twenty-three

I’ve decided to try something different with this second talk at the Summer INN. I’ve written it out in paper form, which I’m sure I’ll add to as I talk tonight. I thought I’d share that with my friends who read this blog, so you know what is being said. Thanks for your prayers.

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I want to look out for #1 – Me. What I need. What I desire
most. I generally focus my thoughts on things like “what will I eat today”,
“what do I want to do right now”, “how does this or that affect me.” Call it
selfish or whatever you will, but I know that my natural inclination is to look
after myself.

This, as you might expect, conflicts with other “me”
centered people. When we live in community, our “me” desires are often at odds
with other people’s “me” desires. I’d like to tell you that when you get married,
this isn’t an issue. But that would be a lie. My wants, my shortcomings, what I
want to watch on TV vs. what my wife wants to watch – are in conflict. We love
each other and learn to deal with this, but this is still a battle and a good
example of how our communities are filled with “me” centered individuals.

This individually focused way of life affects our lives in
many profound ways. It influences how we live. And it changes the way we
interact with God. Have you ever taken a moment to think about the proportion
of your “me” centered prayers to God compared to the amount of time you spend
talking with God about the needs of your community. Your community – where you,
the other peoples around you every day, and God all live in dynamic balance with
each other – is often simply overlooked in our prayers.

Prayer for our community can be difficult to picture,
especially because most of the examples we look at in the Bible are gleaned for
tidbits of personal applicability. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say
that taking away personal application from a Bible story isn’t important,
because in many cases it is. But as we do this, let’s also remember to look at
the Bible in the context of a cultural narrative, a community story, which
reflects the needs of a community of people and their corporate desires.

Tonight, I get to talk about Daniel, a devoted God-follower,
and the story of his prayerful interaction with God, spurred on by his
passionate study of the Scriptures. Daniel’s prayer is community minded, a
passionate cry to God on behalf of a people in exile. Daniel approached his
Bible study with the needs of his people in mind and was deeply impacted and
passionately prayerful to God because of what he discovered.

When I was in high school, I was kind of a youth group
junkie. I was very involved in my church. As a part of helping the kids my age
become more connected to the “adult” church service, we had the opportunity to
read Scripture and pray for the pastor before his sermon. In preparation for
being involved in the Sunday service, many students would write down what they
were going to say, hoping to craft a worthwhile prayer and not freeze when
faced with the nerves of public speaking. I was not one to write much down, but
I would mentally prepare a list of things to check off in my prayer. Remember –
pray for the sick people in the church, pray for the president, pray for the
war, remember the economy (which I knew nothing about but I knew was important
somehow), and don’t forget to pray for the Mariners. My moment in the service
would come, I’d pray, with meaning and genuine desire behind it, and then step
down. I’d finish the rest of the service sitting near the pastor and then duck
out quickly to get to the doughnut table at coffee hour.

I don’t think I fully grasped what I was involved in when I
took part in prayer for and on behalf of my community. I was actually
separating myself from being an individual and becoming the mouthpiece of a
group of people. On behalf of my church, I was bringing their communal desires
to God. And honestly, I didn’t get that, or understand how something like that
even took place. But I believe God received my prayers nonetheless.

In chapter 9 of the book of Daniel, we encounter a man who
did know what he was doing when it came to representing the desires of Israel to God. We find a man who knew the sins of his people and knew the grace and
mercy of his God. Daniel, the same Lion’s den, writing on the wall guy, was
intimate with God in prayer. Through his prayer, we find a plea for salvation
and redemption of an entire nation, an entire community.

At this point in history, Israel is experiencing exile. This isn’t a short timeout in your room kind of thing,
but rather a 500 year banishment. Daniel approaches God, with knowledge of the
Lord’s mercy and grace through Israel’s
history. This understanding of God’s character leads him to attempt a
confession and seek Israel’s
forgiveness for forgetting God during this time. His prayer is structured in a
similar style to other prayers throughout the Old Testament and rings of the
continual desire of his people to find redemption and become reconciled to God.
While this prayer, with a few minor adjustments, would serve as a great
individual prayer of confession, we find it is unique in its representation of
the yearnings of the community of Israel before God.

“We’ve done evil things, rebelled, dodged and taken detours
around your clearly marked paths. We’ve turned a deaf ear to your servants the
prophets, who preached your Word to our kings and leaders, our parents, and all
the people in the land. You have done everything right, Master, but all we have
to show for our lives is guilt and shame, the whole lot of us—people of Judah,
citizens of Jerusalem, Israel at home and Israel in exile in all the places
we’ve been banished to because of our betrayal of you. Oh yes, God, we’ve been exposed in our shame,
all of us—our kings, leaders, parents—before the whole world. And deservedly
so, because of our sin.”
    Daniel 9:7-10, The Message

The prayer on behalf of the people is made more significant
as we remember who Daniel was. If he looked at his own life through the “me”
lens, he would see a man who was far more righteous than the rest of his
people. A man who stood for his faith amidst the local religions and the
idolization of the king, while others had given in, Daniel was an example of a
dedicated servant of God. And yet, he recognized his place within his community
– he belonged to the community of Israel and therefore their sins were his sins. As the problems of a family weigh on
every member, so Israel’s
troubles were Daniel’s troubles. Rather than submitting to the voice that
probably called him to forget the sinners around him, Daniel jumps into the
gutter with them and pleads that God bring salvation for them all, himself
included.

Does pain within your community have bearing on your
individual life? Who are the “least of these” in your community? Have you
considered that their sins, their hunger, their strivings, are your sins, your
hunger, your strivings, due simply to your proximity? This is not meant to
weigh guilt on you, but rather to help us all shift our perspective. 

Over the course of this summer, we’ve talked about a variety
of interactions with God. We’ve talked about styles of prayer, the places in
life where we meet God. I’m suggesting here that we look at Daniel’s
interaction with God as a unique example for us, teaching us to approach God
with not only our own desires, but with the desires of our community, and need
for redemption on a larger scale. When we approach prayer with this mindset,
the prayer that I led as a high-schooler fits into the scheme of things with
more clarity and is easier to understand.

No matter what our own “me” desires tell us, we are members
of community. No matter how strongly the urge to focus on ourselves as isolated
individuals is, we are members of a family. I’m sure if you thought about it
for a minute; you could recognize multiple communities in which you reside.
Your house, your work, your family, the INN, Bellingham, Whatcom County,
Washington, the United States, and beyond that to the global community. The
community of Christians. And then, if you thought about each of those groups,
it’d be easy to recognize places where each fails or has need of redemption.
Each has the need for God to renew it in some way. And each is filled with
valuable individuals who are called to shoulder the burdens of their
communities in prayer, much like Daniel.

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