Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions and church news. During this season at Lent, we at Peakland are reading this book, Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Written nearly 45 years ago, this is a book that I first read 25 years ago and have returned to it again and again over the years. I’m so pleased we at Peakland will be reading and discussing this book together. This past Sunday, I spoke about Prayer and Meditation, and this week Andrew, Pastor Dave and I are leading in person small group discussions on Prayer and meditation.
I’m eager to share this book and my insights with you over the next few Wednesday in Lent.
Simply put, Meditation is listening to God and prayer is speaking to God. In all the hurry and crowded calendars and noise in our lives, we Christians may neglect listening and speaking to God. As a busy parent and busy pastor, that happens to me a lot. It’s a gift from God to re-read these words so that I can change my behaviors and be more intentional in my listening and speaking to God.
Praying and meditating, speaking and listening to God, is meant to allow God into our lives so that God can make some good changes in our lives. We don’t pray and meditate for the sake of praying and meditating, we speak and listen to God so that we can draw closer to God and closer to each other and so that words and our deeds better reflect the values and the practices that Christ intends for us.
A couple of weeks ago, there was shooting on the campus of Michigan State University. After that shooting and after other acts of violence and tragedy, many politicians and public figures issues statements such as, “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” My thoughts and prayers are with the community as they regroup and rebuild.”
After the shooting on the campus, A Michigan state representative issued a statement,
To heck with your thoughts and prayers. To heck with your thoughts and prayers. Only he didn’t write “To heck with” He used much stronger language.
He was angry that the only response these folks seemed to have to the violence and death in our schools and in our grocery stores and in houses of worship were thoughts and prayers. I understand that anger. And if thoughts and prayers were the only response we have to violence and tragedy, then I would also say to heck with thoughts and prayers.
Our speaking and listening to God, our thoughts and prayers and meditations are the first response we have to tragedy and violence in our world. They are not the only response, and they are certainly not the last response. We speak and we listen to God so that God can move us and change us. So that God can fill us with compassion and anger, so that we can truly love one another, help one another and become people who work towards peace and justice.
Take the opportunity this week and in the days to come to pray and to speak to God.
I’m still going to pray after tragedies. As a church, we pray for an end to violence. And then we listen as God directs us to become a people of peace and justice in big ways and small.
Next week, we look at the disciplines of fasting and study.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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