quotes from Walter Brueggemann

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The following excerpts are from the book "Peace" (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), by Walter Brueggemann, UCC minister and retired professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta and Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.

. . . So morality is sorting out the demands and claims that emerge out of the precious moments when life is whole and new.  Consider how we would act if we were to live according to the exodus:

•Exodus people honor the Sabbath, because it is a reminder of the contrast between oppressive work and healing, humane rest.

•Exodus people don't covet, because the tyranny of Pharaoh was in coveting after he had enough. 

•Exodus people don't steal, kill, or commit adultery, because now they know that life is too precious to be abused or perverted. The laws of Israel are informed by exodus. 

There are some things you can count on.  The world will not fall apart.  At the bottom of life are a confidence and buoyancy about the world.  The world will not collapse, and we need not be frantic about the prospect that it will.  This, I believe, is a dimension of reality lost in our time, impressed as we are with our capacity to make and unmake the world . . .  we cannot finally unmake the world because we have not made the world.

. . .God rested!  Think of the boldness of that statement.  God rested.  The One charged supremely with ordering the world was not in a tizzy about making it go.  And the commandment is very clear: We rest because God did (Exodus 20:8-11).  And God rested because the reliability of the world has been ordained by God and is not in doubt . . . The world is whole and faithful enough that we need not be consumed in efforts to secure our own existence.  It has been secured . . . The world is safe, and that calls for wonder, amazement, and gratitude.

People who lack that sense of astonishment are likely to take themselves too seriously, and for them the world may finally become too anxious.

What is it God has promised that the world does not know?  Simply that which separates the followers of Jesus from the slaves of this world – suffering love.  This little, seemingly powerless community (the Church) is ordered and identified by its practice of caring, transforming, empowering love of the towel-and-basin variety. 

. . .this little community consists of those who have gotten themselves untangled from the values of this world.  We are not like the others.  Our perception of the world is different, and because we see differently, we can both act and believe differently.   

The truth into which the church is led by the dying one is that the world is being dismantled, and a new world with a quite different code of operation is at hand.  It is this dismantling that the church knows about and that the world has not yet begun to suspect . . .   

Newness is about to burst into our lives and, indeed, into the world.  But the newness comes not without a price, and the price is death to all present arrangements, death to fear and to small hopes, death to old visions and memories.  And those who are ready for death to all that the world calls 'life' are the ones to whom life can come.  The world that will hate us does not know about joy; it knows about management and security and competence and stability, but none of that can yield joy.

. . . the movement from this world to the next is not made with full hands, but requires empty hands. 

quote from Brian McLaren

The following excerpts are from the book "Finding Our Way Again"  by Brian McLaren.  Brian spent 3 days with us here at Fairlawn West in 2004.   First, they may go to church without understanding the potential and purposes of the communal practices they encounter there.  As a result, they may engage in spiritual malpractice instead of spiritual practice, leading to spiritual malformation rather than spiritual formation.  That's why, according to the apostle Paul, gathering in the wrong way can be worse than not gathering at all: "Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse" (1 Corinthians 11:17 NRSV).  The apostle James erupted in a full-fledged rant along similar lines, suggesting that the common practice of "favoritism" (or cliquishness, a failure to properly practice the presence of people) made him wonder whether the so-called Christians to whom he wrote really got the message of Jesus at all (James 2:1-7)   =================   So our planetary ecology is in trouble.  But isn't that outer disharmony and imbalance integrally related to the disharmony and imbalance in our inner ecology?  If we are controlled by greed or fear or hate or lust internally, won't that inner ecology be expressed in the kind of world we have?  If God wants the outer ecology healed, won't God necessarily want our inner ecology restored to balance and health as well?  So, when we think of spiritual practices, shouldn't we think of practice that form and transform both the outer and inner ecologies of soul and world?   We could also say it like this: Jesus called disciples so he could send them out as apostles.  They were called together to learn so they could be sent out to teach and serve.  When a master musician invites promising young musicians to be her students, her ultimate goal is for them not to be students only, but also to become master musicians with students of their own, so the way, the tradition, of music goes on generation after generation with continuity and creativity—preserving the past but never being restricted to replaying it.  Jesus calls disciples for the purpose of forming them into apostles, whom he will send out to form disciples and apostles, and so on, across all social boundaries and generations, so the "good news revolution" he launched in his little corner of the world will spread to all creation.

the church is not a charitable organization...

rather it is a faith community of people who know not only that God will change the creation, but has already created a new creation in Jesus Christ.  Thus, we cannot be willing to live in a context where we make excuses why we can't do more or why things are the way they are i.e. "human nature." a good quote from a Facebook friend today: The church ... cannot be content to play the part of a nurse looking after the casualties of the system. It must play an active part both in challenging the present unjust structures and in pioneering alternatives. - Donald Dorr Catholic missionary priest

praying for something to change

Will we open ourselves to the radical love of God that changes the world? If we pray for God to change other situations such as health, employment, emotional struggles, addictions, relationships, world conflicts, then we must expect that God has the power to bring about change. But our prayers for any change is hollow unless we pray for and are open to the radical change of repentance that Jesus Christ preaches with the kingdom of God being at hand. And that change means everything is on the table about our lives. God may not change it all, but we put it all on the table without reservation with the willingness to accept what God does choose to change about us. That is the journey of a disciple.

prayer in the western world

Prayer has unfortunately lost a lot of its mooring in the American Christian church to reflect more of the consumer secular culture than the spiritual practice of those who follow Jesus. It has become an item to use to get what we want. It has become like a shopping list of items as though God does not know what is needed or how it is needed to be done.

We need to recover a sense of prayer that is more listening and more being open to what God would have us do rather than what we want God to do. God doesn’t answer prayer by the style of words or the number of prayers about any specific request. What God hopes is we will spend time in deep concern for all the pain of the world and we will lift up that which we know of and we will also seek to learn about and lift up those who are not part of our circle of friends and family or in our comfort zone. Then God hears our prayers not as personal self-centered requests but as deep spiritual transformation.

"you've carried those burdens long enough"

Zephaniah 3:17-18

17 Your God is present among you,
a strong Warrior there to save you.
Happy to have you back, he’ll calm you with his love
and delight you with his songs.

18 “The accumulated sorrows of your exile
will dissipate.
I, your God, will get rid of them for you.
You’ve carried those burdens long enough.

In a world that has at its core "oughts and shoulds" and at a time when organized "Christianity" has accepted at its core that same world value, a passage such as this (which is one among millions!) is needed to be heard not only by those outside the church, but it seems particularly by those inside the church and even more particularly those who have accepted responsibility for leading the church.

UCC, United Church of Christ, Akron, Ohio, David Loar, Fairlawn West, Christian, Jesus Christ

become a child to follow Jesus

I have put together all the New Testament passages that say that to follow Jesus and to enter the Kingdom of God/Heaven, we have to let go of our "adult" (controlling) ways and become like children again.  This is clearly counter to what we are taught and trust in ourselves and in the world.  We resist and argue with it if not outwardly, at least inwardly.  The phrase, "someone has to be responsible" is the most prolific excuse in the church and in the world to truly following Jesus' example and teaching on this. 

The paradox is as leaders of the church, we have to allow our own lives to become like children to be able to lead the church to become like this.  Otherwise we are preaching one thing (follow Jesus and prepare for his kingdom - become a child) and doing another (take charge, be responsible, be mature). 

The apostle Paul says that we must become mature spiritually and he chastises more than once churches that he says are stuck in what they think is the "end" place of where they need to be in their spiritual journey.  What that leads around to, they are stuck in "control" mode.  To mature, they need to become less in control and more trusting of God i.e. become like a child.

Our Thurs Mall Bible Reading group just started reading Paul's epistle to the Romans this morning and we read the 1st two chapters.  Paul lays it out clearly.  If we don't let go and trust God fully with our lives (repent and have a "life change" as he puts it) we will experience the fires of hell.  Not as a final judgment but as ongoing pain, confusion and suffering in our earthly lives. 

So, are we ready as the leaders of Fairlawn West to become like children?  Read the list below.




Matthew 11
 ²⁵At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

Matthew 18
 ²He called a little child and had him stand among them. ³And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 10
 ¹³Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.

 ¹⁴Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." ¹⁵When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Mark 9

 ³⁶He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Mark 10

 ¹³People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." ¹⁶And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Luke 10

 ²¹At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

Luke 18

 ¹⁵People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. ¹⁶But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁷I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

John 1

¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Romans 8

¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." ¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. ¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Ephesians 5

 ¹Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 ⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

1 John 3

 ¹How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ²Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

...

 ⁷Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. ⁸He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. ⁹No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. ¹⁰This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

prayer

What is the nature of prayer as a follower of Jesus Christ?  I put a quote in the bulletin today that was from personal correspondence with Brian McLaren.  It reflects how prayer has become more from us than toward God.  I am trying to sort out how we practice a disciplined spiritual life when prayer has seemingly become controversial and shaped a great deal by American culture more than the breadth of the Biblical scripture.

I have listed below links from commentary on prayer that has shaped me in my spiritual journey.  I have recently heard a criticism of me for not being an adequate spiritual leader because of a seeming lack of response on my part around a prayer request.

article by Henri Nouwen on prayer "First, Unclench your Fists"
quotes by Nouwen on prayer, scroll down toward the bottom

http://www.prayerinamerica.org/

Lenten Prayer by my old prof Walter Brueggemann
review of a book by Walk on prayers and preaching including a significant prayer
another review of the book plus at the end good commentary on the struggle for true spiritual prayer

myfriend  Brian McLaren offers some prayers and views on prayer
a prayer for justice and peace
at the bottom prayers

interview with Leonard Sweet about how to take in the whole world in our prayer life