The Pursuit

Praying Hands, campus of Oral Roberts University, Leonard McMurray 

Luke 11:1-13

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”

And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; ⁶ for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’;  and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Prayer... pretty uncontroversial religious topic, right? Everyone does it. Everyone agrees that it is an important spiritual practice. It's also simple to do: just close your eyes, kneel, clap both hands together like Birdman and start talking to the Big Guy in the Sky. Well, some stand... and some raise their hands... and an occasionally some don't close their eyes... but despite the differences the end result is that you talk to God. But what do you talk to Him about? And how do you talk to Him? Prayer actually can be a complex subject... it can also be controversial. Sometimes Art can reveal the story of how simple things can be more complex than we think. How seemingly safe things can be controversial. Art is made in a historical context and Religious Art is created in a theological context. That is the background when you should consider when viewing the mammoth sized bronze statue "Praying Hands" by Oklahoma sculptor Leonard D. McMurray. It can be found in the middle of the campus of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa Oklahoma... but if you clicked on the link that I provided for McMurray's bio you will notice that it is listed as being located at City of Faith Hospital... and that the title of the sculpture is "Healing Hands." And so the story begins...
Oral Roberts was a massively influential 20th century travelling evangelist and televangelist. His influence is second only to that of Billy Graham. He started off with tent revivals that drew thousands as it travelled across the globe. At the same time he began a radio broadcast, direct mail campaign and then later brought his ministry to television. It is reasonable to argue that Oral Roberts pretty much invented our contemporary conceptions of the televangelist and the mega church. Oral Roberts can also be understood to be one of forefathers of Prosperity Theology/Gospel. Even though Word of Faith movement preachers like Kenneth Hagin trace its roots back to the earlier theologian E.W. Kenyon, Oral Roberts was key to its introduction to television airwaves and consumption by American (and worldwide) Protestants. Oral Roberts was also vital to the mainstream public acceptance of Pentecostalism in general. You can feel the impact of Oral Roberts when you tune into contemporary televangelists (and even local preachers) and hear them say things like "seed faith" and preach a message promising that God will financially bless believers based upon their giving to His church (thirty fold, sixty fold and hundredfold). I remember when I got a chance to visit Nairobi, Kenya in 2009 and saw as many mega churches and billboards promoting prosperity preachers as I had seen in new Orleans, Detroit, Atlanta or Los Angeles. The fact that this particular brand of Pentecostalism (and Protestantism in general) is the one that is most readily accessible to television viewers worldwide shows that Oral Roberts' impact cannot be overstated. Oral Roberts was so successful that 16 years after going into full time evangelism, he was able to open his own university. Oral Roberts University drew thousands of Fundamentalist Protestant Christians of all stripes. In 1977 Roberts stated that the Lord had instructed him in a vision that he was to build the City of Faith Medical and Research Center. It was designed to combine the power of prayer with the power of medicine. Nothing strange about that... a lot of Christians feel that the Lord is leading them to do certain tasks and some, like Joan of Arc, report to have been commissioned in a vision. The problem came in 1987 when Oral Roberts reported that God told him that if he didn't raise $8 million in a year to keep the hospital open that he was going to die... Yep, that happened. He also announced that God told him that the medical center was going to cure Cancer. So Oral Roberts' viewers got scared and he raised the money. But the medical center still closed eventually in 1989. Oral Roberts did not die in 1987 but lived until 2009 (age 91). And it is currently 2013 and cancer still exists.

After losing the medical center and leasing it out for office spaces, the Healing Hands statue was moved to the campus of Oral Roberts University and renamed "Praying Hands." Please don't take this blog entry as a "take down" piece of Oral Roberts. These are just historical facts. Our faith cannot ignore history but it must be informed by history. I apologize if you are a fan of Oral Roberts and this has offended you... but truth be told I am a fan of him too. I totally disagree with his Seed Faith teachings in that their focus on material wealth conflict with the teachings of Jesus, but within that he also allowed some form of the Gospel to be heard by those who wouldn't have heard it before. Hopefully they were able to read between the lines. I actually have extremely fond memories of waking up every day as a child of 4 or 5 and watching his son's (Richard Roberts) televangelist broadcast from Oral Roberts university. His theme on every show was "God can turn your life around." He even had songs that he sang about God turning your life around as he stood with a long microphone and crisp blue suit a la Bob Barker. I would watch these shows and then go up to my dad's fellow preacher friends and tell them "God can turn your life around!" Their eyes would glow and they would smile as they exclaimed "That boy is gonna grow up to be a preacher-man!" Still today I can run into older preachers in New Orleans who will tell me "You know when you were just a little boy I remember your first sermon: "God can turn your life around."

Praying Hands, Albrecht Durer 1508

If you read this blog regularly then you may be aware that one of my readers, who is also a childhood friend, revealed that I am not a fan or Prosperity Theology. Jesus, John the Baptist and St. Paul were no strangers to calling out their theological opposition by name, but on this blog I find it useful to praise the good in various Christians than to harp on the bad (different strokes for different folks): I am a blogger and I see that as more of the job of a pastor or an apologete. The whole truth of the matter is that I watched a whole lot of Prosperity preachers in my formative years. In between viewing Brady Bunch episodes and playing basketball I would watch Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Rod Parsley (preaching as he spewed massive amounts of sweat and thesaurus research-inducing verbiage), Joyce Meyer and Casey Treat, It wasn't until I was about 21 that I started to see a clash between the Gospel of Wealth and the actual Gospel. It all just seemed like church to me... and I was a church kid. Plus they were just preaching from the Bible, right? People will only know the Christianity that they are exposed to. Which is why it is great that Bibles are in such a large circulation. Eventually people will think critically and read Jesus' words for themselves. That is where we are in today's reading in Luke 11. The Disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. In reading the Gospel we assume that all twelve disciples were grown Jewish men beyond the age of Bar Mitzvah. They had received the standard obligatory religious education. Are we to assume that in this training that they never learned how to pray? Not even Peter, the know-it-all? No. They knew how to pray. It seems that John the Baptist's instruction on his prayer to his own disciples on how to pray was something of note.Two of Jesus' own disciples were former disciples of John the Baptist. Did each rabbi teach a signature praying style? I am not sure but it is shown elsewhere that even though John the Baptist and Jesus agreed theologically they did some things operationally different with their disciples (like fasting and baptism). Being that Jesus' disciples trusted Jesus as the Messiah and not just another rabbi or prophet they checked in to get his definitive take on prayer. I realize that many of you may watch televangelist or attend churches where Prosperity Theology is preached. And yeas there are varying degrees of danger. My goal is writing this entry (and the blog) is that Christians (and non-believers) of all stripes will take an honest look at the Jesus of Scripture.

Jesus' response to the disciples answers the questions "How should we pray?" and "What should we pray for?" It is popularly known as "The Lord's Prayer" (because the Lord Jesus said it) or ("The Our Father Prayer" since it starts with those two words). It is not intended to be the only prayer that one can say (though it is a useful one) since the Apostles would later go on to say other prayers throughout the New Testament (depending on the given scenario). It appears to be a model prayer. It presents the important ingredients when communicating with God and maintaining a Christian mindset in general. The prayer can be broken into two sections: A) a primary focus on God, and B)a secondary focus on ourselves. 

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.

The prayer opens up with a recognition of our familial relationship with the God of Heaven. Jesus is His Son, but through Jesus' sacrifice He has also adopted us as dear children. "hollowed" is an old school word for "holy." The last part of this section is a plea to The Almighty that his kingdom come and his will be achieved in Earth just like it is unquestionably done in His kingdom of Heaven. A monarch has unquestioned rule in his domain and the first act of asking in this prayer is not for our individual needs but of God's desires. It is the first act of faith, in that Faith is trusting that God's will is the best for our lives and world.

Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”

When I stated that the second section is a focus on ourselves, I meant it in the collective sense. It is less about "me" and more about "we." Whether it is pleas for provision, forgiveness or spiritual guidance and protection, Jesus phrases everything in terms of "us." The Christian walk is rooted on community. Even if you are the only believer in your circle of friends or town their is still a community across land and time that you stand on as a believer. Maybe you came to belief through the reading of the Bible that was created by 1st century believers or maybe you heard about Jesus from the television broadcast of Oral Roberts. Either way we all grow in faith through our interaction with fellow Christians. We are all equal in our need for God's mercy. Jesus' prayer expresses that communal equality in his prayer. It is through mercy that we express our equality. Christ implores us to "forgive everyone who is indebted to us" and ask God to "forgive us our sins" based upon that. Jesus' prayer is for us to have communion: with God and with those around us. This community is His Kingdom. This kingdom's foundation is based on mercy and forgiveness.  And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; ⁶ for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’;  and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

Jesus follows the prayer up with an illustration and an explanation. The illustration is a lesson in persistence. It is the story of two friends and the one friend finally giving into the other friends demands. In this story God is the giver and we are the demander. Now you could take away from this story that God will give you anything that you ask for in Jesus' name... but He won't. Yes I know that Jesus says that He will in the Bible, but look at the overall context of the quote. What Jesus said is true, God will do anything that you ask... but not in the way that you may be thinking. God will do anything that you ask as long it is in line with His will. God will not fulfill your request to become God. God will not answer your pleas to do evil to your neighbor. God will not do anything that contradicts His Word (it's like a really tightly worded legal contract). So you may be asking, "What about when the Apostle St. John says that he wishes that we "would prosper and be in good health'? Isn't that a Divine promise of Health and Wealth?" No. Consider the Apostle Paul. He was a great missionary for the cause of Christ and wrote the most books in the New Testament. he also appeared to have some sort of medical crisis (or some other type of trouble). He reports that he prayed to God three times to remove it and God didn't. God replied that " My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Again I state that true faith is trusting that true faith is trusting that God's will is for the best... whatever that may be. In Christ's story about the persistent friend t is useful to focus on two things: A) If we and God are parallel to these two friends then that means that faith in God denotes friendship with God, and B) The friend's request was not for his own needs but for those of another friend. He was not asking for himself but he was asking so that he could serve others. God's kingdom is about community. Now there is nothing wrong in praying about your own needs... their is actually much that is right about it. However, there is something wrong in only praying for your needs. It displays an underlying problem of only caring about oneself. It is similar to talking on the phone with someone who only talks about themselves the whole time. It is important that we engage in intercessory prayer (praying for the needs of others). This also leads to us to thinking about others outside of prayer. We become transformed into a less selfish person. A person that engages in prayers that they can be transformed into a better help, servant and blessing to others. Because the Harvest is ripe but the laborers are few.

“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread^[d] from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Jesus' explanation after the persistence illustration centers around the pursuit element of prayer. We are told to ask seek and knock. It may seem very similar to Jesus' message in the Gospel of Matthew, however there is one key difference at the end. I would naturally advise fellow Christians that prayer is not as much about asking as it is about praising and thanking God. here did I get that from? I don't know... I just heard it in church somewhere and it just sounded right. I would give this advice to develop prayer practices that are non-materialistic and self centered. It would go with my inclinations to steer clear of anything that resembled Prosperity Theology. But if I am to utilize The Lord's Prayer as a model of prayer structure and the accompanying verses as advice about prayer, then it appears that Jesus thought that much of prayer was about asking God for stuff. It's not necessarily that we are asking but it is what we are asking for, who we are asking for and why we are asking. It is easier for me to accept the "Ask, Seek, Knock" idea if I think of it in reverse- Those who don't ask naturally don't receive. Those who don't seek naturally won't find. Those who don't knock naturally won't have the door opened for them. So then the question begs itself:"Who then will receive, find and get the door opened for them?" The answer is obviously, "Those who ask seek and knock." Those in the pursuit. But herein lies the key difference between Jesus' telling of this lesson in Matthew and in Luke: the thing that is received, found and opened. It is the thing that Jesus refers to as his Father's gift: the Holy Spirit.



Praying Hands, Leonard McMurray

That which we receive in all of our pursuit is God. The answer to all of our needs is in God. Not to say that we do not need food, love, money, shelter, health care, etc. I understand those things: I am not a hippie who lives in the mountains. Those things are provided by God and with them God gives us the perspective on how to value those things. God provides us the proper insight on how to relate to Him as a loving Father who provides for us. God instructs us on how the currency of His kingdom is mercy and forgiveness and we should spend that capital freely amongst our neighbors. God empowers us with His Holy Spirit to stay strong in the face of sin and temptation. Have ever noticed that the popular prayer stance of kneeling with closed eyes and clasped hands is often acted out in films when actor wants to convey extreme begging and pleading to another character? Its a comic illustration of desperation and need. That is how prayer is with God. We may be His children now but we remember a time before He adopted us when we just slaves to sin. And at the end of the day we still have nothing outside of what He is gracious enough to give us. We humbly kneel before His throne as beggars. The only confidence that we have is our one possession: God's listening ear and caring heart. So it is with weathered hands and humble spirits that we point our requests heavenward and make our requests known to a gracious King and mighty God that we have come to know as our Father.





Burial At Sea



Ophelia, John Everett Millais

Colossians 2:12-14

...buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.  And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Many cultures and subcultures throughout history have practiced burial at sea. If not the actual sea then the closest body of water (this includes flushing your goldfish down the toilet). Maybe you've seen films featuring a Norse Viking ship burial. Or maybe you've read about Hindus immersing the ashes of the deceased in the Ganges River. Obviously the Navy is the military branch that practices sea burial the most often. You may also be aware that many Christian groups allow for burial at sea. But what if I told you that all Christians (minus Quakers) experience a watery burial? If you are considering becoming a Christian you may be presently preparing for that specific ritual. The ritual of a waterborne burial that I am referring to is the rite of Baptism. It may sound strange to describe this Christian introductory ritual this way but that is exactly how St. Paul refers to it in the second chapter of his letter to the Colossians.

It is with great excitement that I introduce art from the Pre-Raphaelites to this blog. This art movement produced some of the most subtly beautiful depictions of humans and nature ever put on canvas. The Pre-Raphaelites were a coalition of painters, sculptors, art critics and poets founded in founded in 1848 by John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (or as I refer to them Kelly, Michelle and Beyoncé) to create beautiful music... I mean painting. The Pre Raphaelites goal was just what their name states: they wanted to bring art back to a time "pre-Raphael." They wanted to wash off some of the influences of certain academic and compositional concerns of later Renaissance and Mannerism. It was part of an effort to find an earlier, purer painting. This art may seem academic and detailed to contemporary viewers but it was all a campaign of un-learning: an attempt to regain a lost innocence in Art. The Pre Raphaelites concocted something new, different and beautiful. As one of the founders of this movement Sir John Everett Millais' paintings embody all of the aesthetic triumphs of the Pre-Raphaelites. As one of these Englishmen with re-focus on the greatest era of European painting, he turned his gaze to creating a painting that illustrates the greatest writer in the English language: William Shakespeare. Millais' painting Ophelia is a masterwork that honors the intensity of naturalistic painting, illustrates the narrative detail of Shakespeare's tragedy(Hamlet) and displays the complexity of Ophelia's anguish. The anguish that led Ophelia to commit suicide by throwing herself into a river.

It is with great trepidation that I attempt to discuss Hamlet. My mother-in-law (who I am friends with and occasionally reads this blog) is an English teacher who has devoted many years, movie tickets and conversations to the subject of Hamlet. So I'm probably risking good standing with my in-laws by exposing my amateur grasp of this great play. Hopefully they give me credit for linking the Wikipedia article (because you can trust eveerything that Wikipedia says... Right?) So the following is my synopsis of the play. Hamlet was the son of the King of Denmark (his father was also named Hamlet so I guess that makes the main character Hamlet, Jr.... or Hamlet F. Baby). Hamlet's father was slain and appears to his son (as a ghost) and tells Hamlet that he must avenge his father's death. To add to that the slain King's wife (Hamlet's mother, Gertrude) has been deceived into marrying his murderer... who happens to be his brother Claudius... who is now currently serving as the King of Denmark (this script was originally written to be a telenovela). Hamlet is overtaken with a zeal for vengeance. Hamlet has a lover/girlfriend/courtier named Ophelia. Blinded by rage Hamlet mistakenly kills her father (mistakenly thinking that he was Claudius). This leads Ophelia to madness and she later plunges herself in water to take her life. Eventually tragedy begets tragedy and in the end everyone is dead (like the end of The Departed). Strangely enough the story of Christ has a parallel with the tale of Hamlet.

Is anyone surprised at this point that I am making comparison between Christ, Hamlet and Ophelia? If so then you are probably a first time reader of this blog. Maybe it's actually more of a contrast... but I honestly do see a connection between those three when I read Colossians 2:12-14. Follow my reasoning for a minute... Jesus was the son of the King of Heaven. His Father (God) is eternal and made revealed to Jesus that he must embark on his own mission to give his Father's gift of eternal life. The eternal King's wife (Israel, Jesus' motherland) has been deceived into being led by the killer of his prophets. This is where St. Paul's reasoning in Colossians steps in. Jesus' ministry was marked by opposition to Pharisaic legalism. It's actually what got him killed. St. Paul (who was a former Pharisee) held the same opposition to the overt legalism in Christianity. Through many of the blog entries concerning Paul you have seen his letters to churches around the Mediterranean arguing against the claims of the Judaizers (ancient Christians who argued that all followers of Christ, Jewish and non-Jewish, must practice all of the Law of the Old Testament). This included male circumcision and other practices included in the 613 Mitzvot of Scripture. Paul and Jesus never argued against the practices of Jewish law (they both were circumcised, fasted, attended synagogue and temple, celebrated the Holy Days, etc), rather they argued against being obligatorily enslaved to them. The commands of the Law, like the Sabbath, were made for Man not man for the Sabbath. They are spiritual aides to lead one to focus on the goal, which is God and godliness: they are not the goal in and of themselves. To put these practices on those that are not required to is to make these spiritual aides a spiritual burden. Like Hamlet, Jesus was overtaken with a zeal inspired by his Father. But this was not a hunger to exact vengeance but a longing to show mercy. He desired to show mercy to all, free and unfettered by religious practices that become misunderstood. So that brings us to Ophelia. Like Hamlet, Jesus also had a lover and future bride. Her name is Ecclesia... don't get all scandalized on me, Ecclesia is the Greek word that refers to The Church. It means "the called out ones." Like God was married to the people of Israel, Christ waits in expectation for his beautiful bride in the Church (all gathering of all believers over the ages, both Jewish and Gentile). Like Ophelia, Ecclesia has plunged herself in water ending her life. When we as the Church plunge ourselves into the waters of Baptism we do so not as an act of suicide but to attain new life. St. Paul writes in Colossians that we are "buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." Baptism represents our identifying with Christ in his death and resurrection. We symbolically die in our sinful nature and rise to new life in Christ. Just like Hamlet, in the end everyone dies... but Jesus rose from the dead. proving that we have hope of eternal life in Christ

Baptism is not magic. Water Baptism only works if we are also baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now I know that there are a few different understandings in the Christian community of the concept of being "baptized in the Spirit." I am not referring to tarrying until a miraculous act (like speaking in tongues) occurs to prove that the Holy Spirit resides within us. Even though I have the utmost love for my Pentecostal and Charismatic brothers I do not believe that this is the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Christ promised to all believers. John the Baptist, like many other Jewish prophets and rabbis, practiced the Mikveh (think Jewish baptism). He became the most popular practitioner of this rite. John the Baptist practiced water baptism as a sign of repentance. Upon seeing Jesus, John announced him to be the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not personally perform baptisms (he had his Disciples performed that rite), however Jesus' sacrificial death is what allowed the Holy Spirit to come into the hearts of believers... all believers. Some believers spoke in tongues on the day of Pentecost and performed miracles, some believers acted as missionaries spreading the Gospel throughout the far territories of the Roman Empire, some believers fought as Abolitionists to end slavery worldwide, some set up convents, poorhouses and orphanages to care for the forgotten, still today some visit the sick in hospitals and feed the homeless, while others smuggle Bibles into oppressive regimes under the threat of death. Jesus baptized all of these believers throughout the ages in the empowering Holy Spirit and the evidence is their faith and works. True baptism (in water, in the Holy Spirit and in a change of heart) isn't just a religious bath: true baptism acts as a spiritual Luffa sponge... it scrubs off the old dead man and allows him to be washed away. Baptism allows our selfish, sinful past and spiritual coldness to be buried at sea.



Chill October, John Everett Millais