One Reason to Stop Praying

  • January 27, 2016
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  • Park Forum
[Esther replied,] “I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” — Esther 4.16
We hold prayer to be one of the most sacred and powerful acts of faith. “It is the insight into the mystery of reality, the sense of the ineffable, that enables us to pray,” remarks Abraham Joshua Heschel. Remarkable things blossom when the prayers of the saints join in the work of the Spirit.

It is almost shocking not to see prayer in this part of Esther’s story. She is told she must risk her life and approach the king—that her people will be murdered if she isn’t successful. Her reply is bold and decisive; she responds without pause for prayer, “I will go to the king… if I perish, I perish.” It’s at this point that Charles Swindoll, in his book Esther: A Woman of Strength and Dignity, remarks:
Is that a great answer or what? Is this a great woman? She’s had only a few moments to consider what Mordecai had told her, a brief slice of time to weigh his counsel. It was all she needed. She is determined to make a difference, no matter what the consequences to her personally:

‘If I perish, I perish. If a guard drives a sword through my body, I die doing the right thing.’ She has changed from fear to abandonment and faith, from hesitation to confidence and determination, from concern for her own safety to concern for her people’s survival. She has reached her own personal hour of decision and has not been found wanting.
Esther calls her people to fast—not so she can discern what is proper to do, but so God would sway the heart of the king. She knew what must be done—her prayers weren’t spent on discernment, but upon building faith and trust for the result.

It was in the middle of another miraculous rescue, as the Egyptians were closing in on Israel after their exodus, that God asked Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.” Moses needed
confidence like Esther. Prayer for what action to take wasn’t needed—the time had come for courageous faith.

Esther didn’t pray to discern what action to take. We find her seeking God, calling her people to fast, as she realizes her actions alone will be insufficient in meeting the deepest needs of her people.

Today’s Reading
Esther 4 (Listen – 2:53)
Acts 27 (Listen – 6:09)

Finding Blessings In Chaos

  • January 26, 2016
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  • Park Forum
And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. — Esther 3.15
The word tragedy is used to describe the chance-events which permanently reshape normal life. From a costly professional error, the death of a loved one, or the horrors of terrorism, tragedy leaves its scars on both soul and culture.

The story of Esther chronicles Haman’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish people exiled in Persia during the fourth century B.C.E. Haman believed he was divining the will of Persian gods when he set the date of the massacre by casting lots. The very thought of genocide occurring by such happenstance sent Susa, the town where many exiled Jewish families lived, into chaos.

The Hebrew word translated as confusion is also used for wandering—the state of Israel’s lostness in the wilderness. The similarities between the stories of Exodus and Esther are remarkable. In both stories Israel is held captive in a pagan land, an adopted child with a concealed identity is empowered by God, and the enemy is slaughtered as Israel is redeemed. Esther is the story of a new exodus, Exodus a story of a new creation.

The overt lesson of the creation account in Genesis 1 is that God enters chaos and makes beauty. God’s creative act is generative—formlessness is structured under his will, void is filled by his grace, darkness driven out by light, and the depths of evil brought into submission by his Spirit.

Faithfulness in Esther’s story might be understood as providence (Esther and Mordecai both rose in power); but we cannot miss that Israel’s deepest longing—to return home—went unmet. Remarkably, this reality did not shake their faith. God’s presence with them in suffering became something cherished.

For thousands of years Jews have celebrated Purim, a holiday which is named after the Hebrew word for “lots.” It is a reminder of God’s faithfulness when the lots of the world fall against his people. Even when things seem haphazard, when the world looks like it is likely to be overcome by evil, when the innocent suffer, God is faithful.

God’s faithfulness didn’t result in an attitude of escapism among his people. When the Babylonian exiles cried out to God he instructed them to invest where they were—for though their pain was immense and their longings unmet, the eternal weight of glory awaited.

Today’s Reading
Esther 3 (Listen – 3:12)
Acts 26 (Listen – 5:17)

Overcoming Self-Rejection

  • January 25, 2016
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  • Park Forum

In the evening Esther would go in, and in the morning she would return to the second harem… She would not go in to the king again, unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name. — Esther 2.14

The ache of self-rejection resides in the depths of the human heart—somewhere beyond the reach of other people’s affection. It grows through the pain inflicted by others, but most rapidly through personal failure. Remarkably, even the misplaced compliment of others can deepen the wounds of self-rejection.

Given the course of Esther’s life, it’s far more likely the book bearing her name should chronicle the story of a broken woman than the hero God chose to save his people. Even today some commentators stammer as they write of her story, noting her “unspiritual lifestyle,” and “unfaithfulness” to the law (it is recorded that she ate unclean food, had intercourse with a man who was not her husband, and married a pagan). The judgment upon her would have been even greater in her day.

The role of an ancient harem was to exist in perpetual beauty—ready for a king who might summon any of the women at any moment. After a preparation period in a harem for virgins, the woman would be summoned to the king’s chambers for one night. Following this she would go to a second harem, to be called again only if she performed well the first time.

Esther must have wept often—staying alive under the rule of a brutal pagan king required she repeatedly compromise her faith. Though diplomatic acumen becomes the highlight of her story, she is judged primarily by her body and taken in as a sex slave.

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection.” writes Henri Nouwen. He continues:

When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection.

As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am nobody.”

And yet Esther’s story does not stop here—she is redeemed and empowered by her God. She is celebrated because her faith endured in brokenness. Her victory obtained not by her ability to overcome, but by God’s ability to restore her wasted years. It cannot be missed, as Nouwen concludes, that:

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

Today’s Reading
Esther 2 (Listen – 4:31)
Acts 25 (Listen – 4:40)

True Religion (Part II) :: The Weekend Reading List

  • January 22, 2016
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  • Park Forum

“If you have not the blood of Christ at the root of your religion, it will wither, and prove but painted pageantry to go to hell in,” proclaimed the Puritan Thomas Wilcox in his sermon, Honey from the Rock.

The life of faith—living by and for the grace, power, and glory of God—is regularly contrasted in Christian writings against the life that revolves around self. Yet, it is possible to use the language of faith without transferring the seat of control and benefit to God and his Kingdom.

“Self-righteousness and self-sufficiency are the darlings of sinful human nature, which she preserves as her life,” observed Wilcox before going on to expound on the way we can highlight good works to conceal the darkness of our sin:

Consider, the greatest sins may be hid under the greatest duties, and the greatest terrors. See that the wound that sin has made in your soul be perfectly cured by the blood of Christ! not skinned over with duties, humblings and enlargements.

Apply what you will besides the blood of Christ, it will poison the sore. You will find that sin was never mortified truly, if you have not seen Christ bleeding for you upon the cross. Nothing can kill it, but beholding Christ’s righteousness.

“Comfort from any hand but Christ is deadly,” Wilcox explained. “All temptations, Satan’s advantages, and our complaining, are laid in self-righteousness, and self-excellency… You may destroy Christ by duties, as well as by sins.” Reading his sermon invokes the tension Martin Luther explored so deeply in his commentary on Galatians:

If the truth of being justified by Christ alone (not by our works) is lost, then all Christian truths are lost. For there is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works-righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works-righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work. On this truth and only on this truth the church is built and has its being.

Wilcox and Luther’s insight, like the words from John Wesley that we read yesterday, do a wonderful job of contrasting the difference between self-righteousness and true faith. For a look at how to cultivate buoyant, resurrected, and winsome faith—without the weight of the contrast—we have to turn back to Wesley: “True religion, or a heart right toward God and man, implies happiness as well as holiness.”

Wesley believed that the apostle Paul, “sums up true religion in three particulars: righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” He explained:

First, righteousness. The most important commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” You shall delight yourself in the Lord your God; you shall seek and find all happiness in him.

The Second great branch of Christian righteousness is closely and inseparably connected; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” You shall love—you shall embrace with the most tender good-will, the most earnest and cordial affection, the most inflamed desires of preventing or removing all evil, and of procuring for him every possible good—your neighbor.

You shall love every human creature, every soul which God has made, as yourself; with the same invariable thirst after his happiness in every kind, the same unwearied care to screen him from whatever might grieve or hurt either his soul or body.

With this peace of God, wherever it is fixed in the soul, there is also “joy in the Holy Ghost;” joy cultivated in the heart by the Holy Ghost, by the ever-blessed Spirit of God.

He it is that works in us that calm, humble rejoicing in God, through Christ Jesus, “by whom we have now received the atonement,” the reconciliation with God; and that enables us boldly to confirm the truth of the royal Psalmists declaration, Blessed is the man (or rather, happy) whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and whose sin is covered.

The tension couldn’t be more obvious—true religion is not found in the works of men, but you cannot have a life of faith without works. People of faith understand works of righteousness as the first-fruits of a flourishing soul, not the roots of salvation. True religion takes enormous devotion and discipline—but it is not dependent on them. It takes sacrifice and community—but it is not accelerated by our abilities to ‘deliver’ in either of these areas. We need honey from the rock—the nourishment of transcendent peace, accessible only by God’s grace, power, and glory—as Wilcox preached:

This will be sound religion: To rest all upon the everlasting mountains of God’s love and grace in Christ, to live continually in the sight of Christ’s infinite righteousness and merits—these things are sanctifying.

Today’s Reading
Nehemiah 12 (Listen – 6:30)
Acts 22 (Listen – 4:26)

This Weekend’s Readings
Nehemiah 13 (Listen – 5:57) Acts 23 (Listen – 5:15)
Esther 1 (Listen – 4:14) Acts 24 (Listen – 4:11)

The Weekend Reading List

True Religion (Part I) :: Throwback Thursday

  • January 21, 2016
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  • Park Forum

By John Wesley

“They are all zealous for the law.” — Acts 21.20

Consider the nature of true religion, referred to by our Lord as, “the kingdom of God.” “The kingdom of God,” or true religion, “is not meat and drink.” (Rom 14.17) True religion does not consist in any ritual observances nor in any outward thing whatever.

The religion of Christ rises infinitely higher, and lies immensely deeper, than any outward thing—such as forms or ceremonies, even of the most excellent kind. These are good in their place; just so far as they are in fact subservient to true religion. Let no man dream that they have any intrinsic worth; or that religion cannot subsist without them. This were to make them an abomination to the Lord.

It is true, a man cannot have any religion who is guilty of vicious, immoral actions; or who does to others what he would not they should do to him. Yet may a man both abstain from outward evil, and do good, and still have no religion. Two persons may do the same outward work; suppose, feeding the hungry, or clothing the naked; and, in the meantime, one of these may be truly religious, and the other have no religion at all: For the one may act from the love of God, and the other from the love of praise.

Suppose perfect obedience could atone for the sins that are past, this would not profit uru one bit—for you art not able to perform it. You cannot. How will you change your life from evil to good? Indeed, it is impossible—unless your heart is changed first. So long as the tree remains evil, it cannot bring forth good fruit.

The substance of the gospel is this; “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners;” or, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end we might not perish, but have everlasting life;” or, “He was bruised for our transgressions, he was wounded for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Believe this, and the kingdom of God is yours. By faith you attain the promise. “He pardoneth and absolveth all that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel.” As soon as ever God has spoken to your heart, “Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” his kingdom comes: You have “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

*Abridged and language updated from John Wesley’s 1872 sermon, The Way To The Kingdom.

Today’s Reading
Nehemiah 11 (Listen – 5:05)
Acts 21 (Listen – 5:55)