Author: Park Forum

Scripture: Isaiah 47.10
You have trusted in your wickedness
and have said, ‘No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
when you say to yourself,
‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

Reflection: Forgiven in God’s Sight
The Park Forum

No one sees me—Adam as he hid in the garden of Eden.
No one sees me—David after he dominated Bathsheba and sent her away.
No one sees me—Peter as he cowered into the night after the crowds identified him as a follower of Christ.

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. — Proverbs 15.3

“Where are you?” God’s voice called after Adam.
“You are that man!” the prophet cried to David.
“And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.”

Exposed.

Each had legitimate reasons—wisdom and knowledge—that explained what happened and could help self-justify so their lives could move forward. But, “I am and there is no one besides me”— the mantra of self-actualization—quickly turned to “I AM was beside me.” Each caught in their sin.

And, yet, none were left alone. None were crushed for moral failure. God saw not only their sin, but the path of restoration. Richard Rohr remarks,

Perhaps the most difficult forgiveness, the greatest letting go, is to forgive ourselves for doing it wrong. We need to realize that we are not perfect, and we are not innocent. If I want to maintain an image of myself as innocent, superior, or righteous, I can only do so at the cost of truth. We have for too long confused holiness with innocence, whereas holiness is actually mistakes overcome and transformed, not necessary mistakes avoided.

Letting go is different than denying or repressing. To let go of it, you have to admit it. You have to own it. You see it and you hand it over to God. You refuse to let the negative story line that you’ve wrapped yourself around define your life.

Letting go of our cherished images of ourselves is really the way to heaven, because when you fall down to the bottom, you fall on solid ground, the Great Foundation, the bedrock of God. It looks like an abyss, but it’s actually a foundation. On that foundation, you have nothing to prove, nothing to protect: “I am who I am who I am,” and for some unbelievable reason, that’s what God has chosen to love.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. — Psalm 85.10

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 47 (Listen – 2:52)
Revelation 17 (Listen – 3:19)

This Weekend’s Readings
Isaiah 48 (Listen – 3:39) Revelation 18 (Listen – 4:48)
Isaiah 49 (Listen – 4:55) Revelation 19 (Listen – 3:47)

Additional Reading
Read More from You Are The Man — Embracing Prophetic Responsibility
With Christians and political leaders, it’s a short journey from cozy to cozened. It’s easy to be like chapter seven Nathan, but few are willing to be chapter twelve Nathan.

Read More about taking Meals Together, Forgiveness to Go
Christ’s breakfast on the shore is a model for us of gathering those who have failed, reinstating each other through Christ’s redemption, and being sent out to feed others.

Scripture: Isaiah 45.16-17
All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together. But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation.

Reflection: Temporary Victory
The Park Forum

Because many of Scripture’s authors lived under political oppression it is easy to see how Christians today can faithfully respond to leaders with whom we do not agree. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God,” wrote Paul. He would spend extended portions of his life —even penning the gospel—in chains.

Most Christians in the western world do not face this type of persecution. It is not uncommon for politicians to defend freedom of faith and work to serve causes which sit at the heart of the Christian Scriptures. Victories in these areas—like treatment of the fatherless, single mothers, and immigrants—are massive steps forward for humanity. But elevating political victory to supreme importance is to confess functional atheism.

In his book Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore highlights this tension in America:

Christian values were always more popular in American culture than the Christian gospel. That’s why one could speak of “God and country” with great reception in almost any era of the nation’s history but would create cultural distance as soon as one mentioned ‘Christ and him crucified.’

God was always welcome in American culture. He was, after all, the Deity whose job it was to bless America. The God who must be approached through the mediation of the blood of Christ, however, was much more difficult to set to patriotic music or to ‘Amen’ in a prayer at the Rotary Club.

Isaiah reminds his readers that all idols will crumble—yet that is not what brings joy to the faithful. Russell continues:

Our vote for President is less important than our vote to receive new members for baptism into our churches. A President is term-limited and, for that matter, so is the United States (and every other nation)…. Our church membership rolls say to the people on them, and to the outside world, ‘These are those we believe will inherit the universe, as joint-heirs with Christ.’

Christians should celebrate when truth breaks through in our culture’s institutions and politics—but our hope should, at the same time, be drawn beyond these temporary victories to the glory of the Kingdom. “It may be that America is not ‘post-Christian’ at all,” Russell reflects. “It may be that America is instead pre-Christian, a land that though often Christ-haunted has never known the power of the gospel, yet.”

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Send forth your strength, O God; establish, O God, what you have wrought for us. — Psalm 68.28

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 45 (Listen – 4:39)
Revelation 15 (Listen – 1:29)

Additional Reading
Read More about Victory In Loss
The idea that it is God’s plan to give believers victories in this world, through this world’s power, has little support in the New Testament.

Read More about The Seductive Idolatry of Politics
This religion of politics poses a greater threat to the gospel than any other religion.

Scripture: Isaiah 44.19-20
No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
“Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

Reflection: Incomplete Joy
The Park Forum

Because modernism has largely done away with physical representations of deities, it is far more difficult to identify the idols which pursue our hearts each day. As I’ve written, a culture’s idols are revealed by what it pours the most energy and resources into. Ancient cultures built structures that survived millennia; U.S. investment portfolios designed around the 7 deadly sins outperform the S&P 500 every quarter.

Yet our idols are not always sins like lust and anger. Timothy Keller, in his book Counterfeit Gods, explains, “When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping.”

The greatest sign of idolatry is its churn. Pursuit after pursuit proves insufficient. Jobs come and go; markets crash; lovers disappoint; things once counted on fall through. It’s not the pressure of modern culture, it’s the result of our heart’s natural path to seek fulfillment in things outside God. In his observations of 19th century America, Alexis De Tocqueville recorded:

Sixty years is too brief a compass for man’s imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can never satisfy his heart.

The fulfilling life we long for isn’t found in our pursuits, but as a result of our ability to prune such things from sapping our time and energy. Only then can we fully pour ourselves into, and receive everything we need from, the one true source of life. Dr. Keller concludes:

Idolatry is not just a failure to obey God, it is a setting of the whole heart on something besides God. This cannot be remedied only by repenting that you have an idol, or using willpower to try to live differently. Turning from idols is not less than these two things, but it is far more.

“Setting the mind and heart on things above” where “your life is hid with Christ in God” means appreciation, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you. It entails joyful worship, a sense of God’s reality in prayer.

Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace your counterfeit gods. If you uproot the idol and fail to “plant” the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back.

Prayer: The Request for Presence
May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us. — Psalm 67.1

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 44 (Listen – 5:12)
Revelation 14 (Listen – 3:51)

Additional Reading
Read More about The Idol of Immorality, Impurity, and Greed
Carved stone rain gods can’t bring rain, and our photoshopped gods of sexual expression leave us just as dry—alone in a loveless drought.

Read More about The Internet as Babel
When you are worshiping them, idols don’t seem religious. They seem immensely practical. Technology hasn’t tricked us any more than wooden and gold idols tricked the ancients. We deceive ourselves.