Author Archives: Maxie Dunnam

Maxie Dunnam ~ Confession

Confession is an essential spiritual discipline. The primary need for confession is simple: that we might experience forgiveness. The witness of scripture is that a dominant desire in God’s heart is the desire to forgive.

Psalms are prayers. The Book of Psalms is, in fact, the prayer book of our Hebrew religious heritage. Many of the Psalms are specifically prayers of confession; and most of them have a dimension of confession within them.

Will you take a moment to pray with me some words from Psalm 19?

Eternal God, in your presence we seek to be mindful of who we are. “But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults. Keep your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:12-14).

Another psalm, Psalm 51, is one of the most familiar in scripture. Likewise, it is one of the most familiar prayers. Read Psalm 51:1-12 here.

In this psalm, King David’s prayer, we can see that he must have known about God’s desire to forgive. This psalm is a powerful witness of the awareness of sin and the need for forgiveness. King David, “a man after God’s own heart,” according to scripture, gave in to his lust and used his power to commit rape and adultery with Bathsheba and then to send her husband into battle so that he might be killed. His sins find him out and he can’t live with his sinful self. He cries out to God in contrite confession and desire for forgiveness.

It is clear not only in the Old Testament but also in the New Testament that a dominant desire of God’s heart is to forgive. The story of the woman caught in the act of adultery is a vivid witness. Read John 8:1-11 here.

When the accusing men bring the woman to Jesus, it puts Jesus in a “no-win” dilemma. If he elects to show mercy on the woman and free her, he clearly will be disobeying Jewish law; if he condemns her or does not intervene in preventing condemnation, he will be going against everything he has taught about compassion and forgiveness.

The problem is clear: sin and the need for forgiveness. Jesus expands the focus. He does not deal only with the sin of the woman; he forces the accusers to look at themselves. In both instances – the woman and her accusers – confession and forgiveness is Jesus’ aim. Look closely at Jesus’ action.

The accusers make their charge, but they are not prepared for Jesus’ response. They must have been speechless, immobilized by Jesus’ offer, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).

Jesus then bends over to write in the sand. Was he allowing the people some relief from their own engagement with him in order that they might deal with their own consciences? Or did he write something that probed even more deeply and burned more searingly upon their calloused hearts? Whatever it was, when he arose no one was present to condemn the woman, and Jesus announced to her his forgiveness and call to a new life.

In her book Learning to Forgive, Doris Donnelly offers a perceptive commentary on this action of Jesus. She says that he binds “the accusers to their sins to render them capable of repentance. On the other hand, he offers to free the accused woman from the weight of her shame and guilt by forgiving her sin” (p.114).

See how that confirms the witness of scripture: God’s dominant desire to forgive. For the woman and for the accusers, Jesus was offering an opportunity for confession and forgiveness. We could add witness after witness from scripture.

Confession as Response

Beginning at the point of our believing that it is God’s desire to forgive, confession becomes not a morbid discipline, not a dark groveling in the mud and mire of life, not a fearful response to a wrathful, angry God who is out to get us if we don’t shape up. Rather, confession becomes an act of anticipation, a response to the unconditional call of God’s love: the promise that “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

“The blood of Jesus…cleanses us”: here we come to the meaning of the cross. Our redemption by Jesus on the cross is a great mystery hidden in the heart of God. To try to reduce it to a formula or penalties or priests and sacrifices of appeasement is to try to bring it down to a human level and always to miss a measure of its power.

It is necessary to note two truths in the way the cross is related to confession and forgiveness. One, the cross is the expression of God’s great desire to forgive. Not anger but love brought Jesus to the cross. Two, without the cross and the forgiveness that is the core of its meaning, confession is merely psychologically therapeutic.

Self-examination

One of the greatest barriers to personal wholeness and spiritual growth and maturity is our unawareness of, or unconsciousness of, our sin and guilt. John states the case clearly:

If we claim to be sinless, we are self-deceived and strangers to the truth. If we confess our sins, he is Just, and may be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every kind of wrong; but if we say we have committed no sin, we make him out to be a liar, and then his word has no place in us. (1 John 1:8-10, NEB)

Self-examination and confession go together as one discipline. One of the primary purposes of this discipline is to keep us aware of our true condition. We are masters of the art of self-deceit. Or in another angle of perception, in many instances others see us better than we see ourselves.

What happens is rather clear. We know that there is a tension between good and evil within us, but we are fearful of dealing with that tension. We suppress our feelings. We begin to suppress the conflicts between our warring passions. When a sinful lust or desire emerges we push it under the rug of our consciousness. We do this so much that we lose track of the truth and to some degree numb ourselves to the conflict.

Behind our fear of dealing with the tension between good and evil within us is the false notion that to admit sin is to admit weakness and failure, to risk being accepted by others and even by God. I can understand how that may be so in relation to others. But just how this has come about in relation to God is a mystery. The heart of the gospel is the graceful forgiveness of a loving God. And, in fact, the essential for forgiveness and healing is confession. “If we confess our sins, he [Jesus Christ] is just, and may be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every kind of wrong” (1 John 1:9, NEB).

Naming the Demon

Look now at confession as a process of naming the demon. When we examine ourselves and confess, we need to be explicit and name our failure, our sin, our problem, our guilt, our pain, our broken relationship, our poisoned attitude, our rampant passion – name these specifically. There is healing and redemptive power inherent in the naming process. Rollo May, in his “Love and Will,” has written clearly and helpfully about this dynamic:

In the naming of the demonic, there is an obvious and interesting parallel to the power of naming in contemporary medical and psychological therapy. At some time, everyone must have been aware of how relieved he was when he went to the doctor with a troublesome illness and the doctor pronounced a name for it.

May goes on to share his personal confession:

Some years ago, after weeks of undetermined illness, I heard from a specialist that my sickness was tuberculosis. I was, I recall, distinctly relieved, even though I was fully aware that this meant, in those days, that medicine could do nothing to cure the disease. A number of explanations will leap to the reader’s mind. He will accuse me of being glad to be relieved from responsibility; that any patient is reassured when he has the authority of the doctor to which he can give himself up; and the naming of the disorder takes away the mystery of it. But these explanations are surely too simple…

Not that the rational information about the disease is unimportant; but the rational data given to me added up to something more significant than the information itself. It becomes, for me, a symbol of a change to a new way of life. The names are symbols of a certain attitude I must take toward this demonic situation of illness; the disorder expresses a myth (a total pattern of life), which communicates to me a way in which I must now orient and order my life. This is so whether it is for two weeks with a cold or twelve years with tuberculosis; the quantity of time is not the point. It is the quality of life. (pp. 172-73)

Until we “name the demon,” identify, clarify, and willingly state clearly our concern and confession, our confession will not be complete and will not have full healing and forgiving power.

Take a few minutes to reflect on this principle of “naming the demon.” Can you give a name (write it down) to something in your life that you feel guilty or shameful about, something you know is wrong, a destructive relationship or habit – something you have never specifically acknowledged?

Remember what we affirmed earlier: the cross is the expression of God’s great desire to forgive, and without the cross, confession is only psychologically therapeutic. There is positive value of confession simply at the level of psychological therapy, but our focus is greater than that. Confession is discipline for spiritual growth.

When we practice confession, with the love of God expressed in the cross as the dynamic invitation to which we are responding, our relationship to God changes. We do not remain separated, estranged, under judgment; we are accepted. This is an objective change in our relationship to God. There is also a subjective change, a change in us. We are no longer paralyzed with guilt. We no longer feel mean or ugly or dirty or powerless or sick of heart and mind. We are healed. We experience an inner transformation.

 

For Further Study:

  • Learning to Forgive, Doris Donnelly, New York: Macmillan, 1979
  • Love and Will, Rollo May, New York: Norton, 1969

Maxie Dunnam ~ Leave Your Stuff Behind

The scriptural context for today’s article can be found in Genesis 45:1-28, which you are invited to read here.

Loren Eiseley is one of my favorite writers.  He is a distinguished anthropologist and essayist.  What makes his writing so gripping to me is that he has the eye of an artist and the soul of a poet.  He sees beyond the surface and has that rare double gift which enables him to enter deeply into an experience and then share that experience with us in a way that enables us to vicariously experience what he himself has experienced.

In one of his poignant vignettes from boyhood, he shared a moment of time that bears timeless truth.  He was 16, and one day he leaned out the second story window of his high school and saw an old junk dealer riding in a cart filled with castoff clothing, discarded furniture, and an assortment of broken-down metal objects. A broken-down horse was pulling the cart.  As the decrepit figures passed below him, Eiseley had a sudden sense of what time means in its passing. He wrote, “‘It’s all going,’ I thought with a desperation of the young confronting history.  No one can hold it… we’re riding into the dark.  When my eye fell upon that junk dealer passing by, I thought instantly, ‘save him, immortalize this unseizeable moment, for the junk man is the symbol of all that is going or gone.'”

Forever after that, Eiseley said he could never regard time without having a deep sense of wonder and he sought to receive every moment as a kind of gift that was only his.  It’s an image to consider as we begin this year.  And to help us appropriate it, let’s look at our scripture lesson.

Tucked away in this story of Joseph’s sojourn into Egypt is a verse that is packed with far more meaning than appears on the surface. It is a word that carries a whole wagonload of goods for reflection and teaches us an eternal truth that we do well to consider as we move into the New Year.

Rehearse the story.  Sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph found favor with the Pharaoh and became one of the trusted officials in Pharaoh’s court.  A strange irony of fate (the providence of God, of coarse) brought Joseph and his brothers who had betrayed him together again.  A famine had ravaged the land of Canaan, the people were without food and they came to Egypt seeking to buy food from the Pharaoh.  It was soon revealed that the person with whom they had to deal was the brother they had sold into slavery, so the tables were turned.  Here they were asking food from the person they had cast away.  And when it came to Pharaoh’s attention that Joseph’s brothers had come, it pleased him.  He instructed Joseph to bring the whole family away from Canaan, promising to give them the goods of all the land of Egypt. It is at this point that the power-packed verse is found.  Do this, said Pharaoh: “take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives, and get your father and come.  Never mind about your belongings, because the best of all of Egypt will be yours.”  I like the way the King James’ version translates that. “Regard not your stuff, for the best of all the land of Egypt will be yours.”

Regard not your stuff.  There’s all sorts of meaning in that.  One translation renders it, “leave your stuff behind.”  Now some of us who have moved a good bit, like Methodist preachers, know what that means.  I remember when we moved from Mississippi to California, years ago.  Moving across the continent made it even more difficult to decide what stuff we were going to take and what stuff we were going to leave behind.  Moving is expensive.  My wife, Jerry, collects rocks, and she had bushels of them.  She knew better than to get into a discussion with me about taking those rocks from Mississippi to California.  Do you know how heavy rocks are?  So Jerry did a very cunning thing.  She packed her choice rocks into kitchen canisters and cake tins and brought them along without my knowing it.  The movers were mystified, I’m sure, as they handled those cake tins and canisters, and I learned of it long after I had paid the bill.

“Regard not your stuff,” said Pharaoh, “leave your stuff behind…for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.”

By the time most of us get to be adults, we have accumulated a great deal of stuff.  We’ve learned so many wrong things, stored up so much misinformation, learned to respond in so many destructive ways, adopted all the biting, snarling, snippy styles of relating, become secretive and cynical.  We carry a lot of stuff around, and it burdens us down.  We get all glued up in our limited world of habit.  So this word of Pharaoh to Joseph’s brothers is a good word for us, particularly as we begin this new year: leave your stuff behind. What is some of the stuff we need to leave behind as we begin the new year?  What can we drop off our weary, bending backs to make our trek into the New Year a bit easier and far more meaningful?

Leave behind self-pity. Self-pity is a burden most of us are unwilling to drop off.  Someone hurts our feelings and we carry our hurt with us forever.  We’re treated unfairly and we never forget it.  Something happens in our family and it seems to us that we’re being put down: someone else is receiving special treatment, so we get a kind of stepchild complex.  We suffer physically and we get the idea that the whole universe is out to persecute us – such an easy snare to fall into! As long as we carry this burden of self-pity, we can blame our failures on someone or something else.

To go through life with the burden of self-pity is to go through life crippled.  It is to stumble along at an uneasy and faltering pace, so we need to leave the bundle of self-pity behind us.  We need to stride into the future, not with self-pity, but with self-affirmation.  And when we rehearse the gospel, we know that we can do that because the whole of Scripture, especially the Gospels, is an affirming, not a destructive word.

Jesus said that not even a sparrow fell to the ground without the Father taking note, and then he added, “you are of more value than sparrows.” And how extravagant is this? “The very hairs on your head are numbered.” Each of us is a unique, unrepeatable miracle of God, and there is a place in God’s heart that only I can fill…that only you can fill.

“For thee were we made, oh God,” said Augustine, “and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”  No wonder he said that; the psalmist himself had captured it long before – You have made us a little lower than the angels, a little less than God, and crowned us with glory and honor.  We don’t need to go into the New Year with self-pity because God is on our side.  God has created us. God has affirmed us.  And God is going to be with us.

Leave behind illegitimate responsibility.

The second bundle of stuff we need to leave behind is what I call illegitimate responsibility.  I’m talking about the responsibilities which we rigidly claim for ourselves, but which don’t legitimately belong to us.

Our journey will be more meaningful if we can determine that there are certain responsibilities that are ours; these we will accept and give our resources to.  There are other responsibilities which we simply have to leave with others and with God.  Parents, there is a limitation to the responsibility we can take for our children.  We must do all we can to nurture our children to live productive, helpful, meaningful, Christian lives.  But beyond a certain time and place of nurturing, certainly when they have gone out from us, we must commit them wholly to God, and leave with them and with God the responsibility for guiding themselves.

This is conditioned by a special word to young parents, and I introduce it with a story.  A Chicago suburbanite put on a last spurt of speed to catch his train but missed it.  A bystander remarked, “if you’d run a little faster you would have made it.”   “No,” the suburbanite replied, “it wasn’t a case of running faster, but of starting sooner.”  Young parents, you can’t begin too soon to relate a child to God – to demonstrate clearly to your children your own Christian commitment and values.  We can’t depend wholly upon the church or Sunday school to teach our children scripture and to instill within our children a love of God’s Word.  That won’t do it;  it never has and it never will. Of course the church has a responsibility, but parents are primarily responsible. When we have been faithful in our parenting, we can leave the stuff of inordinate feelings of responsibility for our children behind.

Am I making it clear?  There are responsibilities that we can and must assume – but many of us are weighed down by responsibilities that don’t belong to us, and we must leave them behind.

Leave behind cancelled sin. There’s a lot of stuff we ought to leave behind, along with self-pity and illegitimate responsibility. We can’t name them all, but let me mention one other bundle that needs to be cast off as we stride into this New Year.

I call it the bundle of cancelled sin.  The phrase comes from Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Oh For A Thousand Tongues To Sing.”  He claims that this is the work of Christ.

He breaks the power of canceled sin,

He sets the prisoner free;

his blood can make the foulest clean;

His blood availed for me.

Scores of people who beat a steady stream to my study door for counseling are burdened down by cancelled sin.  Somewhere in the past, they have done those things, been involved in those situations, and had relationships about which they feel morbid guilt.  They carry this around as an inside burden which no one knows about.  But like a malignancy, it grows and spreads until it poisons the person and brings a sickness unto death.

The heart of the gospel is that God through Christ forgives our sins, and our sins are, in fact, cancelled by God’s grace.  But obviously, this fact and experience are not enough.  Cancelled sin still has power – destructive power in our lives.

How then is the power of cancelled sin actually broken?  How do we cast this burden aside?  There is one key: confession and inner healing.  I believe that under most circumstances, not only confession to God but confession to another is essential for healing and release from the power of cancelled sin.  This is the reason James admonishes us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another.  Once we have confessed to a minister or to an intimate friend or a sharing group, we don’t have to carry the burden alone.  The poisonous guilt that has been bottled up inside is now released.  The cleansing and freedom that comes is wing-giving.  Forgiveness and acceptance are confirmed in our lives and the fear of others knowing who and what we are is taken away.

A medical analogy is apropos here. When an infectious boil appears somewhere on the body, antibiotics are given.  If these do not destroy the infection, usually the infection is localized and has to be lanced.  The surgeon uses the scalpel and opens the boil in order that all the poison might be drained.  Confession is something like the surgeon’s scalpel.  When we honestly open our lives in confession, all the poisonous guilt that we have bottled up within has a chance to flow out.  Confession becomes the cleansing process by which the self is freed from the power of cancelled sin.

Now there are two requisites for redemptive confession – one, you must trust the person, the person or the group, to whom you confess; and two, your confession must not be destructive to another person.  We dare not disregard the health and wholeness of another in order to seek our own release.

The big point is that the burden of cancelled sin is too great for us to carry into the New Year.  You can leave that stuff behind, because God forgives.  He loves you and accepts you.  And if you’ve not experienced the release from cancelled sin, if the burden of it is still with you, you may need to find a person whom you love and trust with which you can share.  Open your life to them, and allow the poison to flow out in your honest confession, and remember the promise of John’s gospel, if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

I want to invite you now to use your imagination.   Picture yourself with a big trash bag. Move through every room of your life; select the stuff you need to leave behind. I’m talking about self-pity and illegitimate responsibility.  Put it into the trash bag.

What cancelled sin still has power over you, what hidden hatred, what frustrating fear, what devastating doubt, what powerful prejudice? Put it in the trash bag.  Do it.  Act it out in your imagination.  Put it into the trash bag.

Is there an unresolved relationship with a husband or wife, a parent or a child, a neighbor?  Is there a jealousy you’ve never brought out into the open?  Put it into the bag.  It could be any number of things.  You know what weighs you down, and what stuff you don’t need to take into the New Year.  Put it into the bag.  Be specific in identifying and visualizing all the stuff in your mind to put into that bag.

Now stay with me in your imagination.  Get in your mind the picture with which we began  – the junk man with his cart filled with cast off clothing, discarded furniture, all sorts of abandoned useless things.  Do you see it in your mind?  He’s passing by.  In your imagination now, throw your trash bag onto the junk wagon and let it be taken away.  Have you done it?  In your imagination, just cast it onto the junk wagon to be taken away.  Be silent now and enjoy the relief and release of getting rid of that burden.

Keep the image of the trash man in your mind for a moment, taking all your trash away.  Now substitute for the image of the junk man, Christ himself.

Do you see him?  Jesus. Listen.  Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Leave your stuff behind – all your junk.  Leave it.

You are forgiven.  Your failure and weakness are accepted.  Your past is buried in the sea of God’s loving forgetfulness.

Go into the New Year with Christ, and go joyfully.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Disciplines for Spiritual Formation: Study

In the context of the Christian faith, a disciple is not only one who subscribes to the teachings of Jesus and seeks to spread them, but one who seeks to relive Jesus’ life in the world. Discipline for the Christian is the way we train ourselves or allow the Spirit to train us to be like Jesus, to appropriate his spirit and to cultivate the power to live his life in the world.

So discipleship means discipline. We have to work at being Christian. The purpose of discipline for Christians is spiritual growth and ultimately our total transformation. Study is an important way of “abiding” in the teaching of Jesus and using the tools Scripture provides to rightly discern the truth. We want cultivated in us the deep desire to rightly divide the truth.

Renewing and Abiding

Paul sounds the mandate for those who would be disciples:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)

We are what we think. We are transformed by the renewal of our minds. So study is a necessary discipline for spiritual growth.

Moreover, consider the relationship between transformation and abiding. The word “abide” appears frequently in John’s Gospel, particularly in Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches (John 15). In that setting, it is often translated “remain” (“remain in me”…that is, “stay with me”).

In John 8:31, the word is translated “hold to” (“hold to my teaching” in the NIV), “continue in” (“continue in my word” NRSV), and “remain faithful to” (“remain faithful to my teachings” NLT).

What might these various renderings mean for the way we discipline ourselves through study?

Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

Unfortunately and shamefully, study is not often high on the priority of most Christians. For some, there is even a suspicion of learning, and to be “smart” and to be Christian are incongruent.

A story from John Wesley’s life chides us here. He received a letter once from a pious brother who declared, “the Lord has directed me to write you that while you know Greek and Hebrew, he can do without your learning.” Mr. Wesley replied appropriately, ”Your letter received, and I may say in reply that your letter was superfluous as I already know that the Lord could do without my learning. I wish to say to you that while the Lord does not direct me to tell you, yet I feel impelled to tell you on my own responsibility, that the Lord does not need your ignorance either.”

Jesus made it clear that knowledge is essential, absolutely essential: knowledge of the truth. “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Some in the crowds that were following Jesus believed in him. But Jesus dealt with the issue of how deeply they were committed. Would they break loose from the crowd and cast their lot with this one who was claiming to be “the way”? Could they handle the pressure of their leaders who felt that this itinerate preacher was threatening their religion and way of life?

He makes clear the terms of discipleship for those who believed him. They must not only hear what he was teaching, they must “abide” in his word if they were to be a part of his company (John 8:31).

To Jesus’ word we add Paul’s word to Timothy, “study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, KJV).

Paul is specifically addressing Timothy in his vocation, urging him to distinguish himself from the false teachers by being a teacher of the truth. Yet his word has general application to us. The phrase that is relevant to our discipline of study is “rightly dividing the word of truth.”

William Barclay in his commentary, The Letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, provides unusual insight into this phrase by examining the Greek word for “rightly divide.” It is the word orthotomein, which literally means to cut rightly. It has many pictures in it. The Greeks themselves used the word, or the phrase, in three different connections: for driving a straight road across country; for plowing a straight furrow across a field; and for the work of a mason in cutting and squaring a stone so that it fit into its correct place in the structure of the building.

When we rightly divide, we rightly handle the word of truth, driving a straight road through the truth and refusing to be lured down pleasant but irrelevant bypaths. We plow a straight furrow across the field of truth. We take each section of the truth, and fit it into its correct position, as a mason does a stone, allowing no part to usurp an undue place or an undue emphasis, and so to knock the whole structure of truth out of balance (Barclay, 198-99).

What Scripture Provides

In practicing the discipline of study, we seek and hopefully find the truth, which makes us free.

  • Teaching It is true that Christianity is not founded on a book but on a living person. Before we had a New Testament, we had Christians and the Christian church. But not much time passed before it was necessary for these first Christians to present this living person, Jesus, by writing his story – the Gospels. So, the fact now is that we get our firsthand account of Jesus and his teaching from the New Testament. There is no place else to get it. The Bible is irreplaceable for teaching us who Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are, what they have done, and what they are calling us to be.
  • Reproof  We normally think of reproof as finding fault and criticizing. Here it means conviction. Scripture convicts us, confronting and convincing us of our sin and error, but also bringing us face to face with the pursuing grace of God, the forgiving love of Christ, and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.
  • Correction We considered earlier Jesus’ claim about knowing the truth and the truth setting us free. The correcting work of Scripture is the testing of truth. We must always use our minds, dedicating them to the pursuit of truth; and truth is truth wherever we find it. The point here is that we are to test all theology, all ethical teaching, all moral codes by the Bible’s teaching. The key to this testing lies in the teaching of Jesus Christ as the Scriptures present it to us. That means that isolated teachings of the Bible must be tested by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In him the divine Yes has been spoken.
  • Training in righteousness This is the end of it all, training in righteousness, and for what purpose? “That everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:18).

We study the Bible that we may live a godly life now, doing the will of God, being used by God for the salvation of others.

We Are What We Think

In Romans 12:1-2 Paul calls us to be renewed by the renewing of our minds. In Philippians 4:8-9, he urges us to meditate on those virtues, that is, on what we want to become. Paul might even say, “we are what we think.”

The body of evidence to confirm this assertion is growing daily. Yet we each have to learn this lesson for ourselves: we are what we think. Sour dispositions create not only sick souls but also sick bodies. Feelings of worthlessness, bitter resentment, and self-pity diminish us to fragments. A possessive nature, self-indulgence, self-protectiveness, and self-centeredness shrivel the soul, create dysfunctions within us, distort perception, blur perspective, and prevent the healing we need.

The opposite of this is also true. Those who fill their minds with positive affirmations, who concentrate on the noble virtues that make life meaningful, set the stage for healing and make possible the wholeness that is God’s design for all. Two thousand years before psychologists were teaching this truth, Paul discovered its power. “Meditate on these things,”he said – things that are noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report. We are what we think.

The discipline of study is important because how we use the dynamic power of our thinking determines whether it is Christian or not. Much of our culture reflects a perversion of this power. The “power of positive thinking” is supposed to make us millionaires, yet all too often it also turns us into self-serving people bent on satisfying all our desires. Thus we have a consumer economy of indulgence and waste. It is not arrogant, I think, for Paul, as he calls people to meditate on the great virtues, to add, “the things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – these do, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9, NKJV). You cannot separate what Paul said from the style of his life and his passionate commitment to Christ as Lord of his life. Christians can use the “power of positive thinking” with integrity by keeping in mind where we are to center our thinking. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who…emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant…humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death” (Philippians 2:5, 7-8, NKJV).

The disciplines we pursue are aimed at letting the mind of Christ grow in us. Jesus spoke of having ears but not hearing, eyes but not seeing. Seeing clearly and understanding the significance of what we study is why we practice study as a spiritual discipline.

Over and over again in his letters to the early Christians, Paul insisted that the power to live the Christian life faithfully came by studying God’s word. In fact, on 19 different occasions in his letters Paul says to the faithful, if you want God to truly resurrect the power of Christ in your own heart, it begins with knowing God’s word. That’s why God gave us his word, so that the more we know of it, the closer we will be drawn into understanding God’s will.

We study Scripture because it informs us about God’s presence in our lives and it warns us when our will and God’s will are moving in different directions. Ultimately, when we study God’s word we are nurturing our souls to be closer to God, to have God’s image restored in us, and to be like Jesus.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Generosity

Note from the Editor: I hope that you are spending Thanksgiving Day interacting with people in a way that shows them that they matter to you. We post today not to distract from time with family, nor to distract from opportunities to serve and listen and learn. We do post for those who may be having a Blue Thanksgiving, or are far away from family and friends, or who find themselves with a moment to meditate on God’s goodness. Whether you offer a cold and broken hallelujah this Thanksgiving or revel in an abundance of joy, I pray God’s presence will be felt in your life today. ~ Elizabeth Glass Turner, Managing Editor, Wesleyan Accent

Jesus dealt with possessions in a radical way because he knew that our possessions too often possess us. It is a sign of our original sin that we are possessive. The unconverted self, the ego (by nature it seems) is in bondage to things, slavishly persistent in acquiring and keeping. So the discipline of generosity is essential for spiritual growth.

(For a scriptural survey, you are invited to explore passages like Genesis 4:3-7, Genesis 14:17-24, Genesis 28:10-22, and Malachi 3:6-10.)

The Practice of Generosity

Every spiritual discipline has its accompanying freedom. Generosity frees us from a raw possessive ego and also from our bondage to security in material things.

Albert Day in his book Discipline and Discovery gives a kind of catalogue of the characteristics of the ego when left to itself:

• It is persistent in acquiring and in keeping
• It has to be taught to give
• It is possessive

“Mine” is its dearest adjective. “Keep” is its most beloved verb! As Day notes: “Because of this possessiveness of the ego, the practice of generosity is very significant. It is a denial, a repudiation of the ego. Faithfully practiced, generosity weakens the ego’s authority. Every departure from the pattern the ego sets, makes the next variation easier. We are made that way.” (Discipline and Discovery Workbook ed., p.80)

So we practice generosity to free ourselves from our raw possessive egos and from our bondage to material security.

Tithing and a Standard of Generosity

Since money is integral to our lives, how we give money usually reflects our overall pattern of generosity.

In most Christian churches, when the stewardship of our money is considered, the principle of tithing comes to the fore. It is the biblical pattern set for practicing generosity in the use of our money.

The principle, which became a law in Judaism, began not in a focus on money but on all we possess: land, flocks, crops, even “bounty” out of war. Tracing the biblical witness on tithing will give us the perspective we need to consider this principle as a discipline of generosity.

The story of the first offering in history is found in Genesis 4:3-7. This is the story of Cain and Abel making their offerings to God. The big issue in the story is that Abel’s offering was acceptable to God but Cain’s was not. Why? It had to do with the quality of the offering. Abel gave the firstlings of his flock, while Cain’s offering seems to have been an indiscriminate collection of the fruit of the ground.

The story in Genesis seems a bit confused as to the reason one offering was acceptable and the other not, but in the Epistle to the Hebrews there is this word: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s” (Hebrews 11:4).

In the original story the meaning is difficult to comprehend. There is no indication why God preferred the gift of Abel to the gift of Cain. On the surface it seems that the whole business is unjust. Yet, when you live with it, for a while at least, this much comes clear: God requires the best we have to offer.

We move from that story of the first offering to the first mention of tithing in the Bible. This is in Genesis 14:18-20. It’s the story of Abraham paying tithes to Melchizedek, who was a king of Salem as well as a priest of God. It was after Abraham had won a great battle. Melchizedek blessed him. After receiving this blessing Abraham gave the priest a tenth of everything.

Here the amount of the separated portion is designated for the first time. It is the tenth. It was a common practice among ancient warriors to tithe the spoils of war. Abraham, no doubt, was familiar with this custom. Yet there was something different about this act of Abraham. It was an act of genuine devotion. He was worshiping the one true God and was giving to God the tenth of all he received. Therefore, it set the precedent of tithing. The concept grows in the Old Testament, and Jacob is the first person on record to enter into a tithing covenant with God (Genesis 28:10-22).

Now to be sure, there is something far less than Christian about such praying and such a relationship with God. God is not one to be bargained with. We don’t make deals with God! God is not one from whom we can buy favors. Still, the story of Jacob and what Jacob is doing, though primitive and certainly not yet Christian, is something to reckon with.

Jacob had a vision of angels ascending and descending on a ladder between earth and heaven, and the Lord spoke to him with a great promise. When, in reflection, Jacob prays again and enters into that tithing covenant with God, it is on the basis of having received the promise from God. It is as though he is testing that promise and seeking to offer a response to it. That is certainly only the beginning of the development of the tithe in the history of the Hebrew people and in the Christian church, but it symbolizes the fact that our relationship with God always involves giving to God a portion of that which God has already given us.

It is this principle—returning to God a portion of that with which God has blessed us—that must be at the heart of our understanding of the tithe.

After that final law, the book of Leviticus closes with this word: “These are the commandments that the Lord gave to Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai” (Leviticus 27:34). So the precedent was set firmly in the fabric of Jewish life.

The classic and most dramatic warning about tithing came from Malachi. In language that is strong and unmistakable, this prophet painted out that disobedience to the law of the tithe was the cause of Israel’s apostasy in his day and that reformation in this regard was the sure and only way to the restoration of the divine favor and blessing. Those words from Malachi are enough to cause us to know what the witness of the Old Testament is concerning the tithe. Consider it:

“Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me-the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”
(Malachi 3:8-10)

Tithing Gives Us Perspective

For many Christians the scriptural precedent set for tithing is enough to lead them to a commitment to tithe. It should be so for all Christians if we are going to be people of “the book.” However, other reasons merit consideration.

For one thing, tithing gives me perspective. Giving my tithe to the Lord is an ongoing reminder of what money can and cannot do. It would be wrong to idealize poverty. And it would be equally wrong to caricature riches as though they were innately wrong. Having money can make an enormous positive difference in our lifestyles. But it is crucial to maintain perspective about the fact that there are certain things money cannot buy.

Money can’t buy friendship, nor can money buy love.

And money won’t buy respect. We may get some of our selfish wants with money. We may use it to gain loyalty and deference from others. But this loyalty and deference are a charade for respect and usually turn into contempt.

Perhaps the most significant perspective we need to own is that money won’t buy exemption from the problems that are common to everyone. Money or the lack of it doesn’t keep children from breaking their parents’ hearts. Money or the lack of it doesn’t prevent incurable diseases from ravaging our lives. Money or the lack of it is no key for holding marriages together. Money cannot shield us against the early death of a marriage partner and the loneliness that follows.

We don’t buy character, meaning, and direction in life. We can’t put peace of mind on our Visa cards. Money can’t purchase eternal life, but how we spend our money may rob us of eternal life. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Tithing Enhances My Performance in the Cause of God’s Kingdom

Though it sounds lofty, it’s the most down-to-earth, practical thing I know: tithing enhances my performance in the cause of God’s Kingdom.

There are things that you and I can never do for Christ and the kingdom by ourselves. We have to be a part of a body, a community. This is especially true in the use of our money. This is the primary reason that we are to bring our tithes into the storehouse—into the church. The church can use that cumulative money to accomplish far greater things than we could ever accomplish on our own.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Solitude

Anthony Bloom, the Russian Orthodox priest who has written so helpfully on prayer and the contemplative life, used a nursery rhyme to express his understanding of solitude and the contemplative life.

There was an old owl

Who lived in an oak.

The more he saw

The less he spoke.

The less he spoke

The more he heard.

Why can’t we be like

That wise old bird?

When solitude has a religious dimension, we are not only physically apart from others; we are using aloneness purposefully. We are pondering who we are, what life is all about, where we are in our quest for meaning, and how we are related to God and others. Solitude is a discipline for spiritual growth for all who wish to pursue the Christian life seriously.

Solitude Is Essential For Discernment

Alfred North Whitehead in his book Religion in the Making says, “religion is what a [person] does with…solitariness.” More than aloneness is being spoken of here. When solitude has a religious dimension, we are not only physically apart from others; we are using aloneness purposefully.

What we do with our solitude becomes the key. So we are not talking about circumstantial solitude; we are talking about choosing and creating solitude for personal spiritual growth: being alone enough, quiet enough, long enough that our jaded senses, dulled by the onslaught of a compulsive society, will be restored to aliveness. Spiritual growth—having the image of God restored within us, growing in the likeness of Christ—requires enough solitude and silence that we might distance ourselves from all that clamors for our attention. In that distancing, we gain perspective that enables us to see clearly, to be discerning, then to act intentionally with inspired intuitions rather than to react compulsively.

Solitude Is Essential For Prayer

As a part of his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:5-8), Jesus taught about prayer. There were two obvious lessons. One, we must never allow prayer to be a self-display of piety. Two, prayer is far more than words; it is being with God, putting ourselves in his presence and seeking to be attentive to him.

Yet, there is more here. Jesus instructs us to be alone and pray. Is the closed door of our private room, or the “closet” as some translations have it, a synonym for solitude? Jesus’ life was punctuated with deliberate times of chosen solitude. To inaugurate his ministry, he spent forty days in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). He spent the entire night alone in the desert hills before he chose his twelve disciples (Luke 6:12). He sought the lonely mountain, with only three disciples, as the stage for the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-2). He prepared for his highest and most holy work with a long night of prayer in the solitude of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-44).

Jesus often connected significant acts of ministry or events in his life with a time of solitude. After miraculously feeding the five thousand, he asked the disciples to leave, dismissed the crowd, and “went up the mountain by himself” (Matthew 14:23). When the twelve had returned from a preaching and healing mission, Jesus told them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). He withdrew to a deserted place and prayed, following the healing of a leper (Luke 5:12-16). When he received word of the death of John the Baptist, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself”(Matthew 14:13). And following a long night of work “in the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Solitude was a regular practice with Jesus. One of the reasons he called us to solitude was because he knew that solitude was essential for prayer. Fenelon expressed this truth in a cryptic sentence: “How few there are who are still enough to hear God speak.”

Solitude and prayer are linked. When we are alone, away from the outer and inner barrage of distractions, shut off from the noisy din and frantic pace of activity and relationship, beyond the distractions of all the pulls upon our attention and energy, then we can be quiet enough to hear the divine whisper. So we seek solitude as a setting for prayer.

Not only can we hear God in the silence of solitude, there we can also be so settled and centered that we can speak to God out of the deepest feelings and needs of our lives. Without solitude, it is likely that our praying will be reduced to concern about surface issues, immediate happenings, and present moment involvements. It is only when we carve out some daily time for solitude, if only thirty minutes, and add to that regular but less frequent times of three or four hours (usually weekly) that we stay in touch with our inner being and pray from our deepest feelings and needs.

We recognize that there is a solitude that we can maintain despite crowds and clatter. But rare is the person who can maintain inner attentiveness and heart-solitude in the midst of a busy life without being renewed by solitude.

Solitude Is Essential For Sensitivity To and Solidarity With Other Persons

One of the fruits of solitude is a sharpened sensitivity to and a solidarity with persons. In solitude and silence there comes a new freedom to be with people. We gain a capacity for a new attentiveness to the needs of others, a new responsiveness to their hearts. Thomas Merton observed,

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say (“The Sign of Jonas,”268).

We need to accept the truth of this testimony because it is very important. But, even accepting the truth of this testimony, we need to remember that simply being alone does not sharpen sensitivity and enhance solidarity. In our solitude we must open ourselves to the recreating power of quietness and stillness, the healing, sensitizing presence of Christ, so that coming out of solitude we can be with others meaningfully. In solitude we must settle ourselves inwardly, so that we will become aware of the indwelling Christ. In solitude and prayer we recognize and cultivate awareness of the indwelling Christ. It is the indwelling Christ who sharpens our sensitivity and makes us one with others.

Solitude May Be a Time of Testing

Audience members once asked philosopher Martin Buber a series of grandiose-sounding questions. Finally he burst out, “Why don’t we ask each other the questions that come to us at three o’clock in the morning as we are tossing on our beds?” Thoreau contended that we can learn more about ourselves in a sleepless night than by a trip to Europe.

Solitude, whether chosen or forced upon us, is a time of testing. Jesus, led by the Spirit into the wilderness, is our classic witness of this. Those forty days of solitude were his final preparation for his public ministry. There he wrestled with the devil in a life-death struggle. Who he was as messiah and the shape of his ministry were beaten out on the anvil of attractive, enticing temptation. Three times the devil tempted Jesus to accept the role of a popular, power-wielding messiah. That testing did not end, though Jesus was ultimately victorious. Luke’s account of this temptation experience closes with this word: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). The King James Version has it that the devil “departed from him for a season.”

The inevitable presence of evil returned to test Jesus in Gethsemane. The option to evade those who would destroy him and escape death was there with overwhelming attractiveness. The depth of Jesus’ agony in testing is seen in the bloody sweat that poured from him.

So solitude brings testing. We should see this not as something to evade. Though we do not invite the testing, there is a sense in which we may welcome it. We may welcome it if we go with God into solitude. Or, in the case of involuntary solitude such as that brought by grave illness, if we have known the presence and power of the living Christ in other times and can hold on, however tentatively, to his promise that he will “come again,’ that he will be with us “even to the end of the age,” then we can welcome the testing that is coming to us in solitude.

Matthew closes his story of Jesus’ wilderness temptation with the comforting assurance, “and suddenly angels came and waited on him’” (Matthew 4:11).

Have you had an experience of testing in solitude? If so, what was that experience like? What did you learn? Practice the discipline of solitude by having a time of quietness each day, and a weekly 30-minute time of solitude in which you “examine your conscience.” Remember to listen to the Lord.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Recovering Our First Language

Somewhere along the way I read of one who was reflecting on the language introduced by this computer age. He said,

“I remember when… a program was a TV show, an application was for employment, ram was the cousin of a goat, a gig was a job for the night, a keyboard was a piano, memory was something you lost with age, a CD was a bank account, a hard drive was a long trip on the road, a mouse pad was where a mouse lived, a web was a spider’s home and a virus was the flu.”

We have a whole new technological vocabulary. I’m trying to be technologically literate, but my big concern is that in this kind of technological world, and a world lost in moral and ethical relativism, language may be more important than ever. As Christians, and especially as those whose primary vocation is to communicate the Gospel, we need to pay attention to our “first language.”

There is a dark and powerful passage in Morris West’s book The Devil’s Advocate that challenges us here. Monsignor Meredith has grown weary in the church; his life has become institutionalized, his faith reduced to an “intellectual conception, an arid assent of the will.” Yet now his words have struck a responsive chord in the Bishop; they have borne out his own feelings about the difficulty of true communication, here specifically between the church and the laity. The Bishop speaks:

“The root of …[the problem], I think, is this: [as priests] we …have a rhetoric of our own, which, like the rhetoric of the politician says much and conveys little. But we are not politicians. We are teachers – teachers of truth which we claim to be essential to man’s salvation. Yet how do we preach it? We talk roundly of faith and hope as if we were making a fetishist’s incantation. What is faith? A blind leap into the hands of God. An inspired act of will which is our only answer to the terrible mystery of where we came from and where we are going. What is hope? A child’s trust in the hand that will lead it out of the terrors that reach from the dark. We preach love and fidelity, as if these were teacup tales – and not bodies writhing on a bed and hot words in dark places, and souls tormented by loneliness and driven to the momentary communion of a kiss. We preach charity and compassion but rarely say what they mean – hands dabbling in sick room messes, wiping infection from syphilitic sores. We talk to the people every Sunday, but our words do not reach them, because we have forgotten our mother tongue.”

 Let that sink in: “We talk to the people… but our words do not reach them because we have forgotten our mother tongue.”

The mother tongue, our “first language,”  is a language of confidence in the presence of the Holy Spirit; a language of certainty about the power of the gospel to transform.

 When will we learn that academic rigor alone will not win the world for Christ? Proclamation and teaching are not enough. Correct doctrine will not do it. The old language, which we need to make new, is the language lived and preached in the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Confessing Movement in the United Methodist Church, we are seeking a renewal of our confession of Orthodox Christianity, a reinvigoration of doctrine. We are contending for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. I believe we are struggling for the soul of the church. But I know it’s not just a doctrinal struggle.

Recently in my reading in Revelation, it hit me hard: only two of the seven churches of Revelation (Pergamum and Thyatira) were scolded for false doctrine. They had lost their first love. But the glorified Christ talked most about fervency, about closeness to the Lord, about overcoming, about having ears to hear, about watching and praying, about repentance, about his triumphant return, about the new Jerusalem, about our sitting with him on the throne of his glory.

 So the mother tongue, our “first language”, is a language of confidence in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and a language of certainty about the power of the gospel to transform. And overarching it all is a language of relationship that has its beginning, its substance, and its ending in love. The incarnation did not cease with Jesus when the word became flesh. The incarnation must go on and on with us. What Christ has been and done for us we must be and do for others.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Prayer and Fasting: Embracing Voluntary Weakness

Never in over 50 years of ministry have I felt as helpless about the state of our United Methodist Church. Talk of separation is rampant. I love our United Methodist Church and am committed to the Wesleyan faith and way. I get knots in my stomach when I think of the possibility of division.

Our bishops have recognized the critical nature of our situation and have written a book “seeking a way forward.” Numerous others have proposed institutional or structural plans that might save us from division. I’m afraid the common feeling is that the divide is so pronounced that staying together as “one” denomination is impossible. Honestly, that is where I have been in my feelings and thinking.

I’m afraid we are cursed with a sense of the impossible.

The Holy Spirit has intervened and challenged me through Scripture.

Matthew and Mark tell a story of the disciples of Jesus being cursed in the same way. Jesus had been with Peter, James and John upon the mountain alone for spiritual renewal and rest. There on the mountain He was transfigured in their presence, and Elijah and Moses came to visit with them. Peter wanted to stay there and build three tabernacles – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But Jesus wouldn’t allow that. We all have to leave that mountain place of excitement, joy, exhilaration and spiritual high and return to the valley. So Jesus and the three disciples did just that.

On coming down from the mountain, they were greeted with confusion, conflict and confrontation. But more crucially, they met a man in desperate need. His son was possessed by spirits that took his breath away, made him unable to talk, caused him to go into convulsions and to foam at the mouth and grind his teeth. The young fellow would not eat, and he was wasting away. In desperation, the father had brought his son to the disciples, asking them to heal him and to cast out the demons, but they could not.

After his sharp word of disappointment – “O faithless generation! How long am I to be with you?” – Jesus asked that the little boy be brought to Him.

In this father we have a picture of near despair, yet a burning hope — a picture of faith that struggles with reality. He can’t help but rehearse the awful, dreadful, condition of his son. “He’s been like that since he was a child,” he said. “He often throws himself into the fire or into the water and tries to destroy himself.” Still painting that awful picture, the faith and the hope of this father comes to the surface: “if you can,” he says, “let your heart be moved with pity and help us.”

Jesus probably interrupted him, saying, “you say, ‘If you can.’” Then He gives us that bold affirmation, “all things are possible to him who believes.”

Note a universal truth. “To approach anything in the spirit of hopelessness is to make it hopeless. To approach anything in the spirit of faith is to make it a possibility.” The tension within us is the sense of the possible struggling with the curse of the impossible. William Barclay, in his commentary on this story says, “most of us are cursed with a sense of the impossible, and that is precisely why miracles do not happen.” (The Daily Bible Study, p. 224)

That leads to the truth I want to underscore as it relates to the present state of the church. We discover it in the attitude of the father of the afflicted child. Originally he had come seeking Jesus Himself. Jesus was on the mountain top and only the disciples were available. His faith was badly shaken when the disciples seemed totally helpless, so badly shaken that when he came to Jesus all he could say was, “help me, if you can.” Then it happened: face to face with Jesus, suddenly his faith blazed up again. “I believe,” he cried.

Everybody thought the little boy was dead, but Jesus healed him. Later when he was alone with the disciples, they asked him privately, “why were we not able to cast out the demon?” Jesus responded to them, “this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting” (verse 29). I believe here is the distinctive Christian truth for where we are in our seeming hopeless impasse:  a sense of the possible empowered by the Living Christ, activated by prayer and fasting.

A lot of folks, including me, have been calling for prayers for the unity of the church. I want to be bolder.  Believing that we are in a desperate situation, as desperate as that father with his son, according to Jesus, the answer now to our situation is prayer and fasting.

For too many of us, fasting is a strange thought, not something we have seriously considered. Wesley, our father in the faith, strongly urged the early Methodists to practice fasting, but he also sounded a warning about extremes: “some have exalted this beyond all Scripture and reason; and others utterly disregarded it.” Some speak of it “as if it were all,” he said; others “as if it were nothing, as if it were a fruitless labor.” He concluded, “fasting is not the end, but it is a precious means thereto; a means which God himself has ordained, and in which therefore, when it is duly used, he will surely give his blessing” (“Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On the Mount”: Discourse Seven).

We need good and expansive teaching on this neglected spiritual discipline. I lodge one significant claim in this call. Fasting is more than denying ourselves food. It is choosing to act out, by temporarily denying ourselves food, that we do not live by bread alone. We are completely dependent upon God, and we deliberately choose voluntary weakness. We become identifiably humble in the face of the problems with which we are dealing. We admit to each other, and primarily to God: only you can get us through this “mess.” We cease trying to define the unity we seek, believing that God will provide the unity God desires for God’s church. We become less clamorous in seeking our own way, and more receptive to what God may intend for us.

We must see fasting as an invitation. Scripture is full of this invitation.  God invites us to fast because God wants us to desire more of God’s presence, intention, and will. If we say yes to God’s call to prayer and fasting, God will honor God’s promise to heal and restore God’s people.

David spoke about fasting as one way he humbled himself before God (Ps. 35:13; 69:10). I want to humble myself before God. I am tired of the struggle.  I am confused in mind, and pained in heart. I have been reasonably successful and affirmed in much of what I have attempted in ministry, but with the division that is obvious and ominous,  I urge us to become humble and recognize that this is one of those situations that can be resolved only “by prayer and fasting.”

Let’s heed Mr. Wesley’s word about in what manner we are to fast. “Let it be done unto the Lord, with our eye singly fixed on Him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father; to express our sorrow and shame for our manifold transgressions of his holy law; to wait for an increase of purifying grace, drawing our affections to things above; to add seriousness and earnestness to our prayers; to avert the wrath of God, and to obtain all the great and precious promises which he hath made to us in Jesus Christ…Let us always join fervent prayer, pouring out our whole souls before God, confessing our sins with all their aggravations, humbling ourselves under his mighty hand, laying open before him all our wants, all our guiltiness and helplessness” (ibid.).

How then shall we pursue it?

Wesley suggested a pattern for those in  Methodist classes and societies.  After the midday meal, refrain from solid foods until tea time the following afternoon. World Evangelism of the World Methodist Council has been calling people to make Thursday to Friday the fast time. The Confessing Movement is calling the entire United Methodist Church to join us in prayer and fasting using this method. Of course we urge prayer and fasting in whatever way is possible for you, but we believe it will be powerful and redemptive for our entire connection to pray and fast together for the unity of our church….unity in Christ, which he wishes us to experience. Let’s do it together on Thursday and Friday.

Immediately after Paul’s Damascus road conversion, he fasted for three days, waiting to receive clear direction from the Lord (Acts 9:9). That was a pattern throughout the New Testament…the Church fasting for supernatural wisdom and direction. While in Antioch, Paul and his team fasted and prayed for prophetic direction. They were given a strategic mission assignment to reach the Gentiles (Acts 13:1-2). This mission tour changed history.  Paul and his team again prayed with fasting when they needed to select and commission the elders of the new churches that were born out of their missionary journey (Acts 14:23). Can we follow in that pattern?

The spirit of hopelessness is rampant, the calls for division are being sounded, plans that might give us unity are being presented, and frustration and confusion are pervasive. The time is ripe for embracing voluntary weakness through prayer and fasting. Christ cannot give us unity if we are not willing to receive his grace and the unity that is his gift to the church. Could it be that this can come only through prayer and fasting?

Maxie Dunnam ~ Repent But Do Not Whimper

In 1992, distinguished New Testament scholar, Leander E. Keck, delivered the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School on the theme, “Toward the Renewal of Mainline Protestantism.” He expanded those lectures into a very helpful book, The Church Confident. On the cover of that book was a challenging word. It was not a subtitle—but a sort of personal admonition from the author: “Christianity can repent, but it must not whimper.”

I’ve been thinking about that admonition a great deal lately. Frustration and confusion are crippling us in United Methodism. The possibility of separation dominates the conversation where two or three Methodists (particularly clergy) are gathered together. Though schismatic action has been going on for a long time, that word and the word “division” have become more commonly heard now. The truth is, we are a divided denomination. Thankfully some of our bishops are acknowledging that fact and are fostering helpful conversation about it. Bishop Michael Lowry focuses on the issue in one of the chapters of the book, Finding our Way.

We United Methodists are not alone in the Mainline in this matter of separation. The Episcopal, Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches have already experienced formal division. Keck did not specifically address the dynamics that have led to division in these denominations, but he acknowledged the malaise and impotence of the Mainline, and expressed hope that the British historian Paul Johnson would be proven right in his suggestion that “the current crises of the mainliners is actually the birth pains of the Fourth Great Awakening.”

My prayer is that Johnson is right. The setting is ripe for revival. And the essential response to that possibility is for God’s people not to whimper. Acknowledge our sin, and repent, yes, but not whimper. When we look at the Great Awakenings in our country, with the great Methodist Revival on the heels of them, two things were dominant: one, strong, clear proclamation and teaching of Biblical doctrine and two, passionate, earnest prayer.

Could it be that we are mistakenly centered on institutional unity, when a prior issue is crying for attention: unity in the Gospel. We can have institutional unity without revival, but we can’t have revival without Gospel unity that will come through repentance and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

At the close of His ministry, Jesus commissioned us for Kingdom work:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.

(Matt. 28:18-20)

In response to this commission, the American church in the 20th Century tended toward two distinctly opposite poles. One branch (the Mainline, sometimes called liberal) championed an optimistic commitment to social transformation as the central mission of the Church. Unfortunately, the salvation of souls diminished in priority, thus giving way to what was known as the social gospel. The other branch (often labeled evangelical, sometimes fundamentalist) responded in opposite fashion by stressing personal conversion, the dangers of the world, the centrality of evangelism, and an expectation of a promised place in heaven. One group made converts without making disciples; the other group sought to make disciples without conversion.

The crisis of our time can be the occasion for Gospel revival, where personal conversion and discipleship are integrated. One without the other is not the whole Gospel.

Those last words of Jesus to His disciples represent the marching orders that are to be followed until He returns. There is no more powerful motivational text for Christian mission and evangelistic zeal. And yet, this text is not shaping the ministry and mission of mainline churches. Could that be the primary cause for the crises of our mainline churches, and particularly our United Methodism? If it is so, Keck’s admonition needs to be heeded: we can repent, but we don’t need to whimper.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Memphis Teacher Residency: A Bold Mission

I believe urban public education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. A person’s zip code should not determine the quality of a child’s educational opportunity. In our urban areas, especially, educational injustice exists along economic and racial lines.

This problem has reached epidemic proportions. Too many children are condemned to substandard educational opportunities based solely on where they live. Justice demands more.

On May 29, I spoke at a welcome dinner for 64 young men and women who have come to Memphis for one of the boldest, most creative responses to this crisis in education and justice. They have come from all over the nation to participate in Memphis Teacher Residency. They will spend a year in “on the front line” education and training, earning a Master’s Degree in Urban Teaching. Upon receiving their degrees, these young men and women will commit to teach in the Memphis public schools for at least three years. Here’s a testimonial video on the residency program:

[vimeo id=”66179350″]

The program is receiving attention and accolades from everywhere. I don’t know anything quite like it in our country. I urge you, check out the website, share the information with young people you know, and challenge them to join us in Memphis to help solve the greatest social justice and civil rights issue in America today. Wouldn’t it be just like God to use Memphis as a proving witness that education for all is possible?

 

Maxie Dunnam ~ Public Confession and Repentance

March 22 was a day of huge importance for my city of Memphis. Like many significant events, I’m afraid it went unnoticed by most. Two churches, Second and Independent Presbyterian, held a public service of confession and repentance.

Few of us would not recognize our need for individual repentance. None of us are without the mark of Adam; what we would do, we do not, and what we would not do, we do. We need repentance and forgiveness.

But this was public, corporate repentance.

Fifty years earlier to the day two young men – Joe Purdy and Jim Bullock – had visited Second Presbyterian together as part of a church visit campaign, called kneel-ins. Before the young men could reach the entrance, a church representative asked Joe, “Are you African?” When he said, “No, I’m American,” he and his white friend were refused entrance. They returned the following Sunday (and the six Sundays after that) with a growing number of friends of both races who stood outside the church in silent protest of the church’s refusal to welcome them. Though few knew it at the time, the men responsible for repelling the visitors were enforcing an explicit policy of segregation adopted by the church’s session in 1957.

In The Last Segregated Hour, Stephen Haynes, a Religious Studies professor at Rhodes College, does a great job of telling the story, including how it is remembered and the ongoing implications.

Independent Presbyterian Church was founded because Second Presbyterian reversed its position denying the Kneel-in Protesters’ presence in the church, and allowed them entrance. Numerous people opposed that decision, left, and founded a separate church (Independent Presbyterian), which had in its constitution the commitment to preserve racial segregation in the church.

Fifty years later, the pastors and leaders of both congregations felt a need to make a corporate response.

Thank God for pastors and lay leaders who recognized that history is important, and when unrecognized and unconfessed, sin poisons the body. We don’t keep secrets, our secrets keep us.

Jim Bullock, one of the students turned away from Second Presbyterian Church fifty years ago, and one of the speakers at the 50th anniversary commemoration service, has written about the event on March 22 for the Presbyterian News Service:

March 22, 2014 is a day I shall not soon forget. When I woke up my stomach was already churning. The rainy weather seemed to bode ill. I made my customary stop at Starbuck’s where I had my customary grande chai latte. But I could not get my stomach to settle down. Hope and fear were churning away in my gut and the words of a colleague – “you know, this thing could go really badly” – echoed in my ears. I arrived half-an-hour early at the location where the day’s events were to take place (typically, I’m at least five minutes late everywhere I go). I walked inside the church and looked around until I found the room where I was to meet several other men for a time of prayer. The prayer time had been my idea, and I was glad I had suggested it. Inside the room were representatives of three local churches – Idlewild, Second and Independent – which have little in common beyond the name “Presbyterian.” In fact, the churches represent different denominations that define themselves largely in opposition to one another. But there we were, praying for reconciliation – among us, and among the people who would come to Second Presbyterian Church that morning to commemorate the traumatic events that had split the church fifty years earlier.

As the prayer time went on, I found myself crying tears of joy. A day we had hoped for, imagined, and dreamed of was finally here. The Spirit seemed to be honoring our vision of a service of truth-telling and reconciliation at the site of one of the South’s most notorious acts of racial exclusion.

Interestingly, the public confession of particular, individual sins has ballooned in the past three or four decades in the plethora of “confessional” self-help groups that have emerged (for alcoholics, over-eaters, drug abusers, sex addicts). Yet, our ability to acknowledge the existence of large-scale, all-permeating corporate sin has dramatically decreased. We have our time of corporate confession in our worship services, but that has become so perfunctory that its purpose and power is blurred. Maybe corporate confession is dulled in meaning because in our preaching and teaching we have dramatized glaring private sins readily recognized and named, while the “hidden” sins of attitude and omission get no attention.

Scripture is full of God’s call for corporate confession and repentance…the recognition of the sins of the nation, the sins of “the whole people of God.” So what happened in that service on March 22 was not only good and redemptive for the soul of those two congregations, it was good for the whole church…perhaps a model for all.

I may be making too much of it, but I think it is also significant that this public service of confession and repentance for racism took place two weeks before our remodeled and expanded Civil Rights Museum is to be reopened in Memphis (April 4). We are dull indeed if we can visit the museum without feeling we are a “people of unclean lips and we live among a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5) We need to repent, not only privately, but corporately.