waking up

Do you get puffed up?

There are many times I find myself talking, and people listening to me. It’s good a lot of times, because I think I have things to say. Especially in the area of spiritual things and theology. But even if it was completely true, is that something I want? My ability to articulate things of value makes me feel good, but I think, deep down, it keeps me from facing my insecurity, that I won’t be cool or liked if I don’t open my mouth all the time and say something brilliant, listening just enough for my time to chime in. It’s kind of crazy, because what else could be more worthwhile, though… talking about things and relating them to God? I find it very easy to allow my inclination towards teaching others become my worth. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with talking about how your life reflects God or how it doesn’t, and letting that speak to others in whatever place they’re in, but it becomes something else when you get some kind of addictive satisfaction from it.

I believe growing up in church formed contributed largely to this, because more often than not, I find myself in circles that appreciate the things I’ve gained through it, allowing the value of getting the “right answer” and being somewhat of a favorite of the Sunday School teacher to get to my head. Thus, this tendency towards a “puffed up” attitude. It’s vicious, because it’s subtle. I don’t even know if my motive to write this post was pure or not.

***
Matthew 8:5-13

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”

Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

***

I like this story a lot, because the centurion embraces Jesus so simply. Jesus ends up commending him.

Do I embrace the simplicity of following Christ? Do I allow my relationship with Him be enough for me?

This issue with me talking is really a tip-of-the-iceberg type of thing. Embracing Jesus, taking Him at His word is the real problem, and it becomes obvious the moment I see where I am addicted to pleasing myself.

It’s funny, because God is supposed to have pleasure over us solely on the basis of what Jesus did.

Can I discipline myself to receive God’s pleasure over my own flesh, the commendation of man? To be a child, to simply trust, and not worry…

Man, it’s so simple.

Hosanna!

I was recently turned on to a song through Jaeson Ma’s blog.

“Hosanna” by Brooke Fraser… what a powerful song. It really rocks out, which is awesome, cuz this chick plays guitar and piano and stuff, too, which is very spexy, but I learned a little bit more about her as a person when I looked for the lyrics to this song.

Apparently, she was a pop star in New Zealand when she was 19… like her songs topped the charts. Her music has always had this faith component as well, but when I looked up her name, I found that she had a MySpace. She apparently underwent a personal transformation after visiting Rwanda, and is committed to making music to bring awareness and inspiration for global change. Anyway, she appears with Hillsong United for this song in this worship video on YouTube. And I thought… “Wow, how profound. She is like this entity somewhat outside the Christian market, and here she is, appearing in a very Christian place.”

I tried to imagine who else would have a similar effect here in America. Then I thought, what if Sufjan Stevens came and led a song he wrote in your church’s worship service? Or how about Bono? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

I get this sense that worship music has lost a bit of its relevance, at least for me. And, in a sense, we need to support people like this (who are making an impact in the marketplace with Jesus in their hearts), that as they continually lift up the Name in the real world, they might lift up the rest of us along with them. They show us a bit more of what it looks like
to live out Christ in a world that is somewhat post-Christian, and I want to pay attention to them. They make me want to be a better artist, more honest, more in tune, and free to create, free to reflect the image of God.

***

One of the things that caught my attention in this song was simply the word, “Hosanna.” We have used it often in our worship, but what does it really mean?

Apparently, it originally meant, “Save now!” or something like “Save, I pray!” in the Hebrew Scriptures… and it became a part of the liturgy they used in their worship. This developed into a way of acknowleding that our ultimate salvation is only in God and His Messiah… so it is sort of like a prayer and a praise at the same time. It acknowledges that our situation is desperate yet hopeful. I think it is a powerful word.

“Hosanna in the highest!” is a way of calling all (especially those in the highest reaches of the heavenly realms) to beseech God for salvation.

We should use this word, and by it, acknowledge that we are continually in tension between how things are and how they should should be.

Today I wanted to break out of a spiritual rut I felt like I had been stuck in for a while. I sorta felt like my mind was clouded with junk about what I have to do in this next minute or so. Maybe I am just plain disorganized… hehe. But I think there is much more to this, because in a sense, I felt like lately, I have just been catching up to things. Running late, forgetting to call people, not being able to run errands in time for a lesson or a meeting.

The Apostle Paul tells us not to conform, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. I felt like even though I was doing a pretty bad job at conforming, I could not break this stale, running on ‘E’ kind of outlook on my life.

Today was Good Friday. Haven fasted as a community, and would break our fast together at the end of our service tonight. I pretty much never fast, so I sought to make the most out of it. After reading Bill Bright’s primer on fasting, I was pumped.

So this morning, I was looking for information on meditation/contemplative spirituality in the Christian tradition in hopes of finding some guidance on the matter, and then I came upon this prayer:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

The Jesus Prayer, also known as the Prayer of the Heart, has been, and continues to be taught throughout the Eastern Orthodox church as a profound and powerful prayer used in personal asceticism. A group of monks called hesychasts sought to pray this prayer as a means of opening themselves to receiving Divine Grace, invoking the presence of Jesus Christ.

From Wikipedia:

“The goal at this stage is a practice of the Jesus Prayer with the mind in the heart, which practice is free of images (see Pros Theodoulon). What this means is that by the exercise of sobriety (the mental ascesis against tempting thoughts), the Hesychast arrives at a continual practice of the Jesus Prayer with his mind in his heart and where his consciousness is no longer encumbered by the spontaneous inception of images: his mind has a certain stillness and emptiness that is punctuated only by the eternal repetition of the Jesus Prayer.”

I tried this.

There were times I realized a stillness so fresh, that I was praying the prayer without any words. I tried to allow my mind to sink into my heart. I don’t know if I did what they describe, but my mind seemed to forget everything except the meaning of this prayer during the most intense of moments. Then I must have forgotten to breathe, because I took my first breath in what seemed to be several seconds. The Hesychasts also warn about attempting such a thing too soon… I think they were kinda right. I could even hear my blood pumping through my ears, and I could sorta relax my heart and slow it down. It was crazy.

And then it happened…

I realized our patterns of thinking, our weekly routines, they rob us of ever believing in our need for intimacy with God. We seem to be able to accomplish a lot without ever giving God a thought as we walk out the door in the morning. Yet the early church fathers called their prayer schedule the Daily Office… that the primary work of the Christian was to be with God.

God, help me not forget You… I so need Your presence in my life.