Tag: prayer

After six years

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Justice

So goes the title in this Guardian article: Spain expresses regret over ‘injustice’ suffered by Mexico’s Indigenous people during conquest with the opening paragraph being:

Spain has acknowledged and expressed regret over the “pain and injustice” suffered by the Indigenous people of Mexico during its conquest of the Americas, heralding a shift in tone after six years of diplomatic spats over the abuses of the colonial period.

After SIX years…

We don’t have the exact date but in 2017 I wrote A few years ago we went up to Colon (Columbus) square, Madrid, to pray the day before the so-called Columbus Day… maybe it was in 2015 and Gayle had painted a protest piece of art proclaiming (with a question mark) whether this was really ‘indigenous peoples’ day’ rather than ‘Columbus day’. We hid the painting amidst fairly strict security in a tree beneath where a huge Spanish flag was raised. I am sure later that day the painting would have been removed as the site was secured for the national display the next day. A few years later our friends from Calpe were in Mexico and carried a repentant spirit for the historic abuse on the land.

Two ways of looking at the outcome of ‘after six years of diplomatic spats’. A one to one connection – ‘we’ did this and look what happened; or coincidence as it would have happened anyway. And probably the reality is somewhere in between. Certainly the ‘we’ did this has to be significantly softened. When we think we are the only ‘we’ we will miss it totally, but I do carry a conviction that the body of Christ carries a responsibility to help clear ground so that genuinely ‘good works’ can be done by whoever stands in that place of implementing a shift. Here is a sweet statement from one of Sanchez’ cabinet:

It’s a very human history and, like every human history, it’s had its light and its shadows,” he said. “And there has also been pain – pain and injustice towards the Indigenous people to whom this exhibition is dedicated. There was injustice and it’s right to recognise that today and to be sorry for that, because it is also part of our shared history, and we can neither deny nor forget it.

I set up a WhatsApp group a while back entitled ‘not many smart’ as I m convinced that none of us are that smart. And certainly that is something that will accompany us as we travel (hopefully this week) to Sicily. We, excellent representatives of being qualified to belong to all ‘not many smart’ groups, will probably do something from time to time that will appear so limited, small and meaningless… and I hope over the next six months a stack of other people do the same. There will be no straight lines for any of us such as ‘we did / prayed this and look what took place’; some of it might be absolutely meaningless, but maybe between us all we might just be able to read in a few years’ time that something has changed. I am encouraged to continue to give it a clueless go. Hope you are too.

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Prayer, a complex partnership

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I don’t find prayer easy. My mind wanders. And I led prayer teams here there and everywhere. Ah well God chooses the foolish ones?

My best rhythm is when I get out and walk and toward the end of the time felt a challenge that on a certain area of concern I was praying too much! Jesus warned us not to pray too much (‘do not pray like the pagans who think they will be heard with their many words’) and I realised that a percentage of my praying was due to anxiety over the situation and a lack of trust in God. If I pray more… The big issue was my anxieties – deal with them, the lack of trust in God and pray less.

Prayer is so complicated. Why pray? A standard response is that God does not need prayer (after all God is omnipotent and can do whatever) and that it is ultimately for us. I think that view is in error though as I have indicated in the previous paragraph prayer has a direct impact on changing us. However much it conflicts with our view on ‘omnipotence’ and ‘sovereignty’ God needs prayer. There is an agreement between us and God that is required. That key part of the ‘Lord’s prayer’ indicates a world view that the will of God is not being done: ‘Let your kingdom come, let your will be done’.

We must get rid of any idea that prayer (for example) changes God in the sense that we twist God’s arm so that now he will get on with the task of saving my friend Johnny. God wants all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth – thus I cannot buy into the choice of God from all eternity as to who is saved (maybe a post one day on predestination, election etc?).

God and humanity… Our vote is big when it comes to heaven’s activity. Prayer does not change God but it does change God’s activity and level of presence. It is so powerful – situations can change and in the process we change. And of course key to all this is that ‘earth’ is given to us, and we have consistently ‘fallen’ thus our sphere is that of coming out from under the one to whom we gave authority and nestling under the one who has authority ‘in heaven and on earth’. Prayer is to God but is to remove all areas that are under the authority of the ‘prince of this world’. All of that changes at the hour of the resurrection and we live the other side of that… and yet this ‘evil age’ continues. In comes prayer!

Next post I will jump into a reflection on the phase of my life when I was leading prayer teams (‘sowing seeds for revival’) to many cities in the UK and beyond.

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One of my perplexed questions

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

For a long time I have pondered concerning the actions and prayers of ‘believers’ – if we are pushing in a wrong direction does that cock things up, does it even work against a godly resolution – I will come to Gaza and Israel before I finish this post, but maybe start a little back from that. Of course what I write are ‘perspectives’ but they are based on certain presuppositions (I hesitated to write ‘truths’!!):

  • I do not believe that God controls the future in the sense of exercising omnipotence over all things. For sure God works in all things for a good / the best outcome. God is love, and that love is non-controlling (although I struggle with certain aspects of Oord’s ‘God can’t’ I certainly go with the premise of ‘Uncontrolling Love’). To believe in ‘sovereignty’ in the sense of control runs up against the justifiable ‘problem of evil’ objection.
  • There is no divide between the God of the OT and the God of the NT, but we are not invited to read OT genocidal commands as coming from heaven… we are invited to continue to read and in reading discover that the God who is one (Old and New Testaments) is the ‘Christlike God’. We must engage with the intra-canonical dialogue and disagreement of Scripture. Scripture disarms us as much as parts of it need to be disarmed.
  • (Relevant to Gaza / Israel – surely it is remarkable that there are no NT Scriptures that seek to pull on Ezekiel-type passages concerning Armageddon, the land as promise etc… The only way to get there is to start with a system and then fit the passages into that – something completely absent in the NT… and I include Revelation as apocalyptic (and certainly far from literal) literature in that assertion, which of course does mention the mythical place of Armageddon.)

We spent much time praying into the effects of the Civil War in Spain – and into some of the underlying history from centuries prior to that. A big concern was the burial of Franco inside a huge ‘cathedral’ hewn inside a mountain with the largest cross of its type above the tomb – some 200 metres high. That raised the question as to whether by placing the cross there corrupted the meaning of the cross but co-opted some of the power it symbolised. That is a huge assumption and if true (I think so) indicated why it was such a battle to see Franco’s body exhumed and moved. That experience and journey left me with a conviction that when something that is genuinely ‘of Christ’ is used (abused) it is not something neutral but co-opts what should be present for transformation and reconciliation for something that stands against genuine transformation and reconciliation. Moving on…

This then has given me my perplexed question. What happens if I as a believer in Jesus start to pray for (say) judgement against my enemies – does that in some way release something spiritual that has an outworking against my ‘enemies’, all the while Jesus is saying ‘Martin, love your enemy, bless those who curse you’?

What if, prayers that are ‘wrong’, in the sense of not flowing with the Christlike God and for the kingdom to come on earth as in heaven, actually frustrate the coming of that kingdom or indeed go further and they actually resist the kingdom of God coming? This is the heart of my perplexed question… and if (as I suspect I am partly on to something) it really troubles me.

My guess is that since so much of evangelical Christianity is shaped by (a modified) form of Dispensationalism there are huge amount of prayers that are along the lines of ‘give Israel victory, restore the boundaries to them’ being offered up to heaven in the current war scenario. If not prayers, then I doubt if from that quarter there are prayers being offered up for peace and reconciliation, or if peace is viewed as a good outcome it is as per Rome who built their temple dedicated to the god of peace (Pax) literally on the field that was dedicated to the god of war (Mars). Peace but how? Through war and subduing all the enemies – the way of all Imperial kingdoms / basileia . So different to the path of peace forged through the blood of Messiah – the way of the kingdom / basileia of heaven.

Into Gaza and Israel we have generational trauma on both sides; both groups have been wronged, and of course until we are healed of such wrongs we tend to believe that any wrong that we are now involved in comes under the heading of ‘justice’ – two wrongs making a right / a justice.

The kingdom does not advance and rejoice when blood is shed – blood shedding being one of the primary actions that pollute land and polluted land draws demonic strongholds to it in increasing measure.

I wish I could resolve my perplexed question with the answer that God does not listen to ‘wrong’ prayers, but sadly and painfully I have not been able to do that. If I am only partly right I pray God have mercy on us, forgive us as we do not know what we are doing. I have to increase my faith that God works in the midst of all the mess we have helped create.

God have mercy on… Israel, Jews, Gaza, Palestinian Arabs (many of whom have Jewish ancestry), God have mercy on us who claim to follow the Prince of Peace.

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OK… so why?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Now we have the right question. I remember going to Wales with a prayer team some 20+ years ago. We were hosted in a local hotel and as I walked through the door I said ‘this place is haunted’. A few wide eyes from some of the team with me, and we walked to reception, where there was a little note – our hotel is the home also of xxx who walks the corridors of this hotel…’

What should we do. My response was, ‘I am here to sleep, if there will be any disturbance it will be me disturbing this spirit.’ [Now some 20 years later and having dialogued with [Anglican] advisers to bishops on the para-normal I might have a few more ‘categories’ than I had back then. Back then, pentecostal boy, saw everything not of God as demons.]

I have been privileged to be asked into homes of those who are not ‘believers’ (but if invited in are they not at some level a ‘believer’?) to deal with doors banging randomly, apparitions manifesting etc.. I remember in Leatherhead my neighbour talked to me over the fence asking for some help. I went round and said – ok come with me, and together we will sort this out. At the end he crossed himself the way I do as he was from a Catholic background, she went the other way as she was from an Orthodox background – I didn’t, as back then I did not cross myself. Not sure if I would do it differently now – back then it was simple, this is a demon that is attached to the house due to the trauma left from a previous owner.

So back to yesterday’s post… Paul what did you do?

Three months later we set sail on a ship that had wintered at the island, an Alexandrian ship with the Twin Brothers as its figurehead (Acts 28:11).

Twin brothers – the gods / semi-gods Castor and Pollux. OK bring it up to date. We go buy a car, and the salesperson proudly says – you have a great vehicle here and we have dedicated this car, complete with naming ceremony to the god who oversees all travel. What would we do? Refuse to buy it? Cast out the demons? Take it to the local church and ask them to sprinkle it / submerge it fully? Although a little humorous I think such a car would create a few questions for us.

So Paul what did you do?

Wrong question.

He might have emabarked with a good old ‘shaba dabba’ and confronted the powers behind the image – after all he said images are nothing, but behind them lie demons. Or he might have simply cast them a sideways look, went to his bunk and slept, not even giving them the time of day.

The Bible doesn’t tell us cos it would be so detrimental – we would do what he did. Not a good idea. We need to do what we need to do, and as far as possible for the same reason as Paul did what ever he did.

I wrote to a group recently about a shift in a situation from ‘heavenly warfare’ to the entrance of the warfare on the earth – always a key transitional moment. I said for some it might mean intense prayer, for others a glass of wine.

Not… never what… always why.

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A little extra

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever Amen.

A little bit that some scribe seems to have added at the end as it is not present in what are considered the best manuscripts. Does it belong here? Probably not, but maybe!

Probably not given the MSS evidence; but maybe – this scribe added a good little finale, and I think we can add bits here and there that work for us, and focus us. Prayer is a lifestyle; prayer is relational; prayer is multi-faceted – so add a bit here and there seems well good to me. The Psalms are a great resource, but I would be pretty selective in what of that I used to pray! Too much smash the enemy (people) and their children in there to fuel prayer. Maybe read to avoid!

All prayer / stances that flow from ‘Father’… ‘our’… should determine what we add. I guess we will all add something unique. I have a zoom group coming up ere long and I will ask people to think ‘what do you that is your stance that you want to pass on / pray on to those who are present’. We all have something unique and this will affect how we pray. Variety, diversity, uniqueness.

And there will be parts we do not add to our praying. We will avoid them cos our view of God. Others might include. Revelation and conviction is what fuels us.

So the little bit extra, that seems to me to have been written in is really OK, and on the more important picture gives us permission to add as well!!

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Lead not… deliver us…

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

Historically this prayer made a lot of sense, it is the prayer for the disciples of Jesus in their context… yet though Scripture is not written to us it written for us. The time of trial was coming increasingly in their context and would reach a climax in the decades that were to follow their context, but for us?

Many Bibles translate the word as ‘temptation’ and that is probably included under this wider term of ‘trial’. (Likewise ‘the evil one’ is a broad term and can mean ‘evil one’ or ‘evil hour’ or even simply ‘evil’.) Trials come, life is not a straight line, but if we are proud of heart to think that whatever comes we will make it through – the Peter attitude of ‘even if all the others don’t make it you can count on me’ – we are likely to find that we are experiencing battles we really did not need to fight.

I love the practicality of Scripture. Don’t pray for difficulties… pray for peace… each day has enough trouble in it… And here comes a humble request in this prayer, indicating a positioning of ‘I am not so smart as to make it through regardless, so make the path for me one I can really handle’, and we know that if we pray in that way we will discover that ‘there is no temptation that we cannot bear’. (Imagine if Judas had prayed that prayer… no money bag given to him, no deal with the Jewish leaders for money…)

A profound prayer… a kind of summary of ‘all kinds of praying’. Some parts will appeal more than others. If we think about how we pray we will probably find that we resonate with some lines more than others. I am not great at intimacy, nor at the need to focus on today, and with an unhealthy element of arrogance am somewhat vulnerable to the cock crowing twice.

And if prayer is as much to do with life positioning as it has to do with what comes out of our mouths, there is a lot I need to give attention to. ‘With all kinds of prayers pray’. My way is OK and part of the ‘all kinds’… but I have to acknowledge it does not say ‘with one kind of prayer pray’. Ah well, just one more reminder that I have a way to go!

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Forgive… as…

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

And we need to add the underlining to this phrase with the verse that follows:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

‘Forgive me, Lord’. Who has not prayed that, and sometimes when we really should not have done so! But what about – do it just as I do it others? That is a bit challenging, and might explain why God is somewhat distant at times.

Debts, used in the prayer, and trespasses used in the underlining. A debt is what I owe; a trespass is crossing a line (I did a post recently on boundaries). What a great way to understand ‘sin’. I owe… I owe it to treat people as if they are part of humanity created in the image of God. It pushes me back to what I understand to be a central plank in Paul’s ethics – how we see no-one through old categorising criteria. And if I do not treat people in that way I am trespassing, I am stepping outside of my boundaries and resisting them living to the edge of their boundary.

Forgiveness – release the ship to her destiny. The problem of sin is that it imprisons us. So it seems if we are to fly and touchour destiny we need to release others, not demanding that they put right what they ‘owe’ us, not fighting them over where they have trespassed on to our territory.

Maybe so much of the prayer hangs on this part. After all it is the only part in Matthew that Jesus picks up and repeats.

Imagine not a world of perfection, but a world of release. Maybe this is why creation was never created perfect, maybe this is why the ‘bad’ tree was the one that would enable us to know what is perfect and what is not. Maybe the tree of life will help us simply live releasing, untying, saying to the ships we see ‘Untied, go sail’. I don’t think I can contribute much to perfecting the world, but maybe I have a contribution to liberating those I see within this imperfect, this ‘sinning’ world. A liberated world.

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Daily bread

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

Not so easy to translate, with the unusual word ἐπιούσιος – a word unknown in Greek literature. Could be ‘daily’ as in most Bibles, could be ‘tomorrow’. If it is the bread of tomorrow then it is asking God to help us live with the anticipation of the final bread at the Messianic banquet. To live with a future orientation and that to affect our present experience. If it is the daiy bread it is that we will have everything we need in terms of provision, and if so it is not a prayer for luxury but for what we truly need to be who we should be.

Maybe we can put the two together. As we anticipate that this is not all there is but there is an age to come, when we will sit down and eat (figurative, but how important meals were) and we will have everything we need. That banquet will be the fullness of the life that comes from the one who is the bread from heaven, and I suggest from the fruit of each life submitted to Jesus. Then tying the ‘daily’ understanding in – give me everything today that I need to live in a way that will both provide food for others and position me to benefit both now and then from all you are doing in the lives of others. Provision, positioning; now and the future; with the provision enabling me to be positioned to receive and give, what will be fully manifest then, in some measure to one and all now.

Intimacy and inclusivity; who God in heaven is; bold prayers offered in humility; then we drop down to provision and position. There is a flow because from here we are moving internally… forgive us.

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Come… be done…

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

Strong words… the ‘come’ and the ‘be done’ are at the beginning of the phrases and act as commands. This is why pulling a few Scriptures together might be a starting point but we need a little more than that. The intimacy, the halowing come first. But then…

On earth as in heaven. If we had no more Scriptures than this to inform us that the wil of God is not being done on earth, and it clearly does not come through God imposing it, and it does not come without our contribution, we have all of that in these phrases.

We get to know something of the will of God through understanding a little concerning the name(s) of God, the ultimate name being the name ‘Jesus’. I confess I have little idea how to pray for the Ukraine. I have prayed, because (I think) I have faith that there will be no release of chemical nor nuclear weapons; I know the will of God as in heaven is no killings, no war, but that is beyond me to pray that. If prayer is lifestye then there are those who are ‘praying’ to some god that war will continue, that land will be stolen, boundaries changed. Yes, at a lifestyle level, there are conflicting prayers, with a difference we pray to the God in heaven, at best others are ‘praying’ to the heavenly realms.

Eschatology. Every prayer, every seed sown now is being sowed into the future, and we need to sow where we want the world to go… My bottom line understanding of the delay of the parousia is that we are providing the material for that, hence every prayer at the macro level for the end of war has to sow into that age when the final sword will be reshaped into a farming instrument. Over-realized eschatology will say everything now… Eschatology will say ‘your kingdom come… on earth as in heaven’ knowing that there has been seeds sown into the future and will not be surprised when the future spills over into the here and now. Eschatology will not push everything into the future, even if it does not demand everything now.

Your kingdom… not my interpretation of your kingdom. Bold decarations from humble hearts.

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Your name

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

We have just had ‘in heaven’ and it seems the real intercessory prayer follows with on earth as in heaven. In between comes this phrase ‘hallowed be your name’, so the positioning of it seems key to move from the intimacy to the more declarative part; it both connects back and forward.

Hallowed – maybe if we used a non-word translation ‘holy-fide’; a recognition of the setting apart of the name of God. The name declaring who this God is, not where we can control God, know God in the sense of understanding everything, for the revelation to Moses was ‘I will be who I will be’. Unchanging in the eternal sense but adaptable, surprising, something new.

The name of God is to focus on who s/he is. The Yahweh names; the El / Elohim names; the name of Jesus… The God in heaven, that same God who is among us, who is this God? Too big to hold all of God, but perhaps a good way is to sanctify the name that is needed for now? How else are we going to pray – other than in nice theory and maybe simply quoting a verse to bolster our ‘faith’ – on earth as in heaven?

Faith, trust. Really kicks in when circumstances say differently. Really kicks in when we pray and nothing changes! That’s the time when we lose sight of the ‘name’. I don’t like some of the biblical books – Job being one of them. ‘You give and take away’; ‘even though he slay me…’ Don’t think for one minute that Jesus would agree that there is a revelation of God in those texts, and neither do I, but… quite a revelation of how to respond in the face of difficulty. Even if it appears to me that God could have, I will still trust, I will still honour, halllow the name of God.

Not all prayer is answered as we anticipate, but all prayer that has a trust in God is sown into the now of the ‘not-yet’ to contribute to the harvest of the ‘then in fullness’.

This is why a focus not simply on the intimacy of God: ‘Father’; the inclusivity of God: ‘our’; but on the name of God, who this God will be is so important. If we are going to pray ‘on earth as in heaven’ we need to hallow the name. God will be who God will be.

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