Today's Scripture Reading
James 2: 14-26 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
I have been reading With Open Hands by Henri J.M. Nouwen. It is a book about prayer. Nouwen draws the reader into a serious self-examination of what prayer means.
Nouwen invites us to take a good deeper look into our relationship to God through prayer.
Are we hanging on to things from God with "clenched fists"? (Chapter 1).
There are many points that have been very moving for me while reading this book. However, the most recent chapter 4: Prayer and Compassion struck me. What is written in that chapter appeared to be making a new connection for me to today's New Testament Reading from James for use with the Daily Office.
To the point about prayer and compassion I want to use the following from Nouwen's book.
After I read this, my mind drifted to all of the times I read something from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) or the Family Research Council (FRC) for example, and just burn with rage at what they said. I have at times allowed what they've written to drive me to near depression. I am at the point where I no longer read those things regularly, because of how much they drive me down.
What Nouwen wrote here and what I believe James may be challenging us to do, is to align our faith with our work. Earlier in James 1:22-25, we read about the idea of being doers of the word and not hearers only is like looking in a mirror. What we do with what we pray and read, is a reflection of who we really are and what we are really doing. A mirror large enough, not only shows you a reflection of yourself, but also everything you do while glancing into that mirror.
If all we do is read or listen to what those who say the most horrific things about women, liberals, LGBT people etc and react only, then, sad to say, we are no better than they are. What they say and think, is some thing many of us said or thought before we came out of our own closets and accepted ourselves. Before many of us came out, we said horrific things about people who are LGBT. If we were part of a conservative Christian tradition, we probably quoted Leviticus 20:13 erroneously, and/or maliciously. Many of us closeted gay men, struggled what to do about that crush we had on a classmate in school, while telling ourselves we would go to hell if we ever did anything physical about it.
While we must not "make peace with oppression" and just hear things like these passively, we can do some work from our faith in these moments. We can pray with compassion for those who speak as we once spoke. We can receive them into our prayers with compassion from a point of hospitality to seek healing and reconciliation for them and ourselves. We can identify with their weaknesses and look carefully at our own attitudes of prejudice towards others for whom we may still harbor some kind of bias that we would rather ignore. Through our prayers for them with compassion, we can experience the compassion of our God coming to touch those places in our lives that need to be mended and made holy.
If we will only take some time to make use of this exercise, we will find even our anger and depression, giving way to love for Christ above all else, and honoring God in even our adversaries. We are all on the same journey, even if we are approaching them from very different directions. God is as much their destiny as God is ours.
Who are we willing to pray for with compassion today?
Prayer
James 2: 14-26 (NRSV)
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
Blog Reflection
I have been reading With Open Hands by Henri J.M. Nouwen. It is a book about prayer. Nouwen draws the reader into a serious self-examination of what prayer means.
Praying...demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched. (p.19)
Nouwen invites us to take a good deeper look into our relationship to God through prayer.
Are we hanging on to things from God with "clenched fists"? (Chapter 1).
There are many points that have been very moving for me while reading this book. However, the most recent chapter 4: Prayer and Compassion struck me. What is written in that chapter appeared to be making a new connection for me to today's New Testament Reading from James for use with the Daily Office.
To the point about prayer and compassion I want to use the following from Nouwen's book.
Compassion goes beyond distance and exclusiveness.
Compassion grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you. This partnership cuts through all walls which might have kept you separate. Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created form teh same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compassion you can say, "In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh; their blood is my blood; their pain is my pain; their smile is my smile. Their ability to torture is in me too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself. There is nothing in them that does not belong to me, too. In my heart, I know their yearning for love and down to my entrails, I can feel their cruelty. In another's eyes, I see my plea for forgiveness and in a hardened frown, I see my refusal. When someone murders, I know that I too could have murdered, and when someone gives birth, I know that I am capable of birth as well. In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and hate, life and death (p.92,93).
After I read this, my mind drifted to all of the times I read something from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) or the Family Research Council (FRC) for example, and just burn with rage at what they said. I have at times allowed what they've written to drive me to near depression. I am at the point where I no longer read those things regularly, because of how much they drive me down.
What Nouwen wrote here and what I believe James may be challenging us to do, is to align our faith with our work. Earlier in James 1:22-25, we read about the idea of being doers of the word and not hearers only is like looking in a mirror. What we do with what we pray and read, is a reflection of who we really are and what we are really doing. A mirror large enough, not only shows you a reflection of yourself, but also everything you do while glancing into that mirror.
If all we do is read or listen to what those who say the most horrific things about women, liberals, LGBT people etc and react only, then, sad to say, we are no better than they are. What they say and think, is some thing many of us said or thought before we came out of our own closets and accepted ourselves. Before many of us came out, we said horrific things about people who are LGBT. If we were part of a conservative Christian tradition, we probably quoted Leviticus 20:13 erroneously, and/or maliciously. Many of us closeted gay men, struggled what to do about that crush we had on a classmate in school, while telling ourselves we would go to hell if we ever did anything physical about it.
While we must not "make peace with oppression" and just hear things like these passively, we can do some work from our faith in these moments. We can pray with compassion for those who speak as we once spoke. We can receive them into our prayers with compassion from a point of hospitality to seek healing and reconciliation for them and ourselves. We can identify with their weaknesses and look carefully at our own attitudes of prejudice towards others for whom we may still harbor some kind of bias that we would rather ignore. Through our prayers for them with compassion, we can experience the compassion of our God coming to touch those places in our lives that need to be mended and made holy.
If we will only take some time to make use of this exercise, we will find even our anger and depression, giving way to love for Christ above all else, and honoring God in even our adversaries. We are all on the same journey, even if we are approaching them from very different directions. God is as much their destiny as God is ours.
Who are we willing to pray for with compassion today?
Prayer
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love
our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth:
deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in
your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for our Enemies, Book of Common Prayer, p. 816).
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know
you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend
us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that
we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of
any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. (Prayer for Peace, Book of Common Prayer, p. 99).
No comments:
Post a Comment