Opening scripture together and facing, facing up to the word that God speaks to us as a community. How are we doing? Okay. politics or prayer? No misspellings. That's a good start. I always worry after I send the the PowerPoint off to Kyle, then I think I wonder how many typos there are in that thing. So prayer is our topic continues to be in this season of prayer at stones River. And I want to I want to say to you that prayer is a political act. This morning, prayer is a political act. I believe that if we don't come to terms with that fact, our hopes that dedication to prayer will issue in missional renewal are bound to meet frustration. So this morning, I want us to confront the politics of prayer. I suppose it's necessary to clarify, by politics, I don't mean, Red Team versus blue team. I certainly don't mean, prayer is political in that we pray for one side to win. I won't share my own opinions about the American political landscape just now I think that probably be a distraction. And the message I have to share with you this morning is already difficult enough to hear without additional noise. So put out of your minds now that I've triggered you with the word politics, put out of your minds, the particulars of partisanship. However much the powers and principalities, at work in our national discourse want us to believe those matter most. The truth is that the kingdom of God proves them trivial. Now, by politics, I refer to a more fundamental sense of the word the process of relating to one another, in a community fraught with differences. The accent falls here on relationship, relationship in the midst of otherness, conflict, alienation, and even enmity. I direct our attention to this notion of politics. Because for us, the Lord's people, there's a connection between prayer and reconciliation. Not just the connection we might observe with curiosity, or with mild interest, but a vital link that has something to do with the transformation of the world. Such a vital link that I want to stay at starkly. To become prayerful in Jesus's way is to be a community of peacemakers. To be a prayerful church is to embody an alternative politics. In our scripture, prayer and reconciliation simply are not separable terms. I think this claim entails two significant biblical teachings. And that's where we're going to spend most of our time this morning on these two teachings. The first is that prayer itself is a practice of reconciliation. And the second is that prayer arises from our identity, as reconciled, reconciled. So the first one prayer as a practice of reconciliation. Want to start with Matthew 544, and it's parallel in Luke 628. Okay, so if you're going to be doing this or doing this, that's great, just follow along, but I'll have the verses up on the screen for you as well. Matthew 543, you've heard that it was said You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. The politics of the world. Love your friends, hate your enemies. Protect your own. serve your own interests, serve your own family's interests, your own community's interests, your own nation's interests, build those walls. If you need to.
And hate anybody that gets in the way. But Jesus says, No. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Here's the version of that in Luke six. But I say to you, that Listen, you who hear me, I say, love your enemies do good to those who hate you. bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abused you. I want to focus especially on the word bless in Luke's translation and Luke's rendition. To pray for those who persecute us and abuse us is to bless them. Contrary to common usage, blessing is not well wishing or wrote response to a sneeze. Right? It's not in good southern dialect, bless their heart. Right? It's serious Kingdom business blessing. A prayer for the peace of God, Shalom, the total rightness of our lives, and specifically here, our enemies lives. That's what blessing is calling down God's reconciling, redeeming love into their lives so that everything gets made, right. That's blessing.
Healing, forgiveness, joy, plenty. This is shalom. This is blessing. So listen again to the words of Jesus. bless those who curse you.
Those who curse you who wish you harm, retribution, dismay, need those with absolute ill will toward you or maybe just indifference toward you, in their own self interest. Maybe they care not at all about you. Bless them. That is prayer. That is prayer in the teaching of Jesus to bless the world, enemies and friends. Some of you might feel as many of my students do, that these instructions are not meant to be doable. Indeed, there's a long history of interpretation that takes Jesus's more challenging commands to serve only to make us aware of how incapable and wretched we are. It's a very common reading of the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Matthew five. In this interpretation, we can't be like Jesus or obey him. His righteousness is out of reach. And the teaching serves only to highlight God's grace. I reject this reading. Absolutely. Absolutely. Not only because it's a misunderstanding of who Jesus is and what he calls us to because it is obviously historically false. Examples of Christians living out Jesus's Kingdom politics may not be as numerous as they should be. But they do exist. Consider the Amish community in nickel mines Pennsylvania, whose children were murdered by a school shooter in 2006. Before he shot himself. The community not only publicly and immediately forgave the shooter, but members of that community attended his funeral and hugged his family and expressed the grace of God to them. And then subsequently, they donated money to his widow and children. That's an alternative politics. I don't know what you heard when that happened, if you recall, or what you've heard any other time there's been a school shooting or any other time that something happens to people that we know and how they talk about the way that they would take care of business, if that happened in their lives. Vengeance violence, self protection. Not blessing. But this community of of Jesus, weirdos freaks people who live such an odd life that even the mainstream of Christianity goes like we don't know what they're really doing over there with the horses and buggies, and the beards and all, don't really get it, but their commitment to Jesus, whatever you think of the way that they farm and live and eat, their commitment to Jesus means that, that they will forgive the murderers of their children, and bless them and seek their good and the good of their family. Don't tell me it's not doable. Of course, that doesn't have anything to do with how easy it is, or how difficult I listened to an NPR piece written, read it, and they had a little audio thing, but the year after the shooting, that addressed the persistent trauma in the community. And in particular, the strain on the marriages of the families that lost those children. It's not easy. This isn't that we don't care. The Politics of Christian prayer is a high calling in anyone who supposes that taking up the cross is easy as a fool. But anyone who supposes that is impossible, cannot be a disciple of Jesus. Still, the difficulty of applying such examples to our lives persists. Most of us are not the victims of such terrible abuse. Thank God. Our struggles are more mundane. So I want to share another example. One close to home.
While we lived in Pasadena, Megan experienced a significant challenge to her own willingness to obey Jesus as example. Since the story is primarily hers, although as her husband, I was pretty wrapped up about it as well. I've asked her to share a little bit about it. And Meg Will you grab a mic and just give us a sketch
we It was our fourth year in Pasadena. And I taught in inner city LA, it's my fourth year teaching at the school. I was named site lead, and team lead of my sixth grade team. And we had a new teacher join us. And I welcomed her in with open arms. And this could be a really long story. But I have never in my life experience someone. I don't know doing everything that she was trying to get me fired. I know that sounds bonkers. But she went to my administration and told right out lies. He asked me to do this and said, We're the one who shall not be named. That's what I call her. You can tell like it still affects me. It was a blessing that I had for years in that school. And the people knew me, because my administrator knew they realize, but I had never in my life experience someone being so out to get me. And I just want to share that I'm very good at confrontation. I don't like it. But I will confront you. If there's something between us it's just my personality. And I I think my whole life, I've thought if I can do that if I can confront someone and have a conversation of reconciliation, everything will be good, right? That's what you think it wasn't. I mean, it backfired on me. And I tried it more than once. And thanks be to God, I was carpooling. With a co worker. That was a Christian and believe it or not, that's not very common in California where I was. But this man of God that I rode to work with in the morning, I would just, he kind of mentored me through this whole process. But there was one morning we were going to school and he said, Megan, have you ever had an enemy? And that question was weird. It was weird to me. And I had to actually like, stop and think about it. And I was like, Well, no, I don't think I've ever had an enemy. And he goes, Jesus told us to pray for our enemies. Megan You know, I had no, I had never had to take this to heart I don't think I think I always think about other people and it but she was an enemy. And I had a breath prayer. It was a very hard time for me I had a breath prayer that I would say to myself, I would say, I am beloved daughter of the king, just to remember my identity. And I remember thinking about that, pray for my enemies, and thinking, she is beloved daughter of the king. It just reframes the way you think about someone. So hope that's what you wanted me to
hop back one, Kyle? Like we're no, maybe I just have amount of orders? Well, so the question is, have you ever had an enemy? Have you ever really had somebody come after you? I'm seeing a lot of nods. I think most of us most of the time can answer No, we live we have conflicts, but we don't really have someone who is interested in hurting us. That diligently goes about the business of making our lives worse. But I can tell that some of you have. And so I'm hoping that you can relate to this teaching. We're pretty aware of not knowing what to do with the verses about persecution. It's just not. That's not our reality. Most all of the time. Whatever the jargon in in, in the evangelical world, about the government persecuting us, it's just not real in our lives. Just need to talk to some of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world understand what persecution is. And it's not that but this enemy business is tough to relate to as well, I think it happens, but not much. Here's another example less extreme. At the beginning of the pandemic, someone stole most of our bikes out of our garage. Not cool, right? The kids might not have thought much of it. But we had started biking the Greenway almost every day to cope with social distancing. And so there was quite a bit of anger in our house about the bikes being stolen. And it was simmering, right? And so sometime after coming home from school, we're talking in the truck and they're expressing ill will toward this thief, right? They're not happy with this person and wishing ill and, and I told him that Jesus wants us to pray for our enemies and bless those who harm us. And they were taken aback, I think, but that night, we spent time asking God to forgive them, and give them everything they need. Different kinds of enemy, right, somebody whose self interest will, will harm your life. And we run into that quite a bit on the on the daily. And are we capable, or we willing to pray over? These people whose own self interest would harm our lives and say, God bless you. God give you peace. God give you plenty. God heal you and give you joy.
No. Maybe you have similar experiences, maybe not. But let's be clear about what this teaching calls us to do. Paul puts it this way in Romans 1214 to 21. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Megyn Kelly is familiar with Jesus's teaching, right? But here's what that means. I think we could we could correctly put a colon after that first line. Blessing do not curse colon rejoice with those who rejoice of your enemies. weep with those who weep. I can't get that Amish community out of my imagination. live in harmony with one another. Do not be hottie. You're not better but associate with the Do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. know if your enemies are hungry, feeding them. If they're thirsty, give them something to drink. For by doing this, you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. All of that is an explanation of what Paul means by bless and do not curse. That way of life is an embodiment of the prayer. It's a living prayer. Our obligation is to become a community that makes peace where it doesn't exist. That brings the peace of Christ to bear on every dimension of our lives. And don't we see the brokenness of relationships all around us? tribalism, social conflict, prejudice, nationalism, fear, anger, pettiness, vindictiveness, hatred. We don't we see this all around us constantly. And maybe we're standing at a distance from it, sort of watching it, maybe even consuming it as entertainment. But it's swirling all around us. The absence of this peace, the absence of reconciliation. And I think Paul speaks to us and says, if you're going to obey Jesus in this, then you need to make peace. This is your work. You need to bless.
Not curse. Isn't it true that even in this church family, there are fractured relationships, old wounds, grudges, memories may be covered over by politeness or avoidance. But they're real. That's not blessing. That's not alternative politics. That's not the route of cross shaped prayer. Okay, so let's talk about steaks. Part Two, praying as reconciled, reconciles. Unfortunately, I know this is heavy. No, it's tough. But when else can we hear these words? We need to be together under the word of the Lord, facing up to the challenge.
So turn back to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter six. Verse 12, says, you recall from a few weeks ago, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. But Jesus continues in verses 14 and 15. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Anybody else feel a chill, reading those words? I've certainly had moments in my life where I was not forgiving. Shock to listen to these words, and take them at face value. Mark locates this teaching differently. And a passage frequently taught in reference to prayer but not I suspect, with the sharp point Jesus has in mind. At this moment in the story, Jesus has entered Jerusalem and on the way to the temple. He comes across a fig tree and curses it for not bearing fruit. Now remember, blessing cursing our prayer. This isn't witchcraft. He's not he's not doing magic on the tree. He calls down the curse of God's judgment on the fig tree for a fig tree. Then he does this as a figurative action. It foreshadows the scene to follow. He enters the temple, and passes judgment on fruitless Israel.
turning over the tables driving out the money lenders are seeking profit from the religious devotion of God's people. You know the scene. Jesus goes berserk in the temple. But the story continues. In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered, I don't know how he could have forgotten but then he remembered and said to him,
Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Jesus answered them, you gotta you gotta you got to imagine tone here, right?
The way that we read the Bible, in our imaginations, shapes the way that we understand the Bible. Here's how I read this.
Have faith in God. Have faith in God. I'm telling you, truly, I tell you, I'm telling you.
If you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea. And if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe what you say, will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive your trespasses. It's important not to break the reading right there. Almost every one of your translations will have a paragraph break. It's not a different thought he hasn't changed topic. I don't think he even took a breath. Listen to it again. I so I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. So the judgment at the temple is the context of his teaching. The judgment that Jesus demonstrates by driving out the hypocrites from the temple righteous wrath is the context. Holy disgust is the context. This is how Jesus feels about the enemies of God.
This means that the teaching about the prayer of faith is not the uninteresting point that God can do amazing things. That is an uninteresting point, church. God can do amazing things. Nor is that the absurd point that if God doesn't do what you pray for your paltry faith is to blame. So you just didn't believe in your heart. You didn't believe hard enough? No, that is not the point. When Jesus says this mountain. If you pray that this mountain be cast into the sea, this mountain is the Temple Mount. The temple mount is the backdrop the judgment on the temple, as a representation of God's judgment on the people is the topic at hand. The premise here is judgment merited wrath. So the question is, what do you will in prayer? What is the prayer of faith aimed at? If it is aimed at judgment, at curse? Then listen to the next part again, whenever you stand praying, forgive if if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. Forgiveness is a mountain. How many of us have felt that forgiveness is impossible.
Have you ever been hurt that bad? We say I want to forgive but I can't. I'm too hurt, too angry, too disgusted. They don't want forgiveness anyway. They won't change. They don't deserve it.
But look again to the cross brothers and sisters. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they're doing. Jesus's words and Luke 2334. Not Father, forgive them because they want forgiveness, or because they're going to change or because they deserve it. But because cross shaped prayer arises from God's will, to reconciliation. Forgiveness is a mountain. But this is the word of the Lord church. Not only can God lift that mountain and cast it into the depths of the sea. But your own guilt goes with it. The two are tied together. Their forgiveness and your forgiveness. Micah 719 says he will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You. Here's the prayer, you Oh, God will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. It's not Jesus's enemies, that he imagines being lifted up and cast into the sea.
It's their iniquity. take this seriously. God, hearing our prayers is not about having enough faith.
It's a matter of directing our trust in God, toward God's will to peace. So Peter says, Do not repay evil for evil, or abuse for abuse. But on the contrary, repay with a blessing with a prayer. It is for this that you were called what a statement. For this, you were called for, to repay abuse, with a prayer of blessing. That is your purpose. That is your calling. That is the only way we become a community of reconciled reconciles. That's the only way that we stand praying, like Jesus prays. It is for this that you were called that you might inherit a blessing. For those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit. Let them turn away from evil and do good. Let them seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord or on the righteous, and here's the punchline and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. We must pray in faith for reconciliation. There's strong reason to think that if the American churches prayers for mission and revival and all the rest of it seem to fall on deaf ears it is because we are steeped in a will to vengeance and violence and superiority and judgment. I think it's a fair question to ask. Do we will to see our enemies cast into the depths rather than to see their iniquity cast into the depths? Would we rather see them disappear from our lives? Then practice the costly reconciliation of the cross. If we were to pray for the so called success of mission we'd better learn to pray in mission in the willful Active practices of reconciliation with one another, and with those we deem worthy of rebuke. For however righteous our feelings about the sins of others, directed toward us or directed toward the ones we love. I was ready to curse that woman who was breaking my hearts, my wife's heart. However, righteous, our anger about those sins. Jesus says, When you pray, forgive, die to yourself and forgive, forgive, when they don't even know what they're doing. Forgive when they do know what they're doing. And they plan to do it again. Forgive at all cost, just as God forgives you. Pray for peace. Work for peace. Become a community that embodies the peace of God. That's the politics of prayer. It's transformative. And until that transformation is complete, we know what to pray for. We know we have a lot to pray for. So in the word so often spoken in our assemblies, let us pray. Let us pray church. The team has prepared a song that I requested. It's not one that's going to be necessarily easy as it's not. It's not a crazy hard song, but it's not one that's gonna be easy to sing along with. She just rolled her eyes on me. It's a crazy hard song. But I asked for it and so they're doing but you know, like the songs we sang this morning, I picked a few of them. And in that process, I realized
we don't sing a lot about reconciliation. We don't sing about peace very much. It's hard to find the bars that that really care about that. couple of lines but but rich Mullins, who I almost always listened to while I write sermons, has a bunch of songs about peace. Fact I heard that Lisa has another one that you want to do. And it was I also thought about using this one today. But this song is a rich Marlin song. And it's a prayer that I've prayed singing along with him many times and I'm really happy that we get to pray it again this morning.
I will see for me, for those who pray with their very lives.
For them money will change into laughter when the nation's four hands spirit mercy. They hunger for your right now. There are 330 bees shine for the Lord led me saying Lord, let me shine for them. Lord, let me see
