Advent 4: December 20: Lamentations and Prayers for the "Impossible"

Lamentations 1: 1-5
Jeremiah 32: 23-27

This posting summarizes both the teaching series and the Advent quiet hour reflections on lamentations and on praying amidst chaos and destruction. We began by reading the first five verses of Lamentations, which begins:

How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. 2She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;

We discussed the context of both the Lamentations and of the passage from Jeremiah: the utter destruction of Jerusalem, the Diaspora, the ruined and burnt-out lands, the utter despair.  God's order to Jeremiah, to purchase the deed to the land of his ancestors, leads the prophet to question God about why he would purchase such worthless real estate.  God responds that with God, all things are possible.
We discussed the nature of the public lament using these questions:
1. What good does it do, do you think, to lament?
2. Why or how is it that lamentations—or public expressions of grief—seem foreign to our culture.
3. If we were to bring the book of Lamentations into our own time period, what would our focus be? What would we lament?
4. Use this silence for lamentations. If you wish to write a lamentation for our time, please do. You may or may not wish to share it.
5. Using Jeremiah, how might we move from lamentation to hope?

Our answers were various in both sessions, but we agreed that public lament is an important part of acknowledging the grief we hold for ourselves and for our communities. Our discomfort with public lamentation stems from the cultural codes of behavior that Westerners are bridled with: restraint, a distaste for demonstrating public grief, our intellectual, cerebral approach to grieving. For our own time period, we would publicly lament the homeless, the lack of access to health care, the large number of incarcerated persons in this country. We remembered our public lamentations over Columbine and September 11. One person had been that very day to a memorial in Central Park for the homeless persons who had died this past year.
During our quiet hour, some of us wrote lamentations that we hope to share on this blog. We ended with the words from Jeremiah, spoken by God:

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 27See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?

Advent 3: December 13: David Prays

2 Samuel 7: 18-29

David's prayer begins:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?

We discussed this prayer to God--not really dialogue, as we pointed out--looking at its pattern: of exuberant thanks, deference and humility, and ending with David's insistence that God fulfill his covenant with God's people. We discussed the possibility of praying in this way; many people said that their prayers are "get to the point" prayers. We found it interesting that David rehearses Salvation History--God's work in this world through the events of history, before he makes his request of God. Others mentioned that their prayers are likely to contain praise and thanks only, without making specific requests as David does here:

And now, O Lord God, as for the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, confirm it forever; do as you have promised. 26Thus your name will be magnified forever in the saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel’; and the house of your servant David will be established before you. 27For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house’; therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.

David was anointed as a boy and now he finds himself in the position of king, but perplexed over his direction. He points out that he has fulfilled God's will for him and is asking God to reveal God's part of the covenant to establish the House of David. We noted, as we have with the previous Old Testament prayers, that this one, while beginning on a personal level, expands beyond self into a prayer for all of Israel.

Advent 2, December 6: Hannah's Prayer of Thanksgiving

Hannah's prayer of thanksgiving for the birth of her child is a prayer for all of Israel and its future.

Here is the NRSV of 1 Samuel 2: 1-10

We read this prayer aloud, each of us reading about 4 lines.

The first two lines are:
"My heart exults in the LORD
  My strength is exalted in my God."

We immediately saw the parallel and perhaps the source of the "Magnificat," Mary's prayer of thanksgiving on hearing that she will give birth to Christ.  Hannah has been barren, and in praying for a male child, she promises that she would raise this child as a Nazarene and dedicate him at theTemple when he is three years old. She does conceive; Hannah says this prayer as she leaves her son,  Samuel, with the priest Eli, having dedicated him to the service of God.
Our discussion centered on these questions:
What kind of prayer is this? What lines are the most important for you? For whom is it encouraging? Challenging? Who are the other parties referred to in the prayer?

What kinds of prayers of thanksgiving have you offered lately? How were they similar or different? 

What would it be like if our prayers of thanksgiving had a communal aspect to them?

We noticed that a major difference is that our own prayers of thanksgiving tend to focus on us as individuals and do not often extend in to the greater community. Hannah's prayer is a prayer for the future of Israel, making it quite clear that God's work is being done in this world and that Hannah has played her part in Salvation History. We wondered what it must have felt like for her to give up this toddler when he was 3. At our Monday Advent quiet hour, we looked at the prayers of thanksgiving in the Book of Common Prayer, especially the General Thanksgiving on p. 836--and we discussed the times when our prayers of thanksgiving had been offered spontaneously and with passion.

Advent 1, Nov. 30. Moses and Prayers of Intercession

On Advent I, November 30, we looked at Moses' bold prayers:


Exodus 32: 11-13 
But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.” ’ 

Exodus 32: 31-32
So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.

We explored the questions of intercession, of Moses pleading with God to change God's mind and also of his asking God to forgive his people, even after they have made a golden calf and worshiped it.  What does intercession mean?  Can we ask God to change God's mind--or does intercession mean that our own spirit is more clearly opened, so that we ourselves can move toward fulfilling our role in God's plan, in Salvation History.  

We also noted that Moses' pleas are not for himself, not self-centered, but are for a people.


What do our prayers of intercession look like when we pray boldly?  We, as God's people, make that connection with God; we do not turn away and worship golden calves when we pray for intercession. What are your questions about this bold prayer?

December: Advent Teaching Series: Check Weekly Schedule Here

Praying Boldly: The Great Prayers of the Old Testament

Advent Teaching Series on Sundays
&
Advent Meditation Hour on Mondays

November 29 – December 21, 2009

 “Prayer is a daring act,” says Walter Brueggeman.  As we read the great prayers of the Old Testament—those of Moses, Hannah, David, and Jeremiah—we will look at these prayers as daring dialogues (not monologues) with God that declare a people’s:

• Petitions and supplications
• Thanksgivings
• Laments
• Demands: Calling God’s attention toward Israel’s people.

The great prayers of the Old Testament are bold prayers, and, as Walter Brueggmann says, make our modern-day Christian prayers seem “anemic” in comparison.  On Sundays in Advent, we will read a specific Old Testament prayer, discuss its context and characteristics, make observations, ask questions. On Mondays in Advent, we will read the prayer, move into silent meditation on that prayer, consider some questions about our own prayer life, and practice praying boldly.
Although it would be wonderful if you could, you do not have to attend Sunday’s session in order to go to Monday’s meditation hour.

Date/Bible Passage	Prayer
Advent 1: Sun, Nov. 29; Mon, Nov. 30 Exodus 32: 11-13, 31-32	Intercession: Moses pleads on behalf of his people, and asks God to change his mind about their punishment.
Advent 2: Sun, Dec 6; Mon, Dec 7 1 Samuel 2.1-10	Thanksgiving: Hannah’s Prayer of thanksgiving for the birth of her child is a prayer for all of Israel and its future.
Advent 3: Sun, Dec, 13; Mon, Dec. 14 2 Samuel 7:18-29 and selected Psalms	Dialogue with God: The prayers of David follow a distinct pattern: exuberant thanks, deference and humility, and insistence that God fulfill his covenant with his people.
Advent 4: Sunday, Dec. 20, Mon, Dec 21 Jeremiah 32: 16-25	From despair to hope: Jeremiah’s bold prayer: praying for the “impossible.”

November 22: Tolkien , God's creation, and the implications for our relationships with one another

Notes for the Nov. 22 session will be published during the following week.

November 15 J.R.R.Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Evil and the Great Ring of Power

      We actually continued our discussion of Narnia as we worked into a discussion of Tolkien and Lewis and The Lord of the Rings. We also continued to talk about the functions of fantasy.  Doug noted that Tolkien said the fantasy speaks to our heart's desire. By reading fantasy, we can see what people were yearning for during a certain era. In The Rings we see a yearning for being connected to nature. Tolkien also expressed, in a lecture at St. Andrew's College, the hope that fantasy would lead to a fuller understanding of Christianity. He suggested that it worked as a foreshadowing of a richer and fuller life with God; evil is conquered and there is the hope of the resurrection.
     Tolkien especially wrote of the splendors of the universe. The Elves, for example, led by Galdriel, blend into their natural landscape.
     In  "The Lion, The Witch..." Lewis had the same goal. Here is an example. When all the children arrive in Narnia, they find Mr. Tumnus's home ruined and Mr. Tumnus arrested. A bird, however, leads them to the home of of the beaver family. The beaver hut is an ideal home with a deep familiarity and speaks to our wanting to be taken care of.  Our seeking an afterlife also speaks to our yearning for home. The "Fairy Stories," as he called them, offer us consolation.
     The questions that came up were: Did these writers (Lewis and Tolkien) set out to write Christian fantasy or did it emerge from the writing?  How do the two world wars figure into Tolkien's writing?
     At this point I had to leave the session to vest for 10:15 service, so I'm hoping that someone can fill in the gaps.

November 8: C.S.Lewis, Narnia "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"

     In this session, we continued talking about how fantasy can make the familiar unfamiliar and can therefore reveal to us certain truths that we have not seen before.  Specifically, looking at "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," we looked at Aslan, Mr. Tumnus, and the White Witch. We also discussed the nature of evil seen here and in Dante. Here are some specifics:
When Christ is protrayed as a gigantic lion, we are propelled into thoughts about Him that go beyond our usual images. There is great majesty in Aslan; most important, he is not a tame lion. Yet, he is deeply familiar to the characters. Also, we often see glimpses of Aslan, from a distance or from the corner of our eyes. We were reminded  that in "Caspian," Lucy sees Aslan at a distance, but the others don't believe her when she tells them so.  She finally goes to him and Aslan says something like, "Why didn't you come with me the first time?" She has, of course, allowed the pressure and ridicule of her brothers and sister to deny what she knows to be true.
In an interesting reversal of "making the familiar unfamiliar," we discussed the scene between Lucy and Mr. Tumnus. Mr Tumnu is a faun-like creature who cannot believe his eyes when he sees an actual human, having thought that they were mythological creatures.  "What are you?" he asks Lucy.
In our discussion of the White Witch, we looked at the nature of evil that she embodies; she is cold, magnificent, and self-absorbed. Where she reigns, it is always winter. Her power is to render things lifeless--the ice statues that were once human are chilling examples of this, whereas Aslan's breath brings life into these frozen creatures. He is the breath of life.
Winter, of course, is not a terrible season; it can be quite enjoyable. But the winter in "The Lion, the Witch..." is removed from the cycle of seasons and is unnatural. (And, of course, it's winter, but there's never Christmas).  We are reminded of Dante's "Inferno," where those perpetrators of the greatest sin, treachery, are souls frozen in ice.
The lands of evil in both Lewis and Tolkien, we noted, have a real lack of variety and a sense of monotony. We concluded that evil can pervert what is natural. As with Edmund, for example, his temptation (for turkish delight) overrides his natural instincts.
For the 15th, we will probably continue to discuss Lewis before we move into Tolkien.

November 1 Christian fantasy in general

Our November series on Christian fantasy began with a general discussion of how fantasy works to enliven and enrich a world whose symbols have become overly-familiar and therefore do not resonate with us, do not speak to our imaginative faculties that enable us to connect spiritually with God's creation.
Doug Burger, our leader, mentioned Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn and read a passage in which the unicorns are conversing about the humans' failure to see them as unicorns. If we cannot imagine something, we cannot see it, even if it exists before our very eyes. We also briefly discussed Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy, then moved into a conversation about the relationship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien--their personal relationship and their uses of fantasy.
Doug pointed out some real differences in their uses of fantasy:  Lewis is much more the allegorist, while Tolkien resists allegory. For example, in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," Aslan is clearly a figure of Christ; in the Ring trilogy, the Ring of Power or the orcs, for example, do not merely represent Nazis, but encompass many manifestations of evil.
Doug asked, "What does it mean--what are the implications for us--that Christ is portrayed as a lion [in "The Lion, The Witch....]?"

Welcome to St. Aidan's Adult Education Blog

Dear St. Aidan's Members:
Check this blog for our latest Sunday morning Christian Education series. You will find a schedule of upcoming classes as well as summaries of past classes. You are invited to catch up with what we've been teaching and add comments or questions to our summaries of past teaching series. If you've missed a class, you can catch up here. If you can't attend the Sunday series, you can follow along here--next best thing to being in class.
We look forward to your comments.

November Teaching Series: Fantasy Literature and the Reality of God's Kingdom

Christian Formation in November
9:15 am

Classrooms A & B
Presented by
Douglas Burger, Professor Emeritus, CU Department of English

How can fantasy stories, ironically, give us a sharper sense of reality – including the amazing Realities of God?
For four Sundays in November we will explore answers to this question. By looking at a range of fantastic narratives, but primarily C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, we will plunge into the Christian truths that these wonderful stories convey.
For example, how does Lewis’s portraying Christ as a gigantic lion crack open our clichéd notions of Jesus? What does Frodo’s trek to destroy a master-ring tell us about the nature of Christian heroism? How is the natural world of God’s Creation made more visible in stories set in other worlds?
Please join us in November for these sessions, suitable for all ages, especially us world-weary adults. It should be, well, fantastic.

November 1 Christian fantasy in general: an exploration of the values and functions

November 8 C.S.Lewis, Narnia with a focus on "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"

November 15 J.R.R.Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Evil and the Great Ring of Power

November 22 Tolkien , God's creation, and the implications for our relationships with one another