Prayer for healing

October 26, 2013 / / One comment

…Jesus is reported to have made the blind see and the lame walk, and over the centuries countless miraculous healings have been claimed in his name. For those who prefer not to believe in them, a number of approaches are possible, among them:

  1. The idea of miracles is an offence both to man’s reason and to his dignity. Thus, a priori, miracles don’t happen.
  2. Unless there is objective medical evidence to substantiate the claim that a miraculous healing has happened, you can assume it hasn’t.
  3. If the medical authorities agree that a healing is inexplicable in terms of present scientific knowledge, you can simply ascribe this to the deficiencies of present scientific knowledge.
  4. If an otherwise intelligent and honest human being is convinced, despite all arguments to the contrary, that it is God who has healed him, you can assume that his sickness, like its cure, was purely psychological. Whatever that means.
  5. The crutches piled high at Lourdes and elsewhere are a monument to human humbug and credulity.

If your approach to this kind of healing is less ideological and more empirical, you can always give it a try. Pray for it. If it’s somebody else’s healing you’re praying for, you can try at the same time laying your hands on him as Jesus sometimes did. If his sickness involves his body as well as his soul, then God may be able to use your inept hands as well as your inept faith to heal him.

If you feel like a fool as you are doing this, don’t let it throw you. You are a fool of course, only not a damned fool for a change.

If your prayer isn’t answered, this may mean more about you and your prayer than it does about God. Don’t try too hard to feel religious, to generate some healing power of your own. Think of yourself rather (if you have to think of yourself at all) as a rather small-gauge, clogged up pipe that a little of God’s power may be able to filter through if you can just stay loose enough. Tell the one you’re praying for to stay loose too.

If God doesn’t seem to be giving you what you ask, maybe he’s giving you something else.

 

Frederick Buechner, “Healing” in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC.” Harper and Row, 1973.

 

Category: faith, healing, health, miracles, prayer / Tags:

Seeing the Church from another point of view

October 21, 2013 / / 2 comments

I’m always interested to see how other Christians “do church.” It helps me retain some sense of the strangeness of God, and it keeps me from thinking that what I’m used to is normal and everything else is not-quite-right. I recently visited Old San Juan, Puerto Rico and here’s a bit of what I saw. (Click on the thumbnails to see the full image, then again for a larger image.)

Category: Catholic, Church, churches, diversity, Pentecostal, photography, Presbyterian, travel / Tags:

St. Luke and the dancing ox

October 15, 2013 / / 4 comments

St. Luke the Evangelist
North doors, Baptistry, Firenze, 15th c.
Lorenzo Ghiberti

 

 

Earlier this year I was fortunate to be in Florence where I saw this relief of St. Luke the Evangelist by Lorenzo Ghiberti.  In some ways, Ghiberti’s work is a traditional evangelist’s portrait showing one of the four evangelists writing and accompanied by the creature that is his symbol.  Matthew’s symbol is an angel, Mark’s is a lion, John’s is an eagle, and Luke’s is an ox.

While I was thinking about Ghiberti and this relief, I realized what a challenge such a portrait of St. Luke could be. Lions, eagles, and angels are the stuff of visions, but a cow?  Creating a dignified and powerful image of a man and a ox could be tricky–especially if you wanted to avoid anything reminiscent of Moloch or Mithras.

A quick survey of paintings and sculpture turned up a lot of interesting ways of depicting Luke’s symbol. Sometimes the ox or bull is clearly a spiritual being, as it is in the Russian icon below. At other times, as in the Netherlandish painting, the ox seems very much an animal, though one whose eyes suggest an otherworldly sentience.

 

St. Luke the Evangelist
Russian icon, 18th century
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

St. Luke the Evangelist
Jan van Bijlert, 17th century
Photo: Christie’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Luke in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, 1477
Photo: Wikipedia

 

In yet another example taken from a book of hours, the heavenly creature seems almost disguised as a earthly cow, calmly resting in the doorway while Luke paints a portrait of the Virgin Mary. It’s clear to me that, within this genre, the ox has presented artists with both a challenge and an opportunity for experimentation.

In the Baptistry door relief, Ghiberti appears to be trying something very different from other artists. There’s a connection between man and creature expressed through the composition. St. Luke’s right arm and leg line up with the the ox’s leg; their poses mimic one another.

In this way, Ghiberti’s ox is not just an identifying symbol or an animal sitting behind the writing desk. This ox interacts with the saint. The angles of Luke’s left hand and the scroll make a visual rhyme with the ox horns as it turns its head to look at the evangelist. The drapery and the chair legs repeat graceful shapes.

With so much gentle rhythm in its making, the composition is dancelike. There is movement within the confines of the quatrefoil, and there is unity of strength and grace, body and spirit. The ox is not massive and powerful, but surprisingly agile and elegant. Ghiberti’s animal is more than an attribute, he is a holy muse; a conduit for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; a partner with the saint in the dance between God and man.

 

 

Category: art, saints / Tags: , , ,

Marked by our past: echoes of Grünewald at JesusTattoo.org

October 14, 2013 / / One comment

 

Photo: JesusTattoo.org

Some billboards in Texas are causing a commotion. The images, which are part of a campaign by the Christian outreach group JesusTattoo.org, show a heavily-tattooed Jesus covered with words like “Outcast,” “Hated,” “Addicted,” and “Faithless.” An accompanying YouTube video presents a parable in which Jesus appears as a tattoo artist. People come to him with tattoos naming their sins and griefs, and the tattoo artist changes them into positive messages. Only at the end of the story do we discover that the artist has accomplished this by taking the original tattoos onto his own body.

The tattooed Jesus is a modern illustration of the idea that Christ shares our suffering and takes on our sins. “Surely he has borne our griefs,” we read in Isaiah, “a man of sorrows…and he bare the sin of many.” While the image offends some people, it brought to my mind a much older picture: the Crucifixion panel of the Isenheim Altapiece.

 

Isenheim altarpiece (closed)
Mattias Grunewald, 1512-1516

Painted by Matthias Grünewald in the early 1500s, the Isenheim Altarpiece was created for the Monastery of St. Anthony which specialized in the care of plague sufferers and those with skin diseases. The body of the crucified Christ is covered with sores to show patients that Jesus understood and shared their afflictions. It’s not pretty or heroic, but it’s very powerful.


Like the billboards in Texas, Grünewald’s painting emphasizes the humanity of Jesus, even as it asserts the power of his saving work. Perhaps that’s one reason for the offense.

Our life in this world changes us. Suffering and sin mark us like ink and scar. Thanks be to God whose Love takes us as we are and make us new.

Resurrection panel
Isenheim Altarpiece

Category: art, controversy, Jesus, suffering, theology / Tags: , , , ,

Throw out the lifeline!

October 10, 2013 / / Comments Off on Throw out the lifeline!

Bible Quiz Cards
Published by Tyndale House

 

When you think about denominational culture, the emphasis on “Knowing Your Bible” is one of the key points of separation. That’s why in some congregations, everyone brings their Bible to worship, and in others, almost no one does. Still, I think it’s fair to say we all agree that every Christian should know something, and more is better when it comes to being familiar with Scripture.  Here are some quiz cards that I picked up while teaching a Sunday morning class for people who were new to Bible stories. Thankfully, they give the scripture reference along with every answer so you can go back and read the stories in their entirety. I have to confess, many of the questions were too tough for me!  I’ll ask you a few and you can see how you do.

1. Who were the first couple in the Bible to give birth to twin sons?  (Genesis 25:20-24)

2. What was unusual about Balaam’s donkey? (Numbers 22:28-30)

3. What tiny seed did Jesus use to describe the kingdom of God? (Luke 13:18-19)

4. Which king of Israel was a reckless chariot driver?  (2 Kings 9:20)

5. Which disciple walked on water to reach Jesus?  (Matthew 14:29-30)

 

 

Category: Bible, Formation / Tags:

The bad tree

October 8, 2013 / / Comments Off on The bad tree

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?  So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.  A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:15-20

Category: Bible, discernment, stained glass /

And am I born to die

October 7, 2013 / / One comment

 

Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord:
that he looked down from his holy height,
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die;
that men may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
and in Jerusalem his praise,
when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.

Psalm 102: 18-22

 

When we read this psalm or the passage in Isaiah, we tend to imagine a modern justice system, where prisoners serve their time, pay their debt to society, and are eventually released. We think about justice and mercy. We think about getting out on appeal and catching a break.

We would do better to remember a time when, if they threw you in the dungeon, the powers that be were done thinking about you. You were doomed. Unless someone on the outside could bring your case to mind again, your cries of pain or protestations of injustice were useless. No wonder some darkly creative mind named the oubliette, a place for the forgotten.

We are all, in a sense, prisoners doomed to die.  No one escapes. We don’t know how long we have. We wonder if we’ll be forgotten. We look around and ask God “…and am I born to die?”

The darkness and suffering are real, but the Lord does not forget. We shall again praise him.

 

“And am I born to die” words by Charles Wesley.

Doc Watson sings accompanied by his father-in-law, Gaither Carlton, on fiddle.

 

 

And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown –
A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought,
The dreary regions of the dead,
Where all things are forgot?

Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be;
Waked by the trumpet’s sound,
I from my grave shall rise,
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies.

How shall I leave my tomb?
With triumph or regret?
A fearful or a joyful doom,
A curse or blessing meet?
Will angel-bands convey
Their brother to the bar?
Or devils drag my soul away,
To meet its sentence there?

Who can resolve the doubt
That tears my anxious breast?
Shall I be with the damned cast out,
Or numbered with the blest?
I must from God be driven,
Or with my Saviour dwell;
Must come at his command to heaven,
Or else – depart to hell.

O thou that wouldst not have
One wretched sinner die,
Who died’st thyself; my soul to save
From endless misery!
Show me the way to shun
Thy dreadful wrath severe,
That when thou comest on thy throne
I may with joy appear.

Thou art thyself the Way;
Thyself in me reveal;
So shall I spend my life’s short day
Obedient to thy will;
So shall I love my God,
Because he first loved me,
And praise thee in thy bright abode,
To all eternity.

Category: death, hymns, resurrection / Tags: , , ,

As the mist scatters

October 6, 2013 / / Comments Off on As the mist scatters

Thanks to Thee, O God, that I have risen to-day
To the rising of this life itself;
May it be to Thine own glory,
O God of every gift,
And to the glory of my soul likewise.

O Great God, aid Thou my soul with the aiding of Thine own mercy,
Even as I clothe my body with wool,
Cover Thou my soul with the shadow of Thy wing.
Help me to avoid every sin,
and the source of every sin to forsake;
And as the mist scatters on the crest of the hills,
may each ill haze clear from my soul, O God.

 

From Celtic Prayers.  Selected by Avery Brooke from the collection of Alexander Carmichael,with calligraphy by Laurel Casazza. Seabury Press, 1981

Category: Celtic, prayer / Tags:

Francis: Brother of the Universe

October 4, 2013 / / One comment

Marvel Comics, 1980.
Script by Mary Jo Duffy, breakdowns by John Buscema
finished art by Marie Severin. Click for more info.

 

Today, on the feast of St. Francis, most people will remember Francis as the patron saint of animals and the environment. We’ll bless our pets and listen to “The Canticle of the Sun.” But Francis did more than preach to the birds and tame the wolf of Gubbio.  If you look at the “Little Flowers“–a florilegium of stories about the saint’s life–you’ll find that Francis was interesting and quirky, and what we might call “extreme.”

Francis did not live a life of peaceful contemplation. He went to Egypt to try to convert the Sultan and end the Crusades. He was the first person recorded as having received the stigmata, and he suffered from them until his death. He once preached a mighty sermon while naked, and another time raised a man into the air with his breath. He was very serious about imitating the life of Christ and living in poverty. He could be harsh and excessive.

Certainly Francis was a figure worthy of his own comic book–a bit dark and unpredictable, driven, compassionate. A man whose great love and obsession changed the world.

 

St. Francis of Assisi by Bonaventura Berlingheri, 1235

St. Francis receiving the stigmata
by Giotto di Bondone, c.1295-1300

Category: monks, saints / Tags: , ,

The Story of God’s Love

October 2, 2013 / / Comments Off on The Story of God’s Love

This is my favorite Sunday School book of all time.  I liked it so much, I took it home and read it over and over again. I’ve hung onto it for over 40 years. It begins like this:

Did you know that the Bible is one story–the story of God’s love for people like you and me?

The stories in this book are from the Bible and are a part of that wonderful story. They are about people of long ago who knew God’s love and answered his call to come into his family and belong to him.

I’m not sure why I loved this book so much. I had other Bible story books at home–and I read them too–but they did not occupy the same place in my affections as The Story of God’s Love.

When I read it again as an adult, I recognize Grace McSpadden Overholser’s talent for writing dramatic narrative and conversation which captured my imagination. I’m sure Polly Bolian’s illustrations were important too because they conveyed character and emotion. (Bolian is a well-known illustrator of Nancy Drew books which I was also reading about this time.) And I see from the brief author’s biography at book’s end that “Susan Hiett, a seven-year-old friend from Memphis, Tennessee, read all the stories in this book while they were being written.”  Perhaps her efforts were the secret ingredient.

But honestly, I’m not sure that I can explain it, and I can’t be sure that you would have the same experience if you picked up a copy. All I know is that this book is part of the story of God’s love in my life. A curious thing.

 

Category: Books, children, Formation, Sunday School /
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