Reflections on Christopraxis

Practice 1: Abiding Love

To practice abiding love by taking time to be with God through daily prayer, scripture reading (including lectio divina), reflection, and worship.

Key Verses: Deut. 6:4-5; Ps. 42:1-2; Matt. 6:33; Luke 6:12; 10:38-42; John 15; 1 John 3:18; Tim. 3:16-17; 1 John 4:13-17

It seems fitting the first practice should be focused on love.  Jews have recited the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6, in their morning and evening prayer services, Jesus reaffirmed this when asked what the greatest commandment was (Matt 22:37-38).

Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

We say, "Oh yes, of course, love is key," but is this our practice to love this way?  Scripture tells us we should love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all all mind.  Do we love God like this?  Do we really know how to love God like this? 

In the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Ephesians are commended for all they do but one thing:  "you abandoned the love you had at first."  Paul tells the Corinthians:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,  but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)

Misty Edwards sings

Love, Love, Love
It's all abut love
As simple as it sounds,
its simple, yet profound.
So many  never find it
Too busy running around.

in her song "See the Way" she sings

God is a lover, looking for a lover, so he fashioned me.
God is a lover, looking for a lover, so formed my heart.

The theme of God as the Divine Lover is found throughout the Bible.  He is the lover, and we are the beloved.  The command to love God with all our being is not a demand made by a tyrant, but rather, it is the message of our Creator, telling us we are made to love and be loved. Our response should be as the Psalmist:

      As a deer longs for flowing streams,
      so my soul longs for you, O God.
      My soul thirsts for God,
      for the living God.
      When shall I come and behold
      the face of God?  Psalm 42:1 – 2

Yet, our lives are filled with business, worries, and cares which seem to push the Divine Lover out of our lives.  Oh how the week seems to fly by!  But God says:

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:33

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.  She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:38 – 42

Yes, we are to love God with all our being, but Jesus revealed a profound aspect of this love.  He introduced us to the concept of abiding love (cf. John 15 and 17), where we have a mutually abiding relationship with God.  Theology uses the Greek word perichoresis to explain the way the three persons of the Trinity abide together, and it is this concept of perichoresis that gives us a clue to how we are to love God.  John explains it this way:

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:13 – 17

Now that is intimacy -- to have the God of the universe dwelling in us and us in Him!  This is the kind of love God desires for us. 

Before I get to some of the aspects of this practice, I would like to make a brief qualification.  Matthew 22:38-40 does not just talk about loving God.  It talks about loving our neighbors, and elsewhere, Jesus goes further to define "neighbor" to include our enemies.  Mixed up in the above verses on abiding love we also find verses about loving "one another."  It is difficult to love God without loving others.  It is my intent to cover the "one anothers" in a different practice, all its own.  With this in mind, here are some ways to engage God and abiding love.

The key is to take time to be with God, just like you would take time to be with anyone you love intimately.  I like Misty Edward's song, "What Only You Can Do."  She sings:

I'll take my cold, cold heart.
I'll take my un-renewed mind.
I'll take your Word in my hand,
and I'll give you time to come and melt me...

Thus the practice of abiding love often starts with us reading and reflecting on scripture and prayer.  Mariano Magrassi in his excellent book, Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina quotes an early Christian witness to the power of scripture to transform us and draw us near to God (cf. 2 Tim 3:16):

Reading enables us to learn what we do not know, meditation enables us to retain what we have learned, and prayer enables us to live what we have retained.  Reading Sacred Scripture confers on us two gifts: it makes the soul's understanding keener, and after snatching us from the world's vanities, it leads us to the love of God." (p. 20)

In this practice I highlight four specific activities:  scripture reading, prayer, reflection, and worship.   Volumes have been written on these activities.  I will only make the following observations here.

Regarding scripture reading. 

• Read with a listening heart.  Let the Holy Spirit speak to you, work on you, and draw you to the One who inspired the Word.  
• Read whole books, so you get the context as well as the content.
• Read as much or as little at one time as the Spirit leads.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit will have you to hovering over just one verse, and other times, you will go through a chapter or two.
• I suggest you read through the Psalms regularly, as the monastics traditionally have done.
• I also like to be working on an Old Testament and a New Testament book.
• I like to read one of the gospels regularly.
• Using the model of lectio divina, let God lead you into that place of abiding love through your reading.

Regarding prayer.  There are many ways and types of prayer.  Use them all!  You can say prayers of confession, thanksgiving, petition, intercession, contemplation, and you can just have plain, honest, conversations with God.  Again, following the model of lectio divina, allow prayer flow in response to what God speaks to you.

Regarding Reflection.  Reflection touches on the idea of a listening heart.  It can include meditation, as you ponder what you are reading and what the Holy Spirit is doing.  It can be a general reflection, such as you do in a journal, as you process through what you what God is doing.  Reflection can be taking the time to enjoy a moment of solitude or silence, or it can be taking the time to stop, and enjoy some aspect of creation.  Ultimately -- again following the pattern of lectio divina -- reflection and prayer should lead to a resting in God, traditionally called contemplation.

Regarding Worship.  I hardly feel qualified to write about worship.  Perhaps the one who has taught me most about worship is Misty Edwards (you can find her albums on iTunes).  There are perhaps as many ways and style of worshiping God as there are people.  My theology professor says the study of theology should lead to worship.  Here are some of my observations on worship.

• Worship is an act of devotion or worth-giving.
• Since we are to love with all our being, we should worship with all our being.
• Music helps me to worship. I am not very musically inclined, so I often use recorded music in my worship.
• Even though I am not very musically inclined, I find that when I play my guitar and sing that it adds a deeper dimension to my worship, if not to those hearing me (grin).
• I greatly enjoy the IHOP Prayer Room, which provides way of getting a wide variety of worship, both structured and spontaneous, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  They have been going like that for over ten years! 

Finally, I need to say a few words about frequency.  If you remember, I wanted simple, easy to remember, practices that also allowed for some assessment of my personal walk with the Lord.  After prayerful consideration, I chose to use the term "daily" in this practice, resisting the temptation to be more precise.  A general guideline of "daily" seemed reasonable.  While one could spend as little a five minutes a day, my thinking is that if we do all four of these things, daily, then it would naturally take a while.  The duration will work itself out.

That said, I personally feel that if we find it hard to practice these things, then we might ask ourselves how much time we spend watching TV, movies, checking FaceBook, watching Youtube, playing or watching our favorite sports, or doing any other such activity.  Perhaps we will find an opportunity to  re-evaluate our priorities?  I am mostly speaking to myself here, but I trust my readers will understand the point.

With this all in mind, I leave you to reflect on this prayer of Paul's for the Ephesians:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.  Ephesians 3:14 – 21

Practices: Introductory Thoughts

After writing the previous post about Mission and Vision, I have been pondering practices.  Initially, it all had to do with a desire to give my own walk with the Lord a kick-start -- more than a kick start, a steady on-going pressing toward God.  Since then, I have realized there are many aspects of this concept of practices.

My initial goal was to define a half dozen or so practices that I could do to promote a healthy spiritual walk.  I wanted something that I could remember and articulate in about 30 seconds, so it would be something I could use to do daily "status checks."  The International House of Prayer Sacred Charge was inspiring me in this endeavor, but it did not quite cover the scope of what I was looking for.  It has been a prayerful search, but I think I have some things to share.  My thinking is to blog on each practice until they are covered, giving me a chance to engage and explore them, and perhaps my readers a chance to respond as well.  First, I want to reflect a little on how I got to this point.

There has long been practices in the Christian faith.  These are often called "Spiritual Disciplines," and in the monastic traditions they might be incorporated into "Rules."  One of the oldest rules is "The Rule of St. Benedict."  This rule was written largely to define the communal life of the monastics at a time when many lived non-communally as hermits.  For about 15 centuries, this rule has shaped and influenced monastic life.  The Abbey Way Covenant Church, is a contemporary Protestant community, local to my area, that has been strongly influenced by the Benedictine tradition.

As observed above, monastic rules are by nature communal documents, which makes them someone hard to use as a guide for individuals like myself.  The Franciscans recognized early on the need to have something for lay persons who were not able to join monastic communities.  This resulted in the formation of "The Third Order" or "Secular Franciscans."  The book To Live as Franicis Lived: A Guide for Secular Franciscans is well worth reading!  My favorite retreat center, Pacem in Terris, is run by Secular Franciscans.  I have found the writings of the Benedictines, Franciscans, and other monastics, to be very helpful in my own spiritual walk.

A couple years back I was working on a model of relational discipleship with my friends Jim and Mary.  We defined some "Principles and Practices," so I went back to these to see how they might work for what I am searching for.  My first thought was that I wanted to define some principles, out of which would spring some practices, but then I realized that the "Sacred Charge" had a quantitative aspect to it that allowed for easy assessment of whether one was achieving the goal.  This seems to me to be an important aspect, so I determined that I needed something somewhat measurable.  At this point, the light went on and I realized that my blog was about "Christopraxis" -- the "practice of Christ" -- so it made sense that I should define some "practices."  

What follows comes out of all of this.  You will see that the "Sacred Charge" has influenced it, along with various other aspects of Christian life.  In some ways, these practices are a summary of what this blog has been all about.  Yet, these practices are not meant to be an exhaustive list of things to do as a Christian.  They are only meant to be a guide that pushes toward the goal of the practice of Christ. 

I will start with the first practice , Abiding Love.

Christian Mission and Vision

Today God has been impressing on me a sense of mission and vision for my life.  Out of this, will come principles and practices.   I like to allow scripture speak whenever I can, as the same Spirit that inspired the writers, continues to inspire those words as He applies it to our hearts and lives.

Jesus sums up all of scripture (the law and prophets) in the following verses:

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Matthew 22:37 – 40

Yet, I think John adds a dimension to what it means to love by telling us about abiding love.  The best way to understand this kind of love is to view it as perichoresis, the theological term meaning "mutual indwelling," which is used in Trinitarian theology.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:13 – 17  (cf. John 15, 17:21).

Together, these two sets of verses sum up the Biblical mission that God calls His people to.  When I think of "mission" I think of something we are called to do.  Our mission is to live in love.  To love God wholly and to love others, as God loves us.  Just so we do not miss the point, Jesus defined loving our neighbor in such a way to include our enemies. 

What does this love look like?  This is where we come to vision.  When I think of "vision" I think of an image or example that we are to seek to realize.   It seems to me that Paul has summed up our vision in the following simple verses:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Ephesians 5:1 – 2

Our love, and our living in love, should look like Jesus.  It should look like God's sacrificial love for us.

There are may verses that can inspire us, but it seems to me that no matter what our situation in life, no matter what part of the world we find ourselves in, and no matter how we are uniquely gifted by God, this scriptural mission and vision should be shaping us.

Extra Credit Thought

Jürgen Moltmann observes in his book, The Way of Christ:

Jesus is the messiah; the church is the messianic community; being a Christian means being human in the messianic sense.  The name of Christian is not the designation of a party.  It is a promise.  It is what is messianic. 

Isaiah 61 comes to mind when thinking of the messianic promise in this context.

Thoughts on Following Jesus

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.  John 1:12 –John 1:13

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  Matthew 16:24 –Matthew 16:25

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Ephesians 5:1 –Ephesians 5:2

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  John 13:34 –John 13:35

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Matthew 22:37 – Matthew 22:40

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:13 – 1 John 4:17

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.  See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:6 –Colossians 2:8

Matthew 5-7

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.  Ephesians 3:14 – 21

Seeing Through God's Eyes

Here is another quote from Moltmann's book, A Broad Place.

" And 'the poor' have no wish to be approached from the angle of what they are lacking; they want to be seen first and foremost from the angle of what they are.  If we speak to them merely as 'the poor', then they are merely the victims of the rich and the powerful.  But they are men or women, whites, blacks, or indios; they have families, language, understanding, and faith.  It is only when they become aware of who they are that they can become the determining subjects of their own biographies."   (p. 232)

I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.  John 15:11 –John 15:17

Moltmann on Mysticism

"The mystic is really the martyr of the soul, for he passes through 'the dark night of the soul' into the eternal light of God."  (Jürgen Moltmann, A Broad Place: An Autobiography, p. 214)

Church in the Spirit

I am continuing my way through Jürgen Moltmann's autobiography, A Broad Place.  In the chapter where he discusses writing his book, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, he says this:

In the ancient world, the church already took on a patriarchal form in the post-apostolic era once it acquired the 'monarchical episcopate':  God the Father is represented by the bishop, as the father of his community.  ... In the sixteenth century, in a contrary movement, the Reformers introduced the christocentric principle.  Christ stands at the centre of the congregation as the first-born among many brothers and sisters.  In fellowship with him they are free and equal.  But in the church of the Spirit, the congregation is made up of different charismatically endowed people: there are many gifts but one Spirit.  A plurality of powers and functions makes the spiritually endowed congregation a source of life for many people.  It is only the church of the Spirit that fully opens up the Trinitarian mystery of God.  (p. 204ff)

This to me is a profound observation.  It points to a way that the church can to day represent a prophetic community that cannot be duplicated by any philosophy in this world.  It also points to the cause of some problems found in the church today, where they hold to forms that fail to recognize what the church in the Spirit can truly be.

Is Theology Apolictical?

In recent years there has been a lot written about the kingdom of God vs the kingdom of this world.  Greg Boyd, for instance, wrote The Myth of the Christian Nation, in an attempt to make a distinction between the ways of those two kingdoms.  Boyd rightly shows that the way of the kingdom of God is antithetical to the way of the kingdom of the world.   The Mennonites, also emphasize our allegiance to the kingdom of God over that of the kingdoms of this world.  Indeed, often the ways of the world are in direct opposition to the vision of the kingdom of God.  However, can we really separate ourselves from the world to the extent that we can live in a purely kingdom of God way? 

I am reading Jügen Moltmann's book, A Broad Place: An Autobiography, and in it I ran into the following two observations:

'Theology at the charge of the church' is good and valuable, but theology at the charge of the kingdom of God goes further than that and reaches beyond the bounds of the church out into the world, into politics, society, culture -- and also in the universities, the home of the humanities and sciences. (p. 94)

Moltmann's point is that there is a place for theology in a secular university.  However, he correctly observes that the kingdom of God goes further than the church.  As God's people live as God teaches us, we must necessarily impact the world, society, culture, and politics.  The Catholic theologian, Johann Baptist Metz makes the following decisive observation.

'Every eschatological theology must become a political theology, in the form of a theology that is socially critical.'  (p. 108, Moltmann, quoting Metz)

This speaks to an issue that I have been struggling with for quite a while.  Should Christians completely opt out of government and politics?  If we do, then are we ceding the world to those who might not have the same commitment to justice?  Scripture teaches that God holds nations, and the people in them, accountable for they way the treat the poor, needy, and oppressed.  How can we live in prophetic community, being energized toward God's freedom and justice (see my other posts on prophetic imagination), and not at the same time engage the injustice and bondage being imposed on people in this world today? If we engage these things, then we will inevitably find ourselves standing against one political side or another, or both.  If we have success in alleviating some of the injustice, we will most likely have changed the political landscape. 

Many of the contemporary movements such as New Monasticism challenge the Church to live out prophetic community, standing against the dominant culture.  The New Monasticism movement certainly stands critical of our society.  Proponents of a radical lifestyle based on Jesus' kingdom of God teachings are advocating a lifestyle based on an eschatological theology.  The kingdom of God is now, but not yet.  It is not something we can make happen in our own efforts, so it is something that looks by faith to the promises of God.  Yet, it is also breaking into the world, now.

If Metz is right, and I believe he is, then those of us desiring to live in prophetic community must do so in a way that engages all of life in this world.  Yes, the choices and methods we use will often be different.  However, we must realize that the kingdom of God intersects this world within the spirit of man.  When we try to make a distinction between people and governments, or people and corporations, we do so at the expense of the people who make up those governments and corporations.  It has always about people and the choices they make in relation to God and His ways. 

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Ephesians 5:1 – 2

What Is the Church?

A while back I started writing on the church, with the intent on exploring what it is from the Christian perspective.  While reading, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, by N. T. Wright, I came across this compact definition in the chapter called, "Believing and Belonging"

"The church is the single, multiethnic family promised by the creator God to Abraham.  It was brought into being through Israel's Messiah, Jesus; it was energized by God's Spirit; it was called to bring the transformative news of God's rescuing justice to the whole creation."  (p. 200)

I would change this to say "it is energized..." and "it is called..."  since that process is still going on.  That said, I liked the summary.  Wright continues to explore the church using a number of helpful metaphors found in scripture.  He looks at it as a river, a tree, and a family.  He does well to redirect our thinking beyond the many outer forms that divide and confuse, and focus it on the heart of the Biblical narrative.  Within this context, it is easy to see the church as the prophetic community it was meant to be.

Longing For You, My God

The following scripture meditation was inspired by a Misty Edwards set in the IHOP Prayer Room, which was itself inspired by Psalm 42.

      As a deer longs for flowing streams,
      so my soul longs for you, O God.
      My soul thirsts for God,
      for the living God.
      When shall I come and behold
      the face of God?  Psalm 42:1 – 2

      Deep calls to deep
      at the thunder of your cataracts;
      all your waves and your billows
      have gone over me.
      By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
      and at night his song is with me,
      a prayer to the God of my life.  Psalm 42:7 – 8

      O God, you are my God, I seek you,
      my soul thirsts for you;
      my flesh faints for you,
      as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
      So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
      beholding your power and glory.
      Because your steadfast love is better than life,
      my lips will praise you.
      So I will bless you as long as I live;
      I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
      My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
      and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
      when I think of you on my bed,
      and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
      for you have been my help,
      and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
      My soul clings to you;
      your right hand upholds me.  Psalm 63:1 – 8

My Soul Cries, My Soul Cries, My Soul Cries for you, my God.