A Parable on Prayer

God is Just and Merciful

Justice and Sabbath Laws

Luke 18:1-8 The Message (MSG)

The Story of the Persistent Widow
18 1-3 Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit. He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him: ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me!’
4-5 “He never gave her the time of day. But after this went on and on he said to himself, ‘I care nothing what God thinks, even less what people think. But because this widow won’t quit badgering me, I’d better do something and see that she gets justice—otherwise, I’m going to end up beaten black-and-blue by her pounding.’”
6-8 Then the Master said, “Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think God won’t step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?”

For Reflection

The judge served justice to a widow.  He did not do so out of love, or mercy. He did it for selfish reasons.  He calculated his personal return on his action. So, Jesus suggests, if a man who does not know God understands the value of justice then how much more will God understand and act justly.  

Pray

Pray for justice, and God will show you the way to just action.

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Jesus Affirmed as Son of Man

God is Just and Merciful

Justice and Sabbath Laws

Matthew 16:13-20 The Message

Son of Man, Son of God

13 When Jesus arrived in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”
15 He pressed them, “And how about you? Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17-18 Jesus came back, “God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn’t get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I’m going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.
19 “And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.”
20 He swore the disciples to secrecy. He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah.

For Reflection

Who is this Christ, this Messiah? From the beginning of Judaism, God's people have been waiting for a messiah.  Several leaders have been called messiah. But this messiah, Jesus, was different. This messiah removed the barrier between God and humans.  This messiah did not save the people from their enemies. This messiah showed the people how to save themselves and free themselves from the darkness of their human condition.  Only Christ has demonstrated how to gain free access to God's Kingdom.  Only through Christ has God shown how to become equivalent in form to Him, free from the fear of living and fear of dying. Christ was and is now the archetype of human perfection. And only Christ has revealed the way to living in perfect harmony with God, God's creation, and each other.


That which Christ has revealed to Peter, he revealed to all of us. God made us complete in God's image.  Christ shows us the path to perfection.

Pray

Pray prayers of praise and thanksgiving for our God who is willing to share God's creation with and through us.  Pray so that you will see the light of divine wisdom and the beauty of following the example of Jesus. 

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God's Tree of Justice for All

God is Just and Merciful

Parables of God's JustKingdom

Ezekiel 17:22-24 The Message

22-24 “‘God, the Master, says, I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain, on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow, putting out branches and fruit—a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They’ll build nests in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God, said it—and I did it.’”

For Reflection

God created it all. Ezekiel, in these passages, tells us that what God has created is linked in a network of co-dependent relationships. The earth, the plants, and the creatures are inter-woven into a cosmic whole. Our existence is a beautiful melody, extravagantly orchestrated in a magnificent and complex symphony. God is the producer and Christ, the conductor, God's shoot, God made visible, the hidden truths revealed, the hope restored, the lost found, and the afflicted comforted.

Pray

Pray so that you will find rest in the shade of God's love.

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Rehearse the Deeds of the Lord

God is Just and Merciful

Justice and Sabbath Laws

Psalm 78:1-8 The Message 

An Asaph Psalm

78 1-4 Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,
    bend your ears to what I tell you.
I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;
    I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,
Stories we heard from our fathers,
    counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.
We’re not keeping this to ourselves,
    we’re passing it along to the next generation—
God’s fame and fortune,
    the marvelous things he has done.
5-8 He planted a witness in Jacob,
    set his Word firmly in Israel,
Then commanded our parents
    to teach it to their children
So the next generation would know,
    and all the generations to come—
Know the truth and tell the stories
    so their children can trust in God,
Never forget the works of God
    but keep his commands to the letter.
Heaven forbid they should be like their parents,
    bullheaded and bad,
A fickle and faithless bunch
    who never stayed true to God.

For Reflection

For all of us who worship God and follow Christ, there has been someone who has influenced our decision. It may be a single person that stands out or it may be many people to whom you can point that have mentored your faith. For over three thousand years, since the founding of a monotheistic faith the love and trust in God has been passed from generation to generation. Through out all of its permutations, the worship of God and abiding in God's grace has been consistent. We believers who are entrusted with this precious gift of God are also entrusted with its perpetuation.

Our commission is to know the truths of our God and to pass the sacred knowledge of God and God's will for humankind to the next generation so that they may abide in the Word and pass their commitment and fervor to others.

Pray

Pray by acting upon your faith.  Be kind so that our children know kindness.  Be loving so that our children know how to love. Be just so that our children know justice. Be giving so that our children know how to give. Make you life a sacrifice to the love of God so that our children are free to choose a God-centered life of joy.

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Deliver Justice for the Oppressed

God is Just and Merciful

Justice and Sabbath Laws

Psalm 10:12-18 The Message

12-13 Time to get up, God—get moving.
    The luckless think they’re Godforsaken.
They wonder why the wicked scorn God
    and get away with it,
Why the wicked are so cocksure
    they’ll never come up for audit.
14 But you know all about it—
    the contempt, the abuse.
I dare to believe that the luckless
    will get lucky someday in you.
You won’t let them down:
    orphans won’t be orphans forever.
15-16 Break the wicked right arms,
    break all the evil left arms.
Search and destroy
    every sign of crime.
God’s grace and order wins;
    godlessness loses.
17-18 The victim’s faint pulse picks up;
    the hearts of the hopeless pump red blood
    as you put your ear to their lips.
Orphans get parents,
    the homeless get homes.
The reign of terror is over,
    the rule of the gang lords is ended

For Reflection

Perhaps the key to understanding this Psalm lies in verses 15 and 16.  The psalmist is not talking about physically breaking arms.  The right arm is a symbol of giving to others. The left arm represents the act of balancing the altruism of the right arm. It is that act of a parent who helps a child learn to walk and has the wisdom to let the child fall during his first steps.

The psalmist is criticising those who falsely show concern for others but hide the self-indulgent motive behind it.  He is speaking about breaking those actions that manipulate the loving and merciful acts of helping and correcting. The wicked distort the truth to exploit one's desire to do good things in ways that will isolate one from the will of God.

Even though the wicked seem to go unpunished and the righteous suffer, God will not let those who seek him to be blinded by the temporal seductions of life. But through God's grace, those who choose the path of abiding in God's love will find peace even through the worst of times.

Pray

Pray, study scripture and build up your forces to resist false claims of pleasure.  Pray so that you will seek the treasures that God's has in store for you.

The Father and I Are Working

God is Just and Merciful

Justice and Sabbath Laws

John 5:9-18 The Message

8-9 Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.
9-10 That day happened to be the Sabbath. The Jews stopped the healed man and said, “It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry your bedroll around. It’s against the rules.”
11 But he told them, “The man who made me well told me to. He said, ‘Take your bedroll and start walking.’”
12-13 They asked, “Who gave you the order to take it up and start walking?” But the healed man didn’t know, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd.
14 A little later Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “You look wonderful! You’re well! Don’t return to a sinning life or something worse might happen.”
15-16 The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. That is why the Jews were out to get Jesus—because he did this kind of thing on the Sabbath.
17 But Jesus defended himself. “My Father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath. So am I.”
18 That really set them off. The Jews were now not only out to expose him; they were out to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was calling God his own Father, putting himself on a level with God.

For Reflection

This story illustrates not only the uselessness of the Sabbath rules it points out that the healed man was not only physically healed but spiritually healed as well. The warning that something unpleasant would happen was not that God would deliver death blows if the man returned to a life that separated him from God. It was that unpleasantness would be a natural result of beliefs or actions which were inconsistent with a loving relationship with God. 

It was not only from his physical infirmity that the man suffered and was healed.  He was also healed from his spiritual blindness. His infirmity was a part of his human condition. His spiritual infirmity resulted from his inability to see beyond his circumstance into God's intent for his life, his purpose for being. Jesus warns that the results of disturbing a right relationship with God are far more harmful than physical sufferings.

Pray

Pray so that you will be able to see beyond your corporeal existence into God's will for you in God's kingdom.

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The Sabbath is for Merciful Acts

God is Just and Merciful

Justice and Sabbath Laws

Luke 14:1-6 The Message

14 1-3 One time when Jesus went for a Sabbath meal with one of the top leaders of the Pharisees, all the guests had their eyes on him, watching his every move. Right before him there was a man hugely swollen in his joints. So Jesus asked the religion scholars and Pharisees present, “Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath? Yes or no?”
4-6 They were silent. So he took the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Then he said, “Is there anyone here who, if a child or animal fell down a well, wouldn’t rush to pull him out immediately, not asking whether or not it was the Sabbath?” They were stumped. There was nothing they could say to that.

For Reflection

God created the Sabbath so that the people of God would rest from their physical labors and become refreshed.  It was a time for reflecting on the gifts of God, worship, and contemplation.  It was the one time in a busy schedule where believers could study, discuss, and listen for the Word.
Institutionalizing the practice brought various rules on how Sabbath activity was to be conducted.  These rules refocused the believers on the ritual of the Sabbath and bled attention from the intent of Sabbath.  One can follow the rules without thought and think that their righteous behavior guaranteed entry into God's Kingdom. This outcome is another example of how rules create an empty relationship with God, doing all the right stuff for the wrong reason.

Pray

Pray not out of fear but out of love.  Pray with your action. As you give to others, your also give to God.

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