I'm still working on my sermon for this Sabbath describing the mission of North Hill—and by extension my mission, my raison d'etre at North Hill.
I've written a manuscript but I'm not happy with it.
My sense is that North Hill is a community that matters to a number of people. Its distinctiveness is its holding together the affirmation of devotion, piety and confident faith with a palpable openness to skeptics, agnostics and questioners.
My instinctive stance is that of protector, not director. I aim to make sure everyone plays nicely together. I don't have strong ideas about what everyone should be doing. I want them to be happy. I want others to come and find sanctuary here. My style is much more permissive than directive. I count on the Holy Spirit to direct individuals.
My model is the ministry of Jesus:
The party at Matthew's house.
The expulsion of the money changers
The rebuke of the Pharisees
The above two show Jesus in "Stern Mode" only when confronting authority figures.
The inclusion of the Syro-phonecian woman.
The inclusion of Children
The Inclusion of Zaccheaus.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
His healing and “exposure” of the bleeding woman
His words about the woman bent over double. Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, who has been kept bound by Satan for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? Luke 13
All this inclusion against the exclusive tendencies of the fundamentalists. Against the words Ted Wilson and Dan Jackson (as reported in Adventist World, Sept. 2010, p. 28-29).
Friday, September 17, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Prayer: Making Requests
Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, September 11. 2010
Years ago in New York, I met a pastor named Jack McFarland who had special ministry of intercessory prayer. He spent an hour or two a day praying for people. He had a written list that was pages and pages long. He would systematically pray through his list. By the time I left New York his list was far too long for him to pray through in a single day. Thousands of people counted on him to pray for them. So he spent his designated time praying in order through the list. When his time was up, he'd mark his place and pick up the next day and keep praying.
Jack and his wife both exuded a magical warmth and gentleness that naturally drew you to him. Having him pray for you felt really special. He influenced my own prayer life, though I never became a heroic intercessor like him.
Prayer, the way Jack did it, was a systematic, structured discipline. It was like running or weight lifting or practicing the piano or guitar. It seemed to me that Jack's prayer life was part of filled him with such a magnetic warmth and connection with people. Prayer had changed Jack.
It also seemed to me then and seems to me still today, to be the most exalted form of prayer as request. Petitioning heaven on behalf of others.
Then there is Henry's kind of prayer. (This story is taken from Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom.)
He had gone to Brooklyn where some of his old friends were. He barged in with an unloaded gun, waved it around demanding money and drugs. They handed over the stuff and he headed back to his place in the Bronx. At some point that night he realized what he had done. He had just robbed people who knew him. People who knew where he lived. People who had ready access to guns and friends with guns. He spent the night hiding behind the garbage cans in front of their apartment with a gun in his hand waiting for the attack.
He prayed. “God, get me out of this and I'll shape up and follow you.”
The attack did not come.
The next day he flushed his heroin down the toilet. Began going to church and eventually ended up Detroit, in the bleakest, most hopeless part of that hopeless city, pastoring a church in a falling down building with a huge hole in the roof.
There he served other druggies, ex-cons, and losers. And on rare occasions experienced the blessing of seeing someone else find the same kind of deliverance he had tasted back in New York.
So which kind of prayer is better? Which kind of prayer is more likely to get God's attention? Jack's daily, quiet focused prayer or Henry's desperate, spur-of-the-moment, bargaining plea for back up while he held his shotgun? Which is more likely to get results?
We can find parallels to both approaches to prayer in the Bible.
Two men are specifically described as practicing intercession, prayer for others. Job and Daniel. Job prayed regularly for his children. He even offered sacrifices on their behalf. Daniel prayed for his nation, the Jewish people who were living in exile in Babylon.
Both men experienced catastrophe in connection with their praying. In Job's story we read that God bragged on Job because of his goodness. In response the devil attacked everything Job possessed, then managed to get his kids all killed in a disastrous house collapse.
Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den as a result of his daily prayer practice.
Now in both cases it wasn't really their praying that got the men into trouble. They were targeted for the gestalt of their lives, for the whole package of integrity and personal and professional goodness. Still the Bible presents their prayer practice as an important part of their spiritual life.
And their spiritual life offered no protection against earthly disaster.
Then there is the story of Samson. From the very first time we meet him, he is willful and reckless. He rejects his father's counsel. He flirts with prostitutes. He becomes the leader of Israel at a time when there is a serious leadership vacuum. For twenty years he serves as something of shield for the Israelites from the dominating tyranny of the Philistines. Along the way he kills a lot of Philistines. They finally capture him. They put out his eyes and put him to work in prison as a mule grinding grain by pushing the long arm of a mill round and round.
Some time later, at a major national feast, the Philistine leaders brought Samson out to show him off and celebrate their victory over Israel's hero. There in that feast Samson prayed. “Lord, give me strength just once more so I can get revenge on these Philistines for putting out my eyes.”
Samson had the boy who was leading him take him over to the central pillars of the massive temple. (Apparently, Samson had been there before and knew the design of the place.) God answered Samson's prayer and gave him his usual supernatural power. Samson pushed the pillars over and collapsed the temple. The writer reports that Samson killed more Philistines in that single event than in all the rest of his life.
This story raises all kinds of interesting questions. But notice this: God answered Samson's prayer! Instead of spending decades as a prisoner, humiliated and tormented, he died as a hero in the eyes of his people. In his own eyes!
Two very different approaches to prayer: Daniel's daily, steady habit. Samson's desperate 911 call. Jack McFarlands practice of daily intercession. Henry's spontaneous cry for divine protection from impending retaliation from the drug dealers he has just ripped off.
What can we learn for ourselves from these stories?
FIRST
God is not predictable. At least not in terms of how he will respond to our specific requests. Sometimes God responds in dramatic and welcome ways. Like he did with Samson in the temple. Other times God makes us wait and wait and wait and only responds when we are desperate beyond words. Like he did with the woman Hannah who spent years begging for a child with no apparent effect (1 Samuel). Sometimes God does not respond at all. As happened with King Saul near the end of his life. (“Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 1 Samuel 28:6)
There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act. The previous sentence should perhaps be put in 24 point type, underlined, colored red and put in BOLD. I repeat: There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act.
God is free. We cannot compel him to act, not by “claiming promises,” not by using formulas that invoke the words “bind,” “declare,” or “blood.” If you find various formulas helpful to you in your prayer life, great use them. But remember they no more compel God to act than Jack McFarland's prayer list compels God to act. Jack's paper list and you “magic words” are no more than tools to help you pray. They cannot be turned into levers by which you can manipulate or force God.
SECOND
God's response is not based on our character.
Sometimes God answers the prayers of scoundrels and sometimes not. Like Samson. Like King Saul. Like Henry the Detroit minister. Sometimes God rejects the requests of good people. Like with Jeremiah and John the Baptist (by inference).
THIRD: Two contrasting perspectives on prayer
Prayer as the key to heaven's treasures.
When we pray our requests, the focus of our attention is our desire for God to act. When we think of prayer this way—as the human quest for God's intervention—our focus is on what God does. Any kind of prayer will do in this situation. The power is in God not in the prayer or in the person praying. God does not need us to master some particular technique or discipline before he is able to act in this world.
We make our requests and God decides. We can make our request using the formulas of TV preachers. We can use the words Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer. We can claim the promises of the Bible and speak politely to God. Or we can pray in desperate, raw street language. Either way, polite or raw, our prayer is heard by God. And God acts or not out his great wisdom and love. It is not the “power” of our prayer that matters, it is the power of God.
Prayer as spiritual practice.
We can also think of prayer as spiritual exercise. Just as people exercise to get strong, practice to become skillful on the piano or drums or guitar and do homework in preparation for taking exams, so we can engage in regular prayer as a spiritual exercise.
When people pray regularly, it has an affect on them. When we think of prayer as a human spiritual discipline, then the form or format of prayer matters. Regularity and practice matters. Location matters. Because in this case, the goal of prayer is to change the person praying.
Jack fuels his compassion by his focused time of intercessory prayer. I think if Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spent an hour a day in intercessory prayer it would alter their speech. It would change their attitudes. If we spend time in prayer daily, it will change us.
Regular, daily prayer helps align us with God's kingdom. It helps us become effective agents of heaven.
So what is the bottom line? This:
If you are in an emergency, pray. Of course, I don't have to tell you this. It is natural to the human soul. In dire straights, our eyes naturally lift toward heaven. Our minds and often our voices naturally cry out, “Help!” The good news from the Bible? God hears. And he doesn't first run your request through a committee to see if you qualify for a response from heaven.
Second, if you are wanting a deeper, more authentic spiritual life, structure regular times of prayer into your days. Pray for people. (The fancy way of putting it is practice intercession.) Or find other forms of prayer to engage in regularly. Practice gratitude. Practice quiet listening prayer. Practice affirmational prayer. Whatever, just do it. God will take notice. Your heart will be blessed.
Years ago in New York, I met a pastor named Jack McFarland who had special ministry of intercessory prayer. He spent an hour or two a day praying for people. He had a written list that was pages and pages long. He would systematically pray through his list. By the time I left New York his list was far too long for him to pray through in a single day. Thousands of people counted on him to pray for them. So he spent his designated time praying in order through the list. When his time was up, he'd mark his place and pick up the next day and keep praying.
Jack and his wife both exuded a magical warmth and gentleness that naturally drew you to him. Having him pray for you felt really special. He influenced my own prayer life, though I never became a heroic intercessor like him.
Prayer, the way Jack did it, was a systematic, structured discipline. It was like running or weight lifting or practicing the piano or guitar. It seemed to me that Jack's prayer life was part of filled him with such a magnetic warmth and connection with people. Prayer had changed Jack.
It also seemed to me then and seems to me still today, to be the most exalted form of prayer as request. Petitioning heaven on behalf of others.
Then there is Henry's kind of prayer. (This story is taken from Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom.)
He had gone to Brooklyn where some of his old friends were. He barged in with an unloaded gun, waved it around demanding money and drugs. They handed over the stuff and he headed back to his place in the Bronx. At some point that night he realized what he had done. He had just robbed people who knew him. People who knew where he lived. People who had ready access to guns and friends with guns. He spent the night hiding behind the garbage cans in front of their apartment with a gun in his hand waiting for the attack.
He prayed. “God, get me out of this and I'll shape up and follow you.”
The attack did not come.
The next day he flushed his heroin down the toilet. Began going to church and eventually ended up Detroit, in the bleakest, most hopeless part of that hopeless city, pastoring a church in a falling down building with a huge hole in the roof.
There he served other druggies, ex-cons, and losers. And on rare occasions experienced the blessing of seeing someone else find the same kind of deliverance he had tasted back in New York.
So which kind of prayer is better? Which kind of prayer is more likely to get God's attention? Jack's daily, quiet focused prayer or Henry's desperate, spur-of-the-moment, bargaining plea for back up while he held his shotgun? Which is more likely to get results?
We can find parallels to both approaches to prayer in the Bible.
Two men are specifically described as practicing intercession, prayer for others. Job and Daniel. Job prayed regularly for his children. He even offered sacrifices on their behalf. Daniel prayed for his nation, the Jewish people who were living in exile in Babylon.
Both men experienced catastrophe in connection with their praying. In Job's story we read that God bragged on Job because of his goodness. In response the devil attacked everything Job possessed, then managed to get his kids all killed in a disastrous house collapse.
Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den as a result of his daily prayer practice.
Now in both cases it wasn't really their praying that got the men into trouble. They were targeted for the gestalt of their lives, for the whole package of integrity and personal and professional goodness. Still the Bible presents their prayer practice as an important part of their spiritual life.
And their spiritual life offered no protection against earthly disaster.
Then there is the story of Samson. From the very first time we meet him, he is willful and reckless. He rejects his father's counsel. He flirts with prostitutes. He becomes the leader of Israel at a time when there is a serious leadership vacuum. For twenty years he serves as something of shield for the Israelites from the dominating tyranny of the Philistines. Along the way he kills a lot of Philistines. They finally capture him. They put out his eyes and put him to work in prison as a mule grinding grain by pushing the long arm of a mill round and round.
Some time later, at a major national feast, the Philistine leaders brought Samson out to show him off and celebrate their victory over Israel's hero. There in that feast Samson prayed. “Lord, give me strength just once more so I can get revenge on these Philistines for putting out my eyes.”
Samson had the boy who was leading him take him over to the central pillars of the massive temple. (Apparently, Samson had been there before and knew the design of the place.) God answered Samson's prayer and gave him his usual supernatural power. Samson pushed the pillars over and collapsed the temple. The writer reports that Samson killed more Philistines in that single event than in all the rest of his life.
This story raises all kinds of interesting questions. But notice this: God answered Samson's prayer! Instead of spending decades as a prisoner, humiliated and tormented, he died as a hero in the eyes of his people. In his own eyes!
Two very different approaches to prayer: Daniel's daily, steady habit. Samson's desperate 911 call. Jack McFarlands practice of daily intercession. Henry's spontaneous cry for divine protection from impending retaliation from the drug dealers he has just ripped off.
What can we learn for ourselves from these stories?
FIRST
God is not predictable. At least not in terms of how he will respond to our specific requests. Sometimes God responds in dramatic and welcome ways. Like he did with Samson in the temple. Other times God makes us wait and wait and wait and only responds when we are desperate beyond words. Like he did with the woman Hannah who spent years begging for a child with no apparent effect (1 Samuel). Sometimes God does not respond at all. As happened with King Saul near the end of his life. (“Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 1 Samuel 28:6)
There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act. The previous sentence should perhaps be put in 24 point type, underlined, colored red and put in BOLD. I repeat: There is no known prayer technique that obliges God to act.
God is free. We cannot compel him to act, not by “claiming promises,” not by using formulas that invoke the words “bind,” “declare,” or “blood.” If you find various formulas helpful to you in your prayer life, great use them. But remember they no more compel God to act than Jack McFarland's prayer list compels God to act. Jack's paper list and you “magic words” are no more than tools to help you pray. They cannot be turned into levers by which you can manipulate or force God.
SECOND
God's response is not based on our character.
Sometimes God answers the prayers of scoundrels and sometimes not. Like Samson. Like King Saul. Like Henry the Detroit minister. Sometimes God rejects the requests of good people. Like with Jeremiah and John the Baptist (by inference).
THIRD: Two contrasting perspectives on prayer
Prayer as the key to heaven's treasures.
When we pray our requests, the focus of our attention is our desire for God to act. When we think of prayer this way—as the human quest for God's intervention—our focus is on what God does. Any kind of prayer will do in this situation. The power is in God not in the prayer or in the person praying. God does not need us to master some particular technique or discipline before he is able to act in this world.
We make our requests and God decides. We can make our request using the formulas of TV preachers. We can use the words Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer. We can claim the promises of the Bible and speak politely to God. Or we can pray in desperate, raw street language. Either way, polite or raw, our prayer is heard by God. And God acts or not out his great wisdom and love. It is not the “power” of our prayer that matters, it is the power of God.
Prayer as spiritual practice.
We can also think of prayer as spiritual exercise. Just as people exercise to get strong, practice to become skillful on the piano or drums or guitar and do homework in preparation for taking exams, so we can engage in regular prayer as a spiritual exercise.
When people pray regularly, it has an affect on them. When we think of prayer as a human spiritual discipline, then the form or format of prayer matters. Regularity and practice matters. Location matters. Because in this case, the goal of prayer is to change the person praying.
Jack fuels his compassion by his focused time of intercessory prayer. I think if Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spent an hour a day in intercessory prayer it would alter their speech. It would change their attitudes. If we spend time in prayer daily, it will change us.
Regular, daily prayer helps align us with God's kingdom. It helps us become effective agents of heaven.
So what is the bottom line? This:
If you are in an emergency, pray. Of course, I don't have to tell you this. It is natural to the human soul. In dire straights, our eyes naturally lift toward heaven. Our minds and often our voices naturally cry out, “Help!” The good news from the Bible? God hears. And he doesn't first run your request through a committee to see if you qualify for a response from heaven.
Second, if you are wanting a deeper, more authentic spiritual life, structure regular times of prayer into your days. Pray for people. (The fancy way of putting it is practice intercession.) Or find other forms of prayer to engage in regularly. Practice gratitude. Practice quiet listening prayer. Practice affirmational prayer. Whatever, just do it. God will take notice. Your heart will be blessed.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Offering Hospitality to God
North Hill, September 4, 2010
With thanks to Scott Arany for the title and central idea of this sermon.
About 4000 years ago, if you had been sitting with Abraham in the shade outside the door of his tent, you could have seen out there, out beyond the shade of the oak grove, shimmering heat waves dancing above the dry grass.
Out there, out under the hard-blazing sun, Abraham's herders tended goats and sheep and camels. Their work increases your appreciation for the shade.
Suddenly Abraham gets up, staring into the distance. You turn and follow his eyes. You can barely make out figures on the road in the distance. Their shapes distorted and wiggling in the heat waves. Three travelers, you finally make out, headed this direction.
When they got close, Abraham steps out into the sun and walks to greet them. He bows. “If I have found favor in your eyes, gentlemen, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought so you can wash your feet and rest in the shade. Let me get you something to eat so you can be refreshed and then be on your way. I'm so delighted you have come to me.”
The men agreed. A servant brought water and they washed their feet. Then they sat back in the shade while Abraham gave directions for dinner. When dinner was finally ready an hour or two later, Abraham himself served them, making sure their plates stayed full.
At one point in the dinner, the leader of the three visitors asked Abraham, “Where's your wife Sarah?”
“In the tent.” Abraham said.
Then Abraham's visitor informed him, “About this time next year your wife will have a son.”
Sarah, listening in the tent, laughed into her sleeve. The very idea, she thought. Now? When both of us are over the hill and I'm thirty years past menopause? Me have a baby? I don't think so.
The visitor asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? It will happen next year just as I said.”
Sarah stuck her head out of the tent and protested. “I didn't laugh,” she pouted.
I imagine at that, the visitor himself laughed. “Oh yes you did. Don't try denying it.”
At some point in this conversation Abraham must have have realized his visitors were not ordinary men. Maybe he thought the leader was a prophet or priest. Maybe he guessed they were angels.
Wouldn't that be cool, to serve dinner to three visitors and then realize you had just served dinner to angels or a prophet or a priest with high spiritual power?
Abraham's story gets better.
The visitors got up to leave. Abraham got up to walk with them a bit and see them on their way. They hadn't gone far when the leader sent his two companions on down the road and turned to talk with Abraham. In this conversation, Abraham discovers the full identity of his guest.
The guest was not a prophet or a priest or an angel. It was God. God had stopped by Abraham's tent in the oak grove of Mamre. It was God, Abraham had welcomed with his hospitality. Abraham had just spent a couple of hours visiting . . . WITH GOD!!!!!!
A favorite Adventist definition of prayer comes from Ellen White: “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.”
Can I paraphrase this? Prayer is like sitting down to dinner with God. Prayer is like Abraham walking out to God and urging him, “Won't you please come in and stop awhile? Can I get you some water for your feet and some food for your belly? And we'll talk. Okay?”
This is not all there is to prayer, of course. Over the next few weeks we'll consider several different metaphors and pictures the Bible uses to help us understand prayer. Today, imagine prayer as inviting God to step in out of the sun, to join you in the shade for a leisurely dinner.
Prayer is offering hospitality to God.
The same can be said for our time together here on Sabbath morning. What is worship? One way to think of worship is it is offering hospitality to God. Through our music and scripture reading, through our care for this comfortable place, through our Bible study our fellowship with each other, we are offering hospitality to God. We are saying, “Welcome. Won't you come and spend some time with us? Won't you sit with us? Keep us company for awhile?”
And God says yes.
Here at North Hill we cap off our hospitality by sharing food together after the service. On the first Sabbath of most months, a full dinner, shared potluck style. On most other Sabbaths, snacks and beverage. In these meals we are offering hospitality to the visitors and to one another. Of course. We are also offering hospitality to God. We are reminded of the words in Hebrews 13:1-2. “Keep on loving the brothers and sisters in the church. And do not neglect to entertain strangers because by so doing some people have entertained angels.”
We might editorialize: And some people have even entertained God!
Worship as entertaining God. Is that a helpful picture for you?
Here at church we seek to provide truthful information about God and spiritual life. But if information was all you needed, you could probably find it on the internet.
We try to create a friendly environment where people can fellowship with each other. That's an important part of church life. We feel the importance, and the New Testament explicitly talks about how crucial this connection with other people of faith is. But if connecting with people socially was all we needed, we could do that at work, at school, in the neighborhood. We could join clubs or organizations.
The irreplaceable reason for coming to worship is to meet God. We want to rub the shoulders with God, to hang with God. We offer hospitality to God. Those who plan the service aim to create an environment where God is welcome and we are welcome to visit with each other and God.
Abraham's dinner with God has echoes in other places in the Bible. In Exodus 24, not long after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he invited Moses and Aaron and his sons and seventy of the elders of Israel to come up on Mt Sinai to visit with God. Their visit ends with a feast on the mountain. The Elders and God sharing table fellowship!
Jesus ended his three years of ministry and fellowship with his 12 disciples by sharing a meal with them. A meal that we now remember by celebrating the Lord's supper.
Then in Revelation 3, Jesus says, “I am knocking at the door. If anyone will open the door, I will come in and we will share dinner.”
What do you do when you go out to dinner? You just take time together. The conversation doesn't have to “go” anywhere. There's no agenda. The purpose of sharing the meal is ot share time together, to share life.
This is the first purpose of prayer and worship.
Neither praying nor coming to public worship will automatically make all the aches and pains in our lives go away. But when we spend good time with God the very real challenges and difficulties shrink. Their significance in our lives begins to diminish.
Entertaining God, connecting with God in prayer and worship may not solve our marriage difficulties or fix our unemployment. Still spending time with God in prayer and worship gives us strength and wisdom for living.
We come to church, we spend time in prayer with high expectations that God will show up and keep company with us in a special way.
Jesus promised, “Where two or three are gathered, there I will be in the middle.” Matthew 18:20.
Notice that Jesus is eager to show up. He is knocking on the door. He promises, if you show up in my name, I will be there. We are not begging and pleading, hoping Jesus might stoop to join us for a couple of minutes. Instead we are planning our hospitality, knowing Jesus is eager for time with us.
So I want to encourage you to take some time, regularly, to offer hospitality to Jesus, to God. If you eat breakfast by yourself, don't turn on the TV. Don't read a newspaper or book. Instead share your meal with Jesus. Savor each bite and in your mind hold converse with God.
Invite God to keep you company while you eat. This is part of what saying “the blessing” at meal time is about. As you practice attending to God over the next few weeks, you will find that you are more aware of his presence. Invite God to keep you company through your days.
Learn to “Practice the Presence of God.” It will heighten your sense of gratitude and thus your joy. Hopefully, it will make you more responsive to the leading of God's Spirit. This is the bedrock of mature prayer. It is the heart of what we are about when we come together for worship.
With thanks to Scott Arany for the title and central idea of this sermon.
About 4000 years ago, if you had been sitting with Abraham in the shade outside the door of his tent, you could have seen out there, out beyond the shade of the oak grove, shimmering heat waves dancing above the dry grass.
Out there, out under the hard-blazing sun, Abraham's herders tended goats and sheep and camels. Their work increases your appreciation for the shade.
Suddenly Abraham gets up, staring into the distance. You turn and follow his eyes. You can barely make out figures on the road in the distance. Their shapes distorted and wiggling in the heat waves. Three travelers, you finally make out, headed this direction.
When they got close, Abraham steps out into the sun and walks to greet them. He bows. “If I have found favor in your eyes, gentlemen, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought so you can wash your feet and rest in the shade. Let me get you something to eat so you can be refreshed and then be on your way. I'm so delighted you have come to me.”
The men agreed. A servant brought water and they washed their feet. Then they sat back in the shade while Abraham gave directions for dinner. When dinner was finally ready an hour or two later, Abraham himself served them, making sure their plates stayed full.
At one point in the dinner, the leader of the three visitors asked Abraham, “Where's your wife Sarah?”
“In the tent.” Abraham said.
Then Abraham's visitor informed him, “About this time next year your wife will have a son.”
Sarah, listening in the tent, laughed into her sleeve. The very idea, she thought. Now? When both of us are over the hill and I'm thirty years past menopause? Me have a baby? I don't think so.
The visitor asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? It will happen next year just as I said.”
Sarah stuck her head out of the tent and protested. “I didn't laugh,” she pouted.
I imagine at that, the visitor himself laughed. “Oh yes you did. Don't try denying it.”
At some point in this conversation Abraham must have have realized his visitors were not ordinary men. Maybe he thought the leader was a prophet or priest. Maybe he guessed they were angels.
Wouldn't that be cool, to serve dinner to three visitors and then realize you had just served dinner to angels or a prophet or a priest with high spiritual power?
Abraham's story gets better.
The visitors got up to leave. Abraham got up to walk with them a bit and see them on their way. They hadn't gone far when the leader sent his two companions on down the road and turned to talk with Abraham. In this conversation, Abraham discovers the full identity of his guest.
The guest was not a prophet or a priest or an angel. It was God. God had stopped by Abraham's tent in the oak grove of Mamre. It was God, Abraham had welcomed with his hospitality. Abraham had just spent a couple of hours visiting . . . WITH GOD!!!!!!
A favorite Adventist definition of prayer comes from Ellen White: “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.”
Can I paraphrase this? Prayer is like sitting down to dinner with God. Prayer is like Abraham walking out to God and urging him, “Won't you please come in and stop awhile? Can I get you some water for your feet and some food for your belly? And we'll talk. Okay?”
This is not all there is to prayer, of course. Over the next few weeks we'll consider several different metaphors and pictures the Bible uses to help us understand prayer. Today, imagine prayer as inviting God to step in out of the sun, to join you in the shade for a leisurely dinner.
Prayer is offering hospitality to God.
The same can be said for our time together here on Sabbath morning. What is worship? One way to think of worship is it is offering hospitality to God. Through our music and scripture reading, through our care for this comfortable place, through our Bible study our fellowship with each other, we are offering hospitality to God. We are saying, “Welcome. Won't you come and spend some time with us? Won't you sit with us? Keep us company for awhile?”
And God says yes.
Here at North Hill we cap off our hospitality by sharing food together after the service. On the first Sabbath of most months, a full dinner, shared potluck style. On most other Sabbaths, snacks and beverage. In these meals we are offering hospitality to the visitors and to one another. Of course. We are also offering hospitality to God. We are reminded of the words in Hebrews 13:1-2. “Keep on loving the brothers and sisters in the church. And do not neglect to entertain strangers because by so doing some people have entertained angels.”
We might editorialize: And some people have even entertained God!
Worship as entertaining God. Is that a helpful picture for you?
Here at church we seek to provide truthful information about God and spiritual life. But if information was all you needed, you could probably find it on the internet.
We try to create a friendly environment where people can fellowship with each other. That's an important part of church life. We feel the importance, and the New Testament explicitly talks about how crucial this connection with other people of faith is. But if connecting with people socially was all we needed, we could do that at work, at school, in the neighborhood. We could join clubs or organizations.
The irreplaceable reason for coming to worship is to meet God. We want to rub the shoulders with God, to hang with God. We offer hospitality to God. Those who plan the service aim to create an environment where God is welcome and we are welcome to visit with each other and God.
Abraham's dinner with God has echoes in other places in the Bible. In Exodus 24, not long after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he invited Moses and Aaron and his sons and seventy of the elders of Israel to come up on Mt Sinai to visit with God. Their visit ends with a feast on the mountain. The Elders and God sharing table fellowship!
Jesus ended his three years of ministry and fellowship with his 12 disciples by sharing a meal with them. A meal that we now remember by celebrating the Lord's supper.
Then in Revelation 3, Jesus says, “I am knocking at the door. If anyone will open the door, I will come in and we will share dinner.”
What do you do when you go out to dinner? You just take time together. The conversation doesn't have to “go” anywhere. There's no agenda. The purpose of sharing the meal is ot share time together, to share life.
This is the first purpose of prayer and worship.
Neither praying nor coming to public worship will automatically make all the aches and pains in our lives go away. But when we spend good time with God the very real challenges and difficulties shrink. Their significance in our lives begins to diminish.
Entertaining God, connecting with God in prayer and worship may not solve our marriage difficulties or fix our unemployment. Still spending time with God in prayer and worship gives us strength and wisdom for living.
We come to church, we spend time in prayer with high expectations that God will show up and keep company with us in a special way.
Jesus promised, “Where two or three are gathered, there I will be in the middle.” Matthew 18:20.
Notice that Jesus is eager to show up. He is knocking on the door. He promises, if you show up in my name, I will be there. We are not begging and pleading, hoping Jesus might stoop to join us for a couple of minutes. Instead we are planning our hospitality, knowing Jesus is eager for time with us.
So I want to encourage you to take some time, regularly, to offer hospitality to Jesus, to God. If you eat breakfast by yourself, don't turn on the TV. Don't read a newspaper or book. Instead share your meal with Jesus. Savor each bite and in your mind hold converse with God.
Invite God to keep you company while you eat. This is part of what saying “the blessing” at meal time is about. As you practice attending to God over the next few weeks, you will find that you are more aware of his presence. Invite God to keep you company through your days.
Learn to “Practice the Presence of God.” It will heighten your sense of gratitude and thus your joy. Hopefully, it will make you more responsive to the leading of God's Spirit. This is the bedrock of mature prayer. It is the heart of what we are about when we come together for worship.
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