'Just' Prayer

With all due apologies to those who choose to use the word, 'Just', in prayer as though it is the spice of life, 'STOP IT!'

If you are praying for 'just living', with the emphasis on justice, okay. But, if you continually utilize the phraseology of, "God, we just ask this . . . ", or, "Lord, we just praise your Holy Name . . .", please, either be bold enough in prayer to ask and praise fully and completely or utilize another word occasionally, such a 'simply' or 'humbly'. The falseness of intention and/or the lack of time really spent thinking through what it is your heart is in conversation with God about fairly oozes out into the ears of those who deeply desire to be praying with you. As one who has many, many occasions to be in prayer with people from every walk of life and denominational bent, the word, 'just' is becoming a stumbling block precisely because I really try to pray with you - and find myself hitting the 'just' wall over and over and over again. "We just this," "We just that", "I just this", "I just that", "The world just this", well, you get the picture.

I have no doubt that there is a deep intention of wanting to be humble before God in prayer, but isn't the very fact that you are going to God in prayer at all a pretty profound statement of humility? Do you pray to everything or everybody? No. You are daring to approach the Throne of God, hat in hand, and talk with a friend . . . or at least that is what Jesus tells us we are to do. "I call you friend", says Jesus. "When you pray, say, 'Abba . . .", which in the Greek is an intimate expression of Father, probably more closely associated in the English language with 'Daddy'.

How powerful would that be if our private, as well as our public, conversations with God would begin, "Daddy"? 'Daddy, I love You. I don't 'just' love You, I love You.' 'Daddy, I am grateful for the beautiful day of which we are allowed to be a part. I am not 'just' grateful, Daddy I am profoundly, unabashedly, grateful.' The difference, at least in my ears, is the difference between being invited into an intimate relational conversation that is full disclosure from the very beginning and being asked to stand at the door while someone else takes care of business for me.

God hears every prayer. I have no doubt of that, in fact I truly depend on that for my own soul. What truly remains a mystery to me, though, is what becomes of our prayers when the pattern of our words, or a particular word, comes to mean more than the spirit in which they are spoken. When 'just' becomes the crutch or connector for a sentence, rather than a spiritual commitment to walking in love with the One who desires to share our every thought and experience, does our praying become 'just' 'simply' the babbling of so many words in a hope to stimulate some sort of effect in the listeners around us? I don't know, for I do not know the hearts of those who 'just' pray all the time, but I do know I want to pray with you, even as I am praying for you now, with what small reserve of words with which I am blessed.

God hears every prayer . . . and I am praying that God's Justice not strike me down for desiring more than 'just' praying. But, most of all, in the Spirit of prayer, I pray you keep praying. I pray we all keep praying, no matter the words we use . . . for we need to speak our prayers more than God needs us to utter them. In so doing, the door is opened for the Spirit to enter and who knows what transformation may occur in that moment. It 'just' may change the world.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

If We Got What We Deserved

Sunday morning, about 8:30 a.m. CST, Hurricane Ike struck the St. Louis region of the country. The media was quick to show the downed power lines, broken trees and flood waters, all part and parcel of such a powerful storm. Yet, what the media missed was just beyond the lens of their cameras in the rural areas home to 'not enough people to make it worth sending a film team'. Had they overlooked the flattened fields of corn, beans and milo, the flooded fields of rice too deep in the water to be recovered, and hay too tattered to be of value. The unblinking eye of the camera focused on the property loss with which the greatest number of people could identify and empathize, sharpening the images of hunters caught in trees by waters overtopping levees while blind to the farmer just down the road on bended knee weeping for what never will be harvested . . . and never will be eaten by man, nor beast.

One of folks who walked through the door this morning lamented, "They [the farmers] just didn't deserve this, especially this year after such a rough Spring." And, in my opinion, they are right, but it got me to thinking: What is it that they, or we, really deserve? And, if we received what we deserved, what would the unblinking eye of the camera record of the outcome? Would anybody be interested? Or, would it fit in that broadest of categories of, 'No-one even noticed'?

What if we received what we deserved? What if you received what you deserved?

We are told in the Bible that the Father sends, "rain on the just and unjust alike." (Mt. 5:45b) Can the winds and waters of a hurricane be far removed from this teaching? Or the grace offered at the door of an empty tomb?

It just got me to thinking . . . and praying for those caught in disasters not of their making. I pray, not that we get what we deserve, but that we live, regardless of our situation, deserving of God's most abundant grace in spite of what we deserve.

It is just something to ponder.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Leaping for the Waters

Our Black Labrador puppies love to lap water from the hose before it ever reaches their watering bowl. I cannot tell you why they like it, but they will come running from wherever they are in the yard just to get a shot at drinking from the hose - and it is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. Literally hopping up and down on all fours, each puppy tries to lap the water closer to the end of the hose than the other one can reach in a competition of sorts, the end result of which is that one or both of them collide in mid-air trying to reach the source of the water and both of them inevitably end up nearly immersed in the water bowl itself which lies at the feet of their competition.

It made me wonder when last I was the one trying to get closer to the Source of the cooling, cleansing waters of Life, when last I was so taken by attempting to reach the Source that I gave no care as to who was watching or what sort of laughter I was giving to others in my efforts. It made me wonder when it was that the kind of 'puppy-like' behavior which now gives me such joy to watch became something that I didn't like to do. It made me wonder if I valued the waters of God's presence and sought them out with the eagerness of puppies or regarded those waters as being my right and available whenever I deigned to give God a bit of my time to lap from the bowl at God's feet.

I wondered. So might you.

I think I am going to go outside and splash in a few water puddles and leap towards the sky to catch the rain on my tongue. Wash me, O God, inside and out, from all that makes 'being proper' more desirable than being close to the Source of the Water. See me as a puppy in faith, always ready to lap up your Love and walk with You on the journey.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Changing Times

Political change is happening, whether we vote for it or not. It has something to do with race and ethnicity, it has something to do with gender and experience, it has much to do with the economy and the environoment, and it is uniquely tied to our place in the global community . . . and, it has nothing to do with the upcoming elections. Political change is the inevitable ongoing result of the human endeavor to exercise power and dominion. Whether such an exercise is charitable and compassionate or greed-filled and cold, it is still an ongoing endeavor and what is transpiring at this moment in history is just another chapter in our nation's peculiar history of political change. What is different is who is involved and what brand of change they are seeking.

I have just listened to a few folks tell me how much their particular political party and candidates are going to do to change our nation's current condition for the better. They have promised me the moon and are taking aim on offering Mars, if only I will pull the lever or mark the ballot for their vision of heaven on earth. I wanted to hurl, mainly because the ones who were speaking were addressing me like I was an uninformed alien who had never exercised the franchise to vote, but additionally, because the rhetoric they were using was not language of their design: it was the Party Line and they knew for every one or two like me they would offend, a dozen others would buy it hook, line, and sinker. It made me wonder what we are becoming.

I regularly tell my congregation to "Vote! How you vote and for whom you offer your support is between you and God, but don't ever come to me and begin a political discussion without the clear expectation of me asking you, 'Did you vote in the last elections?' Because, if you didn't vote in the last elections, you have no right to complain - and, if you did not vote, I will not listen to your rant, however qualified you think yourself to be." It has become something of a mantra within our faith community, but it has also become the basis for folks from all walks of life to begin asking the hard questions of our nation's leadership, the very leadership those who voted (and, in some ways, those who didn't vote) placed in the position to exercise power and dominion over them, regardless of their political affiliation. Truth be told, if we don't like what it have in our nation's capitol, maybe it is because those who pulled the lever or marked the ballot in the last elections didn't do their homework in vetting the individuals they supported. To blame the politicians for their misbehavior and odd judgement is way too easy, for it takes the voting public off the hook for the choices they make. Truth be told, too, most people don't want change. They want their personal and economic world to be stable and their imagined societal entitlement immutably protected against anyone and anything that might shake the precarious boat that their dreams, however large or small, ride upon . . . and, in most cases, they will vote for the candidate that most audaciously claims they can do just that, often despite a blatant history of non-performance.

The change I am looking for in our current political environment is not one that any particular political party can begin to yield or, for that matter, would even pursue, for the changes that I am seeking in the economy, in our cultural values, in issues of ethnicity and race, in the environment, in the vast arena of global injustices, and even in the systems themselves, is a change in 'ownership'. I passionately believe that in the moment in which the American people own the outcome of the political process, at whatever point it is, with whatever leadership of whatever political party is in power, such an ownership by the voting public will require of the voting public themselves that they, individually and corporately, accept responsibility for the outcomes of all decisions made and carried out in their name. In such an environment, candidates to political office would be to blame for the exercise of poor judgement only insofar as they truly represented the poor judgement of the people themselves. Thus, all people, common citizens and leadership alike, would be pushed towards avenues of sound decision-making with an understanding of accountability and consequence, rather than settle for the back-roads of the old boy, 'same-old, same-old', process which consumes so many well-meaning folk who rely uniquely upon finger-pointing to save their hide.

Maybe it is a Utopian hope, sort of like hoping that parents, all parents, would accept responsibility for the behaviors, words and actions of their children, whether on the streets, in their homes, or in their schools. Yet, if we don't dare to hope for such changes, even begin working for such changes, then are we not condemning ourselves to the history that others write for us in the annals of our time on this earth? Isn't this, in fact, what God does in sending Jesus? God is so convinced that the human condition is salvageable and redeemable that God sends God's own Son, God's own investment in the hope of change, to lead others to own their faith choices on the journey. Resurrection is God's announcement of a change in outcome: Live in the integrity of the faith God has in you and even death cannot stop the change towards new life.

I am not content to have others write the changes which are to happen in the current political environment and I pray you are not, either. Change is inevitable, but what changes are in the best interest of the human community? Of your community? Of my community? Pray on it. Work for it. Own it. Dedicate the journey and the outcome to God.

It is the kind of transformational change which just might move us beyond the tiredness of political debate and one-upsmanship. It is a living of our faith in God while moving through this world. It is claiming our identity that we might not forfeit our soul to those who do not know our names as does Christ. Thanks be to God for the hope of change.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

Baptismal Lessons of a Computer Crash

Ten days ago, our congregation's computer tech was busily working at my computer trying to find a way to speed up the rate at which the computer did its tasks. Suddenly, one of the applications flashed a note that there was an update available which needed to be downloaded. Without a second thought in a trusted program, he clicked the 'Start' button for downloading the update - and, in seconds, maybe even milliseconds, my computer was 'infected' with a fatal virus. Gone, kaput, finale, finished, wiped out, fade to black, crashed and burned . . . all describe in some small way what happened to all of the programs on my computer, along with all of the articles, letters, worship services, and information I had saved over the years. The old joke about Jesus and Satan having a computer contest which Jesus wins because 'Jesus saves' came to mind, along with a wry twist, 'But I wonder if Jesus also backed up?' A few individual items were backed up, but most were not and my contacts list fizzled away with the dump. So, today begins a new day.

Yet, not all that is tumultuous is fatal. As a result of having to wipe the hard drive and reinstall all of the programs, my computer works incredibly faster. Items that were saved on my hard drive that should have been deleted years ago, no longer exist as a decision to be made. Programs that are no longer effective are now no longer available. My Contacts List now only includes the names of those I really need to contact. And, though at first it traumatized me, now I am able to see the gift of God such a new beginning offers.

Just as the power of the Holy Spirit works through the muddy waters of Baptism, washing and making new, so my computer has been washed in the muddy, virus-infected waters of cyber-space and, too, is becoming new. Nothing is added that really isn't needed. People and attachments that once were a part of my history, now are measured by relevancy before reappearing. Program additions that serve no purpose other than to eat up precious resources are no longer utilized. And, maybe most importantly, I have learned a hard lesson about backing up everything which is saved, a new practice for one that has become accustomed to not worrying about such trivial nonsense, after all, 'That will never happen to me.'

In God's grace we are cleansed and given a new beginning. Our eyes become privileged to seeing all of life in a new way. People and attachments that once were a part of our history, now are measured by their willingness to walk in the Way. Behaviors that no longer serve a purpose in serving God's Will are no longer practiced. And, maybe most importantly, we learn the hard lessons of backing up in faith all that God strives through Christ to save. For truly, life happens to all of us and, sometimes, the only thing that allows us to walk out of the inferno with our lives is the faith that led us into the waters of mercy in the first place.

Ah, the wonders and pitfalls of the technological age! But, thank you, God, for sharing the lessons such an age can teach.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don