lives—and, indeed, what we get out of our lives—is simply the person
we become. It is God’s intention that we should grow into the kind of person he
could empower to do what we want to do. Then we are ready to ‘reign for ever
and ever’ (Rev. 22:5).” [275]
Prayer and
Waiting. “[A] major element [of prayer] is experience in waiting for God to move, not leaping
ahead and taking things into our own hands. Out of this waiting experience
there comes a form of character that is priceless before God, a character that
can be empowered to do as one chooses. This explains why James says that
patience in trials will make us ‘fully functional’ (teleion), ‘perfect’ (Jas 1:4). Sometimes we must wait for God to do
as we ask because the answer involves changes in other people, or even
ourselves, and that kind of change always takes time. Sometimes, apparently,
the changes in question involve conflicts going on in a spiritual realm lying
entirely outside human affairs (Dan 10:13). We always live in a larger context
of activities we do not see. But whatever the exact cause, Jesus emphatically
taught that we are to stay with our request. That is, quite simply, an aspect
of all serious human relationships. We stay with an issue until it is resolved
one way or another.” [276-276]
Persistent
Prayer. “The main teaching [in Luke 18.1-6] is that we should expect prayer
to proceed in the manner of a relationship between persons. Of course it will
be in the manner of such relationships at their best, but the general character
of requesting will remain. In fact,
the contrary assumption possibly causes more people to ‘drop out’ of praying
than anything else. Praying is mistakenly thought to be like plunking your
money into a soft drink machine or like dropping a bomb. You do a simple act
one time, and then mechanism takes over to produce the inevitable result. I
have even heard people seriously teaching that if you ask God for the same
thing a second time, that only proves to him you didn’t believe the first
time—as if he didn’t know already. This view also leads to misguided efforts to
word everything just right: for example, being sure to say, ‘In Jesus’ name,’
or, ‘If it be thy will.’ The idea that if we get it ‘just right’ it will work
treats prayer like the drink machine. Prayer is never a mechanism. It is always
a personal negotiation.” [277]
The Lord’s
Prayer
The Address. “The
‘address’ part of prayer is of vital significance. We dare not slight or
overlook it. It is one of the things that distinguishes prayer from worrying
out loud or silently, which many, unfortunately, have confused with prayer.
When we speak to someone, we use a name to call to that person in distinction
from everyone else. We thereby indicate that we wish to speak to that particular person. The name also
calls attention to our standing in relation to the one addressed.” [280-281]
Our Father in
the Heavens. “When we speak to God, Jesus tells us, we are to address him
as ‘Our Father, the one in the heavens.’ This is the configuration of reality
from within which we pray. The overwhelming difficulties many people have with
prayer, both understanding it and doing it, derive from nothing more than their
failure or their inability to place themselves within this configuration and
receive it by grace. This may be because they actually do not live within the
kingdom configuration, perhaps they are even in rebellion against it. But until
they learn to do this routinely yet deeply, they will experience no stability
and development in their practice of prayer.” [281]
“[When] we pray we must take time to fix our minds
upon God and orient our world around him. Whatever we need to do to that end
should be done. When it is done, we will see ourselves situated in the family
of God across time and space, as we pray ‘our
Father,’ and we will see God as our Father,
and we will see our Father directly available to us for face-to-face
communication. That is what it means for him to be Our Father, the one in the heavens. Unfortunately, the old standard
formulation, ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ has come to mean ‘Our Father who
is far away and much later.’ [But] the meaning of the plural heavens, which is erroneously omitted in
most translations, sees God present as far ‘out’ as imaginable but also right
down to the atmosphere around our heads, which is the first of ‘the heavens.’
The omission of the plural robs the wording in the model prayer of the sense
Jesus intended. That sense is, ‘Our Father always near us.’” [283]
“[The] remainder of the model prayer as given in Luke
11 consists of requests or categories of requests. There are five of them:
“That the name ‘God’ would be regarded with the utmost
possible respect and endearment.
“That his kingdom would come fully on earth.
“That our needs for today be met today.
“That our sins be forgiven, not held against us.
“That we not be permitted to come under trial or to
have bad things happen to us.” [283]
‘Hallowed’ Be
Thy Name. “Today very few people any longer understand what it means to
‘hallow’ something and are apt to associate hallow
only with ghosts and Halloween. So we would do better to translate the language
here as ‘let your name be sanctified.’ Let it be uniquely respected. Really,
the idea is that his name should be treasured and loved more than any other,
held in an absolutely unique position among humanity. The word translated ‘hallow’
or ‘sanctify’ is hagiastheto. It is
basically the same word used, for example, in John 17:17, where Jesus asks the
Father to sanctify his students,
especially the apostles, through his truth. And it appears again in 1 Thess.
5:23, where Paul expresses his hope that God will sanctify the Thessalonians
entirely, keeping them blameless in spirit, soul, and body until Jesus returns.
In such passages, too, the term means to locate the persons referred to in a
separate and very special kind of reality.” [284]
This request is based upon the deepest need of the
human world. Human life is not about human life. Nothing will go right in it
until the greatness and goodness of its source and governor is adequately
grasped. His very name is then held in the highest possible regard. Until that
is so, the human compass will always be pointing in the wrong direction, and
individual lives as well as history as a whole will suffer from constant and
fluctuating disorientation. Candidly, that is exactly the condition we find
ourselves in.” [248]
“[This] is also the natural request of a child who
loves its ‘Abba,’ its Daddy. How a child’s heart is wounded to hear its
parents, mother or father, dishonored or to see them attacked. Such an attack
shakes the very foundations of the child’s existence, for the parents are its
world. The touching confidence in the parent that famously makes a child think
its parents are ‘the best’ in every regard is really essential to the child’s
well-being in the early stages of life. So when we hear this first request, and
indeed the second as well, we want to remember that it is the prayer of an
adoring child, somewhat jealous for its parent. And we want to let ourselves
sense its longing that ‘Abba,’ who in this case really is ‘the greatest,’ should
be recognized as such.” [284-285]
Thy Kingdom
Come… “The child’s confidence in the ‘Abba’ who supervises everything for
good naturally wants his rule, his kingdom, to come into realization in any
place where it is not fully present. Recall, now that, the kingdom of God is the range of his effective will: that is, it is the domain where what he prefers is
actually what happens. And this very often does not happen on this sad earth…”
[285]
“[This] does not mean ‘come into existence.’ The
kingdom of God is from everlasting earlier to everlasting later. It does not
come into existence, nor does it cease. But in human affairs other ‘kingdoms’
may for a time be in power, and often are. This second request asks for these
kingdoms to be displaced, wherever they are, or brought under God’s rule. We
are thinking here of the places we spend our lives: of homes, playgrounds, city
streets, workplaces, schools, and so forth. These are the places we have in
mind, and they are where we are asking for the kingdom, God’s rule, to come, to
be in effect. Also, we are thinking of our
activities more than those of other people. We know our weaknesses, our
limitations, our habits, and we know how tiny our power of conscious choice is.
We are therefore asking that, by means beyond our knowledge and the scope of
our will, we be assisted to act within the flow of God’s actions.” [285]
“[We] are also praying over the dark deeds of others
in the world around us. We see how they are trapped in what they themselves
often disown and despise. And we are especially praying about the structural or
institutionalized evils that rule so much of the earth. These prevailing
circumstances daily bring multitudes to do deeply wicked things they do not
even give a thought to. They do not know what they are doing and do not have
the ability to distance themselves from it so they can see it for what it is.
That is the power of ‘culture.’” [286]
Sidebar: On
Culture. “Culture is seen in what people do unthinkingly, what is ‘natural’
to them and therefore requires no explanation or justification. Everyone has a
culture—or, really, multidimensional cultures of various levels. These cultures
structure their lives. And of course by far the most of everyone’s culture is
right and good and essential. But not all. For culture is the place where
wickedness takes on group form, just as the flesh, good and right in itself, is
the place where individual wickedness dwells. We therefore pray for our Father
to break up these higher-level patterns of evil. And, among other things, we
ask him to help us see the patterns we
are involved in. We ask him to help us not cooperate with them, to cast light
on them and act effectively to remove them.” [286]
Give Us Today
Our Daily Bread. “[This] request embodies that confidence in our Father
that relieves us from all anxiety. The emphasis is on provision today of what we need for
today. This is because God is always present today, no matter what day it
is. His reign is the Eternal Now. So we do not ask him to provide today what we
will need for tomorrow. To have it in hand today does not guarantee that we
will have it tomorrow when we need it. Today I have God, and he has the provisions. Tomorrow it will
be the same. So I simply ask today for what I need for today or ask now for
what I need now.” [286-287]
Forgive Us Our
Sins… “The fourth request is for forgiveness of sins. It asks the Father to
deal with us on the basis of mercy or pity. We forgive someone of a wrong they
have done us when we decide that we will not make them suffer for it in any
way. This does not mean we must
prevent suffering that may come to them as a result of the wrong they have
done. It does not means that either when we forgive others or when they or God
forgive us.” [287]
Sidebar: On
Pity. “[It] is only pity or mercy that makes life possible. We do not like
to hear it, but human beings in their best are pitiable creatures that ‘walk in
a vain show’ (Ps. 39:6). Only God’s mercies keep us from being consumed because
of our sins (Lam. 3:22). But as a father pities his children, so the Lord
pities us. He knows what we are made of and remembers that we are dust. He does
not deal with us according to our sins, nor does he reward us in proportion to
our wrongdoings (Ps. 103:10-14). That is the wonderful, healing nature of The
Kingdom Among Us. Once we step into this kingdom and trust it, pity becomes the
atmosphere in which we live. Of course it is his pity for us that allows us in
to start with, and then it patiently bears with us. ‘The Lord is bursting with
compassion and fully of pity’ (James 5:11). But we also are to ‘be of one mind,
having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous’
(1 Pet. 3:8 KJV). It is not psychologically possible for us really to know God’s pity for us and at the same
time be hardhearted toward others. So we are ‘forgiving of others in the same
manner as God forgives us.’ That is a part of our prayer. We are not just
promising or resolving to forgive, however. We are praying for help to forgive
others, for, though it is up to us to forgive—we do it—we know we cannot do it
without help.” [287-288]
“Now that I have come to know The Kingdom Among Us, I
too will be merciful to those close to me. It is not just that I do not condemn
them. That is important, of course, but it is not enough. I must have mercy.
The kingdom and its God is great enough that ‘mercy and truth can meet
together’ (Ps. 85:7-10). And ‘Mercy brags about how it wins over judgment’
(James 2:13). The provision of the Father in the life and death of his Son, and
in the greatness of his own eternal heart, makes it possible.” [288]
“Today even many Christians read and say ‘forgive us
our trespasses’ as ‘give me a break.’ In the typically late-twentieth-century
manner, this saves the ego and its egotism. ‘I am not a sinner, I just need a break!’ But no, I need more than a break. I
need pity because of who I am. If my pride is untouched when I pray for
forgiveness, I have not prayed for forgiveness. I don’t even understand it.”
[291]
Don’t Put Us to
the Test. “The final request asks our Father not to put us to the test.
‘Don’t bring us into temptation.’ The ‘temptation’ here is not primarily
temptation to sin. Trials always tempt us to sin, however. And temptation to
sin is not always a trial, which we might fail by falling into sin. Moreover,
the bad things that come upon us are always trials. And so the version in
Matthew 6 elaborates this last request by saying, ‘Spare us from bad things
that might happen to us.’ This request is not just for evasion of pain and of
things we don’t like, though it frankly is that. It expresses the understanding
that we can’t stand up under very much pressure, and that it is not a good
thing to suffer. It is a vote of ‘no confidence’ in our own abilities. As the
series of requests begins with the glorification of God, it ends with
acknowledgement of the feebleness of human beings.” [291]
“Once again, we are asking for pity, this time in the
form of protection from circumstances. We are asking a Father who is both able
and willing to extend such pity to not let bad things happen to us. As we
attentively make this prayer a part of our constant bearing in life, we will see how God indeed does keep us from
trials and deliver us from evil. Constantly. We will see how often good things
happen even to ‘bad’ people—as well as to the good. And of course we will find
that we do have trials, and that some bad things come to everyone. No one is
totally exempt. We can count on that too. But we will also become assured that
any trial or evil that comes upon us has a special function in God’s plans. As
with daily provision of food, there is continuous provision for every need, no
matter how dire. We may not always have it ahead of time, but often right when
we need it from the God who is right there with us. Our bedrock certainty of
this will stand firmly upon our many experiences of the presence and goodness
of our Father. We will have firsthand experience of how his strength is brought
to perfection in our lives precisely by our weaknesses, combined with hopeful
faith.” [291-292]
“We should understand that God will usually spare us
from trials, especially if we are living in the Lord’s Prayer. And we should
also understand that, when trials are permitted, it only means that he has
something better in mind for us than freedom from trials. What we learn about
God from Jesus should prove to us that suffering and ‘bad things’ happening to
us are not the Father’s preferred way of dealing with us—sometimes necessary,
perhaps, but never what he would, on the whole, prefer. What the psalmist says
is true of many of us: ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep
Thy word… It is good for me that I was afflicted’ (Ps. 119:67, 71 NASV).
Discipline is essential to our actual place in God’s earthly family, and
discipline is ‘not joyful, but sorrowful; though… afterwards it yields the
peaceful fruit of righteousness’ (Heb. 12:11). This truth is twisted by our
imagination to give a false view of God. That ‘twist’ is largely responsible
for a morbid streak that runs through much of historical and even current
Christianity. We project upon God the sadistic tendencies that really are
present in human beings. Given the anger, hatred, and contempt that pervades
human society, it is not uncommon that individual human beings actually enjoy the suffering of others. One of
our worst thoughts about God is that he too enjoys human suffering… Is it any
wonder that Jesus told us to forget everything we think we know about the
nature of God and lose ourselves in his picture of our Father, the one in the
heavens? (Matt. 11:25-27; John 3:13; 17:6-8). The last request in the Lord’s
Prayer is the revelation of a God who loves to spare his children and who will always do it upon request unless he has
something better in mind, which he rarely does.” [293-294]
“People who do not ask God to spare them from trials
and evils usually do not even recognize his hand when they are spared. They
then live under the illusion that their lives are governed by chance, luck,
accident, the whims of others, and their own cleverness. And because they do
not ask, do not constantly invite God in, that may well be, to some significant
extent, no illusion. If one is content with such an outlook, God will probably
leave one with it. He respects us no matter how wrong we are.” [294]
Parting Shots. “[The
Lord’s Prayer] is a prayer that teaches us to pray. It is a foundation of the
praying life: its introduction and its continuing basis. It is an enduring
framework for all praying. You only move beyond it provided you stay within it.
It is the necessary bass in the great symphony of prayer. It is a powerful lens
through which one constantly sees the world as God Himself sees it.” [295]
Willard translates the Lord’s Prayer for a modern
audience [295-296]:
“Dear Father always near us,
May your name be treasured and loved,
May your rule be completed in us—
May your will be done here on earth
In just the way it is done in heaven.
Give us today the things we need today,
And forgive us our sins and impositions on you
As we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.
Please don’t put us through trials,
But deliver us from everything bad.
Because you are the one in charge,
And you have all the power,
And the glory too is all yours—forever—
Which is just the way we want it!”
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