The Park Forum

Scripture: Acts 26.29
I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.

Reflection: Victory In Loss
By John Tillman

Many of the elements we long for in blockbusters are present in the Gospel narrative of the New Testament—a small group of outcasts facing long odds, narrow escapes from violence, capture and imprisonment, government corruption—but the story’s parts don’t go in the order we wish them to. They all end in death. Christ and his first followers in Scripture stubbornly refuse to fulfill the types of hero-journeys that we are accustomed to.

Paul’s defense before Agrippa is a moment when the story could turn in the outcast’s favor. When Agrippa is asked to weigh in, it is a potential game-changer. Agrippa is more than simply familiar with Jewish theology, he is a believer in the prophets. From a modern perspective, without knowing the rest of the story, one would be prone to think, “Finally, someone sympathetic to our cause is on the court! Finally, our hero Paul will orate his way out of captivity and gain notoriety for the cause of Christ!”

Instead, Paul’s impassioned defense is met with accusations of mental illness, and then disbelief. Even then, Paul could have been set free except for a strategic legal error—his appeal to Caesar. Paul’s “loss” follows the model set by Christ, who also strategically lost his own trial.

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. In the trials of our lives, we are not expected to be victors in the common cultural interpretation of winning.

The victories Christ calls us to are different than common narratives. They lie in the opposite direction from religious achievement and striving. They wait on the opposite side of the valley of the shadow of death. It is there that Christ leads us, lending us his guiding hand along a path narrow, but well worn by his own travel.

Other religions seek to bend the will of godly power to mortal benefit through performance of acts of sacrifice, incantation, and supplication. In Christianity, it is God who bends willingly to us—it is our wills that are unbending and our own power that holds us back from God’s presence. In Christianity it is God who sacrifices, submitting to execution under the power of mortal legal machinery. And it is God who sings an incantation, attempting to summon us to Him, supplicating our presence along the path that leads through suffering to victory.

The Request for Presence
I put my trust in you; show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you. — Psalm 143.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ruth 1 (Listen – 3:33)
Acts 26 (Listen – 4:40)

Scripture: Acts 22:21
Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”

Reflection: Lingering Hope
By John Tillman

In Acts we can track the Holy Spirit’s systematic destruction of the racism inherent in the early church. This is a reminder that we must allow the Holy Spirit freedom to do the same in each generation.

Racism has not proven to be something that any previous generation can solve once for all time. It comes back, season after season, like tares among the wheat. Each generation must root out the weeds of racial prejudices on their own.

In Stormy Road for This Pilgrim (published in 1978), Nelson Hayashida writes about the partial successes of the Civil Rights movement and his hope for the future.

Although our dilemma may still exist in lesser or greater degrees throughout the country, there appears to be glimmering signs of a brighter tomorrow. With the increasing ease of communication and travel the world is rapidly being transformed into a “familiar community.” Generally speaking, American young people today are more knowledgeable than previous generations about the hurts and struggles of the varying ethnic groups in America. In fact, it seems the whole American populace have now a sharper sensitivity toward minorities. They are more aware of the pains and injustices imposed upon ethnics and are voicing stronger disapproval for discriminating situations. There appears to be greater understanding and acceptance of Oriental-Americans today than there were twenty or thirty years ago.

It’s true the American amalgamation of races has not been an altogether euphonious process, but ethnics are here to stay in this country nevertheless. This right to remain and live in this great land is not only our constitutional birthright but also our moral birthright. Racial or ethnic relations in America may not be near what it should be, but when there is an increasing understanding and acceptance for one another among all Americans, hope lingers on the distant horizon.

Our hope is not in a political movement of the past or the present, but is in the movement of the Holy Spirit, that in each generation has stirred the hearts of believers and the heart of the church to seek justice, reconciliation, and redemption in every broken part of our culture, including racism. When the church marches toward the hurting and seeks justice, society follows. When the church stumbles, so does our culture.

The Morning Psalm
Our iniquities you have set before you, and our secret sins in the light of your countenance… — Psalm 90:8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Judges 18 (Listen – 4:39)
Acts 22 (Listen – 4:26)

This Weekend’s Readings
Judges 19 (Listen – 4:52) Acts 23 (Listen – 5:15)
Judges 20 (Listen – 7:13) Acts 24 (Listen – 4:11)

Scripture: Acts 10.34-35
Peter said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

Reflection: The Success of Redemption :: Throwback Thursday
By Jonathan Edwards

Soon after Christ had entered into the holy of holies with his own blood, there began a glorious success of what he had done and suffered. Never had Christ’s kingdom been so set up in the world.

The glorious success of the gospel among the Jews after Christ’s ascension, began by the pouring out of the Spirit upon the day of Pentecost. So wonderful was this effusion, and so remarkable and swift the effect of it, that we read of three thousand who were converted to the Christian faith in one day.

Thus the Christian church was first formed from the nation of Israel; and therefore, when the Gentiles were called, they were added to the Christian church of Israel, as the proselytes of old were to the Mosaic church of Israel. They were only grafted on the stock of Abraham, and were not a distinct tree; for they were all still the seed of Abraham and Israel.

After the success of the gospel had been so gloriously begun among the Jews, the Spirit of God was next wonderfully poured out on the Samaritans; who were the posterity of those whom the king of Assyria removed from different parts of his dominions, and settled in the land which had been inhabited by the ten tribes, whom he carried captive.

The next thing to be observed is the calling the Gentiles. This was a great and glorious dispensation, much spoken of in the Old Testament, and by the apostles, as a most glorious event. This was begun in the conversion of Cornelius and his family.

Thus the gospel-sun which had lately risen on the Jews, now rose upon, and began to enlighten, the heathen world, after they had continued in gross heathenish darkness for so many ages.

This was a great and new thing, such as never had been before. The Gentile world had been covered with the thick darkness of idolatry; but now at the joyful sound of the gospel, they began in all parts to forsake their idols, and to cast them to the moles and to the bats.

They now learned to worship the true God, and to trust in his Son Jesus Christ. God owned them for his people; and those who had so long been afar off, were made nigh by the blood of Christ.

The Call to Prayer
Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Judges 17 (Listen – 1:50)
Acts 21 (Listen – 5:55)

Scripture: Acts 20.21
I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.

Reflection: Racial Identity Crisis
By John Tillman

No one is immune from the effects of race in our culture. As a child growing up in the late ’70s and early ’80s I experienced first the racial melting pot of Hawaii, and then the racial homogeneity of northern Arkansas. This caused unique problems in learning about and dealing with race. In Hawaii, many times, I was the one tormented for my differences. I went through a period when I hated my “yellow” hair that drew taunts and sometimes blows from my dark haired classmates.

Then in Arkansas everyone looked like me. Yet, majority status didn’t suddenly make me popular or accepted. If anything, I felt less popular, less accepted, and was more of an outcast than ever. I discovered it was better to be the haole kid than the new kid.

Many of the best lessons I learned about race came as a result of struggling with this confusion.

Dr. Nelson Hayashida’s book, A Stormy Road for This Pilgrim begins with the story of Dr. David Hirano’s family being separated by internment camps following the Pearl Harbor attack. It goes on to detail Dr. Hayashida’s own struggle to reconcile racial identity and inequity with his identity in Christ and the equity of salvation available for all. These are, of course, still relevant struggles today.

I have found not only my salvation but my help in Jesus Christ. Christ has revealed to me my “true identity,” an essential and fundamental base from which I’m learning to cope with ethnic anxieties and gain victory over apparent defeat.

In addition, it’s my prayer that the remarks I make in challenging ethnic minority Christians and Anglo-American Christians will result in better understanding on the part of both—for it is only in unison that Christians can bear witness for God’s greatest glory!

From the deep south, to Honolulu, to the heart of New York City, racism clings to all of us because it is embedded in the identity given us by our culture. Only the identity that Christ brings can begin to overcome our defective cultural identity and move us toward freedom and unity as believers.

The Refrain
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Judges 16 (Listen – 5:59)
Acts 20 (Listen – 5:47)