stfrancischurchtairuanz

The Other Lord’s Prayer

by Ken Francis

(Based on John 17:1-26)
[Entrée: For max benefit from this reflection, first read the ‘other’ Lord’s Prayer here at John 17]

So, Jesus was in the habit of praying.

What about you? How does praying work for you? Do you have a set time? A set place? A set routine? Or are you more free-form?! More random? Perhaps you’re someone who is constantly in prayer, moment by moment, as Paul the Apostle seemed to be. How important is a regular prayer routine?

Well, Jesus was in the habit of praying. For example, in Luke 5 we get: “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 11:1: “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.” Mark 1:35: “Jesus got up very early in the morning to pray.” Matthew 14:23: “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.”

So, again, Jesus was in the habit of praying. It was an anchor for him. So when came his greatest time of greatest testing it was perfectly natural for him to default to prayer mode, as we have read in the entrée. He prays intimately, and with familiarity. And with confidence that he really is talking to his Father God.
And he really was confident. There’s a very telling incident in John 11. This is where Jesus has arrived after the death of Lazarus – four days after the death of Lazarus – and he prays – out loud – for Lazarus’s recovery. It says here, “Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe …’”
Wouldn’t you like to have been there!

Jesus was in the habit of praying. This too should be our easy default when we’re stretched, challenged, troubled …

This is the Lord’s prayer. When we think of the Lord’s Prayer, we usually think of, “Our Father, who is in heaven, holy be your name …” Etc. But I think of this, in John 17, as truly the Lord’s prayer. It’s the only actual prayer we have of Jesus longer than a sentence or two. It’s a beautiful prayer, for all sorts of reasons, and I hope you find it so.

It’s common to think this is the actual prayer he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, before his execution. But I’m not so sure. For one thing, although we’re told it happened just after the last supper, after this prayer, says John 18:1, they then walked to the Garden. Also, when he was praying in the Garden, the other Gospels tell us, he moved away a little, and the disciples went to sleep! So, how did John know what he prayed, and so record it, if this was that prayer? How would he have heard it if he was asleep? So, was this actually the prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane?!

Who knows?

Anyway, did you notice the shape of this great prayer? First Jesus prays for himself – an intimate, loving exchange between him and Abba, his Father. He’s troubled, he almost seems to need some encouragement that he’s on the right track. Then he prays for others: his disciples initially: an amazing prayer, focussing on unity. And the third stanza has him praying for us! For those, he says, who will come later. Us!

I find this very moving!

Our granddaughter rang us during the week – she quite often does, which is pretty wonderful. She’s seventeen. Usually her chatter is trivial and teenage girly stuff. But this time I felt bold enough to ask her, “well that’s all the good stuff going on in your life – anything getting you down at all?” And surprisingly she did share a couple of things, and one of them was that she was trying to get back to her Bible, and was frustrated that she couldn’t get a routine going, and she knew she had to. We chatted about the practicalities of that, but next day, thinking about it, I realised this was not so much about Bible reading routine but more about … a weakening faith. With all sorts of teenage things going on in her life, relationships and media and stuff, impossible teenage temptations, she’s struggling with her faith, and she realises she has to stay connected … anchored … with God’s Word, if she’s going to hang in there.
This realisation has caused me some concern since, and I’ve been praying for her – that, Father, “… please watch over her … protect her by your sovereign power …” “She belongs to you, so make yourself known to her.” “Convince her of the truth … your word is truth.” And at the same time I’ve been preparing this reflection, and it’s struck me that this is exactly what Jesus was praying for his disciples, and us, here in John 17. ‘Abba, guard them, don’t let them be snatched away!’ A prayer we might be praying for our own children and grandchildren, and those descendants who come further down the century. And for each other.

My point is, let’s make parts of this, the Lord’s prayer, our prayer.

Just a couple of other things before we, now having a better big picture, read it again:

At the time he prayed this, just consider Jesus’s mental/emotional state. He was within twenty four hours of his execution, and he knew what was coming. So the prayer is tense, and comes from a deep emotional reservoir as he prays for us.
Do you realise Jesus is still praying for us? It’s stated in three places in the New Testament. Heb 7:24, for example, says “… he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he’s always interceding for them.” Jesus is always interceding for us!

Indeed, Abba. Thy will be done – on earth, as it is in heaven!

[Epilogue: To read again this ‘other Lord’s Prayer’. Here it is: Link]

A Healthy Suspicion

A little girl I know, I’ll call her Alice, believes in the tooth fairy. No, I mean, really believes in the tooth fairy. I know, everybody believes in the tooth fairy, don’t they, but Alice is next level. She won’t be shaken. Because she’s been told by her parents that the tooth fairy comes and – well – the evidence is overwhelming: she put her tooth under the pillow and there was money there in the morning. What more proof could you want? Like the biscuit crumbs and empty glass and reindeer kibble that are left beside the fire place on Christmas morning.
There’s also the Easter bunny. I mean, nobody really believes in the Easter bunny, do they?
Well, Alice does. Because her teacher told her so; and if anyone is to be trusted, and who knows everything, it is the teacher. So I can’t shake this innocent’s unshakeable belief in the bunny.

Would we call it gullibility?
I don’t think so. Gullibility is a misplaced, foolish belief and trust by someone who should know better. That doesn’t really describe this six-year-old. How could she know better when people she justifiably trusts assert something with a straight face?
When does innocent trust become gullibility? When should a person wake up to foolish belief? There’s a group of adults in Kenya who’ve been told that if they starve themselves to death they’ll pass quickly and painlessly into heaven; even better if they starve their children first. At time of writing, the death toll has surpassed 200, and more than 600 people are reported missing.
There’s a group of adults in free Europe (not just in Russia itself, where Putin controls information) who believe that Putin really is defending the freedom of Russia. See, for example, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65559516.
There’s a group of adults in America who really do believe there’s a conspiracy of prominent and highly influential men running a global paedophile ring.
Some people will believe anything. How do grown-ups fall for these things?

Yes, some people resolutely believe what they’re told. Not just six-year-olds. Uncritical, unquestioning, undiscerning people. If someone they respect says something, they will buy it without investigation.
We need to question everything we receive and believe. We need to cultivate a hedge of healthy suspicion! What I believe is not a given. It’s open to exploration. I need to stay awake, not drift cosily along with the half-baked opinions and third-hand messages on my Facebook group.

Religion can deceive people, don’t you know. The faithful need to be critical and discerning too. What ‘truth’ is actually true? Not just, what does the preacher, the priest or the imam say?
In contrast to the gullibles listed above, there was a group of adults in a city called Berea, in first century Macedonia, who had the right posture. Acts 17:11 reports that “the Bereans … received the message … and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” St Paul himself later wrote, “Prove [weigh, judge, discern] all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

Alice would do well to learn from the Bereans, and soon. Before her bunny belief pops and her adamancy about the tooth fairy leaves her embarrassed, or worse.

Rocks and Stones

by Bruce Gilberd

(Based on John 14:1-14; Ps 31:1-5; Acts 7:55-60; I Peter 2:2-10)

In today’s readings there are references to stones, mansions and buildings … and, living faith communities of people – the Christian church.

Pat and I noticed when living in – and visiting – Britain, almost every church – Celtic, Saxon, Norman, Gothic, Victorian and contemporary – was made of stone. Westminster Abbey, seen by hundreds of millions this past week, is/was made of stone – in the thirteenth century! Not so here in Aotearoa NZ where most, except our cathedrals, are made of wood.

A church building provides sacred space for the church people to gather to be graced, to worship, to be equipped for service and witness when we are not gathered here – for twenty four/seven discipleship.

Place and People: they go together. From the time of Solomon’s Temple three thousand years ago, hosting the Jewish church, to St Francis Tairua of the Christian church here this morning.

A reflection on all this from today’s readings:

From Psalm 31: the writer – probably David – says God is his fortress and his rock.
In the Acts reading: Dr Luke gives us the end of Stephen’s speech to the Jewish Council, and his prayer, as he dies from stoning, with rocks, a prayer similar to Jesus’s on the cross. Stephen prays, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” He then dies, and Saul – later Paul – approves of his killing.
Peter – the ‘rock’ and apostle – the rock on whose faith Jesus was to build his church – speaks of Christ as the “cornerstone” on which people build, or over which they stumble. He then describes in eloquent language the community of faith – the church, God’s divine creation, purposed to carry on the work of the risen Lord. The church, he writes, is “God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” The church has inherited the calling Israel failed to fulfil. We are chosen not for privilege but for costly service and witness, joyfully offered.
Then John writes of Jesus telling ‘the eleven’, on the night before he died, after the exit of Judas, “not to be troubled”; “to believe”; and that they have places in “the Father’s house”. And he will return to bring them home.
‘Questioning Thomas’ evokes Jesus’s telling statement:
* I am the way (to God)
* I am the truth (of God)
* I am the life (of God)
* And, most challengingly, “No one comes to the Father except through me …”

Then he replies (this time to Philip’s question), in essence saying, “God the Father is like me” (I ‘abide’ in him …).

Well … quite a lot to take in here, and ponder about.

The contemporary universal church, across God’s world and in every nation, whether meeting secretly in small groups, perhaps in a persecuting environment, or publicly in great buildings – or one like ours – is called to be a presence of Christ, and to hold and share the Gospel of forgiveness and new life in trust for present and future generations. The church is not something early Christians established: it was divinely established and is divinely sustained.

The church is us. People anchored in God our Rock, and his purposes.

Astonishing Science

I’ve posted before on shifting scientific paradigms and how long-accepted ‘facts’ change (see here). But, have I got a story for you today, related.
Did you know that in the seventeenth century there were serious attempts to turn urine into gold?!

Throughout the world, alchemy had been a field of serious study and experimentation, from the early centuries CE. So serious, in fact, that even the genius Isaac Newton pursued it at one time, and during the Middle Ages alchemists had to do their work in secret because rulers were afraid their success would undermine the gold standard, and corrupt the gold supply in Europe!

Through those centuries, of course, nothing was known of chemical ‘elements’, as we now understand. Matter was thought to be made up of earth, air, fire and water; and there were mysterious, imagined substances such as phlogiston, caloric and aether. (Aether was conceived as a substance that must exist in space so that light (thought to be a wave) could pass through, not unlike current (mis?)conceptions of dark matter and dark energy that are supposed to exist if contemporary cosmological theories are to hold.)

A ‘scientific’ name for alchemy was ‘transmutation’, the act of changing a substance from one form or state into another. To alchemists, this mainly meant the conversion of base metals such as lead into silver and gold, aided by spiritual and magic ‘arts’.

Well, they were wasting their time (and arts), of course, but Hennig Brand and Karl Scheele are worth a second look. In 1675 Brand fancied that urine – similar in colour to gold – could perhaps be converted. He sourced a lot of it (using contributions from soldiers!), stored it in buckets for months until it dried to a paste. Of course, although it stank, and upset Mrs Brand, it never became gold, but it did glow in the dark, and became spontaneously combustible! [Further incensing Mrs Brand … don’t try this at home.] So leading to the discovery of phosphorus! Which at the time was more valuable than gold anyway.

Scheele (around 1760) found a way to manufacture phosphorus without stockpiling urine. But the more interesting thing about Scheele was that he insisted on tasting all the substances he worked with, including cyanide and arsenic. Such that, “aged just 43, he was found dead at his workbench surrounded by an array of toxic chemicals.” (For this and other fascinating insights into science in the ‘golden era’ – and in many other eras – read Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.)

Perhaps less astonishing but just as remarkable, transmutation of the elements was finally achieved in 1919 by Ernest Rutherford who, with a group of student scientists, converted nitrogen into oxygen: they bombarded nitrogen in the air with α-particles (actually helium nuclei) to produce oxygen and a proton (a hydrogen nucleus). This reaction can be written as ¹⁴N + ⁴He → ¹⁷O + ¹H. Actually, similar processes had occurred, unnoticed, since the beginning of time – for example, uranium decaying to lead, a natural process of transmutation now recognised and fully understood.

Science, eh. There are some sensational stories.
Hints of the wonder and fascination of our world and universe: the jaw-dropping phenomena of Physics; the magic of chemistry; the mysteries of biology; and the astonishments of all the other -ologies. And around and behind and undergirding them all, their absorbing human histories.
The order and predictability of our universe, its design, but its inscrutabilities too. And, ultimately, the great whodunnit. Whence came it all to be, and how?