Initial Results

If you were asked to actively seek and encounter God… then report back what happened; what would you have to say? A miraculous healing? A burning bush? A stone tablet?

The BRT class provided, once again, a snapshot of the state of the church… lethargic, apathetic, superficial, without expectation.

Three answers were extracted from the group. These answers can be categorized into three buckets: a lie, the trifle and superficial.

Lies. Why do we attribute things to God that are clearly not from Him? It’s nothing less than blasphemy. In our desire to please man, to showcase our religion, we cast swine before pearls.

The Trifle. It is no less a sin to make a mockery of God’s power by manipulating our conscience, our outcomes in accordance to our will in His name. The smallness of our expectation, the smallness of our encounter, the smallness of our hope is an affront to the power of the resurrection.

Superficial. If it has a bushy tail and lives in a tree… it must be Jesus. So goes the Sunday School joke. We relentlessly believe the right answer must be prayer. How do we encounter God? Pray. What should we do next? Pray. Someone is sick, what should we do? Pray. Prayer is not the wrong answer… it’s just the easy answer. Maybe God desires us to sacrifice, to give all we have to the poor, to visit the sick, to take a meal to their house, to suffer and persevere, to live in the hope of the resurrection.

In fact, this is all prayer. Prayer is a superficial answer because we have only a superficial understanding of what it is and what it means. Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.

There were two more points about prayer that we discussed.

Sin hinders our prayer. In fact, Jesus is the one Mediator between God and man. God cannot be approached if we deny Jesus. We deny Jesus by thought and deed, with or without words.

There are seven principal types of prayer: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession and petition.

What is the mark of one who encounters God?

Repentance.

There of those who live among us without proper housing, food, heat… there are broken, oppressed, lonely, addicted, dying… and then the lost. What shall we do, then? Repent.

When we encounter God and experience his holiness, we will be broken and humble. We will repent. Then we will shine as a light in the world. And even one day shine like the sun.

Respond to God.

You can find more on prayer in the catechism.

http://anglicansonline.org/basics/catechism.html#Prayer%20and%20Worship