Sometimes the only thing we can do is pray. I have heard that saying a lot in Christian circles. It is spoken softly in hospital rooms. It is screamed across social media in the midst of gun violence. It is spoken in hushed tones as parents wrestle with disappointments during teenage years. It is offered in comfort in the midst of natural disasters and cataclysmic events half a world away. And it has definitely crossed my mind more than once while watching the latest footage of the crisis in the Ukraine unfold in what seems like real time across a host of different platforms. 

We have heard hundreds of heroic stories. President Zelensky standing with his cabinet in Kyiv declaring, “we’re still here.” Aid groups and citizens rushing to provide food, medicine and help. The Pub Theology creators also shared as story of a Ukrainian pastor who is simply doing what he can to share the gospel, in word and in deed amidst the crisis: 

“The whole church prayed on their knees for our president, our country, and for peace,” said Ukrainian pastor Vadym Kulynchenko of his church in Kamyanka, 145 miles south of the capital, Kyiv. “After the service, we did a first-aid training.” Rather than a sermon, time was given to share testimonies from harrowing days of air raids. Many psalms were offered, and Kulynchenko’s message centered on Proverbs 29:25: “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”

Even people on the outside Ukraine are rallying in support of the Ukrainian people. Earlier this week, Roman Abromaovich, the Russian owner of the Chelsea football team, declared that he was going to sell the team and donate the proceeds to “victims of the war in the Ukraine.” 

These stories are both heartbreaking and heartwarming. They remind us of both the best and worst of what it means to be a human in this broken, sinful world. 

What is happening now is talked about in terms of being “unprecedented.” It is not. Invasions like this one have happened in other neighboring areas of Russia. They have happened previously in Europe as Germany expanded its borders. They have happened, and continue to happen, over and over again in the Middle East. 

We have also talked about the crisis in terms of being “unexpected in our lifetime.” Yet, my grandmother lived through two world wars, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and almost lived to see the war in Iraq before passing away at 98 years old. Many people of her generation witnessed all of those things. We have been fortunate in the United States to be removed logistically from most of the fighting the world has experienced over the last century. We have not lacked conflict and violence as a species in any decade since the world began.  

The reality is that wars and crises, such as the one in Ukraine, have always been a part of human history. Jesus actually tells us that until He comes again, we will experience these things again and again as the birth pangs of what is to come: 

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:6-13).

However, that reality does not make what is happening any less difficult to comprehend or less horrific. It does not make it any less heart wrenching. It does not make it any less  devastating or scary. This is the first major crisis many of us have seen.

Jesus did not say these words to discount or condone these things, but to let the disciples know that these things are part of life in a fallen world. He said it to encourage them to stay steadfast in their faith. He said to help them remember to both turn to, and trust in, God in the midst of what they would face. 

So, taking into account Christ’s words, how as Christians do we approach the current crisis? How do we navigate the fear, anger, powerlessness and outrage that we feel? Here, Jesus provides an answer as well. Rather than giving into fear, rather than resorting to violence, Jesus encourages us to follow him. In the book of Matthew Jesus’ statement to remember the brokenness of the world and hold fast comes directly before Jesus goes to the cross. He finishes his teaching and then the final part of His journey to Golgotha begins.

And we know how Jesus faced that night. He prayed. 

He gathered His disciples together in the garden and spent the night in prayer to God. He knew what was going to come and He knew the only way to face it was to God in prayer. 

All of scripture points us to this posture in the midst of crisis. Psalm after psalm in the Old Testament cries out to God for salvation, for peace, for an end to violence. In fact the Psalms even cry out for God to engage violently with our enemies while preserving the faithful. They echo all of our fears. They echo our anger. They echo all of our desires. As Rev. Dr. Carol Bechtel, one of my seminary professors, once noted, the psalms give us a Biblical vocabulary for our grief, our pain, and our frustration. The psalms also give us permission to bring all of what we feel and struggle with to God. 

David does not hold back when he calls out to God in fear and sadness:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” (Psalm 22:1).

The psalmist does not mince words when they cry out for God to do justice: 

“Arise, Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice” (Psalm 7:6).

Yet each psalm acknowledges that it is God’s kingdom and God’s justice that we seek. It is God’s kingdom and God’s justice that we need. It is God’s peace, God’s great Shalom in which the lion lays down with the lamb, in which our swords are beaten into plowshares and the work of cultivating life and love become the sole, and soul, focus of all of humankind. To that end, Jesus teaches us how to pray. 

Jesus tells the disciples to pray the words of the Lord’s prayer. It is through our seeking and obeying God that the kingdom will come. It teaches us that we can rely on God for things beyond our control and for our daily needs. And when we are at a loss for words, unable to articulate our greater needs or the needs of the world around us. It too can give us a vocabulary for the unspeakable. 

Walter Brueggemann gives a great example of such a prayer in his poem/prayer “Waiting Bread…and for God’s future.” It echoes with loss while affirming the call of Jesus to come to our Father in prayer and to trust God for our future:

Waiting for Bread…and for God’s Future

We are strange mixtures of loss and hope.

As we are able, we submit our losses to you. 

We know about sickness and dying,

about death and mortality,

about failure and disappointment.

And now for a moment we do our failing and out dying in your presence,

You who attend to us in loss.

As we are able, we submit our hopes to you.

We know about self-focused fantasy and notions of control.

But we also know that our futures are out beyond us, held in your good hand.

Our hopes are filled with promises of well-being, justice, and mercy.

Move us this day beyond our fears and anxieties into your land of goodness.

We wait for your coming, we pray for your kingdom.

In the meantime, give us bread for this day.

Amen.

~ Walter Brueggemann

Brueggemann’s words, built around the Lord’s prayer, remind us that prayer re-centers our eyes on God. Because sometimes all we can do is pray. In moments where we are powerless to affect any other change on our own, prayer recalls us to a posture of hope and allows us to shed our despair. 

And so we too can pray. We can pray that the crisis in Ukraine would come to an end. We can pray that the people would be protected. That the combatants would lay down their arms. That there would be peace. We can also pray that God’s kingdom would truly reign and bring an end to all violence, aggression and evil in every corner of the world. That God’s Kingdom would come and God’s will would be done…on earth as it is in heaven.  

Sometimes the only thing, and the best thing, we can do is pray.

There are two marks of true celebration: a complete and utter release from a feeling of care and concern and a sense of joy that bubbles up and bursts from our hearts. In the Bible God actually commands that the Israelites gather to celebrate communally every year and that the congregate to throw a huge celebration for the Year of Jubilee every seven years. This idea that celebration can be a command and can be a discipline is strange. It seems odd at first to thing about forcing ourselves to celebrate, to put effort into experiencing joy. 

Richard J. Foster explains that real celebration can not be forced. When it is, the result is not God honoring and not life giving. It must flow from our connection to Christ and our experience of living in His will. This is why celebration is a discipline, it requires us to follow Paul’s admonition to set our minds on the things of Christ: things that are good, lovely, just and true. Forster writers that “[celebration] is the result of a consciously chosen way of thinking and living.” When we are trusting God, when we know we are in God’s will we are freer to live, to think and to experience the joy in life around us.

God’s commands to celebrate in scripture are never demanded in a vacuum. They are coupled with reasons to trust in God’s provision and to live fully in God’s will. The Israelites celebrated God’s liberation from Egypt, God’s providence and salvation through Mordecai and Esther (in the book of Esther), they celebrated God’s presence with them in the desert and God’s incredible restoration through the Year of Jubilee when every slave was freed, every debt was forgiven and every inheritance was restored every seven years.

Our celebration can also come from stopping to remember the good things God has done and the gifts that God has given us. It can come from recognizing how we have experienced God’s salvation or freedom. It can also come from catching a glimpse of the way God has provided for us physically, mentally and spiritually. We can dance and revel in our God given ability to move, we can sing and praise God’s love, we can also laugh at the beautiful and ridiculous gifts of art and humor God has given us through other people’s intellects and imaginations, we can gather with friends or family and find small ways to cherish the gifts of life and community God has lavished on us. 

It is these practices that we build our ability to experience God’s joy. In turn, the experience of God’s joy builds our faith and strengthens us to live more fully in God’s will. It becomes a feedback loop of ever expanding trust and celebration.

Exercise for today: 

Choose something to celebrate today. Whether it is calling a good friend for chat and spending time remembering your best times together, watching your favorite comedy movie to laugh at the brilliance of the writers and actors or singing or playing along to your favorite music – find a way to connect to your joy through engaging in a thankful celebration of the good things God has created.

“Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of [God]” (Foster). This is the premise and truth that Richard J. Foster begins with in his chapter on worship in “Celebration of Discipline.” Worship is more than singing songs, coming together and hearing God’s word read and taught. It is an activity of our heart and a posture that shapes our lives. Foster writes that scripture teaches this deeper significance of worship: 

“A striking feature of worship in the Bible is the people gathered in what we could only call “holy expectancy.” They believed they would actually hear the Kol Yahweh, the voice of God…[t]hey were coming into the awful, glorious, gracious presence of the Living God. They gathered with anticipation, knowing that Christ was present among them and would teach them and touch them with his living power.” (Foster)

God’s people gathered to hear the very voice of God, and they expected to leave changed. 

Gathering in worship is important. When we gather as a God’s people, with an expectancy of Christ’s presence, our gathering is transformed. Our spirits and minds are “lifted upward” (Foster). Foster admits there is psychology to this, but as people of faith we also know there is something more. When we witness the Spirit’s work in others lives, when we communally seek God, we share with one another in the greater and deeper call to connection with the very Body of Christ. We become one with Christ and one with one another. 

But even when we are not able to gather collectively, we can still enter into a posture of worship that we can carry with us into communal spaces. As Foster stated, worship is simply responding to God’s love. You can do that as you lay in bed in the morning, wash the dishes, dig through piles of data or research or even as you wander through the aisle at the grocery store and marvel at the variety of items and brands there are to choose from. It can start with a simple act of “stilling” our thoughts and activities and allowing ourselves to focus on God’s goodness, God’s character or God’s gifts to us. 

However, Foster reminds us that worship is a discipline. It can be learned and we can grow in our ability to worship God. He lists a handful of ways to pursue this growth: taking time to seek God quietly each day, exploring different types of worship, taking time to enter into corporate worship, allowing ourselves to unified through prayer and worship with others, learning to absorb distractions with graciousness and recognizing that worship is a sacrifice – a gift we give to God. 

Exercise for today: 

Set aside time to listen to a worship song. Before you begin, find a spot where you can focus, and shut off your other distractions. Dedicate the length of the song to thinking about who God is and the ways your life has been blessed and shaped by God. See if you can take that feeling of gratitude or hope that results with you out into the rest of the day. You may not be perfect at it at first, but give yourself time – it is a discipline after all. 

Here are some songs to use if you need a suggestion: 

“Psalm 34” by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfW2mkkMTAg&list=RDMM&start_radio=1&rv=8kvFtXphmMU or Shane and Shane – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOzf0VrDNGU

“Voice of Blood” by Hildegard Von Bingen ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS28jyW1bLY

Baba Yatu, The Lord’s Prayer in Swahili by the Alex Boyé, BYU Men’s Chorus/ Philharmonic

 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsINANZ6Riw

“Praying for you.” It is something we say to one another and often do for one another. And frankly, it means a lot to hear that from someone. It encourages us and strengthens us in our faith and as a community. 

Prayer can seem really complicated, but I think that is why Jesus reminded the disciples that it could be simple – as simple as the ten lines of the Lord’s prayer. The disciples asked for a lengthy teaching on prayer. They said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). Most Rabbi’s of Jesus’s day spent days and weeks teaching their disciples to pray. Jesus simply gave them a summary. He told them to come to God like children – open, eager and expecting God to answer, and to pray for God’s will to permeate their lives and the world.  

In approaching prayer it helps to listen and learn from those who have engaged with it deeply. In fact, Richard Foster writes about prayer as a learning exercise in and of itself. He writes, “[i]t was liberating for me to understand that prayer involved a learning process. I was free to question, to experiment, even to fail, for I knew I was learning” (Celebration of Discipline). He described how he started with small prayers, for a cold to dissipate or earache to heal, not the big things like cancer or life and death matters. Then he waited to see God work. He also noted that in those prayers he learned to pray with confidence. That posture of confidence came from first seeking God’s heart. Foster looked back to writers like Teresa of Avila and King David and realized that they first sought to understand God’s will, to enter into God’s presence, before seeking to lay their concerns and desires before God. And Jesus taught the same thing, the Lord’s prayer starts with “…thy kingdom come” and ends with supplication and requests. Foster learned that as he sought God, and saw the fruits of his small prayers, his confidence in prayer grew and his connection to God deepened. 

Seeking God’s will, God’s heart, places us in the proper posture for prayer. It reminds us of God’s love for us. Tim Keller write that we experience God’s love through prayer, “[p]rayer is the way to sense and appropriate this access [to God] and fatherly love, and to experience the calm and strength in one’s life that results from such assurance of being cared for.” We can come to God with confidence because God promises that what we seek we will find. When we truly seek to do God’s will, God will answer those prayers in mighty and surprising ways. 

InterVarsity recently shared this prayer Robert J. Foster from his book entitled “Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home.” It is a great reminder to recenter ourselves in God and in God’s will. 

Today, O Lord, I yield myself to You.

May Your will be my delight today.

May You have perfect sway in me.

May your love be the pattern of my living.

I surrender to You my hopes, my dreams, my ambitions.

Do with them what You will, when You will, as You will.

I place into Your loving care my family, my friends, my future.

Care for them with a care that I can never give.

I release into Your hands my need to control, my craving for status, my fear of obscurity.

Eradicate the evil, purify the good, and establish Your Kingdom on earth.

For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Through prayer we connect with the heart of God – for us and for others. It allows our prayers to be grounded in love and allows God’s love to flow through us and into the world around us. 

Exercise for today: 

Find a quiet spot and position yourself in a space and in a way that will not distract you. Re-read the prayer above as your prayer today, reading slowly one line at a time. If you feel a need to pray more deeply, pause after each line and listen for God’s voice. If distracting thoughts pop in, talk to God about what is surfacing in your heart and mind, and then proceed to the next line. End with a minute or two of silence (whatever is comfortable) and listen for God to speak to you.

This coming Saturday, Campus Edge Fellowship is hosting an event entitled: Where Do We Go From Here? A Conversation on Calling and Vocation for Graduate and Professional Students. It is open to all current MSU graduate and professional students – and to recent graduates as well. It centers around finding our calling as Christ followers in our individual contexts and careers. Here is the description of the event if you or someone you know might be interested in attending:

Where Do We Go From Here? A Conversation on Calling and Vocation for Graduate and Professional Students

Date: April 10

Time: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Where: On-line via Zoom

Are you questioning your plans for graduate school or your post-graduation plans? Do you wonder if there might be more to life than the plans you already have in place? Are you losing sight of what you were meant to do because you are so busy pursuing what you think you should do?

In his book “Let Your Life Speak,” Parker Palmer addresses the idea of vocation, suggesting that we listen for the calling God has put on each of our lives in order to recognize the work that God has uniquely gifted us to do: 

“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen to what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”

Campus Edge Fellowship invites you to an evening dedicated to exploring these questions of calling and vocation. This interactive event will feature a short talk about vocation by Lorelei Blackburn, guided reflective exercises, breakout room discussions, and a roundtable panel featuring five discussants who will help us consider the ways God may call us after graduate school–sometimes in unexpected directions and sometimes to the very places we planned to go. 

Email info@campusedge.com to register for the event. We’ll send you a Zoom link the day of the event. 

Scripture: Genesis 2:1-3

Reflection: Often we look at humankind as the final and most important work of creation. After all, when God finished creating humankind, God looked at the whole world and called it “very good.” However, the scriptural account of creation does not end there. In his book “Living the Sabbath”, Norman Wirzba argues that the final act of creation was truly the creation of the Sabbath, the “rest, tranquility, serenity and peace of God” that all of creation is invited into. Passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy echo this idea by reminding God’s people to “keep the Sabbath holy,” to refrain from work and to give their animals and land respite each week and every seven years. 

The Old Testament emphasizes the importance of Sabbath as a rhythm of life. It is included in the ten commandments, and honoring it sets God’s people up as examples to the nations. But Jesus helps us truly understand God’s intention for the Sabbath. When the disciples are chided for picking grain to eat Jesus tells the Pharisees, “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus reminds them that the Sabbath is not about a prescriptive act. It is not meant as a limitation, but a gift. It is a reminder to cease our busyness and to pause and contemplate God’s world in its vast array of beauty. Honoring Sabbath reminds us to set aside time to experience God’s life giving peace and to extend it to all of creation. 

Suggested action: As we head to Easter and the resurrection of life it represents, take some time to think about which of the suggested actions brought the most life into your week and prayerfully consider adding it to your daily or monthly routines. And because part of this exercise is about connection, to God, to creation and to others – consider inviting friends or family into the exercise with you. 

Suggested resources:  “To the Ends of the Earth” (Vimeo) and “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” and “An Inconvenient Truth” (both on Prime) and the books “Don’t Even Think About It” by George Marshall and “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas.

All film suggestions form from the PBS Independent Lens blog “Earthy Day Watch list: 17 Films About Sustainability and Climate Change” (with the exception of “Chasing Ice” and “Black Fish”  which are from other sources). All the listed movies offered as suggestions by CEF as starting points for discussion around sustainability and stewardship.  https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/earth-day-watch-list-17-new-films-about-sustainability-climate-change/

Image: Artist and title unknown

Scripture: Genesis 1:24-31

Reflection: The word “created” is used sparingly in scripture with it most often referring to God’s work in creating the world. However, the first chapter of Genesis uses it five times. The chapter opens with a statement that God “created the heavens and the earth.” The birds and the fish get that special designation as “God created” as well. And finally, when the text talks about the creation of humankind it uses the word “created” three times. 

It is always important to look out for repetition in scripture. It means something. It always asks us to take a deeper look at what is being said. There is deep repetition in the verses that describe God’s creation of humanity. These verses remind us that God made us, that we are made in God’s image and that God chose to create humans in different sexes (plural) that reflect that image. But the repetition also does something more, it reminds us that we are in fact created beings. 

That “created-ness” should give us pause when we think of God’s mandate for us “to rule” over the other parts of God’s created world. It reminds us that like the earth and the sky, like the fish and the birds, we were created by God for a purpose. Our rulership is a positional one, not one of materiality. We are made of the same building blocks and atoms as the world around us and our origins all begin with the same Originator. But we are special because we are called to reflect our creator’s heart for the world, to care for and rejoice in everything that God declares “good.”

Suggested action: Buy fair-trade chocolate and coffee, and purchase sustainably-raised meat. Plan a garden that will provide habitat for birds and insects around your home: pollinator flowers or shrubs for shelter. If you are able, make a donation to an organization that works for justice for God’s creation such as A Rocha (https://www.arocha.org/en/) or choose one of the actions from the Climate Caretakers website (https://climatecaretakers.org/take-action).

Image: Katsushika Hokusai, “Peasants and Travelers in Autumn Landscape”