Ep.081: Psalm 32: The Big Cover-up.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 32 tells the story of great sin and great forgiveness. The presumed background is David’s adultery with Bathsheba. After David got her pregnant, he arranged for her husband to get killed in battle.

The psalm has four movements.

The first movement is joy (vv. 1-2). It is a joy that forgiveness exists, a joy that instead of covering my sin and living in fear of exposure, I can confess them to God and ask him to cover them up. The poet says,
Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered (v. 1).

Verse two is also reassuring. It says, “Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them.” God is not the great accountant tracking sin on one side of the ledger and good deeds on the other, calculating which side wins when you die. The good news is that God has quit counting. The poet’s transgressions are forgiven, his sins are no longer counted against him.

The second movement in Psalm 32 tells how the poet felt when he covered up his sin.
When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer (vv. 3-4).

The third movement is the poet’s confession. When he quit hiding his sin, he told God the truth about what he had done. He lost that crushing burden of guilt and shame. He found that God had taken over the covering up, leaving him free and forgiven. Here’s how he says it:
Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover my iniquity.
You forgave
the guilt of my sin (v. 5).

The fourth movement is heartfelt thanksgiving which encourages others to follow the poet’s example of confession and forgiveness (v. 8-9).

Let’s pray.

Lord, we pray the confession from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, 1994 edition:

Gracious God,
    our sins are too heavy to carry,
    too real to hide, and too deep to undo.
Forgive what our lips tremble to name,
    what our hearts can no longer bear,
    and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.
Set us free from a past that we cannot change;
    open us to a future in which we can be changed;
    and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image;
    through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

And finally, a prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr.

Look with mercy upon the peoples of the world,
so full both of pride and confusion,
so sure of their righteousness and so deeply involved in unrighteousness,
so confident of their power and so imprisoned by their fears of each other.
Have mercy upon our own nation.
Purge us of the vainglory which confuses our counsels, and
give our leaders and our people the wisdom of humility and charity.
Help us to recognize our own affinity with…[the] malice that confronts us,
that we may not add to the world’s woe by the fury of our own resentments.
Give your Church the grace in this time
to be a saving remnant among the nations, reminding all peoples
of the divine majesty under whose judgement they stand, and
of the divine mercy of which they and we have a common need.
(Reinhold Niebuhr in The HarperCollins Book of Prayers compiled by Robert Van de Weyer (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 272.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.080: Born Again.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In John chapter 3, Nicodemus visits Jesus at night. As a religious man and a ruler of the Jews, he is drawn to Jesus’ miracles. He likes what Jesus does. But his colleagues in Jewish religion and politics see Jesus as a scammer. They wouldn’t dialog with him; it was easier to disapprove and criticize.

Though Nicodemus understood their dislike of Jesus,he also felt God’s beauty in Jesus’ teaching and miracles. Jesus’ religion differed from that of Nicodemus and his associates, because Jesus had something deeper than dry interpretations of scripture and detailed codes of conduct . Somehow, God’s life and goodness splashed out in Jesus’ actions and touched Nicodemus’ heart. So he went at night, when no one would see, asking Jesus to explain.

Nicodemus said, “We know you are a teacher from God, because of your miracles” (John 3:2). Jesus replied, It’s not religion and culture that bring the life of God. You have to be born again.

Nicodemus said, “What? That’s impossible! I can’t get back into my mother’s womb and start over.”

Jesus replied, “Don’t be so literal. You need to be reborn in your spirit, you need to become free like the wind. The wind blows where it pleases, you hear it, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going.” Jesus did not offer Nicodemus a new interpretation of scripture or a new list of rules. Instead, he offered Nicodemus a form of religion born in the spirit, full of freedom and refreshment and life. Nicodemus was deeply attracted by this possibility. But he was not prepared to give up his rigid interpretation of scripture, his morality-based religion, and his influential social circle.

Does your religion fill you with freedom and refreshment and life? My religion is often dry and insipid and powerless. Perhaps you and I need to come to Jesus at night, like Nicodemus did. .

Let’s pray.

Jesus, we are Nicodemus. We are evangelicals with rigid doctrines based on literal interpretations of scripture. We have become like our doctrine–rigid and legal and right. Like Nicodemus, we are stuck in our religious culture.

But when we are honest, we find much of it is hollow. Our lives are not like the wind–rich with vitality and freedom and refreshment. We are earth bound, walking in the dirt of sin, barely a step ahead of anger and envy and lust. Jesus, we are living the bad news of behavior management, not the good news of life that is spirit and wind.

Yes, we are Nicodemus, mired in a formal religion that does not transform our lives. Like Nicodemus, we are attracted to you, we come to you, saying, “Show us something better. Surely there must be more.” O Jesus, Savior, blow the wind of the spirit through our lives. Replace our suffocating religion of dry dogma with the movement of your Spirit and the fresh breeze of your presence..

O Jesus, give us every day the gift of a new beginning, the gift of being born of the Spirit.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.079: Psalm 31: Into Your Hands.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 31 brings us to familiar territory. Once again the poet is in crisis, once again he pleads with God to deliver him. Once again he moves through crisis to a place of confidence in God.

Billy Graham read through the psalms monthly. That’s about five psalms a day, with some adjustments around the long Psalm 119. On such a monthly schedule, the reader passes quickly through most of the difficult psalms. My experience is different, because I spend a whole week in each psalm preparing for the “Pray with Me” channel and blog. If consecutive psalms have themes of desperation and pain, that’s a whole month in the pit for me. I begin to feel weighed down. I’m glad most psalms, including our psalm today, move toward praise and hope.

Here are some famous phrases from Psalm 31.

“Lord into your hands I commit my spirit” (v. 5). Jesus quoted these words while dying on the cross.

“You have set my feet in a spacious place” (v. 8). The poet feels hemmed in by his enemies, by traps laid for him, by accusations against him, by life’s emotional and physical pains. But God frees him from his prison and locates him to an open field under a blue sky. The poet’s difficult situation may be unchanged, but renewed trust in God brings hope and life and freedom.

Another famous phrase from Psalm 31 is “My times are in your hands” (v.15). What a classic statement of trust, promising that God watches over the timeline of our life.

Psalm 31 also says, “Keep them safe in your dwelling from the strife of tongues” (v. 20). I like this King James translation, “strife of tongues” better than the modern versions. The word “strife” describes the worst features of evil speech — bickering, dissension, quarreling, animosity, conflict. Perhaps James had this in mind when he wrote in his epistle, “The tongue is a fire, a world of evil, it corrupts the whole body, sets the whole life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6).

Let’s pray.

Lord, our times are in your hands. Facebook keeps a timeline of my life. So does Google. Medical information systems track the timeline of my health. Work keeps a timeline of my projects. The bank, a timeline of my finances. How refreshing to believe that my times are in your hands, O God. Big brother may be watching, but you count the minutes and keep the score.

Lord, keep us safe in your dwelling, far from the strife of tongues. We brace for another cycle of elections, with attack ads and acrimonious messages. Churches chew up their pastors and spit them out. Supervisors manipulate and mismanage. Dictators falsely accuse and threaten. Customers dump rudeness and arrogance on hapless service people. Keep us, O Lord, in your dwelling. Keep us safe from the strife of tongues.

Lord, set our feet in a spacious place. We are imprisoned by poor health, difficult relationships, and stressful demands. Our blood pressure rises and our coping strategies fail. Bring us out of our prison, O Lord. Show us a place of freedom and beauty and choice.

Lord, into your hands we commit our spirit. You see the inner person. You see your breath of life in bodies of clay. We commit our spirit to you. Keep us from evil, keep us safe in your dwelling, form us in the image of Christ.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.078: Angry Jesus.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today in John 2, Jesus expresses violent anger in the temple. Here’s why. In the temple courts he found merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and foreign currency traders negotiating exchanges. All in support of the normal temple requirements for offerings and sacrifices. Jesus made a whip out of cords and cleared the temple of animals and merchants. He scattered the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. To the dove sellers he said, ‘Get these out of here! You have turned my Father’s house into a market!’”

Jesus, the hospitable winemaker of Cana, has inexplicably become an angry whip-maker.

I prefer the winemaker Jesus to the whip-maker. Those who bring wine to a party are my kind of people. Those who get angry in public are not my kind of people. Do you too find Jesus’ hostility disturbing? Was it helpful for him to make a whip, dump tables, and tell retailers to get out? Couldn’t he have offered a friendly explanation of what he thought was wrong? Couldn’t he have discussed the problem over a glass of wine?

In response to the scene Jesus made in the temple, the people reasonably asked, “Show us a sign that you have authority to create this disturbance.” Jesus replied, “If you destroy this temple, I will build it again in three days.” Today, China builds major projects in mere weeks, but the temple in Jerusalem took forty-six years to build. Jesus’ listeners were dumbfounded that he said he could do it in a weekend. They thought he was delusional. Seeing the unclear message, John in his gospel explains, “Jesus wasn’t talking about the Jerusalem temple. He was talking about the temple of his body.” If that’s what Jesus meant, why didn’t he say so?

Let’s pray, putting ourselves into the story.

Lord, we are the retailers and money changers in the temple of our body. We treat it as a market of exchange, filling it with sugars and starches and fats. We fail to give it proper exercise. We poison our minds with modern entertainment, instead of worshipping you in your temple.

We are the people to whom you said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days.” This is the first of your mysterious sayings. Later, you tell us to eat your body and drink your blood. You say, “Sell everything, give it to the poor and follow me.” You tell us something went wrong the first time we were born, and you tell us to be born again. You tell us to take up our cross and follow you. Will that bring us to an early and unjust death like yours?

Jesus, we are good Christrians. We have developed comfortable explanations for your hard sayings, explanations that permit us to sell animals and exchange money in the courts of your temple, explanations which support our moderate religious experience, free of zeal and passion. We find your anger and zeal disturbing. Forgive us Lord, draw us into your life, help us to be angry at things that anger you, help us join you in confronting our sins and the sins of the church.

John chapter two introduces you as a winemaker and the whip-maker. We receive you as both. Help us learn when to share a quiet glass of wine, and when to act in righteous anger.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.077: Psalm 30: You Turned my Mourning to Dancing.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 30 is an envelope Psalm that begins and ends with praise. It starts,
I will exalt you, Lord (v. 1)
and it concludes
O Lord my God, I will praise you forever (v. 12).

Inside this envelope of praise, the poet tells how he moved from despair to thanksgiving. The story begins with his intense need. He was in a life-threatening situation and felt dragged into a dark pit. He was stuck in desperation and despair.

Then God rescued him. When he felt most abandoned, God showed up and pulled him out of the pit. The poet says God was angry, but that “his anger lasts only a moment; then he gives favor forever” (v. 5). The poet wept for one brutal night, but in the morning God gave the gift of joy (v. 5). The poet was shuffling hopelessly through life, but God set his feet dancing (v. 11).

That’s Psalm 30, the poet’s thank you card to God, tucked nicely in an envelope of praise.

Let’s pray our own envelope prayer, like the poet did.

Lord, we give you thanks, we give you praise. Though parts of the world are darkened by industrial pollution and wildfire smoke, yet the sun still shines and crops still grow. Though right wing politicians mock truth and left wing politicians propose utopian fantasies, your law still governs our hearts and minds. Though the church strays into errors of liberalism and fundamentalism, still your word is preached and prayers are offered. Though our lives are narrow and selfish, you have made your home in us. We give you thanks.

You answered our deepest prayers. The woman whose son has been decades in prison is at last able to visit him. The man who fell again into pornography confessed and started over. The boy dying of leukemia responded to treatment: his prospects are hopeful. The victim of unthinkable abuse has begun to find healing and forgiveness. The minister who scolded his people every week with the bad news of sin has at last found the good news of grace. We who resented the church and your laws and your people now feel your Spirit softening our hard hearts with a new way of love.

We say, “Thank you, good Lord.” Thank you for intervening in our sickness. Thank you for showing us our sin and pointing us to a new life. Thank you for not abandoning us to the deadly consequences of our ways. Thank you for finding us drifting on the ocean and giving us a compass and setting our sail for home.

Where we were abused, you taught us forgiveness. Where we were lonely, you became our companion. Where we were isolated you called us into community. Where we made bad decisions, you gave us grace to start over. When our carelessness broke relationships, you taught us how to rebuild. When all our roads led to despair, you built a bridge of hope.

Thank you for not leaving us in the pit we dug. Thank you for shining light into our darkness. Thank you for rescuing us from our enemies. Thank you for being our help, our stronghold and our salvation.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.076: Only the Best Wine.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today, we look at the second chapter in the Gospel of John. Jesus and his disciples went to a wedding in Cana. Soon the wedding ran out of wine. I hope that doesn’t happen you attend weddings.

Jesus’ mother, thinking he might want to help, said to him, “They have no wine.” Jesus replied, “Not my problem.” But Mary persisted in hoping Jesus would get involved, so she said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

After a while, Jesus decided it was his problem after all, so he said to the servants, “Fill those jugs with water.” Then he said, “Take some to the headwaiter.” The headwaiter tasted it and said to the bridegroom, “This isn’t average wine. This is the good stuff. Why didn’t you serve this first?”

Let’s pray this story from the viewpoint of several actors.

Lord, in this story you are a full participant in human culture, a welcome guest at a wedding. Help us follow your example. Help us not to isolate ourselves in churchland with people who look like us and think like us and believe like us. Help us to participate fully and freely in our neighbourhood, our workplace, our community. Lord, how narrow we have grown, seeing the same people every week, having the same conversations about religion and politics and world events, hearing the same sermon at church. Jesus, help us to engage a wider circle, those from different economic classes, social strata, and countries. Teach us to care for outsiders — immigrants, widows, orphans, prisoners, and gays.

Lord, your mother was accustomed to domestic life with you in your Nazareth home. But in this story she learned a new way of relating to you. You brushed off her and the problem and she had to wait in uncertainty about what you might do. Like Mary, we have grown accustomed to our domestic life with you. You are the carpenter in our family, and we organize the household. But our intuition says you are not as domesticated as we think. Our churches don’t demonstrate your power to build community and make good wine. Jesus, teach us like Mary to see the problem, bring it to you, receive your response, and wait for your action. Help us not to strategize our solutions for the wine we know is missing–help us look to you, to find in you a miracle that supplies only the best wine–no matter when it comes our way.

Lord, in this story the disciples saw your first sign and believed in you. O Jesus, this exposes the problem of believing. It was not a rational problem: where the disciples needed the right system of doctrine, it was not a philosophical problem: where they needed to discover and adopt the right world view. It was a spiritual problem to see you at work, to look beyond the wine to the winemaker. Help us to see the work you do.

Jesus, who understood what happened? Did the servants understand when they drew water from the jugs? Did the headwaiter investigate the source of good wine? Did the bride and bridegroom understand the transformation? We are your disciples, we have caught a glimpse of water turned to wine, of the carpenter become winemaker. Jesus, help us drink your good wine, show us the source, teach us to believe in you.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.075: Psalm 29: Thunderstorm.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 29 is a thunderstorm bookended in gifts. It starts with our gift to God, saying,
“Give to the Lord the glory due his name
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (v. 1).

And it concludes:
“The Lord gives strength to his people;
The Lord blesses his people with peace” (v.11).

Between our gift of praise to God, and God’s gift of peace to us, the psalm describes God’s power in a storm. It is much like that passage in Job where God speaks in a thunderstorm. Elihu said,

“Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds,
        how he thunders from his pavilion?
    See how he scatters his lightning about him,
        Bathing the depths of the sea” (Job 36:29-30).

One summer our family vacationed on the eastern edge of the Rockies. We stayed at a campsite in our thin nylon dome tent with matching blue nylon rain sheet. The made-in-China tent was supposed to sleep six, but the four of us filled it up. The gravel pad under the tent bent regular tent pegs, so we substituted 12-inch nails driven in with an axe. The tent floor had a small hole created by campfire embers from some forgotten expedition, but fortunately I had patched it with duct tape.

One night after our evening walk to the running water and flush toilets at the “Trading Post”, the late summer twilight darkened quickly as black clouds hurried over the mountains. Large raindrops splattered on the dusty path so we crawled into our sleeping bags, zipped the nylon door, and waited. Heavy rain lashed our thin shelter and bursts of lightning flashed blue light through the walls. After each burst of light, a dark pause, then a rumble and an awesome crack of thunder. Water streamed down the flysheet and flowed in shallow rivers away from the tent. The duct tape on the floor held fast.

That’s probably the least protected I’ve ever been in a thunderstorm. It was beautiful and it was awesome, but in a fearful and dangerous way. Like the voice of God.

Let’s pray the familiar verses of Psalm 29.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’ (vv. 3-9).

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.074: The Second Beginning.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today, we look at the Gospel of John.

The Book of John starts at the same place as the Book of Genesis: back in the beginning. Genesis says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” John says, “In the beginning was the word. . . Through him all things were created.”

In Genesis when God started speaking, his first words were: “Let there be light.” In John when God sent his word into the world, it says, “In him was life and that life was the light of every human.” Twice, God sent his light into the darkness..

And when God sends light into darkness, things happen! At creation, the darkness of chaos surrendered to the light of God. In John’s Gospel we expect a similar result. When God sent Jesus as light of the world, human darkness should be swept away and human chaos should surrender to the light and life of God.

But that did not happen. John says, “Christ the true light came into the world, but the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him.” God sent Jesus to light up the world, but the world just shrugged and continued in darkness.

What went wrong? Did God’s word lose its power somewhere between Creation and Christ? When God sent Christ, was he too weak to turn on the light in a way that would get noticed? The new beginning in John’s gospel suddenly feels like a bad Hollywood sequel. The original movie was great. but the best thing about sequel was munching on popcorn.

John explores this problem in his gospel. He tells stories about people who met Jesus, but they thought the new light was just a bad reflection, or they thought Jesus was just darkness in disguise. But John also tells stories about people who saw and responded to the new light.

Let’s pray.

Our father, we rejoice in the light of each new day. It reminds of that first day when you said, “Let there be light.” But we wonder why the light of Christ does not transform our lives. Why are there so many dark corners the light doesn’t find? Why do our character flaws and habits not change in all our years of being Christians? As John said, The light has come into our darkness, but the darkness does not understand it. “Christ came to his own and they did not receive him. But to those who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). Yes Jesus, we receive you again. We receive your light. Light up our lives with your presence, expose our darkness and drive it away. May today be our day of new creation and new light.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Ep.073: Psalm 28: Desperation and Deliverance.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 28 is a simple, classic psalm. It has nine verses. The first five are a cry for help. The last four give thanks for God’s help and deliverance. As usual in psalms of this type, the poet gives no clue about the event or experience that turned his desperate cry for help into grateful confidence.

Let’s pray some phrases from this psalm.

To you, Lord, I call;
you are my rock,
do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you remain silent,
I will be like those who go down to the pit (v. 1).

Lord, we have been in the pit and we do not want to go there again. A pit of depression, where our world is formless and dark. A pit of hopelessness, where life has no meaning. A pit of lethargy, where our efforts are futile. A pit of pain, where live in broken relationships.

O Lord, when you are silent, we feel our feet slipping at the edge of the pit, we feel our heart hardening into fear, we feel our mind flirting with insanity. O Lord, be our rock, hear and answer us before we fall into darkness and chaos.

As the poet says,
Do not drag me away with the wicked,
with those who do evil,
who speak friendly words,
that hide a heart of malice.
Repay them for what they have done,
Give them what they deserve
Tear them down
and never build them up again (vv. 3-4).

Lord, in the United States, the police handcuff perpetrators and march them past TV cameras on the way to court. O Lord, don’t make us do the perp-walk, don’t drag us away with the wicked, don’t send us in handcuffs to be judged.

The wicked hide malicious hearts behind friendly words and smiles. Help us to see through their facade, help us identify the self-promoting televangelists, the dishonest telemarketers, the preachers greedy for their own glory. Help us resist those who try to control us with manipulation, fear, deceit. They have no regard for your work . Lord, we regard your work. You have taught us to wash our hands and cleanse our hearts and come to you in prayer and praise. Help us resist those who entice us back to our eating disorders and shopping obsessions and feelings of entitlement, greed and anger.

As the poet prayed,
Praise be to the Lord,
for he has heard my cry for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield,
my heart trusts in him and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy
and I praise him in song (vv. 6-7).

O Lord, you have come to us as light dispersing our darkness. You have come as strength, enabling us to resist our fatal attractions. You have come as a shield, protecting from the evils that tempt us. You come as a rock of salvation, and our slipping feet at last stand firm.

We sing to you songs of praise. You fill our hearts with joy and hope. We lift our hands, we shout your name, we trample the forces of evil.

As the psalm says,
The Lord is the strength of his people,
a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.
Save your people and bless their inheritance,
Be their shepherd and carry them forever (vv. 8-9).

Yes, Lord, be our strength. Rescue us, bless our inheritance, carry us in your heart, and be our shepherd forever.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.