Trust and Self-Giving Love

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. — Psalm 146.3-4

There are two significant benefits to following a devotional reading plan. The first could be called an asynchronous benefit: scheduled reading leads us to places in Scripture we would otherwise not align with daily life (minor prophets, anyone?) and we are exposed to the full light and life of God’s word.

The synchronous benefit of reading Scripture along a pre-determined plan is that we see how often this sacred word collides with daily life. At The Park Forum we read a variant of the historic M’Cheyne Reading Plan—expanding the 19th-century preacher’s one year plan over two years. And today we come to a passage which could not be more timely.

Civilizations throughout history have looked to their leaders to save them—and though modernism has secularized this pursuit, it has not managed to mitigate it. Today the political right celebrates while the left laments—both confess their all-consuming trust in the leaders of our world. In Simply Jesus N.T. Wright reflects:

We treat political leaders as heroes and demigods; they carry our dreams, our fantasies of how things should be. When we find out that they are only human after all, we turn on them, blaming them for the intractable problems that they, like their predecessors, haven’t been able to solve.

Wright then asks the question all too often glossed over in Scripture: “Why did people think that Jesus might be any different?” How is it that Christ offers a better solution?

Could it be that the paradoxical call of servant leadership, demonstrated through the moral character Jesus outlined in the Sermon on the Mount, offer a better way—a way in which God can be seen, known, and restore the brokenness of our world? Wright concludes:

When God wants to change the world… he sends the meek, the mourners, those who are hungry and thirsty for God’s justice, the peacemakers, and so on. Just as God’s whole style—his chosen way of operating—reflects his generous love, sharing his rule with his human creatures, so the way in which those humans then have to behave if they are to be agents of Jesus’ lordship reflects in its turn the same sense of vulnerable gentle, but powerful self-giving love.

Today’s Reading
Amos 3 (Listen – 2:11)
Psalms 146-147 (Listen – 3:09)

 

Finding Sovereignty :: Weekend Reading List

Prayer is an invitation to unite one’s soul with limitless power, infinite grace, and radical sovereignty. Yet, in the face of everything going on in our world, the call to prayer seems like a passive and feckless response—a cheap excuse to skip out on the hard work of engaging and making a difference.

The residue of modernism continues to reject the reality of transcendence. In other words, our key problem is not about the substance of prayer, but about our orientation to a life of prayer. “When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying,” reflected Abraham Joshua Heschel. The rabbi walked arm-in-arm with Dr. Martin Luther King—to these men, prayer was action.

In Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity Rabbi Heschel explains:

Prayer must never be a citadel for selfish concerns, but rather a place for deepening concern over other people’s plight. Prayer is a privilege. Unless we learn how to be worthy, we forfeit the right to prayer.

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.

The world is aflame with evil and atrocity; the scandal of perpetual desecration of the world cries to high heaven. And we, coming face to face with it, are either involved as callous participants or, at best, remain indifferent onlookers.

The relentless pursuit of our interest makes us oblivious of reality itself. Nothing we experience has value in self; nothing counts unless it can be turned to our advantage, into a means of reserving our self-interests.

Dark is the world to me, for all its cities and stars. If not for my faith that God in His silence still listens to a cry, who could stand such agony?

Prayer will not come by default. It requires education, training, reflection, contemplation. It is not enough to join others; it is necessary to build a sanctuary within, brick by brick, instants of meditation, moments of devotion. this is particularly true in an age when overwhelming forces seem to conspire at destroying our ability to pray.

Every action of grace, justice, and restoration is built on the foundation of prayer. In I Asked for Wonder Heschel concludes, “To pray means to bring God back into the world, to establish His sovereignty for a second at least. God is transcendent, but our worship makes God immanent. To pray means to expand God’s presence.”

Reading List

Today’s Reading
Joel 3 (Listen – 3:20)
Psalms 143 (Listen – 1:34)

This Weekend’s Readings
Amos 1 (Listen – 2:38) Psalms 144 (Listen – 1:56)
Amos 2 (Listen – 2:12) Psalms 145 (Listen – 2:19)