Prayer, the Church's Banquet

Prayer is something we struggle with and yet prayer is essential to our lives. 

Prayer is more than asking for stuff or blessing food or a quick call to God when we’re in a jam. Prayer is placing ourselves in God’s hands.  As David Hansen suggests (in his book Long Wandering Prayer), it’s not sending messages to God, it’s sending ourselves to God in the Holy Spirit.  Prayer is dependency upon God.  Prayer is nourishment.  In prayer, we are sustained; we are fed; we are nourished.  That is why the poet/pastor George Herbert could write, “Prayer, the church’s banquet.”

And so, our passage today (John 6:22-59), in which Jesus uses the image of bread, teaches us about prayer – about us, about Jesus and about being nourished through prayer.

The first thing we learn from this passage is that we often settle for less.  The crowd that followed Jesus (after the feeding of the 5,00) was looking for a handout.  They wanted the free food.  Roman emperors were known to pacify the people with ‘bread and circuses’.  That is what this crowd was looking for.  Jesus then uncovered their true motivation for following Him when He said, “you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”  These people were not as interested in Jesus as in what He could give them.  They were tragically settling for less. The messiah and Savior of the world was standing before them and they wanted the complimentary breakfast.  Jesus told them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

Sadly, we are often like them.  We settle for less in prayer.  We pray because we want what God can do for us, but not necessarily God Himself.   We often pray because we want specific answers to specific problems, not because we want to lay all that we are before God , seeking His will in every area of our lives.  We want answers to prayer rather than a relationship through prayer.  We settle for less and our prayers reflect that.  We pray little prayers when God says that He is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine.

We need to pray big, expansive, deep, foundational prayers – all we are crying out for all God is – fervent, honest, broken, vulnerable, personal, faith-filled, confident, continual, believing prayer.

And we can pray such prayers because though we often settle for less, Jesus offers more.  The crowd wanted free bread.  However, Jesus offered them the Bread of Life.  Bread satisfies physically and temporarily, but the Bread of Life satisfies the deepest longings of one’s soul -eternally.  Truly, when we feed on that bread we will never be hungry.  Jesus offers more than a free meal and a full belly, He offers a satisfied soul and eternal life.  He offers not a thing, but Himself.  And He offers Himself not as a band-aid, but as the ultimate and only remedy.  He gives us more than we could ask or imagine.

Jesus is the Bread of Life and He calls us to feed on this Bread.  “I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever…”  Jesus invites us to feed on Him.  How do we do that?  By coming to Jesus and believing in Him (the one who comes to me will never be hungry, the one who believes in me will never be thirsty).  We come to Christ and believe in Him through faith and obedience and also through prayer.

We often speak of having a ‘personal relationship with Jesus Christ’.  Well, we do that through prayer.  God’s will is that we belong to Him, know Him, have fellowship with Him, love Him and be loved by Him.  God invites us to come to the throne of His grace.  He paved the way in Christ and so we can approach confidently.  Prayer is the Church’s banquet.  In prayer we feed on the Living Bread, the True Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life.

So if this is the message that God has for us regarding prayer: that we often settle for less; that Jesus offers more and that we are called to feed on Him – that prayer is nourishment (and not simply a checklist), how does that change the way we pray?  It changes it in three ways we have already looked at:  priority, fervency and vulnerability.

Prayer becomes a priority.  Prayer is not something peripheral to our lives or our life together, but rather is at the very center.  Prayer becomes the posture and the rhythm of our lives.  Prayer becomes central to worship and ministry – it saturates our worship, drives our ministry and fuels our mission. 

Prayer becomes fervent. When we realize that we are entirely dependent upon God and His grace; when we recognize our great need and God’s great resources; when we understand that prayer is our lifeline, prayer leaves the realm of nice, neat little prayer ditties and moves into honest, open, desperate prayer – big, expansive, deep, foundational prayer – all we are crying out for all God is!

And Prayer becomes vulnerable.  Then we are not satisfied with a list of chores we would like God to do; we are not satisfied merely with praying for this or that request, rather we open ourselves up to God.  We are open for Him to move and act in every area of our lives – for Him to renovate us.  We stop hiding from God and holding back from God, afraid of what He might do if we honestly stand before Him and we trust Him with our lives; we trust Him to do what is best; we trust that He works for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.

Prayer is the Church’s banquet.  In prayer, we feed on the Bread of Life – Jesus Christ, who Himself told us to pray, “give us today our daily bread.”  In prayer, we ask not only for food and provision for each day (for man does not live on bread alone), but we ask for and seek and find and feast upon the Living Bread, Jesus Christ – the Bread of Life. 

Beloved of God, join the banquet of prayer!

George Herbert's "Prayer"

"Prayer" by George Herbert

Prayer the Church's banquet; Angels' age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet, sounding heaven and earth;
Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six days' world-transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the souls blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

Now, I don’t fully understand all that either, but I think I “get it”.  Prayer, in our experience of it, can seem like everything from an “Engine against the Almighty”, in other words, a sort of battering ram of petitionary prayer – to that of “softness, peace, joy, love, and bliss”.  But, in all it's forms, prayer is the Church's banquet.  In it, we are nourished and sustained by our heavenly Father.

Vulnerability

As Christians we need to be vulnerable before God and with one another.  But it’s hard.  There are many barriers that get in the way and hold us back.  Some of those barriers are:

Pride – We say, “I am strong enough – I am good enough.  I have to be because I don’t want anyone to see any weakness or failure in me.”

Busyness – We think (perhaps subconsciously) that if we can just keep going, keep busy, then we won’t have to deal with ourselves or God or anyone else.  If we keep moving they won’t be able to catch up.

Distraction – Often God can’t penetrate our hearts because we never give Him the opportunity.  We’re always doing something ‘important’ but it is never the most important thing.

Doubt – Instead of opening ourselves to the Lord and trusting Him, we use doubt like a shield.

Deflection – Sometimes God’s love can’t penetrate us because we treat it as if it is for someone else rather than us.  We think: sure, God loves you and them and that person over there, but how could he love me?  We deflect His love and grace.

Avoidance – We often reason that if we can keep a safe distance from God, we won’t be able to hear His call and can therefore maintain the status quo.

Embarrassment – We think: “I can’t let Jesus get too close; I can’t feel it too much, otherwise I might do something outlandish like raise my hands while I’m singing or let an “amen” escape from my lips or find myself praying fervently and personally.  And what would people think?”

Fear – The greatest enemy of vulnerability.  “If I let down my guard, what will happen?  What changes will the Lord bring about?  What will He call me to do?  Where will He call me to go?  Will He provide?  Will He catch me if I fall?”  We’re often afraid that Jesus will wreck our ‘neat’, ‘ordered’ lives if we totally open ourselves up to Him.

And when you boil all those thing down, we find that we are afraid to be vulnerable because we are afraid of God and others.

Now if God were like the pagan gods (capricious and vindictive) we should be afraid of Him.  If He were like the god of deism (distant and aloof) we should be wary of Him.  But He is not.  God, in Jesus Christ, became vulnerable Himself.  Jesus, who was in very nature God, became nothing – taking on the very nature of a servant and becoming obedient even to death on the cross. Jesus became vulnerable for us – to identify with us and to save us.  And Jesus says to us, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  He says, “I am the Bread of Life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”  Because Jesus became vulnerable for us, we can open ourselves to Him – to love Him and be loved by Him.

Ok. But what about people?  Vulnerability is not always safe with people – not even in the Church.  Often we are hesitant and afraid because unfortunately, church can often be infected with self-righteousness.  But the Church should be a safe place to be vulnerable, not because we have made a vulnerability rule, but because everyone in it ought to be vulnerable.  We should be open to God and honest enough with ourselves that we can be open to others.

And so, let go of pride and fear (and everything in between) and humbly trust the Lord and follow Him. 

Open to the Vine

The Fall has made humankind self-protective, cynical and scared.  And so it is difficult for us to really open ourselves up to another being – whether human or divine.  We build up walls.  We perfect defense mechanisms.

But discipleship requires vulnerability.  It requires us to open ourselves up to Jesus – to be vulnerable before Him – or, as Jesus describes it in John 15, to remain in Him as a branch is attached to and remains in the Vine.

Jesus says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches … remain in me.”  A branch is vulnerable.  Without its connection to the vine, it is as good as dead.  And so, a branch must remain connected to the vine and be open to the vine to receive life from it.  We see this openness in three ways.

First of all, a branch must be open to pruning.  Jesus is the Vine.  God the Father is the Gardener. We read in John 15:1-2 that, “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”  Pruning looks drastic.  At our house, we had a very sickly hydrangea bush.  My wife Carrie tried various things help it along, but to no avail.  Finally, she just cut the thing way back and now this year it is growing and is healthy and producing more flowers than ever before.  Pruning looks drastic, but it’s healthy. 

Now while we may do that to our plants, we don’t like it very much when God does it to us.  We don’t like correction.  We don’t like being wrong.  But unless we are open to correction – open to God’s pruning – we will never be healthy and never grow as Jesus’ disciples.  The Lord disciplines those He loves.  So, a branch must be open to pruning.

A branch also must be open to receiving.  Jesus said in John 15:4, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”  We must remain in Christ as a branch must remain in the vine if it is to live.  For the branch cannot support itself.  It is dependent and so it must be open to receive from the vine. 

But being open to receive involves two things we don’t often like: dependency and commitment.  For we are a people who strive to be independent and uncommitted.   We don’t want to have to depend on anyone and we like to keep all our options open.

However, discipleship requires us to recognize that we are utterly dependent upon Christ and it requires us to be totally committed to Him.  We have to open ourselves up to Christ in order to receive life and every spiritual blessing from Him, especially love.  Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”  Discipleship is compelled by the love of Christ.  Jesus shows us what love is.  If we do not open ourselves to receive that love, we cannot be His disciples.  We must receive and remain in His love.

And lastly, a branch must be open to giving and expressing.  We read in John 15:8, “This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”  Then we read in vv. 10-12, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

We are to produce fruit.  The fruit of love, obedience, glory and joy.  That is how we show we are disciples.  A vine is a utilitarian plant.  It exists to produce fruit.  Likewise we exist to produce fruit.  And the primary fruit we are to produce is love.

But it takes vulnerability to be loved by another and it takes vulnerability to love others.  As disciples, we must be willing to give – to give up ourselves in love and obedience to God and to give of ourselves in loving others.  Such vulnerability brings glory to God and, consequently, joy to us.  Jesus fills us so that our lives will overflow with love for God and for others.  Jesus fills us so that our obedience will not be constrained, but rather will be a natural expression.  Jesus fills us so that we will be filled with joy and we will glorify God.

As branches of the Vine, we must be open to the Vine.  We must remain in Christ and produce the fruit of His life in us.  That is how we show we are Jesus’ disciples.  That is how we show we are walking The Way.

Kindle in Our Hearts Such True Desires

There is a restaurant in Pennsylvania whose claim to fame is that they have “the world’s second best wings”.  (I’ve seen the giant sign on the side of the building and recently found them online).  “The world’s second best wings” - that kind of changes your outlook on their wings doesn’t it?  Sure, these aren’t your average, run-of-the-mill wings, but then again they aren’t the world’s best wings either – they’re only the world’s second best.  If they were the best, one would be really excited about them.  But since they’re the runner up … not as much. 

You see, when priority is diminished, fervency is diminished. 

If Jesus is our ultimate priority, we are going to be enthusiastic about Him.  But if He is a little lower down on our list – if other things in our lives crowd Him out and displace Him - we won’t be as enthusiastic.  When priority is diminished, fervency is diminished.

Discipleship only happens when we have a compelling vision of Jesus that makes Him our ultimate priority and therefore stirs our hearts to love, worship and serve Him fervently.  To gain this vision, we are considering the “I am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John.  Last week, we read of Jesus declaring that He is the Messiah to the Samaritan woman.  This week, we’re looking at Jesus’ conversation with Martha and in particular Jesus’ declaration, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

Click here to read the passage.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” 

As the ESV Study Bible comments, “Jesus does not merely say that he will bring about the resurrection or that he will be the cause of the resurrection (both of which are true), but something much stronger: I am the resurrection and the life. Resurrection from the dead and genuine eternal life in fellowship with God are so closely tied to Jesus that they are embodied in him and can be found only in relationship to him.”

Jesus is the resurrection: He has authority to call life back from the dead; He Himself would conquer death; and he would be the firstfruits of a new creation.  Truly, “whoever believes in Him, though he die, yet shall he live.”  But Jesus is also the Life.  The one who lives and believes in Him will never die. 

There is a life to be lived in Christ.    

And the life that He gives is eternal life.  As Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  And as the apostle John wrote, “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son … He is the true God and eternal life” (1Joh 5:11, 20).  We often think of eternal life as something that is strictly in the future – when we die or when Jesus comes, then eternal life begins. But that’s wrong. Eternal means “without beginning or end; lasting forever, always existing.” Therefore eternal life begins now.  It is a present experience.

And this life that Jesus gives is resurrected life.  As the apostle Paul declares in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We live in Christ and therefore His resurrected life is ours.  Paul states in Ephesians 1:19-20 NLT, “I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms.”  The mighty power that raised Christ is at work in us.

And this life that Jesus gives is life to the full.  Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Paul describes this fullness of life best (in Eph 3), “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”  Jesus gives us life to the full.

Jesus gives us life.  Jesus makes us alive.  And therefore, as followers of The Way – as disciples of Jesus, we ought to follow fervently – with an intensity of spirit, with enthusiasm, with a deep-seated faith and love – as those who are truly alive!

Many of us want that.  We want to be able to express externally what we feel inside.  I want to offer one thing that might help - a pass, if you will, allowing you to be fervent in following and worshiping the Lord; a pass that frees you from ungodly inhibition; a pass that frees you from inappropriate reservation; a pass that calls you to live, pray, serve and worship fervently. 

This “pass” is found in Ephesians 5:18-20: “be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

As believers, we have received the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, we are set free to be filled by the Spirit and experience that filling by making music in our hearts to the Lord. I don’t know exactly what that phrase means, but it sure sounds like fervency to me – a deep-seated faith and love that expresses itself in worship, in study, in service and in life together.  With our lives we are called to make music in our hearts to the Lord – to allow that "music" to well up in us and spring forth from us.  And so, take that pass and follow hard - follow fervently - after Jesus!

He is the resurrection and the life.  So come to life in Him.  Live in Him and experience eternal life, resurrected life, life to the full.

Two Journal Entries

I have a journal that I often write down quotes, thoughts and prayers in.  A few weeks ago, around Pentecost, I was praying that God would give us renewed life as a church (a common prayer of pastors around Pentecost).  I then had a thought that I wrote down:

“We, as the Church, have a sense of appeasing God, but do we have a sense (or an expectation) of meeting God?  It’s as though we think our worship services are broadcast to heaven rather than God truly being with us – in our midst.”

This past week, thinking ahead to this message (#2 on Fervency) and rereading what I had written, I added:

“When we think that way, fervency wears us out.  We think we need to build ourselves up and be excited enough to get God’s attention, but that is a pagan understanding and practice.  The prophets of Baal did that on Mt. Carmel.  Our fervency in worship – our joy, excitement and exulting is not a broadcast to heaven, but a response to God being present.  We are not working up an encore (cheering loud enough that the band comes back out to play another song) we are responding to God’s presence with us through the Holy Spirit.  Fervency is not a tool, but rather a result.  It is a response to seeing reality.”

Fervency

In preparation for our next message, on fervency, I offer a poem by one of my favorites, George Herbert.

Love (II)

Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame

        Attract the lesser to it: let those fires

        Which shall consume the world, first make it tame,

And kindle in our hearts such true desires,

As may consume our lusts, and make Thee way.

        Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our brain

        All her invention on Thine altar lay,

And there in hymns send back Thy fire again:

Our eyes shall see Thee, which before saw dust;

        Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blind:

        Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kind,

Who wert disseized by usurping lust:

All knees shall bow to thee; all wits shall rise,

And praise him who did make and mend our eyes.

Notice, in this poem, that fervency is God's work in us (first five lines)

Fervency, then, is our response to God (lines 6-8)

And fervency comes from seeing reality (lines 9-14)

Ultimate Priority

Jesus  changes our priorities.  Seeing Him for who He truly is, the Messiah and Savior of the world, how could you not be changed?

Jesus must be our ultimate priority.  He must not be pushed to the margins of our lives, but kept at the center.  He must not be peripheral, He must be our Vision.  We must not offer Him our leftovers, but rather our very best.

Rather than trying to squeeze Jesus into our already busy schedule, Jesus ought to rearrange our schedule.  He should enjoy pride of place.  Everything else in our lives should fall around Him. But far too often we get up, get dressed, get the kids ready, get them to school, go to work, come home (maybe), run around, take the kids to sports practice, do chores, take the kids to their local game, go to meetings, take the kids to their travel game, go to the gym, take the kids to another sports event, drive home, maybe have dinner, get the kids in bed, perhaps sit exhausted on the couch watching TV, get ready for bed yourself and – oh yeah … uh … “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, let angels something, something … (snoring).”  We offer Jesus the crumbs of our lives.  Nobody likes crumbs.

We need to ask:  Where is Jesus in our lives – on the margin or at the center?  Know this:  you don’t keep the Savior of the World on the margins.  And so, how do our priorities need to be rearranged?

Well, follow the trail of how you spend your time, your money, your energy, your affection and your attention and you will find what matters most to you – you will find your ultimate priority.  Is it Jesus?  Or is it something else? (Is it money? Is it your job?  Is it being responsible and getting everything done? Is it your kids?  Is it being successful?  Is it keeping up appearances and pleasing people?  Is it feeling secure and significant?) 

What is at the core of our lives?  What is most important?  What drives us?  What inspires and enlivens us?  What compels us and shapes our thinking?  What is our heart’s deepest longing?  What is our ultimate priority?  Is it Jesus or something else?  If it’s something else, we need to rearrange our priorities.  Perhaps it’s not even a single thing, but the sheer volume of other things.  Whatever it is or they are, they are not more important than Jesus.  Say “no” to those things.  Say no to anything and everything that steals you away from the most important thing.   Make Jesus first.  Be His disciple first.  Be intentional about discipleship.  Make time and space for it to happen in your life and in the lives of your children.

But there’s more.  If something else is your ultimate priority, then more than your priorities need to change.  Your heart needs to change.  Your affections, your desires, your mindset needs to change.  Jesus must be the desire of your heart.

The call and priority of discipleship is to fix our eyes on Jesus.  We often worry “What do I have to do?”  But the heart of discipleship is not what we do, but who our eyes are fixed upon.  In discipleship we look to Jesus.  And when we do that, everything else will fall into place.

Beloved, look to Jesus.  Keep your eyes fixed on Him.  Make Him the love of your life and your ultimate priority.

Distractions to Discipleship

In the New York Times on Monday (06/08/10) I read an article about how information technology (internet, iphones, facebook etc) is affecting our lives and even our brains.  It was a fascinating, rather disturbing and yet very important article.  I invite you to read it ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html

Series Overview

What does it mean to be a disciple?

Our new series called “Walking The Way” will explore that question.

In Scripture, ‘walking’ is a metaphor for the whole manner of a person’s life and conduct.  It is the manner in which one operates.  “Way” similarly refers to how one conducts oneself, but also refers to God’s purpose and will – his commandments; His saving action.  “The Way” was the earliest designation of Jesus’ disciples.  It is found six times in the book of Acts.  The earliest believers chose this title most likely because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Walking in The Way is, therefore, what we do as Christians.  Our lives are lived in Christ. We Follow His path.  We follow Him.  Walking in The Way is discipleship. 

But  talking about discipleship often leads to lists of things that you need to do and disciplines that you need to learn and practice.  And though it’s true that discipleship does involve doing things and practicing certain disciplines.  But if we ever only focus on those things, then we focus too much on ourselves and not enough on the Lord.

For discipleship (following after Jesus) only happens when we actually see Jesus – when we look at Him and look to Him.  Unless we have a compelling vision of Jesus (and therefore a clear and real vision of Jesus), we will never grow as disciples.

And so, as we explore how to be disciples, we focus on Christ.  We look to Him. As the writer of Hebrews encourages us, “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:1-2 RSV).

In this series, we will be looking at six specific areas of discipleship - namely: priorities, fervency, vulnerability, prayer, mission and sacrifice, but we will be looking at those areas in light of Christ.  In the Gospel of John, there are several “I Am” statements of Jesus as He declares who He is (I am the Bread of Life, Light of the World).  We will use some of those statements to have our eyes lifted to Jesus – that the vision we see of Him will inspire and transform how we operate.