MacIntyre via Hauerwas: "Riches are an affliction"

Well, I didn't intend to write a whole series of posts interacting with Stanley Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew, but I'm loving the book far more than I expected to.

Publisher's Weekly had this to say about it:

Hauerwas is as delightfully irascible and hard-hitting as ever, suggesting, for example, that the parable of the sower "helps us to read the situation of the church in America as Jesus' judgment on that church." Believing that "Matthew's gospel is…an ongoing exercise to help us see the world through Christ," Hauerwas attends to the Gospel chapter by chapter, teasing out theological themes while resisting the temptation to create a systematic Christology... Insightful and provocative, Hauerwas adds a valuable theological perspective to the Gospel of Matthew.

Let me share with you the Hauerwas take on the words, "give us this day our daily bread."

Hauerwas says that our ability to pray for no more than we need for today rests on our confidence that God will have enough for all our days. In other words, anxiety about the future having been removed, we are happy to pray for no more than what we need today. That such a community can even exist is good news to the poor, says Hauerwas. It is anxiety about the future, after all, that causes us to store up, to feel that we must always and always get more, increase, expand, and all this getting turns out to breed economic injustice, cynicism, and resentment. Hauerwas says that a community of people capable of being satisfied with only that which they need is a community that testifies to its trust in God's great abundance and care for his creation. Such a community would be marked not by anxiety but by celebration, for it is a people that trusts God and one another.

In the course of this discussion, Hauerwas quotes the philosoher Alisdair MacIntyre:

Christianity has to view any social and economic order that treats being or becoming rich as highly desirable as doing wrong to not only those who must accept its goals, but succeed in achieving them. Riches are, from a Biblical point of view, an affliction, an almost insuperable obstacle to entering the kingdom of heaven. Capitalism is bad for those who succeed by its standards as well as for those who fail by them, something that many preachers and theologians have failed to recognize.

Hmmmm, dang boat-rockers, these two.

Praying the Kingdom for Your Workplace: the Jesus Prayer as Missional Prayer

The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, often called the Lord's Prayer, can be found at Matthew 6:7-13 and in a briefer form at Luke 11:2-4. If you've ever been a member of a liturgical church, you probably recited this prayer every Sunday. On the other hand, in typical non-liturgical Evangelical churches of today it is no more emphasized than any other passage of the NT, and the recitation of its words as prayer is somewhat mistrusted as mere rote repetition.

But the bottom line is, when some disciples asked Jesus how to pray, Jesus said, "Like this," and recited this prayer.

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
(Matthew 6:9-13 ESV)

As it stands, the prayer seems a bit lofty and even generic. But it's my opinion that we do well when we get specific, making the prayer uniquely our own. What does "your kingdom come" mean, after all, in my own particular context? What "daily bread" am I or my family or my co-workers, or whomever I'm praying for, in need of? "Forgive us our debts"? What do I owe and to whom? And have I forgiven the debts of other toward me? Perhaps I hadn't been thinking in these terms when I expected an apology from my boss or my friend. You see, I contend that when we begin to take this prayer of Jesus personally, addressing God in the manner and spirit that Jesus suggested, it can change the way we see the world and our place in it, and thus the way we talk to God.

First, understand that this prayer is a missional prayer, in which you the praying disciple take an active part in the missio dei by asking that the Lord's will would be done in the context of your life, your corner of creation. "May your will be done in my workplace as it is in heaven. In my relationship with my son as it is in heaven. In my voting, in my neighborhood, in my driving . . . as it is in heaven." You fill in the blanks.

Now note: when you pray the prayer in this personalized way, the prayer becomes--you can't help but notice--not only a beseeching of God, but also, by His grace, a call upon your life. For example, if I am praying for the kingdom to come in my workplace, the conviction soon dawns upon me that, by the grace of God, I may well be the vessel by which he answers that prayer for my co-workers. I cannot run from this like Jonah, or my prayer is a mere charade.

You can see this same dynamic when you begin to pray the other parts of the prayer with specificity.

"Give us, here at [insert name of workplace], our daily bread. That is, what we need for sustenance this day within this context. What we need to do jobs well and to serve others in love (for that's your kingdom coming)."

Or think about the debts you owe one another in the workplace. The things you expect from one another and begrudge when they are not paid.

Forgive us our debts, here at [insert name of workplace], even as we forgive the debts we owe one another.

If you pray for your workplace in this way, you may be the only one doing so. It may be that some are praying for a debt to be paid ("They owe me. God, make them pay up!") But you, when you pray according to Jesus' instructions, are praying the will of God for creation. What does the Kingdom of God look like? Well, for one thing, every debt has been paid, an no one owes a thing to anyone else except thankfulness to the one who paid it all. That's why praying for an atmosphere of forgiveness in the workplace is praying down the kingdom of God, and praying the very heart of God's purpose for creation (including his purpose for your workplace). It is a radical prayer, a potent prayer, and again, you can't help but notice, it sets up a call on the very heart of the one praying. The forgiving of debt in the workplace might have to begin in your own heart!

And what about temptation? There are temptations associated with your workplace environment that may be quite unique. In a small workplace like my own, and one where none of the other employees really have a kingdom of God mindset, you may be the only one who sees and understands how certain temptations are effecting your workplace environment (beginning with your own). In truth, you are standing in the gap when you pray this prayer for your workplace.

All of this is a kind of test of the sanctified imagination. Perhaps you've never thought much about "daily bread." Use your imagination. Think specifically of what you need, and what co-workers need, not only to get them through the day but to get them a step or two closer to the promised land. If you think about this, and about specific encounters and conversations you've had at work lately, you'll begin to think of daily bread with great insight and precision and pray accordingly. The same goes for forgiveness, and temptation. Your understanding is enlightened as you pray this prayer with your eyes open in your workplace.

Finally, it should be kept in mind that God's ultimate purpose is that his kingdom should come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That should control the way you think of the other parts of the prayer, which indeed are nothing more than sub-headings of "your kingdom come." I would invite you to think of the component parts of this prayer as they apply to the idea of God's kingdom coming in your own workplace, family, relationships, or whatever, and to make this the pattern of your prayers. As praying believers, you are a focal point of God's kingdom expression, and your prayers for the kingdom are in turn a call upon your life. They are central to your mission as believer. The aroma of Christ is all over this work. Go to it.

"Our Father"

For a long time now most of my prayers have been uttered within the framework of the disciple's prayer, aka The Lord's Prayer, found at Matthew 6:9-13. The six petitions of this prayer have informed my own petitions, and kept me from maundering. They've strengthened my prayers, in the sense that I pray with greater confidence, knowing that I'm praying according the Jesus' instructions to his disciples, not according to my own estimations of what is needed.

A while back I wrote a series of posts about all this, which if you'd like to read you can find here (in reverse order, of course). My emphatic point there was that this was a missional prayer, and that it makes a lot less sense if we miss this crucial aspect. It is a prayer for missional people--the followers of the Jesus Way--not simply for the discontented with their checklist of needs.

I mentioned just now that I generally pray within this framework, and I even said something about praying with greater confidence, but while this is generally true, I have to admit that lately my prayers have been rather spotty at best, and so has my Bible reading. I need a little revival in this heart of mine. So I decided to go back to this prayer, taking another look, and journaling devotionally around its major themes.

Leaping right in, take a quick look at the very first words of address: "Our father in heaven..." For today, I just wanted to share a few things learned from the ESV Study Bible notes. First, the word here for "Father" is Abba, which, it has often been said, translates as "Daddy." The ESV isn't so sure that's a correct understanding:

Father (Gk. patēr, “father”) would have been “Abba” in Aramaic, the everyday language spoken by Jesus (cf. Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). It was the word used by Jewish children for their earthly fathers. However, since the term in both Aramaic and Greek was also used by adults to address their fathers, the claim that “Abba” meant “Daddy” is misleading and runs the risk of irreverence. Nevertheless, the idea of praying to God as “Our Father” conveys the authority, warmth, and intimacy of a loving father's care, while in heaven reminds believers of God's sovereign rule over all things.

I'll look a little more closely at these descriptors ("authority, warmth, and intimacy") in a future post.

Daily Needs

What are we praying for when we pray for our daily bread? Not bread alone, surely, but all the things we need--the things we really need--to get us through the day. I don't assume these are exclusively material things--like bread--but I don't think we should dismiss the material as unimportant as we high-mindedly focus on spiritual things. Real bread. A real roof over your head. Real things really matter!

So, when I pray the Lord's prayer for my loved ones, it's at this point that I think of their actual physical needs. Sometimes I'm pretty sure I know what they are, so I name them, but I'm also aware that God knows them better than I, so that little phrase "daily bread" sort of leaves it up to God. Lord, please make sure my boys have everything they need today. Everything they really need.

I try not to speculate too much about these needs. I concede that God knows them better than I, in any case. But praying for daily needs does tend to focus my mind on the question, what do I really need? What do my sons really need? What does my wife really need? Really.

And asking these questions brings to mind some other questions. What am I here for? What's my purpose today? Why, after all, do I need what I need?

This prayer, remember, is a prayer for disciples. What we think about our daily needs will depend upon how we see ourselves positionally before God and therefore our very purpose in praying to begin with. A disciple represents (re-presents) Jesus to the world, and so to pray as a disciple is to pray with the perspective of one who desires above all else to do that representing well, and whose highest and best dream is of God's kingdom coming.

Do you see how this focuses our thoughts? Instead of scanning the canvas of our lives for this or that need to throw into the prayer-hopper, we will tend to hone in on our part in God's great kingdom plan and purpose. Or, if we're praying for others, the fulfillment of their own unique purpose in that same plan. Daily bread, in other words, is important, but it is important for a reason. Not simply because we don't want to go hungry, but we don't want our daily needs to distract us from fulfilling our purpose in God.

This is a prayer that the evil one does not want us to pray. He wants us distracted and preoccupied. This is a honing in and a focusing that positions us on the cutting edge of the God's coming kingdom.

Lord, thank you for daily bread. As I pray for my loved ones, may I pray them into your purpose for them, which goes far beyond the satisfaction of physical hunger. I thank you for such satisfaction, Lord. But blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, you say, so please give them more of that kind of hunger, and give them, until your kingdom of righteousness comes, a foretaste of your satisfaction of that hunger, even today Lord. Even today! For yours is the bread, and yours is the righteousness, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Praying for "Daily Needs"

Here's something from Eugene Peterson, whom I consider one of the wisest men on the planet.

"We have short attention spans. Having been introduced to God, we soon lose interest in God and become preoccupied with ourselves. Self expands and soul atrophies. Psychology trumps theology. ... [And this] usually adds up to a workable life ... But -- it is not the practice of resurrection, it is not growing up in Christ, it is not living in the company of the Trinity, it is not living out of our beginnings, our begettings." [Quote found at Jesus Creed.]

We see a prime example of this in our prayer life. It is a tendency we should resist, for none are immune. "Self expands and the soul atrophies." When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he taught them to put God first, to glorify his name and pray for his kingdom. But in our own prayers we typically expand on ourselves, and thereby shrink God and dismiss his kingdom.

We do this to the Bible as well of course. The Bible is put to the service of therapy. Anything that is not immediately recognizable as therapeutic is simply overlooked. This way of dealing with the Word of God is promoted in most daily devotionals. People don't even recognize the possibility of an alternative.

The same is true, as I was saying, of prayer. We put it to the use as a tool of therapy, not as a conversation with the One whose mission includes far more than our need for ease. Self expands, and the soul atrophies. Psychology trumps theology, and we don't even notice.

It's as if "give us this day our daily bread" expanded to take over the whole Jesus prayer, crowding out God and his kingdom. Or, better, as if we simply cut away the rest, ripped "daily bread" from its context, and let it mean whatever we needed it to mean. Kinda like we do with the rest of the Bible.

In my group prayer experience, of which I have had much, this has been a more or less relentless form of prayer. Daily needs above all, and everything else merely paid lip service. And that little phrase, "daily needs," comes to mean anything and everything we happen to desire. Prayer in the service of desire. Prayer as "want list." But how does our understanding of "daily needs" change if we restore that phrase to the whole context of the Jesus prayer? If we see these things, these needs, in the light of the kingdom of God and the desire that it come in fullness right away?

Put it this way: if you first pray for the reality of heaven to be made manifest completely and forever here on the earth, many of the things we think of as our "needs" would then become far less important. How strange to pray "on earth as it is in heaven," and then to pray, "and also, Lord, I really need to get to the gym more often, so will you please help me to make the time for that."

Do you see the disconnect? And yet, that's how we pray. And since we really do want to go to the gym more often, and on the other hand we're not so sure how much we want the world as we know it to vanish in a cataclysmic transition to the New Creation, the thing we desire most naturally takes on the most urgency, while the thing God might desire most fades and is forgotten.

The fundamental truth here is, our desires are not always God's desires. But if we are ambassadors of that New Creation, disciples of Jesus who learn at his feet and have his mind, his way of thinking, wouldn't we think very differently about daily needs? "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," would form our understanding of "daily needs." Now we would see the self recede, little by little, and the foreground of our thoughts would be occupied by the kingdom of God.

In short, our daily needs would become all the things we need today in order to carry out our part in the great mission of God for his world. What does an ambassador of the kingdom need? What does he/she need daily? I highly recommend that we set our minds and hearts on this question, and seek its answer in the word of God and, yes, in prayer.

[BTW, the whole Jesus Prayer series is here.]

Praying on the Edge

I really didn't expect to be going on about the Jesus Prayer for post after post, but here I am again, back on the same theme. In the first post, Praying for the Kingdom of God, I tried to emphasize that the Jesus prayer has little in common with the way we usually pray. We usually pray with our "needs" uppermost, instead of the kingdom of God. And in the second post, The Jesus Prayer is a Missional Prayer, I tried to emphasize the related point that Jesus was teaching disciples how to pray. It is a prayer format for disciples.

There are a few things I want to say before going further. First, my prayer-life is no model of Christian piety. Believe me, I am no expert. I am a stuttering, befuddled, mind-wandering kind of pray-er. I pray often, throughout the day in fact, most often the age-old gem, "Help me, Lord!" But what I have found is that praying for myself and others in the way that Jesus taught us to pray has tended to cleanse my prayer-life of self-focused pleading, and helped me to picture myself as I pray not as the client of some wise and supernaturally gifted therapist and sugar-daddy, but as a front-line representative (one of many) of God's onrushing Kingdom.

I've been reading Darrell Johnson's book about The Revelation to John called Discipleship on the Edge, which emphasizes that The Revelation is primarily intended as an encouragement to disciples. I want to borrow something from Johnson that helps us to understand the position of the disciple in the plan of God to make his will be done "on earth as it is in heaven." This understanding frees us from reading The Revelation as a book of prognostication (as if John were an early Nostradamus). But it is not only a book for disciples, but a book for disciples "on the edge." When we see what Johnson means by that, it will help us to understand the real need for praying the way Jesus taught.

I have entitled this book Discipleship on the Edge because, as I hope to make clear, Revelation is not a crystal ball revealing esoteric secrets that enable us to escape the harsh realities of life on earth, but a down-to-earth manual on how to be a disciple of Jesus facing the harsh realities of life on the earth; in particular, how to do this the way Jesus did and does. Edge because, as I also hope to make clear, that is the "place" where we are called to be Jesus' disciples. I am using the image of an edge to refer to three places. First, to refer to living on the edge of the final inbreaking of the kingdom of God, on the edge between this world and the next. Second, to refer to living on the edge where the inbreaking kingdom of God presently comes up against the kingdoms of this world which are out of sync with it. And third, "edge" refers to living before the "sharp, two-edged sword" that proceeds from the mouth of the risen Jesus.... This "edge" is very sharp--like a surgeon's scalpel--with the same intent of deep healing and freedom. As we will see . . . the whole book is written to bring us to the razor-sharp point of decision: who will be the Lord of my life and of the world? Whose way leads to the establishing of God's just rule amnong the nations?

Now, I've included this lengthy quote about discipleship because I want to emphasize that we who call ourselves Jesus followers live on this edge, and pray on this edge. This edge is a violent place where the enemies of God's kingdom make sorties and ambushes and full-scale assaults on God's kingdom ambassadors and intercessors. Satan is not interest in your "health and wealth," but in disabling you as a disciple of the triumphant Lamb! We long for this edge to be obliterated at last, for the time when we shall at last say "the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." [Rev. 11:15]

All this being the case, it changes the way we see, for example, our daily needs. We pray differently because we learn to "want" differently, for ourselves, and for our loved ones. Just as seeing Revelation as a discipleship book changes the way you read and understand its rich content, seeing the Jesus prayer as a discipleship prayer (and ourselves as disciples) changes the way we pray. It changes the way we want. It changes our hopes and dreams and the desires of our hearts. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who is in the disciple-making business. That just happens to be one of the ways God is working out his kingdom plan.

In the next few posts I'm going to take the four requests laid out in the second half of the prayer of Jesus (provision, forgiveness, protection from temptation, protection from the evil one), and expand on how these things fit in our prayer-life as discipleship.

Final note: you might think that, since I'm quoting Darrell Johnson and all, I might at least quote his book on the Lord's prayer, called Fifty-Seven Words that Change the World: A Journey through the Lord's Prayer. All I can say is, it's in the mail.

The Jesus Prayer is a Missional Prayer

Our part in God's mission, says Leslie Newbigin in The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission, is threefold: to announce the Kingdom of God, to share in the life of Jesus, and to do the work of the Spirit. Although I haven't read Newbigin's classic text (it's on my list), I do think this little triad seems a good way to think about discipleship.

In my last post on praying in the way that Jesus taught, I tried to emphasize that the Jesus prayer of Matthew 6 was essentially a prayer of discipleship. A disciple is a follower of Jesus and, as Dallas Willard says, a student of Jesus. The Jesus prayer is the way of Jesus in prayer, his way of thinking through his "prayer needs." The prayer of Jesus shows us what was most important to Jesus, and what was the context in which he embedded all his intercession. The context was this: May your kingdom come, Father. Now. All the way. Forever.

That's the vision behind "hallowed be your name." It's the vision behind "on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus is not talking about hints and foretastes here, or about a really great worship set at church. He is talking about the Great Day that will be the end of days as we know it, and the beginning of something we oh so inadequately call "glory." That this day should come, ever, should be the dream of every Christian, and it is the mission of God to bring it to pass.

But short of that, short of the fullness of time and heavenly trumpets, every eye seeing, every knee bowing, the prayer of Jesus is for the four fundamental needs that will allow us to take our part in this great mission of God as it unfolds through history. These are: provision (daily needs), an attitude of forgiveness, power to overcome temptation, and protection from the evil one. These four needs correspond to four conditions that threaten our ability to carry out our mission as disciples (that is, to take our place in the mission of God). These four conditions are: want, bitterness, weakness with regard to temptation, and fear with regard to the evil one. Want, bitterness, weakness, and fear.

Jesus is telling his disciples to pray against these conditions, which can undermine their own part in the unfolding plan of God. To take our place in the plan is to proclaim the arrival of his kingdom, share the life of Jesus with others, and keep in step with the Spirit. That is the mission of the Christian. And so our fundamental reason for praying is to be that kind of disciple, for the sake of the kingdom. It's the way Jesus prayed, and the way he taught his disciples to pray. He wants us to take our place, and do our part, in the unfolding mystery of the kingdom of God.

Praying for the Kingdom of God

In this recent post I talked about how the Lord's prayer, as it is called, provides a format for intercession that keeps us from being self-absorbed in our prayers. Now I want to say something more.

When I pray, I try to pray in this format, starting out by focusing on the kingdom of God, thinking about the kingdom and longing for it to come at last in fullness and glory; and then, with some sense of kingdom-wonder lingering in my thoughts, I move on to the second half of the Jesus format: personal provision, forgiveness, protection from temptation and the evil one. Sometimes I focus more on one of these than the others, but I try always to start with the kingdom.

When we pray "may your kingdom come," we're praying for the biggest most momentous event we can ever imagine happening. We're praying that today, in our presence, Revelation 21 would happen. Here's just a sample of what that will be like:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Folks, this prayer is not about having a good day, getting along with your boss, getting good grades in school, or getting over your sore throat. It's a prayer for ultimate things, and when it comes, we will be on our faces in holy fear. When you begin here, you move on to other things with a certain sense of "perspective."

But maybe the prayer for ultimate things will not be answered today. Maybe the New Jerusalem is still not yet. Maybe today will be like all the days that have come before. Well then, short of the kingdom of God in fullness, what should be our deepest desire for today? How about, at the very least, a foretaste of that kingdom. An inkling. A sense of what the Holy Spirit of God is doing around you. Paul mentions this in Ephesians 1:13-14, where he speaks of the Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance. That is, a down-payment today of the kingdom-fullness that is to come.

What does that look like? Well, I believe it looks like "daily bread." and it looks like an ongoing attitude of repentance and forgiveness. And it looks like temptation overcome and protection from the lies, slander, and threats of the evil one. In other words, the rest of the Jesus prayer is a prayer for a little more of the kingdom now until the not yet finally comes in fullness.

So the Jesus prayer is a prayer for the kingdom from start to finish. It's an awesome prayer, a prayer for things far above our full understanding, a prayer for beauty and light and every tear disposed of and hopelessness obliterated and all sin done away with. The lamb is on the throne, and a river of life runs from there to all the nations. But it is also a prayer that positions us on the cutting edge of what God is doing in his world. It's the prayer, in other words (and I can't emphasize this enough), of a disciple.

On putting the kingdom first

I've been thinking about the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples to pray, recorded in Matthew 6. It occurs to me that we almost never pray this way, at least when we pray in groups. When I was a small group leader, we always had a prayer time, and I always asked people about their "prayer needs." Putting it that way is practically an invitation to think of prayer as self-absorbed pleading before God. And that's what we did. We prayed for healing, for jobs, for relationships, for emotional health, for safety on journeys, for communication skills, relief of stress and on an on.

None of that was exactly wrong. That is not my point. But notice how Jesus teaches us to pray, and then think again about how we prayed in our small group. Here's the Jesus prayer:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

There are ten lines in this little poem-like prayer. The first five embody a longing for the Kingdom of God. That's what the whole first half of the prayer is about. Only then does the prayer turn to immediate personal needs of the one doing the praying, and I would add they are as much spiritual needs as temporal.

Note: the prayer is not an encouragement to self-absorption. It is not a litany of personal needs. More importantly, it puts first things first. The need above all other needs, the supreme subject of prayer, we might say, is the Kingdom. "Your kingdom come." The personal prayer requests (such as "daily bread," which is a far cry, by the way, from praying for prosperity) come after, and within the kingdom context.

I learn to understand my real need, when I see this prayer aright. When "your kingdom come" becomes the primary point--the overarching context--of my prayer, I will long for that coming whether I have a job or not, whether I'm sick or well, etc. I will readily pray for work and health, of course, but not apart from the prayer for what truly matters--God's kingdom.

In our small group, we rushed right to the second half of the prayer, with hardly a thought for the kingdom of God. My guess is that if we will set our minds on the kingdom, it will change the way we pray for ourselves.

What say you?