May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him. May you blow them away like smoke — as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. – Psalm 68:1-2

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 30, 2016): Psalm 68

The Maginot Line, maybe one of the most expensive failures of World War II. The Maginot Line was intended to be a hardened defense against German aggression. It basically covered the border between Germany and France. The idea was that if Germany decided to attack France, the Maginot would alert French soldiers to the attack and provide a hardened line of defense that the Germans would struggle to get past. But the Maginot Line was purposely left incomplete. It stopped where the border between France and Germany stopped. And there were two official reasons for the incomplete line. The first was that they did not want to offend Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands who were proud of their neutrality. If those nations were able to stay neutral through a European conflict, a feat that proved to be impossible, then a German attack could not come from there – so there was no need to extend the line into the land bordering these nations. Then, of course, there was the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and Luxembourg, but also stretching into France and Germany. The Ardennes were a heavily forested, rough Terrain that was impassable to mechanized traffic – such as tanks. Only a madman would dare risk an attack through the Ardennes.

Enter Adolf Hitler, the madman who looked at the Maginot line and decided to bypass it by violating Belgium and Luxembourg neutrality and attack through the Ardennes forest – not once, but twice. While the thick forest made it hard to move mechanized units through it, it also provided Germany with a way of hiding their troop movements. France would never know the strength of the concentrated attack that was moving through the Ardennes. Paris fell to the Germans and Maginot line never even really saw battle. While France concentrated their defense along the Maginot Line, the Germans concentrated their attack through the Ardennes. And France fell.

A concentrated attack is a valuable strategy in war. It is why we have certain battles taking place in certain places. Only a fool would attempt to attack all along a border. Successful attacks often mean a concentration of men and equipment at precisely the place where you believe the enemy might be weak.

David prays that God would scatter the enemy. That he would make them like smoke which is inconsequential and eventually just blows away. A scattered army is a weak army. When resistance comes, a scattered army simply disappears, like smoke in the wind. It has no substance and therefore it can inflict no damage. And a scattered army can even be defeated by a weak defense because within the scattered army there is usually no will to fight.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 69

You who answer prayer, to you all people will come. – Psalm 65:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 29, 2016): Psalm 65

Soren Kierkegaard once said that “prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” I think Kierkegaard is right, at least partially. I have never been convinced that we serve an unpassionate and unchanging God. The Bible seems to carry too much evidence to the contrary. God is not a God who never changes, at least not in practice. His character and identity never change. He is not like me who is good one day and evil (or not so good) the next. God’s character is unchanging. But he is not an unpassionate God who is unmoved by the circumstances of our lived; he is sometimes changed by us and by our prayers. It is part of the story that I see told in Exodus. God says to Moses, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about (or I am moved by) their suffering (Exodus 3:7). I have heard their prayers and I am on the move. Sometimes, our prayer changes God.

But often, I admit, that that is not true. There are times when prayer changes us, just as Kierkegaard asserts. Because sometimes the actual problem resides in me. It is unfair to cry to God asking for money when deep down I know that what he has given me I am not managing well. To ask for help when the truth is that I need to learn compassion. My prayers change me. They lead me to the place where I understand what it is that I need to do – and how I need to change. Prayer changes me – it shapes me to be more like Christ so that God can accomplish what he wants to accomplish through my life.

It is often said that God always answers prayer, it is just that his answer is not always yes. For some, that is a cop out. But actually, it is more of the act of a parent. As a parent, I don’t always get to say yes. Sometimes I do, but not always. Sometimes my yes has to be delayed. Whatever is being asked for I may want to give, but I just can’t say yes in the immediacy of the moment. I will say yes at a later date, but just not now. And sometimes the answer has to be no. There is growth that is needed, limits that need to be embraced. We need our children to learn the ability to make good decisions, and to just be given things often leads to bad decision-making skills.

God’s desire is the same with us. Sometimes he gets to say yes. Sometimes he gets to say wait. Sometimes he gets to place limits and allow us to grow in strength and compassion. But he always answers, and so we continue to come to him.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 68

They shoot from ambush at the innocent; they shoot suddenly, without fear. – Psalm 64:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 28, 2016): Psalm 64

A friend recently showed me a video of a pastor speaking about the LGBTQ (homosexual) community. The speech was amazing and filled with hate. He took every opportunity to call members of the community down and berate them for their lifestyle. He called them sissies. He mocked their beliefs. He verbally abused them. And then he moved on to the Pastors who were supporting the community, who hired worship Leaders who were, his words, sissies. He verbally abused them for a period of time. He called them the “candy men” because they attempt to “make the world taste good.” And then, when he finally was finished with the pastors, he moved on again with the choir who was standing behind him. He repeated his word of the day, sissies, in their direction. He told the men of the choir that they walked like women. It was just a video, but by the end of it, I (a heterosexual male Pastor and former Worship Leader) was deeply offended, not for myself, but for the entire community that the man was calling out.

And the people cheered. I have to admit, at first I wasn’t sure if they were cheering or trying to get at him to lynch him. But my friend assured me that they were cheering – the whole place was cheering – the audience, the pastors, the worship leaders, the choir, everyone was egging him on wanting more. The place went wild and wilder with every insult the speaker threw in the direction of the LGBTQ community.

Then it occurred to me. This could only happen because the LGBTQ community was totally absent. This has consistently been our struggle as the Christian Community. We talk about people rather than open up a dialogue with them. We are like the ones David describes as shooting from the position of ambush, suddenly and without fear. The reality was that this speaker was “the candy man,” he just kept on telling the crowd that had gathered exactly what they wanted to hear. He was not confronting sin, although I am sure he thought he was, because the sin that he had envisioned in his mind was absent from the crowd. I am sure that some of my readers are frantically wanting to point out that David was talking about the “innocent.” I accept the rebuke. But the point is that we are called to be in communication and community with others, not just ambushing those who might be walking by.

I am deeply concerned about the way that the contemporary church confronts what it calls sin. Our tendency is to confront sin that doesn’t exist within our communities and to do it in an aggressive and hateful way. We shoot our arrows from positions of ambush and we set our opponents on the defense. And it happens over and over again. There is no room for discussion. We are absolutely in the right, at least in our own minds. Except that, that is almost never the case. The truth is that we need dialogue desperately. We need to understand our opponent’s fears and hurts. And we need to be able to love through our differences. This is our job. And we need to find a way that we can do it. If we don’t, then we are guilty of our own sin which is actually greater than theirs.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 65