CS Lewis in an Essay called “Meditation in a Toolshed” talks about two different ways to look at things.  He tells the story of walking into his toolshed, and the place is pitch-black except for this beam of light that cuts through the darkness of the shed.

He talks about looking at this light and seeing all kinds of things – the edge of the light beam, the specs of dust floating in the air.  But then he enters the shed and stands right in the middle of the beam and has a drastically different view – now he’s looking along the beam of light.  Now he sees tree leaves blowing in the wind and the hot glow of the sun in the distance.  The distinction between beam and darkness ceases to be the focus of his gaze and he gets a different perspective on the light beam.

Music, in general, and music in worship specifically, is a lot like that beam of light.  There are a few different ways to look at it, and how you look at it determines what you see.  I know it’s a bit risky to use a visual metaphor to talk about music, but I hope it will help us explore the deep richness God’s built into our music-making activities and help us appreciate His goodness that much more when we sing and play.

This is a really old concept (most things are if you believe Ecclesiastes), so I want to tell you right off the bat who I stole it from.  Augustine is a pastor/theologian from the 4th century who’s considered one of the greatest thinkers and lovers of God throughout history.  He’s often credited with this line “One who offers a song to God in worship prays twice.”  As a knee-jerk skeptic and snooty academic pooh-pooher, my first question is “how are we even praying once, let alone twice?”  But Augustine’s truth about music in worship isn’t so easily dismissed.  In one sense, we pray with the words of our songs – this is obvious, even to skeptics like me.  When words are directed to God, they are prayer – whether they’re sung, said, whispered, cried, shouted, or thought.  We’ll take a look at this kind of prayer in music first – it’s our kind of CS Lewis “looking at” the beam.  And then we’ll move on to Augustine’s second kind of prayer, the musical sounds themselves – these noises that seem theologically ambiguous at best and unhelpful in prayer at their worst – this will be our “looking along” the beam.

There’s little argument that the music we sing in worship is one of the most formational influences on our understanding of God.  It forms us theologically in deep and almost subconscious ways. I like to think of it this way: lyrics set to music are incredibly sticky.  Growing up, my sister was a jingle writer’s dream – she sang every gum commercial line from Big Red to Wrigley’s to Doublement at the top of her lungs – sticky was not good in this instance.  But this stickiness can be good in worship music.  This principle of stickiness can help form us into the likeness of Christ if done right – it can help us meditate and be formed into the people God’s called us to be.

But, the same principle that makes the words of worship music so helpful to our walk also gives them the greatest potential for our ruin.  Preaching isn’t as dangerous as the words of our songs are.  A sermon that might be a little off fades from our minds quickly, but a song with some iffy theology has a way sticking around in our brains much longer than a bad sermon does.  And that song works on us and plants itself in our minds for a long time. The ancient church called this phenomenon *“Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi” which means *“the rule of prayer is the rule of faith.”  Another way to say it is “what we pray or sing, is what we end up believing.”  It would be great to say it the other way around, “what we believe, we sing” but history just doesn’t show that as true.  Take, for instance, the whole devotion to Mary thing in Roman Catholicism.  It had its roots in songs first, then it made its way into an official theological position, not the other way around.

Looking along the beam at music can help form us theologically into the people of God.  Our first prayer, Augustine’s first prayer, is the text; we look along the text and see the distinctions between darkness and light, it helps us know the truth and make it part of our lives.  That would be great all by itself, but God’s done something wonderful in the His multi-layered creation of music.

When we look along the beam, when we get right up in it and let it wash over us, we discover some unexpected grace through the act of music itself – even apart from the text.  I want to talk about singing first, and I want us to think about the mechanics of it from a Biblical perspective.  The first and second chapters of Genesis tell us that we’re made in God’s image and that he “Breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life.”  The Hebrew language is a little funny with that word breathed or breath, they have two main words for it *“Ruach and Nephesh.”  They both have connections to life or a life force that’s centered in drawing breath in and out.  Listen to Genesis 2:7 again “God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life.”  For the Hebrew people, life was centered in two places, the blood and the breath.  Lose your blood, you’re dead; lose your breath, you’re dead – pretty simple heath care plan.  But here’s what happens with Israel, they sacrifice to God with the blood of animals AND with their voices – sacrifices of praise.  Life’s in the blood, yes; but the act of singing for ancient Israel was the giving of their breath, their life, back to God as an act of sacrifice.  Think about pushing out every last bit of air – unless you draw back in, you’re on your way down.  For the Hebrews, and for us, singing becomes a sacrificial act, regardless of the words.  I listened to a voice recital last night where the only word in a 5 minute song was “Oh,” but it was one of the most sacrificial acts of worship I’ve seen in a long time.

Well, I don’t want to leave out the non-singing folks among us (I’m one of them), and neither does Scripture for that matter.  Let’s look at Psalm 150:

“Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

praise him with the harp and lyre,

praise him with timbrel and dancing,

praise him with the strings and pipe,

praise him with the clash of cymbals,

praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.”

Most people point to Psalm 150 when they talk about instruments in worship and use it as kind of a “see, they have cymbals, we can use drums.”  And while it works on that level and I’m not sure we need a Psalm to tell us whether or not to use drums, the best part about Psalm 150 is the picture it paints of humanity and the rest of creation uniting in praise to God.  Biblical Scholars like N.T. Wright call it the consummation of creation – the time when everything reflects God’s glory and intention for it – the restoration of all things.  When we take raw materials from the world around us and carefully craft them into guitars, brass and woodwind instruments, pianos, drums, even circuit boards – we give created things a voice to praise God with, we animate them to worship.  It’s not in a fully realized way, but it anticipates the world that is to come – a world where everything that God has made rises up and praises him for his goodness.  In some ways, Psalm 150 helps us look toward the day when “the trees of the fields will clap their hands” and when the “mountains and hills will burst out with song.”  We partner with God’s creation for God’s glory, it really is a reflection of the original Garden of Eden.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m horrible at conclusions.  So I’ll end with the question that tends to trump most questions: so what?  What does this mean for a person who sings in choir or on a vocal team or plays in the orchestra or in the band?  I couldn’t answer that for everyone, your applications will vary as much as we differ from each other.  But let me offer my own application as a reference point.  For a lot of years I walked into CS Lewis’ toolshed of music and kept looking for things in the dark – I liked music and I banged around in the shed trying to find some meaning in it apart from a Biblical perspective.  Later, I began to look at the beam of light and music in worship began to make more sense to me, I could see the differentiation between light and darkness and I began to take responsibility for the text of my prayer.  But lately, I find myself looking along the beam of music and soaking in God’s partnership with the things He’s given us – our breath and life, and the things of creation – and letting music be a sacrifice of praise and a partnership with creation to praise God as well.  Maybe you’re in one, two, or all three of those places; maybe you’re discovering some of them for the first time; maybe you need to revisit some you’ve neglected; or maybe you, like me, just need a reminder that music is a sacred act through and through, we just need to stop and look.

Introduction

Mankind is a hungry being. We come into the world hungry.  I wake up almost every morning hungry.  In the middle of the afternoon, if I haven’t eaten anything, I’m hungry.  Satiating our hunger is one of the most basic, and I would say holy, experiences in God’s creation.  Depending on how hungry we are, we can sometimes go to interesting lengths to curb it.  I’m reminded of some of the things I’ve seen on the show Man vs. Wild – things like eating live bugs – not for a dare or for money, but to simply stay alive on the journey.  When my hunger gets bad, really bad, I do my own version of Man vs. Wild and walk into the cafeteria.  Sometimes I wish I had a survival host to point out the good from the bad in there.  In all seriousness though, our cafeteria, in an odd way, has the potential to be a holy place where holy meals are shared.  If satiating our hunger is one of the most holy experiences in creation, then starving to death has to be one of the most glaring disfigurements of God’s created order.  The early church father Basil describes this marring of God’s intent when he talks about the effects of a famine happening in his area.  He says:

“The pain of starvation, from which the hungry die, is a horrible suffering.  Of all human calamities, famine is the principle one, and the most miserable of deaths is no doubt that by starvation.  In other kinds of death, either the sword puts a quick end to life, or the roaring fire burns out the sap of life in some instances, or the teeth of beasts, mangling the vital limbs, would not prolong the torture.  Hunger, however, is a slow torture which prolongs the pain; it is an infirmity well established and hidden in its place, a death always present and never coming to an end.  It dries up the natural liquids, diminishes the body heat, contracts the size, and little by little drains off the strength.  The flesh clings to the bones like a cobweb.  The skin has no color…

Now, what punishment should not be inflicted upon the one who passes by such a body?  What cruelty can surpass that?  How can we not count him among the fiercest of fierce beasts and consider him as a sacrilegious person and a murder?  The person who can cure such an infirmity and because of avarice (greed toward self) refuses his medicine, can with reason be condemned as a murderer.”

Hunger is real, and deadly hunger is alive and well today. So where is God in all this?  Why make us with this holy need and then leave the world to slowly fall apart through empty stomachs?  Does he care?  Should he care?  We’re not the first people to ask these questions, the Scriptures are filled with God’s activity toward toward hunger.

I’d like to look at several “feeding” stories from scripture in our time tonight and through our journey I hope we’ll see that: Our God is a God who feeds and nourishes His creation back to life, and His church should do the same.

The Meal at the Garden

The first stop comes in Genesis.  On the sixth day, at the end of creation narrative after God creates humanity in His image and gives them the charge to increase in number and care for creation, God then says: “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.  31God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

Even before the fall, we’re hungry.  Continual sustenance in the form of food is part of the way we were made.  And it’s not just that we need food, it’s that God provides it for us.  In the beginning God created hunger to be satisfied through His provision for us.  We didn’t make the seed-bearing plants and the fruit trees, He did – and they were given to us – God did not hoard and ration them from us, as some other ancient gods were known to do.  This is a God with an open hand, a hand full of food to keep His creation full of life.

The Meal in the Dessert

Fast forward to our next stop – the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land.  God has miraculously rescued His people from slavery in Egypt and they find themselves in the dessert without food.  The exodus is a big step in God’s plan for restoring the world after we wrecked it, and food again plays a major role.  Israel was legitimately hungry and was in real need of food – they needed a lot of food and a continual supply of food.  We often think of Israel as kind of whiney in the dessert – that they acted like spoiled children who couldn’t appreciate what they had (a rescue from slavery), but some commentators see the request for food, the “grumbling” in the book of Exodus as a legitimate expression of need and fulfillment, not the placation of sassy kids who need a piece of candy to shut up for the rest of the ride home.  In a big way, God demonstrates his love and care for his children through feeding them when they needed it most.  There’s a lot to be said about the manna, but let’s move on to our next stop.

The Meals at Gilgal

Our next miraculous meal is kind of an obscure one, but interesting in light of it’s obscurity.  It comes from 1 Kings chapter 4 and is composed of two meal situations, let’s listen to the text:

38Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and cook some stew for this company.”

39One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. 40The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

41Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He put it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.”

A few things from the Pot ‘O Death story: 1) people had a real hunger for food – it’s a famine, 2) they had instructions from God’s servant on how to satisfy that hunger with a stew, 3) they found something more enticing with this “strange vine” and decided they knew better 4) the potential for death comes as a result, and 5) God’s servant Elisha steps in and removes the death through the use of good food.  This is a quick and beautiful microcosm of our garden experience and the work of Christ to come.

Continuing on to the next part:

42A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.

43“How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked.

But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’ ” 44Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.

A few things from the second story: 1) There are a lot of hungry people (100) and not enough food, 2) God provides for his people even when they themselves are skeptical, 3) it’s more than enough for their hunger.

The Meal for the 5,000

Our next stop is our text for tonight, the feeding of the 5,000.  John’s gospel provides excellent Christological reflection on the feeding, so I won’t spend a lot of time on that, because we’ve been hearing and will hear all of that strait from John throughout the service.  What I do want to point out is that along with teaching and healing, this feeding is a pivotal example of God’s restoration of the world through Christ.  Luke tells us that Jesus began his ministry to this large group of people by talking about the kingdom and healing those who needed healing.  Mark says he began by teaching many things.  Matthew said he began by healing their sick.  These two activities were important because they look forward to the reversal of the Fall – teaching is the declarative act of telling us how the world should be and how we engage with God, and healing is the tangible deposit that points toward the restoration of our bodies from death.  And now, added to that restorative preview is the way that God keeps us restored – through this life sustaining food that we’ve needed, we needed it even before the Fall in the garden.  The tree of life is always on the menu, even after the resurrection in the new heaven and new earth.  The teaching and healing were not the final act of Jesus ministry here, Jesus’ fullness in restorative ministry comes through this miraculous feeding.

The other thing I’d like to draw our attention to is the shear abundance of the whole thing.  Food for upwards of 20,000 people is hard to wrap your mind around.  I got a small taste of that last month on my week of E3 trip.  Each year I take 6 students to a Benedictine Monastery in Chicago for a few days of prayer, silence, and retreat.  Each year we spend one afternoon at the Greater Chicago Food Depository sorting food that gets distributed to hungry people throughout the city.  This year our group worked on sorting and packing a little over 5,000 lbs of lettuce.  That’s enough lettuce to maybe use as a sandwich topper for 20,000 people, but nowhere near enough for a salad a piece.  What I’m trying to say is that Christ was incredibly abundant and open-handed in this feeding.  There were plenty of leftovers, everyone’s hunger was satiated.  He’s not like those other gods or authorities who make you beg for food and then ration it out, He’s abundant and open-handed.

The Meal at Emmaus

One last meal to look at and then we’ll eat.  Jesus’ meal with two disciples at Emmaus.  It’s a short meal, Jesus doesn’t stay long, so we won’t either.  What I want us to notice in this meal story is that, again, the encounter with Jesus is wrapped up in the breaking of the bread.  Jesus taught them a lot on the way to Emmaus, Luke tells us he explained the whole Old Testament – how about that for an intensive week class?  But even though they were taught by the master teacher, they didn’t recognize Jesus until he broke the bread with them, then it all made sense to them.  The text says “their eyes were opened.”  We’ve heard that phrase before all the way back in Genesis when Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened when they ate the wrong thing, but now, the disciples eyes are opened when they eat the right thing given by the right person.

Hear me clearly: teaching is an absolute necessity in the church, but we sell ourselves short when we do not experience and recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread that he offers to us and to the world.

The Meal of the Church

So what do we do with all this?  God demonstrated through all these feeding stories that He’s taking care of us and does that in the fullest way through Christ himself, but we’re not God – what are we supposed to do with a world that needs God to feed them – and I mean feed them in every sense of the word?  When Paul talks about the Lord’s Supper in the middle of Chapter 10 in 1 Corinthians, he asks the rhetorical question: “Is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”  We, the church – Christ’s body -  participate in God’s provision for the world.  We share bread because it is part of our newly transformed nature in Christ.  We participate with Christ as he brings life to the world – and feeding people, healing people and teaching people is all a part of that.  The gospel is bigger than an idea, it’s bigger than teaching – it’s our participation, through the power of the Spirit, in Christ’s work of recreating and sustaining the world.  That’s what this bread and this cup do when we have eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, tongues to taste, and fingers to feel.  We eat the bread and drink the cup and we are sustained by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus; and then we partner with Christ in his recreation of the world through life in the Spirit.

The early church had a beautiful custom at the end of their Lord’s Supper celebrations, which typically happened during or after a meal – they would always gather food or resources and distribute them to the poor.  I would hope I don’t need to point you to all the scriptures that call us to care for the poor, the hungry, the orphan, and the widow among us.  What I want us to recognize is that caring for them is so much more than a command, it’s who God is.

Conclusion

Our God is a God who feeds and nourishes His creation back to life, and His church should do the same.

We are the body of Christ in the world.  How are we the life of the world?  Who are we feeding?  What opportunities are we passing up that let us join God in feeding the world?  Where have we withheld manna or barley bread, refused to contribute flour to a “pot of death” to bring it life?  Where have we missed opportunities to see who God is when we share meals and share at His Table?  How many times have we failed to recognize the sustaining power of Christ in our holy eating and then left the world to die of hunger?  Maybe it’s time to start showing the world Jesus at the breaking of the bread – bread that does what teaching or healing alone cannot do – bread that meets every hunger we have and restores us and the world into God’s beautiful rest.

I opened with Basil’s description of death by hunger, I’d like to close the way he does.  Remember, he preached in hard economic times of famine when there was a big disparity between the rich and the poor.  He says this:

“Are you poor? There are others poorer than you are. Have you two days’ provisions? They have only one. Be good and gracious, and share what you have with the needy. Do not hesitate to give away the little that you have; do not put your personal interest above the common danger. Even if your food is reduced to one loaf if there is a beggar at the door, take this loaf out of your cupboard, hold it up to heaven in your hands and say these sad but generous words:

‘Lord the loaf which you see is my last and danger is imminent; but I am remembering your command and am giving of the little that I have to my brother who is hungry. You give also to your servant who is in peril. I know your goodness, and I trust in your power. Do not delay your goodness for long, but if it seems good to you, bestow on us your gifts.’

If you speak and act like this, this bread which you have given in your need will be the seed of a harvest, it will produce abundant fruit and will be the pledge of your food, having been the ambassador of mercy.”

Here’s why I did it and how it helped me focus on the story of Christ’s journey to death and resurrection.

• I don’t like beards, they irritate my face when they get too long and it bothers me. In an odd way, I hoped this constant irritation (much like a fast) would focus my attention on Jesus’ journey. It did.
• It’s a visual reminder that I’m forced to look at many times a day. I hoped this would continually turn my head toward Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and help me keep this in the front of my mind for the season. For the most part, it did. I didn’t have a spiritual moment every time I looked in the mirror, but it did flip my gaze back toward the right direction several times during the last six weeks.
• I wanted the same kind of visual reminder after Easter (the loss if the beard) that would help me focus on the resurrection. We’ll see how that goes.

I also spent my entire commute each day (about 75 minutes total) in silence. It was great. I’m still trying to unpack that one. More later.

For now, a few de-bearding pics. My favorite is the Fu-man-chu.

From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday

The Lord’s descent into the underworld

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

“Let me retain innocence and simplicity in the midst of this complex world. I realize that I have to be informed, that I have to study the many problems facing the world, and that I have to try to understand as well as possible the dynamics of our contemporary society. But what really counts is that all this information, knowledge, and insight allow me to speak more clearly and unambiguously Your truthful word. Do not allow evil powers to seduce me with the complexities of the world’s problems, but give the strength to think clearly, speak freely, and act boldly in Your service.”

-Henri Nouwen in A Cry for Mercy: Prayers From the Genesee quoted in Lent and Easter Wisdom from Henri Nouwen

Each year I take a group of six students up to the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood to spend time in fixed hour prayer, silence, retreat, and service.  The monastic community at Holy Cross is always extremely gracious to us and I enjoy the opportunity to expose students to spiritual formation traditions that they probably have only read about and not experienced first hand.

Fixed hour prayer (often called The Divine Office or The Liturgy of the Hours) is one of those traditions that the monastic community does extremely well – especially this unique community at Holy Cross.  Prayer begins at 4:45 AM each morning and is scattered throughout the day at various, yet strategically placed, times.  When I say “prayer,” most folks might run straight to a petition-oriented format that puts us in the place of asking for health, provision, care, etc.  But fixed hour prayer has a specific focus on praying the Scriptures – mainly the Psalms and the various “songs” we find in the text of the Bible.  This is an incredibly formative way to pray; we take the Scriptures into us and let them both 1) speak to us and 2) provide the vocabulary, setting, and vehicle to speak back to God.  It’s a different way to think about and practice prayer for those who have experienced prayer as a “let’s pray real quick” moment before sermons, communion, offering, trips, and meals.  The encounter with God lies in praying the text – this kind of prayer is not a request for encounter in the thing that follows (although that is certainly an appropriate kind of prayer), but an encounter in the prayer itself.  Even more, this cycle of intentional renewal is the skeleton for our day – the day is anchored on these regular encounters with God.

This summer, I’ll be spending three weeks in seminar research at Calvin College looking at the development of fixed hour prayer in the early celtic church at Bangor (northern Ireland).  I’m pretty excited to see how these folks ordered their day and their spiritual formation around this kind of activity.

Most people who share my background have a hard time finding resources to help them explore fixed hour prayer.  I’m listing two below:

The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle at explorefaith.org

This is a great resource for those initially exploring fixed hour prayer from a protestant perspective.  Phyllis Tickle does a great job of organizing prayer into four sections of the day (morning, midday, evening, and night).  The website takes you directly to the prayers for the current part of the day – no searching required.  There’s also an iPhone app and print editions that do the same thing.  Tickle also provides a great introduction to the concept and practice of fixed hour prayer throughout Scripture and the life of the church.  It’s all free (except for the print editions) and it’s a great way to jump into fixed hour prayer and not get lost in all the complexity of it.

Universalis.com

Universalis is the O.E.D. (the big daddy) of fixed hour prayer.  It’s based on the catholic tradition from the west, but don’t let that scare you.  It gives you the full-meal-deal for all seven times of prayer throughout the day (based on Psalm 119:164 – “seven times a day I praise you…”).  Like explorefaith.org, it automatically takes you to the right place for the day.  They have a great iPhone app plus Mac and Windows apps.  It’s a little overwhelming for a first-timer, but it’s a great place to grow into.

Quotes from: 

Webber, Robert. The Divine Embrace : Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2006.

You can find Brian McLaren’s sermon notes I quoted here:

All pictures are either used under the Creative Commons license or under fair use.  For those used under the Creative Commons Attribution License, you can find attributions here:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/linhtinh/2308229371/
• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/DorseyPensive.jpg
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/eggybird/50064060/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/umjanedoan/497411169/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancesh/190382917/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/notjake13/2393304429/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobjagendorf/2232633085/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjb2332/455537453/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/coljay72/2399545998/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwthompson2/133922175/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurek_durczak/323862646/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/iansoper/144895606/

Words for prayer are so hard to find in times like these, and so I rest on the Church to help frame prayer.  The following comes from Stanley Hauerwas’ Prayers Plainly Spoken -

“Lord of Life, death scares us.  We know we must die, but we have become skilled at living in a manner that ignores that stubborn fact.  After all, most of us are not really old enough yet to have to face our deaths.  Death happens to the old, not us, who are thus condemned to live as if we are perpetually young.  Yet death slinks even into our young lives.  We do not like it.  We try to hide its presence by not being present to those who are dying and avoiding those who must be present to the dying.  We therefore pray for your unfailing and sustaining presence for the Mills family.  Give them the same courage that sustained them and Regan through her illness.  May that same courage find a home in our lives, that we may come to fear you more than our own deaths and thus be enabled to be present to one another.  Amen.”

A nice description of what Campus Chapel in Ann Arbor, MI is doing with Advent appears here. So often, we do Christmas in reverse – we don’t acknowledge our need for the world to be renewed by a divine interruption (both then and now).

From Campus Chapel’s site:

Why Lament in Advent?
In order for us to anticipate with longing the coming of Christ, we must recognize why it is we need him to come. That is what laments are– opportunities for us to speak honestly of our need for a Savior. As long as we pretend everything is just fine we will never appreciate why, for instance, hosts of angels burst into song at his birth.

I love the entire-service-framework approach to their Advent Celebration. Stop on over and read for yourselves.