Youth and Adult Study – Week 4

Prayer –

God whom we carry into the world in prayer and in deed:

Thank you for this opportunity to gather and be your people in this time and in this place.

Open our hearts and minds to your presence to today and always. Help us to carry that presence into the world for the sake of everyone and everything In Jesus Name. Amen

In my work in theology, my premise is, again from prior weeks, is that the Church is the people who gather to tell the Biblical story by living out or into the Biblical story. This is the third part of the three-fold pattern of worship sending. I’m going to argue that the Prayers of the People are very much a part of our call to justice and that justice making needs to be embedded in personal spirituality. We’re going to also be looking at spiritual disciplines and practices.

Finally we are going to take time to share learning from all of the sessions.

Scripture –

Micah 6:6-8 –

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,

    and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

    with calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God?

Matthew 6:1-14

6 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

7 “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 “Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,

    hallowed be your name.

10     Your kingdom come.

    Your will be done,

        on earth as it is in heaven.

11     Give us this day our daily bread.

12     And forgive us our debts,

        as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13     And do not bring us to the time of trial,

        but rescue us from the evil one.

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 25: 31-43

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[g] you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Sanctification and Justification

These are a pair of very technical words that describe different aspects of our ideal relationship as Christians or followers of Christ with God or the Trinity. Justification is a legal metaphor that says that we are right with God. It comes from grace and is available to everyone, no action or effort required. Sanctification is about living in relationship with God, of becoming more Christ-like in our lives and relationships with God and with our neighbor. It is also a gift of the Holy Spirit and comes as gift but unlike justification, sanctification requires some effort on our part. As I’ve noted, we practice weekly confession because we believe that sanctification is an ongoing and indeed life-long practice.

Certainly, moving out into the world and serving our neighbors can require a great deal of effort. I have over the course of the years, often volunteered at Evangel Hall, our churches inner city mission at Bathurst and Adelaide. It used to be at Queen and Portland, or it was when I started. A lot of people in the Church and people from other denominations and even other faiths help out at Evangel Hall, preparing meals, eating and praying together with the people, many of who suffer from debilitating psychiatric conditions or drug addictions or both. One thing I noticed, is more and more the people who come are refugees from foreign lands who have come to Canada to find safety.

My brother was talking to someone in the Church once who said that they were concerned about Evangel Hall because it seemed to be long on social justice or feeding the hungry but short on evangelism. My brother and I quickly agreed that to us that was not so much a criticism as a recommendation. But it certainly has been an enormous debate in the Church since the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Is evangelism to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ or is it to follow the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 25: that is, feed the hungry, bring water to the thirsty, visit the sick and visit those in prison.

Of course there is another issue. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs describes how people can’t deal with their emotional needs until their physical bodily needs have been met. Let alone their spiritual needs. But Maslow also teaches us that life without dealing with spiritual needs will be just as impoverished as those whose bodily needs are not met.

I believe and I believe very strongly that the dichotomy between evangelism as proclamation and evangelism as engaging in the practices of justice-making is a false one. Justice making is evangelism (which means to share the good news). Praying for the world in our worship is doing the work of justice-making. To do one without the other as a Church is not healthy. And it is not sustainable if for no other reason as to be not pleasing to God as the temple cultus was in the time of Micah.

Opportunities for Justice Making in PCC

Presbyterian World Service and Development - http://presbyterian.ca/pwsd

Justice Ministries - http://presbyterian.ca/justice

Evangel Hall - www.evangelhall.ca

Fernie House - http://www.fernieyouth.ca/

Toronto City Mission – http://www.torontocitymission.com/

Winnipeg Inner City Mission - http://www.wicm.ca/

Our Presbytery is currently involved in a project to bring a number of refugee families from Syria, mainly Christians who have had to flee the violence because of their faith, to Canada starting in the fall. So that is something at the grass roots level as well as those described above.

One of the things that fascinates me and keeps me enthusiastic about the Church is the connection between spiritual practice and justice-making. I used to think of spirituality as the well where Christians could go to be sustained and strengthened in order to do justice as well as love mercy. But something along the way turned me around on this.

There is a group that meets monthly at Knox College. They are part of an international group called the World Community for Christian Meditation. Meditation groups are designed to meet weekly. The Knox Group meets monthly and is really a train the trainers kind of effort. One of the first meetings of this group I attended was a talk on a group that was working in Haiti. This was in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck that country in February 2010 (although the group had been working in Haiti long before that). As I listened it became apparent to me that Spiritual practices are not the well we go to do justice, although they are certainly that. I realized that spiritual practices are the spur that goads us into action toward social justice.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it in the world, but I certainly have. This idea that spirituality is “other worldly” and not focused on the here and now. Or that old-expression, “the minister is too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” In fact, if you look at the stories of Christian mystics throughout the history of the Church the opposite is the case. Often the people would regularly consult mystics to get advice on very worldly problems.

There are many different types of spiritual practices that have been developed. Off the top of my head I can name several. Meditation, nature walks, the Labyrinth, daily offices, lectio divina, icons, petitionary prayer, bible study, reading devotions, reading theology, personal inventories (a la Ignatius), yoga, poverty, intentionality and many others.

It is important to remember that not every practice will work or be effective with every person. Every person needs to experiment and find what brings them closest to God or helps them with discernment or finding peace or what they need at any moment. Everyone has their own spiritual type because everyone has their own individual and unique way to approach and develop their relationship with God. Spiritual types are helpful but really only the beginning of the journey.

Spiritual Direction is an ancient practice coming from Monastic Christianity in which practitioners are trained in helping directees to find the practices that will best help them approach God. It is a lifelong process because sometimes we get complacent in one practice and need to move to something else.

http://www.episcowhat.org/ware-spirituality-type-indicator.html

Notice that justice is it’s own spiritual practice. But it needs to be balanced by other spiritual practices just as each of the other four types require balancing in some fashion.

A Church needs to be able to incorporate people of many different spiritual types to be healthy and effective. Churches will naturally tend to gravitate toward a specific spiritual type but to be unbalanced towards one type can be unhealthy and unsustainable. It is important then to stretch comfort as a corporate body to include as broad a range as possible.

Last point  is the formula for prayer called ACTS. This stands for:

• Approach or Adoration
• Confession
• Thanksgiving
• Supplication

Generally Reformed Worship will have an opening prayer comprised of Approach and Confession (including Assurance of Pardon) and a closing prayer comprised of thanksgiving and supplication. Sometimes these will be broken down into further prayers. No matter what forms of prayers one practices or what a spiritual director might suggest, it is not a bad idea to incorporate all of these into some form of prayer and one may wish to cover each of them daily.

Discussion