Tag: Prayer

Ep.148: Beaten, Robbed, and Left for Dead.

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

In Luke 10, Jesus told a story about a man who was robbed, beaten and left half-dead. Sounds like an author’s autobiographical first novel to me. Wasn’t Jesus attacked, beaten, robbed, and left to die? 

But I get ahead of myself. When a lawyer asked Jesus how he could inherit eternal life, Jesus said, “You’re a lawyer. What does the law say?” 

The lawyer replied, “It says I should love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind, and that I should love my neighbour as myself.” 

Jesus said, “Exactly right. Just do it.” 

Still not satisfied, the lawyer said, “OK. But who is my neighbour?” 

What a perfect opportunity for Jesus to explain the text more precisely, to provide a working definition of the word “neighbor” and to clarify exactly what the Bible meant. But Jesus blew it. Instead of doing a word study on “neighbor”, he  told an obscure story about a serious mugging. 

In the story, robbers attacked, beat, and left a traveller half dead. Two religious leaders saw the man and carefully stepped around him. 

Then a Samaritan, from a nation typically unfriendly to Jews, came by. He bandaged the man’s wounds, loaded him on his donkey, deposited him at an inn, and gave the innkeeper instructions and money to care for the man. 

Jesus asked the lawyer, “Which of the three was a neighbor to the man who was mugged?” 

A more astute lawyer would have replied, “I can’t answer the question, because it makes assumptions I disagree with.” But the lawyer in Jesus’ story replied, “The neighbour was the one who demonstrated mercy.” 

I make three observations about Jesus’ story: 

1. Ask most modern preachers about the text “Love your neighbor”, and they’ll define the original Hebrew word using biblical, literary, and cultural context. But Jesus didn’t do that. He told a story that said rather pointedly, “You don’t need to study more. You just need to do it. ” 

2. There’s another way to look at the parable, where we are the victim, religious leaders are heartless bystanders, and Jesus is the Good Samaritan who saves us. Jesus’ message to the lawyer becomes his message to us: Follow me by rescuing the poor, the wounded and the robbed. 

3. Another reading of the parable observes that the most important man ever who was beaten, robbed, and left-for-dead is Jesus himself. Our duty is not to ignore him like the religious leaders did, but to let go of our pride and respectability and to throw in our lot with the dying Christ. In identifying with his suffering we are saved. 

Let’s pray. 

Jesus, you were beaten and robbed and crucified. We choose not to walk past your cross on the other side of the road, pretending we don’t know you, ignoring your hurt and humiliation. We choose not to hide the ugliness of your death behind pretty explanations and carefully worded theology. Instead, we kneel at the cross, letting your pain wash over us and through us, receiving the gifts you give us there. 

Amen.

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

Ep.147: Psalm 64: Hunting the Hunters.

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

Psalm 64 describes the poet’s enemies as hunters and warriors. For example:
– They sharpen their tongues like swords (v. 2).
– They aim cruel words like deadly arrows (v. 2).
– They hide in a blind and shoot at their victims (v. 4).
– Their minds and hearts are cunning as they aim at the righteous (v. 6).

Little do they know that God is also a hunter!
– He will shoot them with his arrows (v. 7).
– He will strike them down (v. 7).
– He will turn their sharpened tongues and cruel words back on them, destroying them with their own weapons (v. 8).

Let’s pray. 

Our father, with the poet we say,
  Hide us from the conspiracy of the wicked,
      from the plots of evildoers (v. 2).

We try not to be overly dramatic, Lord, but we like that word “conspiracy”. Often we feel we are victims of  conspiracy. We know we should pray, but it’s more interesting to catch up on coronavirus news. We want to make better use of our time, but play too many computer games. We want to exercise more and eat less, but we hear the ice cream and the chocolate calling our name. What is this a conspiracy that corrupts us? Are we oblivious to some malevolent influence that causes our failure? 

Our father, in this business of life we reject conspiracy theories. Instead we arm ourselves against our soul’s great enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. With the poet in Psalm 64, we invite you, our God to hunt and destroy these enemies of our soul. 

Our first enemy is the flesh. We confess that our appetites are out of control. We prefer food and comfort to work and discipline, we choose lethargy over exercise, we choose conspiracy theories over personal responsibility. When we look after our own interests, we are strong-willed and diligent. But in our service for you, Lord, we are weak-willed and complacent. Search and destroy the enemy within, strengthen our ability to make good choices and our discipline to follow through.  

Our second enemy is the world. Not the physical world that you created, God, but the world of human culture and philosophy that shapes our values and feeds our desires. This world offers us money, sex, entertainment, food, shopping, travel, sports, not as good gifts from you, God, but as ends in themselves. And we use them to hide from you, to numb our pain, to avoid difficult choices, to escape reality. O God, expose the places where human culture is our enemy. Teach us to value the giver more than the gifts, to love the creator more than things created. Destroy the world’s power over us, tame all things that attract us until we love you with our whole heart, and until we love the world for you sake. 

Our third enemy is the devil, who Paul says schemes against us. Shall we conclude that we fail because “the devil made me do it?”  Rather, with Paul. we put on the armour of God to protect us. There is a battle that rages within us as the good spirit and the evil spirit influence our thoughts and behaviours, as we feel impulses to true love and obsessions with evil. Cleanse us from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). Help us to embrace the good and resist the evil. 

Our father, we invite you who search our mind and spirit to hunt these hunters who hunt us. Strike them down in their cunning evil. Then with the poet we will:
  Rejoice in you
      and take refuge in you
      and praise your name (v. 10). 

Amen.

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

Ep.146: The Man Who Wished His Father Was Dead.

Ep.146: Luke 15:The Man Who Wished His Father Was Dead.

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

One of Jesus’ lost-and-found stories in Luke 15 is about a young man who wished his father was dead. The father lived with two sons on the family farm. The younger son found farm life tedious–a daily grind of chores assigned by a workaholic father who didn’t have a life. The son fantasized about getting a life of his own. All he needed was a bit of money to take him to a happening city.

Unfortunately, the father had to die before the lad could inherit his money, so he said, “Father, I want my inheritance NOW instead of waiting for it.” Surprisingly, his father rolled over, played dead, and gave him the inheritance. 

The son took his money and drew up his personal Declaration of Independence, claiming his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He dissolved his association with the farm, the family, and his father’s values and opinions. He moved to a country far away and spent his whole fortune on wine, women, food, music, drugs, clothes, and friends. Then he ran out of money and friends at the beginning of a famine. He took a job at a pig farm to survive. His rate of pay? He got to eat what the pigs ate. 

Soon the son thought, “Why should I live like a pig? Back home even the  servants have good food. Maybe I’ll go home and say, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. I’m not worthy to be your son. Can you make me a servant?’” 

When his father saw him coming, he ran and hugged him, ignoring the son’s would-you-let-me-be-a-servant speech. He restored him to full sonship, and threw a  party saying, “My son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” 

I have three observations on this story. In 1886 the philosopher Nietzsche declared “God is dead”. Raised in a strict one-parent German home, in an atmosphere of gloomy Lutheran piety, Neitzsche came to despise the church that used God’s name to impose a cheerless lifestyle. He despised the German politics that used God’s name to build a self-serving empire. He despised the rationalism that used God’s name to oppress minds. 

Like the prodigal, Nietzsche declared his independence from God and home. He went into a far philosophical country where many still follow him today. 

A second observation is that our fantasies about the far country are always better than the country we arrive in. Marx and Lenin built a communist utopia in a country far from God, but the place they arrived in was more confining and repressive than the one they left. 

Our western civilization pursues freedom and justice through education, reason, science, and technology. But our brave new world still has mass shootings, populist leaders, rampant consumerism and massive public debt. This is not the way we imagined it. Perhaps we don’t have the wisdom and resources to build the country of our dreams. 

My third observation about the story is the fact that the owner of the farm did die. A man named Jesus who made the world died one day on a cross because the religious and political leaders had no room for him in their country. But when Jesus returned from the grave and went back to heaven, his Father threw a party saying, “My son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Let’s pray.  

Our father, with John Greenleaf Whittier we pray,
  Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
      the mists of earth away.
  Shine out, O Light divine, and show
      how wide and far we stray. 

In the words of the Anglican General Confession, 
     We have wandered and strayed from your ways. . .
     We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
     We have offended against your holy laws.

Our father, a thousand times we have strayed from you, and a thousand times we have come home. Bring us safely to the time of death, and to our last great homecoming to you. On that day, may we hear you say,
    Rejoice with me!
    My sons and daughters were dead and now they are now alive.
    They were lost but now they are found. 

Amen.

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

Ep.145: Psalm 63: Singing in the Desert.

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

Psalm 63 says,
    O God, you are my God,
        earnestly I seek you
    my throat thirsts for you
        my body longs for you
    in a dry and weary land
        where there is no water (v. 1).

One summer day, my brother and I hiked two-and-a-half miles on a dusty gravel road to the top of a hill. Lunch with a view. Bologna-lettuce-and-mayonnaise sandwiches with a drink of milk, some of which I saved for the thirsty trip home. Sitting on the hill, we enjoyed a fourteen mile view of patchwork prairie farmland: squares of green wheat growing, fields of brilliant yellow canola,and fields of black soil lying fallow in the sun. 

On the hot road home, my brother said, “Hey, did you save some milk?” I took out my bottle, swished the milk around, smelled it and said, “It’s gone sour.” And I poured it out on the ground. My brother said, “Hey, I’m thirsty. I wanted that!” 

I tell this story not to comment on my brotherly kindness, but to offer a perspective on thirst. The poet in Psalm 63 experienced his relationship to God as extreme thirst and physical longing. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we understand the poet’s dry and weary land where there is no water. Like a hot gravel road under the prairie sun without even sour milk to drink. We long for your presence, but we feel the dryness of your absence. We look for you, but cannot find you. Are you present to us in the sun that burns our face? In the dust that chokes our throat? In the vast blue sky without shade or rain? 

Like the poet, we have seen your power and glory in the sanctuary. When you shone your light on us at a life-changing conference. When we felt your presence in a church that nurtured our spiritual growth.  When someone’s kindness helped us feel your deep deep love. But today you are absent. We are stuck in the desert where the only water is a mirage and the only comfort a memory of how things used to be.

With the poet we treasure our memories. When your presence filled our hearts. When your spirit quenched our thirst. When your love washed away our sorrows and sins. 

With the poet we say, “Because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you . . . I will lift up my hands in your name” (v. 3-4). This is our gravel-road statement of faith. In our thirst, we speak your praise with parched lips; we shelter under your unseen wings, we think of you in our sleepless hours at night (vv. 4, 6, 7). Our life is desert until your river flows through it. Our spirit is empty until you fill it. Our days are wasted until we voice your praise. 

With the poet we sing as we travel the dusty road of life. We sing with lifted hands, we sing in the shadow of your wings, we sing of love that watches over us at night and upholds us in the day. We sing of living water that quenches our thirst.

O God, receive our song. Show us the way on our thirsty journey. Lead us to rivers of life. 

Amen.

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

Ep.144: Lost and Found.

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

Luke 15 tells us that tax collectors and sinners gathered around Jesus to listen. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and even eats with them.” The Pharisees were Bible-study experts who had created a system of literal interpretation and developed detailed rules for doing exactly what the Bible said. They were offended that Jesus wasn’t more careful about interpreting and obeying the Bible, and they were shocked that he associated with low-lifes who thought parties were more important than Bible study.

Responding to this criticism, Jesus told three stories about people who lost something, and then threw a party when they found it.

Today, let’s look at the first story. It’s about a shepherd with one hundred sheep. One of the sheep wandered off and got lost. So the shepherd left the ninety-nine in the open country (I hope there weren’t any wolves about), and he hunted for the lost sheep until he found it. Then he joyfully brought it home on his shoulders and threw a party, saying, “Rejoice with me, I found my lost sheep.” 

Jesus said, “There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who changes his mind and comes home to God than over ninety-nine righteous people who are certain they’ve got God figured out and aren’t about to change their mind.” 

The story has at least two pointed messages and a number of loose ends. 

Jesus’ first message is to his critics, the Pharisees. He tells them, “You think you have God figured out. You think he wants everybody to be like you, living sober, rigorous lives, keeping all the rules and getting everything right. But you’re wrong about God.” Jesus told them what God wants most is to find people who are lost, so he can throw a party when they come home. 

The religious people had built their own road to God. They knew they weren’t lost, and they knew they weren’t wrong, so they didn’t appreciate Jesus’ suggestion that they were both lost AND wrong! Like the T-shirt that says, “Don’t mess with my faith, my family, my firearms, my freedom”, the Pharisees had locked themselves into a whole worldview about what was right and necessary. And on pain of death, even Jesus wasn’t permitted to mess with that. 

Jesus’ second pointed message is that everybody is lost–both the wandering sinners and the competent middle class who’ve studied how to get it right. John Newton’s famous hymn says, “Once I was lost, but now I am found.” But my experience is that we all keep wandering off and getting lost, and we need Jesus to keep finding us. 

Let’s pray. 

Jesus, we have tried to be good Christians. We have studied the Bible and interpreted it and built books of rigid doctrine and a whole system of religion that tells us how to get God’s approval. We pray the right prayers and keep the right rules. And we are sure that God will notice us and reward us with a place in heaven. And that he’ll keep the bad people out.

Jesus, what are you saying about lost sheep? And about people who need a change of mind? And about party-time in heaven? We had our change of mind when we exited the party scene and put on our religious straightjacket. Have we lost our way again? Is your story an invitation for us to change our mind again?  

O Jesus, lift us up on your shoulders and carry us home to God. 

Amen.

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