I am a Spiritual Weakling, Which is Why I Pray Four Times a Day

I'm figuring out that my experiment for this year is perfect for people, like me, who are utter spiritual weaklings. I'm convinced that way that we often talk about the things we can do to arrange our lives as disciples of Jesus is completely upside-down. We say things like, "This is for those of you who really want to go deeper," giving the impression that a life of discipleship is for people who want to go above and beyond everyone else in churchy things. We frame it as if this kind of life is for spiritual honor students, or for those of us who are really interested in "that kind of thing." Thinking of a lifestyle of discipleship like that is erroneous and harmful, like flying upside-down in an airplane: It may seem fine for a moment, but if we are unaware of it, it won't work for long and some serious damage is coming our way. I'm finding this year's experiment in living prayerfully to be helpful, not because I'm advanced, but because of the opposite: I'm such a spiritual weakling that I can't make it through a single day of living in connection with God without building these re-connections with God into the routine of my regular days. Instead of thinking of this way of praying as being for the equivalent of the olympic long-distance runner, it's more accurate to think of it as being perfectly suited for the equivalent of the preschooler who can't keep their mind on one thing long enough to be able to put on their own pants. I want to live my life as God's friend, and I simply can't get anywhere in my attempts to do so without putting this kind of method into the way I live and having others join in to help me lurch along in these bumbling, blundering, lumbering attempts to follow Jesus.

James Bryan Smith writes about this in The Good and Beautiful Life:

I don't do these things because I want God to love me and bless me, nor to avoid punishment or impress people with my piety. I do all of this to keep the fire burning. I do them because I am spiritually weak. I cannot maintain an effective and joyful Christian life without these activities. I also need weekly times of worship fellowship and host of other disciplines to nourish my soul. When I neglect these things, my soul atrophies. I simply know of no other way to be an apprentice of Jesus.

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Something I've prayed this week:

Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me! O LORD, be my helper! (Psalm 30:10)

[This is the 25th post from A Year of Living Prayerfully]

Resurrecting My Experiment

When Advent began last year, I committed myself to a year-long experiment and to being public about its progress by writing about it here. The gist of the experiment was that I would push my own advice from Live Prayerfully to its farthest reasonable limit by doing all of the things I talk about in the book every day for a year. (The book doesn't encourage anyone to do all of the stuff all the time–I'm intentionally trying to take things to an extreme.) I was able to stick with it for quite a while, even if it wasn't all very pretty (for a couple of examples, see One Dog, Two Cats, and Four Attempts to Pray and My Bad Christmas Prayer Idea). But then, around the end of February my streak ended of legalistically doing everything I set out to do, when I didn't realize that I had missed morning prayer until I sat down to read midday prayer.

In itself, that wasn't that big of a deal, but–like how in your house when one thing breaks, three or four others are likely to follow–after the streak ended, my experiment began to go downhill. Generally I've kept things up, but it's become more common for me to realize when I go to bed at night that I didn't do something that I'd committed to do as part of this year.

Part of that is due to the fact that I haven't been writing about it. The "40 Days of Prayer" posts that went up daily during Lent occupied all of the writing opportunities I had during those weeks, so apparently my abilities to stick with commitments is weak enough that if I wasn't writing about them, I also became less likely to do them.

But now–the writing project for Lent is behind me, and we're a week into Easter, so I think it's appropriate to resurrect the commitment to the experiment.

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Something I've prayed this week:

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Prayer for the Third Sunday of Easter from The Book of Common Prayer)

[This is the 24th post from A Year of Living Prayerfully]

Because of the Resurrection...

Because of the resurrection...

Death is defeated. Death itself is abolished. Its sting is gone, because life does not end in a grave.

Death's primary expression, sin, is no longer our master. We can choose to remain slaves if we like, but a new, indestructible, full life-as-it-was-meant-to-be has become available to us.

Jesus' primary expressions, love and grace, matter more than death and sin. They always will.

Every opportunity to love someone and extend God's grace is an opportunity to do something that will last. Love and grace count more than we realize.

Great news! Suffering has no final word about anything. Jesus' suffering did not get the last word on his life, neither will ours. When it comes, suffering either shapes us to be more like our crucified and risen King, or–if we forget how he suffered before rising–to harden our hearts against him.

In Christ, every loved one who is no longer here is well and cared for.

We don't have to accept the fairy tale pictures of heaven. We too easily settle for thinking that we'll grow wings, sit on clouds and play on harps in a never-ending church service (does anyone really want to sign up for that?). Instead, God will make all things new–new heavens, new earth, new bodies...new creation, far better than any fairy tale we could imagine!

Jesus' friends expected that all of God's people would be raised at some point in the future. They didn't expect that point in the future to break into the present by happening to him on the third day after being crucified. Therefore, while we anticipate the future day when resurrection happens to all of us, the living Jesus enables us to practice his kind of life now, getting a foretaste of what's to come. We eagerly await the day when we and all those whom we now miss will be given new, death-defeating bodies like that of our King.

Thanks be to God! Eternal life is now in session, because of the resurrection.

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Readings for Easter Sunday:

Acts 10:34-43 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-18

A Prayer for the Day:

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.*

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 40: Saturday in Holy Week

Most of us have had moments of intense grief at some point in life, or–if we have not–we will at some point. My dad was my hero, and when we learned that he had terminal cancer, I felt completely unable to function. Much of what my life had always been was being lost. In the days following his diagnosis, I lived with a constant sense of having been kicked in the stomach, and I remember for several days waking from sleep, each time hoping that it had all been a bad dream. It only took a moment for the dark reality to set in. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each tell the story of Jesus' burial, but none of them say anything about what the disciples were doing on Saturday. There are some obvious possible explanations: it was a Sabbath, so they couldn't do anything actively. Also, since Jesus had essentially been executed for treason ("If you let this man live, you are no friend of Caesar"..."Above his head they placed the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews"), the disciples must have been fearfully aware of the possibility that they would become the next targets. So, though we aren't told what they did, we can be reasonably sure that they hid, full of shock, fear, and grief.

Though my grief over my dad was intense, I'm sure it wasn't in the same category as what Jesus' friends experienced on the day after his crucifixion. In addition to the loss of their beloved leader, they also had to deal with the injustice involved, the devastation of their dreams and hopes about who they thought Jesus was (in their framework, a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms), the fear that they would be next, and perhaps most painful of all–the shame for having deserted him at his arrest.

If they slept at all, they surely awoke on Saturday hoping for an instant that it had all been a nightmare and that Jesus was still there next to them. After a moment, when the dark reality set in again, it is certain to have felt overpowering. Jesus' body lay dead and lifeless in a tomb.

The only detail the gospels give us about Saturday is one that reiterates the point:

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. (Matthew 27:62-66)

A Prayer for the Day:

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for today's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 39: Good Friday

I always underestimate how quickly this part of the story happened. If we read yesterday's and today's stories in the Bible, they take up a lot of space. For example, of the 21 chapters in John, 1/3 of them (chapters 13-19) are filled with the content of these 24 hours. This makes the pace seem slower when reading the story, as we read about Jesus getting passed back and forth between people, Pilate trying to figure out what to do with him, and the religious leaders working the political system to get their desired result (“You are no friend of Caesar… We have no king but Caesar.”). Yet despite the change in pace of the narrative, the reality is that Thursday evening Jesus was having dinner with his friends–including Judas. By mid-afternoon on Friday both Judas and Jesus were dead.

As I’ve tried to let these stories sink in and picture the scenes of the Last Supper, Jesus’ trial with the Sanhedrin, Peter’s denial, the crowd’s choice of Barabbus and insistence on Jesus’ death, I’ve realized something: If I had been there and been a character in the story, or even just a face in the crowd, it’s silly to think that I would have done anything differently from what everyone else did. I too would have been on the wrong side of the story and left Jesus alone.

I might have been one of those who loved Jesus but for various reasons couldn’t do anything about what was happening, and therefore had to let it happen. Those such as Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, John, Joseph of Arimathea, or Nicodemus surely hated what they saw happening but felt some inevitable sense of resignation to the way things were playing out so quickly.

Or I might have been someone who more actively turned my back and ran from Jesus, like most of his friends. I may have even done what Peter did and tried to cover up any tracks that I’d had with him. Based on my own history in circumstances much less intense that what Peter faced that night, I don’t have much reason to think I would do any better than he did.

Or I might have been Judas. It’s easy to believe that I could have been more interested in my own plan than Jesus’ way. Like Judas, I too have been disappointed with God at times, feeling that he didn’t come through as he should have, so who’s to say that I wouldn’t have been the one to seek personal gain as a result of Jesus not turning out to be and do what I had hoped?

Regardless of what role I would have played, I would have been among those included in Jesus’ statement, “you all will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.”

I would have been somewhere on the wrong side of this horrible drama. And Jesus would have known that, and even in his most agonizing hours which I helped to bring about, he would have loved me anyway.

A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for today's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 38: Maundy Thursday

"When Jesus wanted to give his followers–then and now–a way of understanding what was about to happen to him, he didn’t teach them a theory...He gave them an act to perform. Specifically, he gave them a meal to share."–N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone

The Passover meal that Jesus shared with his disciples on their last night together was full–as it always had been–of powerful, intentional reminders about their past. It took them back to when their ancestors had been slaves for centuries in Egypt, and then God had miraculously delivered them from their oppression as they began a long journey toward the promised land. Really, it was more than a way of bringing the old stories to mind. It was a way of participating in the story, a way of realizing, "We are the people who were brought out of slavery into freedom."

As well as looking to the past, their Passover meal also always helped them to look to the future in hope. Just as their ancestors had been, they had also been under oppression for centuries, and they needed God's deliverance anew. Their scriptures pointed toward someone through whom God would accomplish this, an anointed one (Messiah/Christ), through whom their oppressors would once more be defeated and the promised freedom would again come–this time, forever.

By the time that they came to the night of that Passover meal together in an upper room, Jesus' followers had come to believe that he, their Rabbi, who was leading them through the rituals of the meal was the one through whom these things would happen, though they hadn't understood many of the things he had tried to teach them. Much that had happened in the preceding days was strange to them, but they understood what the Passover meal meant. They all knew the meal's rituals well, as they had participated in them in the same way every year of their lives.

At least, they understood the meal until-at some point in the evening–Jesus changed the ritual. "Take, eat. This is my body....Drink from this cup, all of you. It is my blood...." Jesus took this meal about their past and their future and pointed it–in their present moment–to himself, to his own body and blood. "Do this in remembrance of me..."

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John's account of that meal is very different, though no less memorable. In John's story, nothing is said about Jesus identifying the bread as his body, nor of the wine as his blood. Instead, John is the only one of the gospel writers to focus on something else Jesus that happened during the meal:

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

...When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

This provided the setting for the rest of the evening, in which Jesus gave his "farewell address" to his friends (though it was really more of a conversation), important enough that John devoted about 1/5 of his entire story to the dialogue (see John 13 through 17). On that night which he wanted his friends to remember for the remainder of their lives, Jesus reiterated something to them no fewer than three times:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another... My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you... This is my command: Love each other.

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One meal, with two different accounts which each have an associated command: "Do this in remembrance of me" and "Love each other." These are the reasons this day in Holy Week uses the term "Maundy." The meaning would be clearer to us today if we called it "Mandate Thursday," as the root of these words, maundy and mandate, means command. So this is "New Commandment Thursday" when we commemorate, "Do this in remembrance of me" and "Love each other."

Just as the original night looked to the past and the future with a whole new meaning given in the present for the first disciples, it does the same for us. I hope that you are able to celebrate Holy Communion today with other followers of the Messiah, because when we do so:

• We are taken backward in time–back to that upper room with the astonished disciples when Jesus took the meaning of the ancient Passover onto himself. Each time we share the Jesus-meal, we again put ourselves into the old story of the people who are in bondage and desperately need God's deliverance. As the liturgy says, "On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread...he took the cup..."
• We are taken forward in time–the only thing Jesus describes as something that will be done in the age to come–after all things are made new–is to share in this meal again: "I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom" (Matthew 26:29). Each time we share the Jesus-meal, we are getting a foretaste of that final/first banquet with Jesus himself. As the liturgy says, "By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet."
• We experience the wonder of what happens in those moments when we take the bread and cup together as Jesus instructed. He, the crucified and risen King, is with us, and his grace enables us to live more fully in him–and he in us. As the liturgy says, "Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood."

As Jesus undoubtedly knew was true of his first disciples on that night, we too need to be strengthened by this meal if we are to be able to continue following him through the rest of tonight and into tomorrow.

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane...

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”

Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. (Matthew 26:36,47-50, NIV)

A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for today's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]

Day 37: Wednesday in Holy Week

I've occasionally met people who have very strange names (like the time in college when I was introduced to two sisters named Rainbow and Sunshine–I can take a guess at how their parents might have looked in the 1960s), but one name comes to mind which I've never heard of a parent giving to their child: Judas. I'm sure there is an exception out there somewhere, and I hope that his parents either weren't English-speaking or just didn't know this story very well, but–thankfully–not many parents choose to give their sons the name of the most well-known traitor in the history of the world.

Even if you've met someone named Judas, the name itself has strong roots. It was a common name for Jewish boys in Jesus' day. Two of the twelve disciples had the name, plus one of Jesus' brothers. Judas, Jude, Judah–even Jew and Jewish–all come from the same name/word and all point back in Israel's history to one of Jacob's sons. In Jesus' day, it was a heroic name with royal implications. Judas Maccabaeus successfully led a revolt against Israel's oppressors a couple centuries before Jesus was born. Judas the Galilean led a revolt against the Romans during Jesus' boyhood, which was crushed brutally.

But ever since the day we're considering in this reflection, somewhere around Wednesday of the last week of Jesus' life, the name Judas brings to mind evil, darkness, and the worst aspects of the human heart.

He was part of the group from the beginning of Jesus' public career. Despite how artwork through the centuries has portrayed him, there was nothing about Judas that made him stand out as the obvious choice for "Most Likely to Betray God's Anointed." He was one of the group, hoping that Jesus was the one for whom they had been waiting. He was there passing baskets around to the crowd when five loaves of bread and two fish had fed thousands of people. He saw the sick healed, demons cast out, and the dead raised to life. He was there when Jesus taught, and could undoubtedly sense that it was like no other teaching he had ever heard.

Though speculation abounds and all kinds of possibilities exist as to why Judas went to the chief priests and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?" and then accepted the deal for the price of thirty pieces of silver, we can never know what went on inside of him.

Still, I'll add my own speculation to the mix: perhaps something about the previous few days had convinced Judas that what he had hoped Jesus would accomplish was ultimately not going to happen. Yesterday, we mentioned how–even though the tension in Jesus' interactions in the temple was so high–apparently, most of Jesus' followers still didn't foresee what was coming nor understand the warnings he had given them about it. That is, except for one woman, who showed her understanding by anointing Jesus for his burial while he was sitting at a supper with the twelve.

Maybe, after all, that woman wasn't the only one who understood. Maybe Judas did by that point as well. Or possibly her actions at that dinner and Jesus' response to her were what allowed Judas to see what, by then, was inevitable: this man, whom they had thought was the Messiah–their deliverer–was going to die, and apparently that was even what Jesus had expected for some time. Jesus spent the last couple of days in the temple picking a fight that he intended to lose.

In the minds of almost everyone who had followed Jesus to that point, realizing this would have meant that he could not have been who they had hoped. The Messiah (the real one) would deliver, conquer enemies, restore Israel, and rule as king; anyone who would head knowingly into his own defeat and death therefore could not be God's anointed one. It would be nearly impossible to think of anyone executed before coming to power as being the long-awaited king.

We are fools to think we would have caught on any more quickly than the rest of the disciples. They simply had no framework for understanding Messiah-ship that looked like what Jesus was about to do. Perhaps that clicked a bit sooner for Judas than it did for the others, and as soon as he realized it, he therefore had to get out. (Surely he realized that if Jesus was going to die, his followers would become targeted as well, and there was no reason to go to the grave with a failed Messiah.)

I don't know how much Jesus knew about Judas when he chose him to be one of the twelve. The gospels seem to be clear that Jesus knew during his time with the disciples that one of them would turn away, and John even says that Jesus knew from the beginning who would betray him.

Regardless of the timing–whether Jesus knew what Judas would do from the first time they laid eyes on one another, or if it was some time after that–considering the relationship between the two of them makes me tremble for a couple of reasons.

First, I realize that I am not so far from Judas as I would like to think. Jesus has utterly disappointed me at times, when I counted on him to do things he said he would do, and then they did not happen. I have never wanted out as Judas did, but I've also had a remarkably easier time of following Jesus than in his case. Of course I like to think that if I was at the Last Supper, I would have been the one reclining close enough to Jesus to whisper a question in his ear, but it's just as likely that I would have been the one who dipped the bread in the bowl with him.

The other part of it that makes me shudder–and want to spend some time on my face before God–is to realize that regardless of when Jesus knew what he knew about Judas, Jesus loved him. Jesus kept him around, shared his life with Judas. He washed Judas' feet. He passed bread to Judas, saying, "Take it. This is my body." Then he passed wine and said, "This is my blood..." Only after all of these things did Jesus tell him, "What you are about to do, do quickly."

Judas had his feet washed. He ate the bread. He drank from the cup. Then he left to go make his deal with the chief priests.

And Jesus loved him.

A Prayer for the Day:

Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.*

Click here for today's scripture readings.

*From The Book of Common Prayer

[This is part of 40 Days of Prayer: Daily Emails for Lent]