C.S. Lewis was a man of letters. Not only did he write books and articles – he wrote letters, lots of them. Lewis was also a man of prayer. He not only cultivated his own prayer life but he encouraged others to do the same. In 1951 he wrote a letter to an American man for whom he had prayed. The man, a veteran of WW II, had come to faith in Christ – which was THE answer to Lewis’ prayer. Not long after that Lewis wrote him a letter, urging him “to be ‘busy learning to pray.’”
I came across that account from Lewis’ life in a book by Lyle Dorsett(one of my profs from Beeson Divinity School). It has stayed with me since. I’ve often turned that phrase over in my mind – recognizing the simple wisdom in that advice.
At the same time, though I have busied myself in trying to learn to pray, to be honest, I haven’t felt the urgency that is often needed to become a full-fledged man of prayer. In other words, though I have prayed earnestly, with frequency (daily), with faith, hope, assurance and a times out of desperation, I can’t say that my first instinct always is to pray. That is until recently.
It happened rather suddenly. One day I woke up and realized I had a severe case of adolescents – two in fact. Talk about being “busy learning to pray!”
Now, don’t get me wrong. Sherry and I have great sons and I am not complaining. I am so grateful to be their Dad I can’t even put it to words. I’m simply stating a fact. As great as our guys are – well – they are teenagers and with that comes a whole new set of challenges.
Since the early nineties I have worked with students in one capacity or another. I’ve met with parents and heard all sorts of stories. All of that has taught me at least two things. First, it semi-prepared me for being the parent to teenagers. Second, it taught me that nothing could fully prepare me for being a parent to teenagers.
If sharing a home with teenagers doesn’t make a person want to learn how to pray, I don’t know what will. In fact, of late I’ve felt more and more compelled to be busy learning to pray. That’s the funny thing about prayer. Sometimes it takes discovering how much we really need God to be at work before we can actually learn how to pray. When our kids our young we may have a tendency to pray huge, broad winged prayers.
However, when they are on the cusp of adulthood, when they are engaged in the wonderful yet strange mid-term years of adolescents we may begin to pray much more specifically. It is during adolescents that kids begin to exert more independence and we have to let them, sometimes holding our breath. That’s when we may actually learn to pray – and pray we must – because the truth of the matter is every parents only hope is God.
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
For $25 you can buy a pound of cotton from North Carolina – The Cottonman. I think that’s awesome and I’m thinking of buying some but not just because I like cotton. Rather, it is because the first time I saw cotton fields they captured my imagination and led to an experience that I’m not likely to forget.
I was driving in rural Alabama. It was the time of the cotton harvest. It was a beautiful day – which is mostly the case in the Deep South (even when it is so hot it feels like someone wrapped you in a wool blanket and poured hot water over it). The sun was out – but there was something white blowing across the road. I had seen white stuff blowing across the road before – but that was when it was gray and cold and the sky full of clouds. This wasn’t snow.
It was cotton. Some bits and pieces pulled free from huge cotton bundles on trailers as trucks took them down the road. Other bits and pieces blew from the once white fields made mostly brown/black stalks by enormous, green harvesters. The fields were a jumble of sticks and dirt and bits of left behind cotton.
Harvesting Cotton John-Deere-7760
Cotton and cotton fields have long-held a place in my imagination. As a little boy I was drawn to Civil War history, to Mark Twain, and pretty much anything to do with the south, her history and culture. Cotton and plantations were always somewhere in the background of my imagination. The reason, I think, was quite simple. I could not make sense of it.
What I mean is that I have always loved the south but as young boy I couldn’t make sense of the painful, sad parts of her history – which was most often represented in my minds eye by cotton fields. I can close my eyes and see them – the white fields – plucked clean now by machines – where once they were filled with men, women and children – stooping, pulling, and filling sacks. It is hard not to connect the full white fields to days when Americans “lawfully” enslaved people. In the land born of liberty and freedom there was slavery, injustice, and oppression; all for money. That painful, sad history extended beyond the fields, entering into city ordinances, state laws, churches, and schools and my imagination.
Black people picking cotton while their white overseer rides a horse (Photographer unknown, ca. 1895)
It took the law of love to bring change. It was encouraged by pastors and extended by children, some as young as six. The children went from churches – marching to pray, singing hymns and spirituals as they went, all the while suffering abuse and jail from their fire-hose and dog wielding oppressors. This history is not lost on me as a Christian, a student of history, and a southerner who hates racism while loving the south (and one who for love of union and abolition is glad “we” lost the war).
And yet – now the image of cotton fields reaches into my imagination and memory reminding me that even out of pain and sadness there is hope. God’s children are not without suffering. We are not without pain and sadness. And yet there is hope – God can bring good out of the worst possible places, out of slavery, out of racism, and out of the cotton fields of Alabama.
My family and I were living in Alabama – a state filled with places that look like a scenes from To Kill a Mockingbird. A friend, Mark, invited me, to attend an unusual gathering of folks. Mark ran a farm of sorts near the campus of Alabama A & M. All the work Mark and others put into raising food was so that poor people could eat. Mark believed that God wanted him to farm (despite not knowing anything about farming) and give the food to the poor. Turns out the Bible supports that notion – and Christians are to care about folks flourishing – it has something to do with shalom.
When all the work was done folks didn’t leave. Instead they started to gather in a large, hanger like building that had once been A&M’s cannery. This was what Mark had invited me to witness; it was an experience I will not easily forget. Folks began to gather at one end of the building, in a close semi-circle. They sat on buckets, chairs, and the concrete floor. An elderly, African-American gentlemen sat down and the shuffle of feet subsided. Mark looked at me with a big smile as the gentlemen began to sing.
I did not know the song. I had never heard it before and at first I thought he was making it up – beautiful, soulful as it was. Then, just as he finished the first chorus – folks around me joined him. They filled the room with their voices, with their songs, and they were tied to the fields painful, sad history.
There was no way for me to know the words to the songs. These were not my songs because these were songs born out of the pain and sadness of slavery, of injustice, of oppression. They were songs born in the fields and tied to the cotton field’s history of pain and sorrow songs BUT not left there. These slave songs were born out of pain but written and sung and passed down with hope that God by His Son and through His Spirit would redeem his people.
What I saw that day was truly one of the most amazing worship services I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know the first song. I could only stand back and listen. Mark couldn’t help smiling at me. “It’s like this every week,” he said.
That worship experience was more than fourteen years ago. I’m not even sure if Mark is still farming – we moved away from AL six years ago. Yet I can close my eyes and just about hear them sing. They sang songs that had been passed down to them by their parents and grandparents, slave songs – which, though born out of something terrible, connected them to the same hope and joy which has lifted God’s people up since Adam. They knew the same God who sets the captives free in the Bible is the same God who set their great grandparents free, set them and their children free from injustice and sets them free in Jesus.
So they sang the same songs their ancestors sang. They sang as the Psalms teach God’s people to sing and to pray; fully, holding nothing back. The Spirit filled their songs, reminding them (and teaching me) that God does bring good from the painful, broken, sad, places of our lives.
If you haven’t spent much time in the Bible you might be surprised to find that it isn’t all “puppy dogs and rainbows.” In fact, it is true to life – telling humanities story and God’s intervention in sometimes graphic terms. Some folks struggle with that aspect but I think it is quite helpful because most folks I know struggle with one thing or another. I don’t have much capacity for the pushers of Pollyanna theology, the “God just wants you to be happy and healthy and rich” – you know the big ego, big stadium, big hair kind of folks. I’m not sure what version of the Bible they are reading – if they are at all.
The Old Testament doesn’t skip over the bad parts. Those slaves songs, like the Scriptures, were passed down from parents to children (Deut 6). They were meant to prepare people for life in a fallen world and point them in a Godward direction. Sometimes I think we do kids a bad turn when, in an effort to protect them, we insulate them from reality. They are bound to have troubles because, until Jesus comes, that’s the way of the world. There are things beyond our control and we’d do better by our kids to prepare them – shape their character and their moral imagination.
The Psalms, in particular, give shape to the way God’s children learn to pray and sing and live. Reading them gives a person the full scope of life. The people who sang and prayed these Psalms had once been slaves in Egypt, and they sang of God’s deliverance. They knew pain and sorrow – a great deal of which was their own fault (which sound familiar to me). They also tasted injustice and hatred – and they cried out to God. Psalm 137 is one of those Psalms; it is written from anguish and heartbreak: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! (Psalm 137:1-6 ESV)”
These were God’s people – they had been carried away in exile. They knew pain and sadness well. Their lives were ripped open. They were mocked, abused, forced to leave their home. They knew hardship and pain in ways that I don’t even want to imagine. But they wrote about it – as prayer to God.
What stands out to me is the fact that this text still remains. It is a painful Psalm to read because of the anguish, the anger, the pain. It was a dark time in the lives of God’s people, a terrible time. And yet, this Psalm, marked this time and it was passed on from one generation to another – down to this very day.
I think I know why – at least I can speculate. The Babylonian Empire hasn’t existed for – well a very long time but God’s people still do. Apparently, God really does love justice and he does keep His saints. I also think what is expressed in this Psalm gives shape to the way God’s people pray and sing. Because sometimes we feel the way they did and because God delivered His people – and still does.
Verses like these giving shape to our hopes by telling us that we are God’s children. We have been adopted by God (and I love adoption); we are His sons and daughters. Of course, our adoption is made possible through Christ – that’s what Paul is trying to tell us – our place is sure in Christ.
But something else gives shape to our hope – its phrase cry Abba or Father. When does a child “cry out” for their dad? In times of pain and trouble, of course. And – since we know we are his sons and daughters we know that we can do that – approach God as Father in the midst of troubles.
But how does we hope a father will respond? Well, in all honesty I don’t alway respond with the sort of kindness and compassion that I should. Sometimes when my sons cry out I’m busy and I don’t want to be bothered. Well – that’s my way but not God’s way.
Children also cry out in moments of joy and surprise. That’s always a good sound – when your kids are glad to see you – when they say, “I love you.” When they thank you for the good things you’ve done for them.
Isn’t this a nagging verse? Is the Bible giving an assurance that things will turn out for good for God’s people? It sure seems so…But isn’t this the hope we long for?
I think it is. Even though we may not understand why it is that we go through things and they may be terrible – in the midst of them we want and need hope that things will work for good. God gives this hope to His children which is part of the way we can persevere. In fact, I believe the story of the Bible is wrapped up in this hope – that Christ by His life, death and resurrection makes new lives out of broken ones (something I can personally attest), sets captives free (and we are captive to something), restores human beings to God, brings peace (shalom) to fractured relationships, and brings light into dark places. The essence of the Biblical story is that God, through Christ, redeems the painful, sad parts of life and makes them good as only God can.
I think this hope has carried God’s people from the time of Adam until now – ultimately God will restore all things and make things right and good. I think it was this hope that shaped the slave songs. Their assurance was bound up in Jesus in ways I could only image. Jesus turned their mourning into gladness – even as they worked those fields. The foundation of their songs wasn’t sorrow, nor self-pity – it was hope, a hope in Christ, a hope that all their suffering and hardship was going to turn out for good. It is a hope that all God’s children can sing about.
I may buy a pound after all…
Links and Resources:
Learn to sing the Psalms: http://psalter.org/
Want to know more about Civil Rights & The Children’s Crusade – Birmingham 1963 http://library.thinkquest.org/ http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/interviews/clayborne-carson.html http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Home.jsp http://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders See King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Check out the history of Negro Spirituals, Cabin Music and Slave Songs http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/singers/ http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/index.htm http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/ Honey in the Rock: The Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection of Religious Folk Songs By Olivia Solomon, Jack Solomon
I’m supposed to be working on my dissertation right now but, well, clearly I am not. Instead I’m sitting here thinking about something I read early this morning. It is about miracles.
“Another problem with defining miracles as ‘violations of natural law’ is that this definition overlooks the fact that we now live in a fallen creation where, for example, enslavement, sickness, and death appear to be natural. Is it indeed the case that liberation, healing, and resurrection from the dead are contrary to the ‘laws of nature’? They may be contrary to what we have come to expect in this world, but from the perspective of God’s good creation and his coming kingdom, enslavement, sickness, and death are unnatural, and liberation, healing, and eternal life are natural (Gen2-3; Rev 21:4). From that perspective, then, miracles are not to be seen as ‘unnatural’ but as signs of God’s kingdom breaking into our fallen world, provisional indications of the restoration of God’s creation to its original goodness…Miracles, in short, are signs of God’s kingdom.” Sidney Greidanus – The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text
This is Advent on the church calendar. We are just a few days and nights away from Christmas Day – as my sons reminded me yesterday. I cannot think of a greater miracle than the Birth of Christ. Bethlehem was the epicenter of God breaking into fallen creation.
There is more to the story, of course, that isn’t all we celebrate. We celebrate the fact that this child grew up and turned water to wine at a wedding, that he calmed a storm, walked on water, feed thousands, healed the lame, raised the dead, and gave sight to the blind. We also celebrate the fact that He died, conquered sin, death and hell, rose again, and sits at God’s right hand. In so doing – Jesus provides the way for salvation – to those who will put their faith in him. In the midst of celebrating the miracle of Christ’s first Advent we long for the day when Christ will come again – triumphant – and the celebration will have no end.
Adoration of the Shepherds by Rembrandt
Whether we realize it or not what we celebrate every 25th of December is a miracle. Foundational to the Christian faith is a hope that miracles happen – that angels really do light up the night and that God love us and is at work in the world. Above all else, this miracle of Christ coming into the world, is a sign of God’s Kingdom and the promise that all things will be made new – restored, fully and wholly to God’s good purposes.
The other day I was cruising across town flipping through radio stations like I do with the TV remote. I’m not sure what I was looking for (okay, probably ACDC or some other metal which is hard to find on FM). For some reason I stopped on easy listening or soft rock or something. A song came on that I had not heard in years (not that I missed it). It was Lionel Richie singing Easy. The chorus of that song is somewhat catchy – one line caught my attention. Richie sings, “That’s why I’m easy – easy like Sunday morning.” The thought ran through my head, “What the heck is he talking about? Easy like Sunday morning? Has he ever taken kids to worship on a Sunday morning?!”
For a lot of families Sunday morning can be one of the most frustrating times of the week. Sitting with kids during a morning worship service, for some families, is akin to some form of punishment. Truth be told, sitting around some families during a worship service can be form of punishment for other folks as well. I understand the challenges. I also understand the benefits and the dangers for families who do not worship together.
Over the years I have become more and more convinced that churches & families ought to do the hard work of being together – with kids – for corporate worship. Believe me, I’m not naïve. I know that it can be a struggle. I do think that churches should offer child-care for children up to the age of five – but beyond that – I think kids need to participate in worship.
What does that mean?
Well it means that those in charge of putting worship together will have to be aware and account for every pair of shoes in the room. That’s not to say that everything must be “kidded down” but rather “kid friendly.” It means that worship leaders and preachers should think about how the service will be heard and experienced by little ones. This is so important because kids will not one day be part of the church but they are already part of the church. Believe it or not – kids do pick up on what is going on in worship. They can actually listen and take part – if they are helped to participate by those who are putting things together.
But the onus is not just on the worship leaders and pastors – it’s on parents as well.
This may seem harsh but worship is not a break from parenting. I’ve heard that before from some folks – and believe me – my heart goes out to them. Raising kids is not a simple calling. It is tough and sometimes parents want and need a break. But in all honestly, worship is not the right time for a break.
A good friend of mine who has raised four boys – and I mean boys who have become men – said something to me one day about the work of helping kids to worship. She said to remind parents that this is just a stage – a time that families are passing and that part of their act of worship each Sunday morning is to help their children learn to worship. In other words, parents must parent as an act of worship.
What’s happening in worship? Well, in a nutshell we are learning to reorder our love – moving it away from ourselves toward God the Father, Son and Spirit. That is not easy for adults let alone a child. Have you ever heard a child say, “Mine!” and refuse to share? Perhaps one reason helping our children to worship is so difficult is because we are trying to help them overcome human nature, teaching them they are not the center of the universe – God is.
It is not just worship leaders, pastors and parents who need to work on this – it is the whole church community. The Christian church is supposed to be a community of people – called together by God through work of Christ enabled by the Spirit. We are not individuals. We are a corporate body. That means that we need each other and we need to help each other. There will be times when families enter our worship who have little to no experience in a worship service. We need to figure out ways to help them and their children to adjust to what is taking place. We need to be patient and kind and we need to look around the room with a great deal of warmth and gentleness in our expressions.
There is nothing easy about a Sunday morning. Getting up, getting dressed, heading out with kids in tow on a Sunday in our culture is tough. Some of that has to do with the breakneck pace we live during the week (sports, music lessons, etc, etc). But it is so important for children to see and participate in worship. It is important for them to hear a congregation pray – a congregation confess sin – a congregation give thanks to God for His forgiveness – a congregation to sing – a congregation to partake of the Lord’s Supper – and a congregation respond to Scripture. It is not easy but it is worth the work that it is supposed to take.
—-
Some Practical Help:
Here’s something Sherry and I have found to be helpful – and believe me – Sherry and I have the same challenges that a lot of folks do – we have three boys who are all boy all the time. Sunday mornings can be anything but easy at our house – but here is something that has been useful.
On the way to church we talk about where we are going and we ask them why. We try to focus their attention on the fact that we worship as a response to God’s love (we are trying to shape our family by the law of love and shalom). We try to see if they can tell us ways that they know God loves them. We also talk about ways that we need to love God more with our whole hearts – as a way to think about confession of sin.
After the service we generally talk about what they heard in Sunday School (for our youngest) and Student Ministry for our older two. Sherry came up with three questions she asks about the sermon. They work in our context but you may want to come up with some of your own. One of us will ask: 1) Who preached? 2) What was the text? 3) What was one thing the pastor said that you heard and meant something to you?
Worshiping as a family is work. But it is so important that parents communicate the importance of worship to their children. It will shape their expectation and their understanding of what it means to be followers of Christ. That needs to be reinforced by the worship leaders, pastors and the congregation as a whole.
prayer life but he encouraged others to do the same. In 1951 he wrote a letter to an American man for whom he had prayed. The man, a veteran of WW II, had come to faith in Christ – which was THE answer to Lewis’ prayer. Not long after that Lewis wrote him a letter, urging him “to be ‘busy learning to pray.’”
If sharing a home with teenagers doesn’t make a person want to learn how to pray, I don’t know what will. In fact, of late I’ve felt more and more compelled to be busy learning to pray. That’s the funny thing about prayer. Sometimes it takes discovering how much we really need God to be at work before we can actually learn how to pray. When our kids our young we may have a tendency to pray huge, broad winged prayers.
Mark A Hutton 