NERDS!
I know it might hard to believe, but I was not always the ultra cool pastor dude I am today. In fact as a youth, I was ummm… well… I was a bit of a well… I was a nerd of sorts. Maybe a better word would be geek, whatever you call it I was not one of the popular kids in school. In fact when I was younger, I got picked on, and in my memory, quite a bit. I got picked on for a lot of reasons, some I had absolutely no control over.
I had glasses, I was uncoordinated, a late bloomer and about as socially awkward as you can imagine! I also loved Star Trek, Star Wars, computers, photography and I wasn’t particularly into sports.
In many ways I am not all that different than I was as a kid, but I have sort of grown into my personality and body over the years and quite frankly people don’t tend to pick on people who are 6’6″ and push 300 lbs. It is funny how some things don’t change but their perception of them might change. You know those glasses I wore as a kid, those horn rimmed thingys… well I guess they are a fashion statement now. Back in my day the only person that looked good in them was Berry Goldwater, not a 7 year old kid!
I don’t let teasing bother me too much either. In fact I think I can take a good joke and I rather enjoy the give and take of poking fun amongst people who genuinely care for each other. Most of all in regards to our book of faith Lenten Journey devotions, I am not harassed because I am a Christian, nor am I harassed because I am a Christian pastor.
I am fortunate to live in this country. There are many in this world today who are not so fortunate. Big or small, good looking, popular or otherwise, if you are a Christian you can be picked on and much worse. There are people each day who find their lives and livelihoods in trouble because of their faith. So it has been for much of the history of the Christian faith. In the earliest days I think those first disciples heard this petition and good news… as the purest form of Gospel there is.
“Save us from the time of trial” Oh.. boy! Those are some trials. But as followers of Christ should the fact that we might be picked on and persecuted for our faith come as a surprise?
Think about it… we are in Holy Week; Good Friday is but days away. If God’s Son so offended people with his love and honesty, don’t you think we might have a hard go of it from time to time? After all Jesus was the one who called to us to pick up our crosses and follow him.
Now this doesn’t mean that we look for trouble, nor does it mean you can count on being persecuted on a regular basis. Whew! But when you side with the poor and powerless in the world you might come under some suspicion. I mean it is all about power and wealth isn’t it?
Well the cross and empty tomb attest to the fact that the things we often think are important are not. Life, love and service in Christ’s name are in fact what it is all about. Does this mean as cross bearers as Christians who love the lost and the least that we are relegated to horrible lives? No, in fact being a follower of Christ can in fact open up the way for a life full of blessings, among these blessings is this very petition of the Lord’s Prayer “save us from the time trial.”
As we face trails, we do not walk alone, as we struggle, we do not walk alone, as we experience the joys of life and celebrate each turning point we do not do this alone. I don’t think you can over rate this experience, this knowledge that we are not alone. We are a people made to be in relationship and it is in Christ that we find we are never alone, even when all others may be against us, Jesus love is with us in all things, And that is the biggest blessing there is!
Subtle
Quick, what is black and white and read (ahem) all over?
I know, I know, it is a newspaper… but when I was young all I could hear was red, not read. So I never really got the joke until I was much older… too old… I am not going to tell you when the light bulb finally went off!
Ok, so maybe I am not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, but as I read my devotions today, a thought dawned on me. When we pray “save us from the time of trial” might we not be asking not for total absence of trials, which made sense to me, but rather when we are enduring these trials that we would be saved?
Like I said, maybe everyone views it this way. But I guess it just really dawned on me today.
Yes I suppose it would be nice to be saved from having a trial in the first place… but trials do come don’t they? In our book of faith 40 day Lenten Journey devotions, the author talked about when the first disciples read this they were thinking apocalyptic (I spelled that right first time out! woot!) … end of the world kind of thoughts… they were pretty sure after Jesus rose from the dead, God was done and was soon to send in the mop up crew. These were the trials the first disciples wanted to be saved from, and who can blame them.
hehehehe
To this day we hear rumors of wars and experience earth quakes and other great signs and terrible portents and we get spooked! People have been going on about the end times since… well, since I think shortly after the beginning of time. Our current culture wants to be saved as well, how else can you explain the whole Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins publishing juggernaut?
Honestly I side with Martin Luther on this one (surprise!) who when asked what he would do if he knew that the world was going to end tomorrow. In response he said something like “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” In other words he would keep on living has he had been living. Such was his faith in the Lord who taught us to pray “save us from the time of trial.”
It has more or less been my understanding for some time. When I was a kid the threat of an atomic Holocaust was much discussed and fretted about. After a time, I came to the realization, that you can not live in fear. That when the Lord comes, we will be saved from that time of trial. Oh we my undergo trials, but we will not be found wanting. When we see the trials that the world is under we are called as the children of God to go out into those places and save those who are under trial. We do this because our salvation is sure in Christ, the one who has undergone all trials and has not be found wanting. In Jesus we have one who has been tested as we are and yet has not found the testing more that God’s love can handle.
We are tested there are no two ways about it but as I talked about at the start of this entry. We can pray in sure and certain confidence that we will be saved from the time of trial, in Christ. And when we understand that in faith we are saved from sin, death and the devil and living in Jesus’ love and forgiveness each day, we are enabled as the body of Christ to save others in their time of trial! Whoa!
True love = Cleaning the bathroom?
Does anyone like to clean the bathroom?
I don’t think I know anyone. I know several people who don’t mind it so much, but nobody who really looks forward to cleaning that essential room!
One young lady said she knew her fiance was the one when one day when she was at work, he cleaned the bathroom for her, and had continued that practice ever since! A real keeper!
Serving one another, it can the easiest thing to do and the hardest.
Harry Wendt author of the Crossways Bible study describes Jesus, as “servant without limit.” No temptation of power, nor even the most basic human needs were enough to pull Jesus away from his service for us.
We in turn are also called to serve God and one another for Jesus sake. The week a head is Holy Week and Maundy Thursday is the start of the 3 holy days. It is in the liturgy of the church “the night in which he took the cup gave thanks… you get the point. He gave us the gift of Holy Communion, but he also served his disciples by washing their feet.
Foot washing was and in some places still a sign of servant hood and some folks even practice this as a part of their Maundy Thursday worship. For those of us in this part of the world, foot washing is well… it is just symbolic. Today we have clean streets and good shoes, back in Jesus day sewage ran in the streets and they wore sandals. Foot washing was important, but it was also disgusting… worse that cleaning a bathroom! So it was left to the lowest of the servants, to slaves and others of no social status (read women .) When Jesus washed feet he was showing his disciples they way of God was the way of loving service, not of power and manipulation.
When we pray “Save us from the time of trial” we are asking that nothing get between us and God. But our pride does so easily. We are called to 
be humble, but the need for power and control creeps around every corner. The church is not exempt from this temptation either. The greatest blunders of the church as a whole and Christians as individuals happen when succumb to the temptations and trials of power and do not humble ourselves by trusting fully in God.
But what of the Christian life. Shouldn’t there be some perk, so bonus for living the Christian life? You might want to take a look at Jesus and his life before you start going down that road too far!
I really liked what the book of faith 40 day Lenten Journey devotions had to say about this today so I am pretty much going to copy what was there.
“If I am a child of God, bad things shouldn’t happen to me, should they? So why do I have cancer; why did I lose my job; why did my marriage break up; why does my child take drugs; why is my house being forclosed? So, God, do something to prove to me that I am your child, do something to make it right.” Jesus said no to this temptation;
rather than test God’s love, he entrusted himself to God’s love.
Really that is where this petition really clicks, in our lives. “Save us from the time of trial” means when the rubber hits the road, we pray that we might trust that God will in fact save us from the time of trial so that we might live to serve God and the whole world.
Crud
The first line in the book of faith 40 day Lenten journey today was this; “The Lord’s Prayer is for ordinary people – not spiritual athletes.”
Crud.
Ok, two things.
One… I cannot see the phrase “Ordinary People” and not think of the movie by the same name. Dreadful, dreadful movie… fine it’s a 
compelling story, and it was the first movie Robert Redford directed… big whoop. You see, in my youth we thought it would be cool to go to a drive in movie. So late one fall before the drive in closed down up in Madison, a bunch of us headed up to c
atch the show… A double feature… except the movies we thought we were going to see were the ones that were there the week before so this bunch of teenaged boys got stuck watching “Ordinary People” and “the Great Santini” In today’s parlance… these were “Chick flicks” if I ever saw them… maybe it would have been great if I had gone to the movie with a date… but noooooo…
I have been emotionally scarred for life.
Anyway… I digress, again!
Point duex!
Not spiritual athletes? I didn’t catch the place where Jesus said, when you pray, if you are an ordinary person pray this way… Our Father… However, if you are a spirutal athlete, then… you can’t pray this prayer.
Fine I may be picking a nit here… but I really struggled going any deeper in our devotions because of that beginning. Now I know the 
author of our devotions wasn’t picking on the fine folks at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, but he was picking on the smug self-righteous folks Jesus so often struggled with.
When we pray this petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Save us from the time of trial” we are acknowledging our need for help because despite our best intentions, we often make the wrong choices in life.
Our devotions use Jesus’ story of the two dudes praying at temple. One a Pharisee (SOUND EFFECT: dump dun da….) and the other a tax collector (Wah wah wah….)
Anyway the story goes this way the Pharisee bellows out his prayers stating his qualifications and his holy life style and he gives thanks that he isn’t like that pond scum of a tax collector over there. (For Pete’s sake… he did this out loud for everyone to hear, shesh you can tell he wasn’t born and raised in the Midwest!) Then it is the tax collectors turn… and he basically prays… dear Lord have mercy on me cause, whoa… I have messed up, shoot I am messed up!
The point here is that the tax collector was counting on God’s righteousness, the Pharisee… he is what we call self-righteous.
Getting back to the core of my rant, I don’t have a problem with spiritual athletes praying this prayer, because often the best of them know they can’t do it alone. Nearly any professional athlete worth his or her salt will tell you it is the coaches and team mates that make them successful. Spiritual athletes will tell you the same. It is God who saves, it is Christ who justifies, we are who we are because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Now… spiritual actors… now there is another kettle of fish! Not that 
acting is a bad profession or avocation, but if your spiritual life is all an act… uuuuboy do we have a problem. I think that was the Pharisee’s problem, his prayer was all a show… the real guy under the fancy robe and the social status was not all that different from the tax collector.
Self -righteousness is just a form of self deception, of acting, but not really being the part. In this prayer we ask that as we are who we are, 
God would come to us all; spiritual couch potatoes or spiritual athletes, the sinners, the self-righteous and whatever category you place yourself in and as we pray I hope we learn to trust that God can control even those temptations that would undo us.
Well I have gotten too wordy again… Sorry!
Blessings!
You know the type don't cha?
Oh… and I thought this was cool too. You can’t point this web site to another web site or you can type in your own words and the tweak this lovely little word picture thingy.. it is a http://www.wordle.com
It’s about us
Just got back from a band concert at the CAL center up at the Reedsburg Area High School It wasn’t just the high school that played, the 7th, 8th, and Senior High bands all had their moment in the sun, and they all played at once for the finale.
It always amazes me the progress that these kids make up through the years… The first time you hear the 7th graders play it can be, well a little tough to hear even if your pride and joy is up there. Then comes this time of year and well, they sound better… and on it goes through 8th grade and on to High School.
Maybe the coolest thing of all is they (mostly) play together and
Not This Conductor!
(mostly) at the right time and that is because of the conductor.
The conductor keeps the beat, and lets people know when they should come in and how loud or softly they should play. If someone doesn’t look at the conductor,
a major melt down often ensues… I have seen it!
Like this!
A thought struck me again about the word “us” in the Lord’s Prayer. Again our book of faith 40 day Lenten Journey devotions pointed this out… we don’t pray “and save me from the time of trial” it is save “US” from the time of trial!
We are an interconnected bunch that is to be sure. And when Jesus tought this prayer he knew that. But we so often want to isolate ourselves. To pull ourselves out of relationship, because after all it is all about me, isn’t it? Relationships are at the very core of faith. They are at the very core of who God is… I mean remember Genesis… God says “let us” hmmm… think on that for a while! From the beginning this God is all about relationship.
When I was a kid a common defense for any activity that could be judged rightly or wrongly as not exactly good was this phrase. “What happens behind closed doors between two consenting adults is none of your business.” For many that ended the argument… for me it meerly began it (I was a pain in the butt!)
Seriously when was the last time you did something that it didn’t have an impact on at least one other living soul? Ok, I can hear your wheels turning… but honestly everything we are and everything we do seen and unseen impacts us and impacts others. Maybe some of those impacts are negligable, but they are there non-the-less.
I am not saying this to set up religious police in peoples bedrooms or other rooms with locked doors for that matter, I simply want you to think about the fact that we do impact others.
Maybe that is why I like Celtic Crosses so much. The center if the cross is the cross of course… but the intertwining strands that make up this distinctive style show how things are connected to the point where you can’t tell where it starts or stops.
In Chirst we all are connected and when one of us is brought to the time of trial we all feel the effects. In this prayer we ask to be spaired from these times so that we might all of US fully live the life Christ intends for all people.
Lead us not?
OK, sports fans, we have changed petitions. We are now on to the 6th petition of the Lord’s prayer, the ever popular, “lead us not into temptation” or the more contemporary “save us from the time of trial.” 
Either way you phrase it, I am for it. I have never been much for trials and quite frankly temptation… well that is just too darn tempting.
Seriously to the best of my memory, this is one of the first theological humdingers I wrestled with. As a comedian once noted, “lead us not into temptation, pffftt… I get there just fine on my own!”
Honestly this was the phrase that got me thinking, ok, well maybe one of the things that got me thinking. Does God lead people into temptation… certainly not, does God allow us to go through trials, ummm…. well I think the answer would have to be yes?
Way to make a stand there Mr. I have a Masters in Divinity!
Testing and temptation do happen. I think we will always struggle to some degree on God’s role in this. Ultimately we do have to remember what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:12-13.
“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. 13No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”
Our hope is that even if we are tested, and tempted God will not let it go beyond our capacity to endure.
In other words I believe this passage is there not as a theological statement about how God works in trials and temptations, but to reassure use that God is for us in all things. The Message puts the end of the 1 Corinthians verse this way… Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence. When we pray this prayer and this petition, we are asking to grow our God-confidence.
Luther in his explanation of this petition lists “despair” as a temptation that we as God to protect us from. This struck me as odd for the longest time. That is until I was getting ready to preach on this petition last week and I came across something that listed despair as the opposite of pride. Now pride we know what a temptation that can be, but despair?
I have no idea what this is doing here... I searched for time of trial and came up with this!
Well think of it this way, if the sin of pride is that we feel that can do it on our own, we are god like and do not need God or his salvation. Then the sin of despair is that we are good for nothings that not even God can love or save. Both are real situations, I have seen them from inside and observed them in others. I think it is important to stress that we are not talking about depression here per se, but a sense of worthlessness, of un-lovedness. In this prayer we pray “save us from the time of trial, or Lead us not into temptation” ultimately I think we are asking God to walk with us each step of the way growing our “God-confidence” as we seek to become what we already are in Jesus Christ.
