Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers E-Book

Shane Claiborne

• Herausgeber: IVP
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Seitenzahl: 158

Beschreibung

"Prayer is not so much about convincing God to do what we want God to do as it is about convincing ourselves to do what God wants us to do." —from the Introduction Activists Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove show how prayer and action must go together. Their exposition of key Bible passages provides concrete examples of how a life of prayer fuels social engagement and the work of justice. Phrases like "give us this day our daily bread" and "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" take on new meaning when applied to feeding the hungry or advocating for international debt relief. If you hope to see God change society, you must be an ordinary radical who prays—and then is ready to become the answer to your own prayers.

Leseprobe

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Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers

Prayer for Ordinary Radicals

Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

www.IVPress.com/books

A man comes across an ancient enemy, beaten and left for dead. He lifts the wounded man onto the back of a donkey and takes him to an inn to tend to the man’s recovery. Jesus tells this story and instructs those who are listening to “go and do likewise.”

Likewise books explore a compassionate, active faith lived out in real time. When we’re skeptical about the status quo, Likewise books challenge us to create culture responsibly. When we’re confused about who we are and what we’re supposed to be doing, Likewise books help us listen for God’s voice. When we’re discouraged by the troubled world we’ve inherited, Likewise books encourage us to hold onto hope.

In this life we will face challenges that demand our response. Likewise books face those challenges with us so we can act on faith.

likewisebooks.com

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InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com E-mail: [email protected]

© 2008 by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at www.intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.

Design: Cindy Kiple Images: Kamil Vojnar/Getty Images

ISBN 978-0-8308-7820-8

For our mommas, who keep praying

Contents

Introduction

Part One—THE LORD’S PRAYER

1. An Invitation to Beloved Community

2. Begging for God's Economy

3. Temptations Along the Way

Part Two—JOHN

4. Love and Unity for the Sake of the World

5. Praying as a Peculiar Peopl

Part Three—EPHESIANS 1:15-

6. Growing Deeper in Spiritual Wisdom

7. Receiving Our Inheritance

Epilogue

Notes

About the Authors (and Their Communities)

Endorsements

Introduction

This is a book about prayer. But it’s not really about how to pray. There are lots of good books to help you learn to pray. This one is about becoming the answer to our prayers.

We live in inner-city communities that are usually known for their activism, not their prayer life. In fact, writing this book has been a discipline, as we try to listen amid all the noise of wildly busy lives, and speak nothing more or less than we hear God speaking to us. On good days, it has felt like there were three of us writing together.

We know we need prayer. Like roses need water, we need a connection to God that sustains, guides and makes us into something beautiful. As students at Eastern College, outside of Philadelphia, we fell in love with God’s vision for a kingdom on earth where the weak find justice and there are no longer any poor. Learning from friends in the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), we relocated to neglected neighborhoods and helped start The Simple Way (Philadelphia) and Rutba House (Durham, North Carolina), communities of hospitality and peacemaking. The daily struggle to put our hope in God’s light despite the darkness of inner-city blight has driven us to conversation with God. We want to understand prayer because we know we can’t live without it.

For many of us who live active lives among the poor and marginalized, prayer doesn’t make the top of the urgent to-do list. After all, wouldn’t God rather have us feed the masses, help a kid with homework, take a friend to detox, heal the broken or liberate the captive? Surely Amos tells the people of God to shut up with their songs and worship and feasts and festivals, and take care of the poor (Amos 5:21-24). Without justice for the poor, religious activities are little more than annoying noise in the ears of God, and the prayers that used to smell like incense to God become a nauseating stench when there is no flesh bringing those prayers to life.

This is all true. And yet we have seen many a “radical” Christian suffocate, entangled in the weeds of injustice. Even entire “intentional Christian communities” are flailing because they have not learned to pray together. Many of us have a sour taste in our mouths from corny Christian retail, like the signs that say “The family that prays together stays together.” We admit that it’s often easier to complain (or write a book) than it is to pray. We ourselves confess feeling tired, confused, annoyed, even counterfeit in our prayers.

This is not a book about the kind of prayer where we tell God things God already knows, as if Jesus needs a reminder that kids are dying in Sudan. Nor are we talking about the kind of prayer that excuses us from responsibility. Any time we ask someone for help and hear “I’ll pray about that,” we know to start working on plan B. As our friend John Perkins from CCDA says, “When you see someone who needs a handicap ramp, don’t go pray for a ramp! Build them a ramp.”

When we pray to God asking, “Why don’t you do something?” we hear a gentle whisper respond, “I did do something. I made you.” Prayer is important. Just as important is the call to become the answer to our prayers.

We have so much to unlearn before we learn.

Our friend Tony Campolo tells the story of his grandson going off to say his evening prayers. The boy said, “Hey everybody, I’m going to pray, does anyone want anything?”

Many of us started off this life praying simple little prayers, trying to ask God to do the things we want. “Take care of Mommy.” “Help me not get caught taking cookies.” “Help us find our lost puppy.” “Help us win the game.” No doubt, God has a special ear for the prayers of children, even the silly ones asking for girlfriends and the opportunity to be a cowboy. It’s a good thing the Spirit intercedes on our behalf, stepping in to protect us from what we think we want and helping us not to settle for what we think we need. It’s as if the Spirit says, “Look I know he said he wanted to be a cowboy, but . . .” The longer we pray, the more we are sure of this: Prayer is not so much about convincing God to do what we want God to do as it is about convincing ourselves to do what God wants us to do.

Mother Teresa was once asked in an interview, “What do you say when you pray?” She replied, “Nothing, I just listen.” So then the reporter asked, “Well then, what does God say to you?” Her answer: “Nothing much, He just listens.”

The saints say prayer is less about what we say and more about being with the one we love. Prayer is about having a romance with the Divine. The more deeply we are in love with someone, the less we have to say. In fact, a sure sign that we know someone deeply is the ability to enjoy one another without words—to simply admire each other.

We once heard a wise elder say prayer is like a little girl playing at the feet of her grandma. She doesn’t have to say anything or do anything to please her grandma (who is quite content just watching her play). And the most beautiful moment is when the child starts to grow tired. She just crawls into grandma’s lap to be rocked, to hear a lullaby, to feel a kiss on the forehead and the warm embrace of love.

We love these images of prayer as a deep and intimate relationship with God. When we sit back and think about prayer in a quiet moment, this is just the sort of experience we long for. But it’s hard to remember these images—harder still to imagine what they could look like in the face of urgent needs and tragic loss. It’s hard to know what it looks like to be a contemplative in the’ hood.

Here’s the good news: prayer and action can go together; in fact they must. Otherwise we have little more than a bunch of inactive believers or worn-out activists, and neither do much good for the world. But not all of us are mystics and saints like Francis and Mother Teresa. For some of us, it’s hard to know where to begin talking about prayer. So we have turned to Jesus. Beginning with the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, we ask in part one of this book what it looks like to make the Lord’s Prayer a model for daily life. While rooted in the intimacy of children talking to their Father, this prayer is as practical as putting food on the table, paying the bills, getting along with neighbors and wrestling with our egos. As we learn to reimagine the everyday in light of Jesus’ prayer, we begin to live in a whole new world.

Part two focuses on Jesus’ prayer for the church in John 17. It’s one thing to say that prayer invites us into a way of life. But we still have to name the distinctive nature of the way that Jesus walked. If the church is the body of Christ, then we are called to continue in this way. John 17 offers guidance for how we can do that.

But we’ve already noted the difficulty of making prayer happen. We need something deeper than know-how and practice. We need the spiritual wisdom of those who’ve walked with Jesus—those who have grown in intimacy with Jesus while becoming the answer to their prayers. In part three we’ve listened carefully to the wisdom of the saints. We invite you to join us in chasing after Jesus with them.

Thank God, saints were there to teach us the words of prayer before we knew what we were doing. Because the prayers of others are so important, we’ve scattered some of our favorites on the pages of this book. These prayers are usually more important than what we have to say, so we hope you’ll pause to pray these prayers with us.

This book is dedicated to our mommas who’ve prayed some long nights—and keep praying for us.

Part One

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today 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 the evil one,

for yours is the kingdom

and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

1 An Invitation to Beloved Community

Evidently Jesus didn’t have a set curriculum for the 101 course he taught the first disciples. Jesus never said, “Sign up for my course on prayer and I’ll teach you how to talk to God.” Instead, Jesus announced a new kingdom with words and signs. Despite his lack of a military or political power, Jesus insisted that his ministry was about a new social order that was good news to the poor and downtrodden. To anyone who would listen, Jesus said, “Follow me.” Those who did found themselves caught up in an adventure.

Not far into the journey, though, those first disciples realized their need for prayer. Jesus didn’t have to tell them. They saw Jesus praying, and they knew they needed some of what he had. “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).

We feel a little bit like those first disciples. By God’s grace, we stumbled into the adventure of God’s kingdom and gave our lives to Jesus. We were eager to learn the Scriptures and even more enthusiastic about living them out with our whole lives. Not long into this journey, though, we realized that faithfulness requires something we just don’t have on our own. The people who did seem to have it were our elders and mentors who knew how to pray. The disciples’ desire was ours, and their question drove us to pay attention to Jesus’ response. We started saying the Lord’s Prayer every day.

The first word of the Lord’s Prayer is Our. That’s important. The prayer Jesus taught us is a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new kind of people who have left the land of “me.” This new humanity is an exodus people who have entered a promised land of “we,” to whom “I” and “mine” and “my” are things of the past. Here our God teaches us the interconnectedness of grace and liberation in a new social order. Here we are judged inasmuch as we judge, and forgiven as we forgive.

The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and he begins with “Our Father.” The Son is calling out to the Father, and the Spirit is interceding for us—a brilliant image of the divine community that declared, “Let us make human beings in our image” (Genesis 1:26). And so we too are made in the image of community. It’s our deepest thirst. We are created to love and to be loved. The biblical story begins and ends with community.

When humanity is created, it is not good for one human to be alone, but it is good for humans to help each other. It was community that Jesus taught and lived with his disciples, never sending them out alone. His longest prayer (John 17) is that we would be one as the Father and Son are one. And his promise to us is that the Spirit will be among us, whenever two or three of us gather together. When the Spirit fell upon the early church at Pentecost, there was a divine harmony of foreign tongues and a reconciled community that shared all their possessions in common. The biblical narrative ends with the coming of the New Jerusalem, the City of God, a new heaven and a new earth where all of creation is reconciled, and the lion and the lamb lie down together. Our God is a communal God.

And yet so much in the world tries to rob us of this divine gift, seducing us to settle for independence over interdependence—security over sacrifice—to the point that community looks idealistic and spectacular. We express our deep hunger for belonging through such forms of community as nationalism, biological family, marriage or small group Bible study. And there is some good in all of these. Like appetizers, they give us little glimpses of community. But we often don’t make it to the feast. We stop short of the great community that God has invited us into.

ST. PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE

I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through the belief in the threeness, Through confession of the oneness Of the Creator of Creation.

This book is an invitation to join the feast already taking place at the table of our Lord—by becoming the answer to the prayers Scripture teaches us to pray. Jesus established a community in his resurrected body. “This is my body, broken for you” is a physical reminder that we have been baptized into Christ’s body. As living members of that body, we speak Christ’s words. Praying the Lord’s Prayer as members of the church is inviting God to make us what we already are—the beloved community of a new humanity.

Our Father in Heaven

Jesus’ prayer does not begin with us or our needs—not even our confessions or our big dreams for the kingdom (though all of these are important and will follow). The prayer begins with a transcendent God beyond the boundaries of this world, whose name is so hallowed that it is not even mentioned. Instead of a name for God, we are given a characteristic of God. God is Father—our Father.[1]

For the young disciples, father was a role loaded with meaning—not just a person but a social construct. Fathers were the authorities, the providers and the sustainers of life in a male-dominated culture. But the words Jesus dares to teach us also retain an element of intimacy, love and admiration, especially when Jesus uses the familiar Abba. We cannot keep God at a safe distance as “King” or “Lord.” The One whose name cannot be spoken is drawing close to us. Jesus dares to call the transcendent one “Papa.” What is more, Jesus teaches us to do the same.

There’s a beautiful place in the Gospels where Jesus lets the disciples in on a family secret:

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:29-31)

Jesus assures us that as we leave our possessions and family in allegiance to God’s kingdom, we will enter a new household of abundance. But when you look closely, there is a difference between the two nearly identical lists. First, there is an additional “bonus” in the second list—persecutions! Persecutions will come to us when we choose an economic order different from the pattern of the world.

But there is also an omission from the second list—fathers.As we are reborn, we leave our biological families. Now we have sisters and brothers and mothers all over the world. And yet Mark’s omission of fathers is very intentional, consistent with Christ’s teaching: “do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). In an age when fathers were seen as the lifeline of the family, the seemingly indispensable authority and providential center-piece, Jesus suggests that we have one Father. Only God is worthy to be seen as Father, the Provider and Authority (and, of course, King).