Treatment of Mercy

  • September 11, 2017
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 16:14
Do everything in love.

Reflection: Treatment of Mercy
By John Tillman

Yesterday, September 10th, was World Suicide Prevention day. September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Many churches in the United States observed a National Day of Prayer for Faith, Hope, and Life this past Sunday.

Just as we pray on behalf of those suffering from more traditionally understood forms of disease, such as cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, we pray on behalf of those suffering from the many different forms of debilitating mental illnesses.

As a reflection, we share a few quotes from articles promoting and supporting the day of observance.

Kay Warren
While mental illness is common, it is still an uncomfortable topic in most avenues of society. It is time for faith leaders to stand in the gap and speak up for people living with mental illness and suicidal thoughts.

As suicide loss survivors, Rick and I know firsthand the almost unbearable agony that accompanies the suicide of someone you love. We ache for those in our congregation — and in yours — who are experiencing despair. These friends — brothers and sisters in Christ — need to know that their church is a safe place to share the inward torment of their pain, and that their pain will be met with deep compassion and acceptance.

Ed Stetzer
It is common practice in churches, however, to treat mental illness differently. We immediately assume there is something else, some deeper spiritual struggle causing mental and emotional strain.

The fact is that mental illness and spiritual struggle can be (and are) related. We are not separate things, we are complex people – remarkably connected in spirit, soul, body, mind, etc.

But, let me be direct here: if we immediately dismiss the possibility of mental illness and automatically assume spiritual deficiency, our actions amount to spiritual abuse.

May we accept into our fellowship not only the exuberant, undignified dancing of David, but also the sorrowful, undignified weeping of Hannah.

May we embrace and treat with mercy and understanding those who struggle with mental illness. May we seek to treat them medically, spiritually, and relationally, as we support them within our communities as treasured ones, loved by Christ.

Resources
Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention
Suicide Prevention Resource Center
Mental Health Grace Alliance
Not A Day Promised Resource Page

The Prayer Appointed for the Week
Grant me, O Lord, to trust in you with all my heart; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 6 (Listen – 3:34)
1 Corinthians 16 (Listen – 2:54)

Regaining Love’s Highest Meaning

  • September 8, 2017
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  • Jada Swanson

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Reflection: Regaining Love’s Highest Meaning
By Jada Swanson

Love is one of the most overused words in the English language, and for many it is hard to define. Perhaps this is because of its overuse. In the literature, music, and advertising of pop culture, the word is used to mean just about everything except what the Bible intends for it to mean. Sadly, even Christians are easily misled into thinking love is primarily a feeling. Yet, it is so much more.

Love is not only an essential attribute for Christ-Followers to cultivate in one’s life, but it is an action for us to generously express to all. It should govern all of our relationships, especially those with whom we strongly disagree. In this current season, the need for genuine, Christ-like love is critical.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is using the Greek word Agape. Although it was rarely used in ancient manuscripts, Agape was used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity. They were committed to reciprocating and practicing this love towards God and among one another, not only inside of the church, but in every aspect of their lives.

Agape is the best because it is the kind [of love] God has for us and is good in all circumstances. — C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis

In the Corinthian church of Paul’s day, and our churches today, strong polarization exists between people of different denominations and tribes, as well as Christians of varying political persuasions and beliefs. Still, we are called to live and love as Jesus did.

Jesus expressed this type of love to humanity when He sacrificially gave his life, so that we might have the gift of eternal life. As God’s children, this Jesus-kind of love should season all that we do. In its absence, all people hear is an irritating sound, instead of the heart of our message.

Today, my prayer is that we may we express this love everywhere we find ourselves and to all with whom we come in contact. No strings attached. No conditions. No preconceived notions. Rather, generously lavishing Agape upon each person within our unique spheres of influence, so all might catch a glimpse of this Jesus for whom we live, love, and serve.

*We are thankful to have Jada as a new board member and a contributing author. Follow her on Twitter: @jadabswanson. — John

The Prayer Appointed for the Week
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in my heart the love of your Name; increase in me true religion; nourish me with all goodness; and bring forth in me the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 2 (Listen – 5:07)
1 Corinthians 13 (Listen – 2:23)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Samuel 3 (Listen – 6:35) 1 Corinthians 14 (Listen – 5:40)
2 Samuel 4-5 (Listen – 6:10) 1 Corinthians 15 (Listen – 8:06)

Lewis on Liturgiology — Part 2

  • September 7, 2017
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:24-25
God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

Reflection: Lewis on Liturgiology — Part 2
By C.S. Lewis

As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail was “for what does it serve:” “‘Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.”

A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question “What on earth is he up to now?” will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, “I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.”

Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put. But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship.

And that brings me back to my starting point. The business of us laymen is simply to endure and make the best of it. Any tendency to a passionate preference for one type of service must be regarded simply as a temptation. Partisan “churchmanships” are my bête noire.

*Excerpt from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, C.S. Lewis.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in my heart the love of your Name; increase in me true religion; nourish me with all goodness; and bring forth in me the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 1 (Listen – 3:54)
1 Corinthians 12 (Listen – 4:25)

The Spirit of Adoption

  • September 28, 2015
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  • Park Forum

Galatians 4.5
[Christ redeemed] those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

The borrowed use of the word adoption in the context of new technology and puppies has diffused our understanding of an ancient concept once associated with honor and legacy. Adoption for the purpose of redefining family and future was common in ancient Rome; records recovered from the ashes of Pompeii reveal nearly one in every ten city senators grew up in adoptive homes.
In Roman adoption the adoptee legally rescinds their past — canceling debts and expunging records — and receives a future defined by the rights, status, and inheritance of their adoptive family.

Adoption ceremonies in Roman Culture began with the adoptive father paying the price for the adoption. The name of this part of the ceremony, mancipatio, shares a root from which we derive the English word emancipation. Because of the price paid in mancipatio, the past no longer held sway over the adoptee’s future.

The adoption ceremony continued with a legal justification for the transference of fatherhood. This presentation placed the adoptee under the rights and record of the new father — including giving the new child full rights to participate in the inheritance. For most adoptees in Roman culture this was a significant step up — so much so the Romans called this part of the ceremony vindicatio — vindication.
The message of the New Testament announces to Christians the price God paid for our adoption. The Holy Spirit, through Paul’s words in the first part of Romans, lays out the legal argument both for our emancipation as well as our vindication and future.
Because of Christ’s work we can rest in the rights, status, and inheritance of our adoptive family. The Scriptures assure us:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. — Colossians 3.1-3

The modern cultural desire to imbue consumption (of devices, animals, or otherwise) with the deeper meaning of adoption should not only make us leery of ascribing unnecessary value to the temporal, but point us toward the richness of our lives as adopted sons and daughters of the King.

Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 24 (Listen – 4:48)
Galatians 4 (Listen – 4:13)

A Vision for the Future :: The Weekend Reading List

  • September 25, 2015
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  • Park Forum

I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God, and yet hating him; born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers. — Thomas Merton

In his address to a Joint Session of Congress yesterday the Pontiff quoted from Thomas Merton’s autobiography (above), then shared his appreciation for the priest. “Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.”

Pope Francis presently enjoys a favorability that rivals that of John Paul II among catholics. He has even garnered the approval of 68% of those who have no religious affiliation, according to Pew Research Center. These numbers are directly linked to his ability to speak to modern issues with boldness and clarity, as he did in Bolivia this past July:

The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil.” An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind.

Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home. — Pope Francis

Yesterday the Pope opened his speech to Congress by reminding them, “You are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.” The full transcript reads less like an agenda, as his opponents feared, and more like a reminder: the most destructive forces in our world are directly limited, and promoted, by the action (and inaction) of the government of the world’s most powerful nation.

It isn’t exclusively this message that makes Francis unique in his role. In the Pope’s first exclusive interview he was asked, point-blank, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” The Jesuit journalist who framed the question, Father Antonio Spadaro, records that “The pope stares at me in silence. I ask him if this is a question that I am allowed to ask…. He nods that it is, and he tells me:”

I do not know what might be the most fitting description…. I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner… I ​​am one who is looked upon by the Lord. I always felt my motto, Miserando atque Eligendo [By Having Mercy and by Choosing Him], was very true for me. — Pope Francis

In this we see a glimpse of a new kind of Pope. Perhaps someone who will not only represent Christian interests among world leaders, but someone standing with the poor, marginalized, and oppressed. (After exiting the Capitol yesterday the Pope went directly to a tent outside to eat with those who are homeless.) Could it be approval ratings change when people see a leader who chooses to leverage power rather than bask in it?

In the words selected from Thomas Merton’s biography: prayer, thinking, challenge, new horizons, and dialogue — we see both Pope Francis’ way of understanding the faithful of the past as well as the framework by which he crafts his own future.

Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 21 (Listen – 4:34)
Galatians 1 (Listen – 3:05)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Samuel 22 (Listen – 5:22) and Galatians 2 (Listen – 3:44)
2 Samuel 23 (Listen – 5:38) and Galatians 3 (Listen – 4:39)

The Weekend Reading List