Relocating To Elfland

During my studies of Reformed worship in seminary, I was introduced to something called the “collect,” a particular form of prayer. At my professor’s recommendation, I picked up a book titled The Collects of Thomas Cranmer, edited by C. Frederick Barbee and Paul F. M. Zahl, and have found this form of prayer to be eminently useful in my own prayer life.

A collect is a short prayer made up (usually) of five parts. The following is a well-known collect that will enable us to identify each of the parts:

“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Notice the five elements:

1. The Address. This is a name or title of God that He has revealed to us, in this case, “Almighty God.”

2. The Acknowledgment. This is a quality or attribute of God upon which the petition to follow is based. The petition in the above collect is for cleansing of thoughts, so the particular qualities of God that are noted relate to His omniscience (His knowing all things, including the thoughts of our hearts).

3. The Petition. This is the precise thing asked for (a specific need). In the above instance, it is cleansing of our thoughts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

4. The Aspiration. This part is generally introduced by the word “that” and discloses the purpose for which we ask the petition. Here, we desire perfectly to love God and worthily to magnify His holy name; this is the purpose for which we ask His cleansing of our thoughts.

5. The Pleading. Finally, we plead the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. All prayer for all things must be made in His worthy name: “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I hope to put up a number of collects in the coming months, and I would encourage readers to consider writing and praying their own collects as a way of introducing fresh order, clarity, and beauty into their private prayers.

There’s an interesting scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that bears on one of my growing pastoral burdens. To sketch the burden first, I believe there are certain “pillar” virtues in a human life (and in a human society) which, when they collapse, bring down with them whole tenements of other virtues. One of these “pillar” virtues is reverence: a heartfelt fear and awe and respect in the presence of sacred things, in the presence of things loftier than oneself. This virtue has pretty well disappeared in North America. We tremble at little or nothing anymore, except the occasional horrific tragedy (before the media reduces it to banality), and perhaps the thought that Washington may take awhile restoring economic comfort. God doesn’t scare us; parents and politicians are a joke; goodness and truth are lost in cynical caricatures; beauty lies beneath airy subjectivism; evil fails to impress after eighteen thousand crime shows; and even death is blunted by agnosticism and rosy myths about a better place. Tradition is funny, marriage is passé, love is sex, and sex is cheap. There’s nothing we can’t blow off, nothing before which we fall on our faces, veil our eyes, lay our hands on our mouths. There is no holy ground. (In fairness, one does occasionally sense something like religious fervor in defense of the notion that everyone should be free – and subsidized – to do exactly as he or she pleases.)

As the death of reverence is particularly epidemic in the rising generation (people my age and younger), I have begun to judge the quality of a young person by what, if anything, awes them. I want to see what it takes to erase the James Dean gleam of insolence in their eyes (or the Jerry Seinfeld glint of mockery) and replace it with something like what one sees in the eyes of young soldiers before the battle of their lives, or the eyes of third world sufferers of famine, or the eyes of eastern mystics in the presence of their master. I want to see what produces fear, what evokes deep sobriety, what stirs something approximating humility.

Sadly, among the Christian youth I know the answer is not, by and large, the Almighty. Even if they display some attentiveness during the rituals of corporate worship (hardly a given!), God is no imposition on their thoughts and lives elsewhere (an occasional flicker of conscience doth not reverence make). What fear of God they possess they would cheerfully lay aside, at least to the extent it impinges on their freedom. This is not universally true, by any means, but it is far too much the norm among those whose defining mark is to be the fear of the Lord. But why is this?

I think the answer, in short, is that we presume on the patience of God. God is slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and faithfulness; and while He stays His hand, we draw the wrong inference, and stop taking His majesty seriously. This is what happens in Narnia when Aslan lets himself be bound and dragged to the Stone Table. He makes his way toward the assembly of his enemies. “A howl and a gibber of dismay went up from the creatures when they first saw the great Lion pacing toward them, and for a moment even the Witch herself seemed to be struck with fear.” The evil rabble, like Lucy and Susan, hold their breaths, waiting for Aslan’s roar and spring; but it never comes. “Four Hags, grinning and leering, yet also (at first) hanging back and half afraid of what they had to do” approach him. As he patiently submits, the murderous crowd begins its task; soon they are so emboldened as to kick the Lion, hit him, spit on him, and jeer at him with “mean laughter.” And in the end, they seem to succeed.

Of course, we know the rest of the story. Aslan rises and triumphs over his enemies. And so will the Lord Christ over all of His enemies.

Now to be clear: I am not saying that lack of reverence among God’s people necessarily means we have gone over to the side of His enemies and will share their fate. But if it does not mean that, it is perhaps even worse, because we are failing to honor and love and stand in awe of the Lord who has claimed us as His subjects, His friends, His brethren, and His children – and if it is folly not to fear a great king who is one’s enemy, it is inexcusable wickedness not to fear a great and good king who is one’s father and benefactor. And this, sad to say, is where a lot of us in the North American church have arrived. We have no more respect for the Lord our God than for anything else in our shallow lives – and this in the teeth of His patience and kindness!

What might be done? I mention but two things, almost at random. First, it should be obvious that it all begins in parenting. A child who does not reverence his father and mother, who does not rise up before the hoary head, is a poor candidate for the fear of the Lord. Second, I think some attention need be given to details of corporate worship that cultivate reverence, such as kneeling for confession of sin. Our bodies were made for worship, so posture is not a light matter. When we physically bow before the Lord, it forms a habitual way of thinking about who He is and who we are in His Presence. (I ponder, incidentally, whether the more reverent worship in other faiths and communions might not explain why there is such a draw toward Roman Catholicism among evangelicals, and toward Islam in the broader culture. Say what you will about bowing toward Mecca five times a day: it’s a statement about authority, transcendence, history, and awe; and the yearning of the heart for these things will simply not go away.)

The discipline of repentance is hardly flourishing in the contemporary church. Even where it is practiced, it is often deeply misunderstood (not least because it is one of the Christian disciplines most easily distorted by legalism). John Colquhoun’s work, Evangelical Repentance, is probably the best thing I’ve read on the subject. Here is a very practical excerpt:

“Put to yourself seriously such questions as these: What have I been intending and pursuing all my days? What has been the rule of my conduct? the maxims of men, or the Word of God? the customs of the world, or the example of Christ? What has the supreme love of my heart been fixed on? Have I given to Christ, or to the world, my strongest desires and warmest attachments? Has it been my habitual intention to please God, or to please myself? Has it been His glory that I have aimed at in every pursuit, or my own gratification, wealth or honour? Is it in heaven or upon earth that I have chiefly been aiming, to lay up treasures for myself? Has God in Christ been the delightful subject of my frequent meditation and conversation? or have I regarded religious thoughts and converse as insipid and wearisome? Have I been out of my element when employed in the delightful work of prayer and praise, of reading and hearing the glorious Gospel? and have I found more pleasure in licentious mirth and trifling conversation? Have I kept the Sabbath, and with holy reverence frequented the sanctuary of the Lord? or have I profaned His Sabbath, and poured contempt on His ordinances? And have I relied for all my right to eternal life on the surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ, and trusted cordially in Him for all His salvation? or have I relied for a title to life partly on my own works, and trusted in Him for a part only of His salvation? Propose with impartiality these questions to yourself, and suffer conscience to return a faithful answer, in order that you may so discern your self-deformity, as to abhor yourself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

As God’s people in the 21st century, we must ask ourselves whether the frenetic, quietless rush of our lives is evidence that we are busy fighting the battles of our Lord’s kingdom, or that in fact we are losing them.

Ten reasons men don’t lead at home and in the church (in no particular order):

1. They haven’t digested God’s mission for His kingdom people, or thought through a plan for accomplishing it; and so they can’t guide would-be followers toward definite objectives.

2. They are great at dreaming and terrible at executing; they haven’t counted the cost of a long obedience in the same direction.

3. They haven’t stopped to take prayerful inventory of their lives in at least a year, if ever.

4. They are preoccupied with the pleasures of youth, or with a personal success program.

5. They are more relationally insecure than they want anyone to know; and when people aren’t eager to follow, they aren’t eager to lead.

6. They have a longstanding habit of making “soft choices” (the easier of two options).

7. They have not developed communication and listening skills, and have no serious intention of doing so.

8. They feel ill equipped intellectually and/or educationally, and stop at this feeling.

9. They feel morally compromised and unable to call others to a standard higher than what they have attained.

10. They have never seen a role model of a good leader, and have no plan for locating one.

Two seemingly random thoughts that crossed my pastoral mind today:

1. Secularism “normalizes” death by mostly ignoring it or treating it as no big deal, and focusing almost exclusive on the present life. Religion normalizes death by embracing it as the longed-for escape from the present world. Christianity regards death as the great enemy to be vanquished by Jesus Christ, in order that we may once again live in the body the life for which we were created on the earth. (I’m following Schmemann pretty closely here.)

2. Many of us are quick to regard our anger toward other sinners as “righteous indignation.” It is worth pausing to consider whether our anger is righteous, or whether it is in fact sinful anger in a righteous cause. This is a significant difference.

There are six books of the Bible that I fear to preach because they are so programmatic. In order, they are Genesis (which lays the foundations for all of scripture), Deuteronomy (which sets forth the agenda for the Mosaic economy and the rest of the Old Testament), Isaiah (a syllabus of the prophets’ messianic vision), Romans (the bedrock of apostolic theology), Hebrews (the fullest exposition of the transition from Old Covenant to New), and Revelation (which tells the church how to think about everything to come). These are interpretive hubs, in my mind, around which our understanding of everything else in scripture must turn.

My North American generation may be the first in the history of the world to raise indifference, boredom, infidelity, and aimlessness (except in the cause of vanity) to the status of virtues. We bridged the gap between a generation for whom it was cool to have questions but no answers, and a generation now nearing the drinking age who don’t even care about the questions (the devolution, one feels, was inevitable). Our standard response to anything deeper than People magazine is a thoughtful, “Whatever, man.” Should it vex anyone that this seems pretty well to exhaust our philosophical arsenal (and our convictions), we would admonish him to relax.

The average young man today is an emasculated nitwit. He has three things on his mind: cheap sex, easy money, and his own importance (whether expressed as a superiority or an inferiority complex is immaterial). What he lacks, poor fellow, is manliness: the character, principles, and learning that might qualify him for a family’s affection, an employer’s confidence, or the barest responsibilities of leadership. Not that this troubles him, particularly.

What of the average young woman in my generation and beyond? There will be little left of her when, in twenty years, the makeup finally gives out. Something about an entitled diva wannabe in a middle-aged body is really unattractive – but how long did we expect the veneer to hold up without any real womanhood underneath? You can’t paint on virtue. You can’t paint on wisdom, a willingness to learn what truly matters. You can’t paint on a well-cultivated soul, or purpose in life beyond self-glory. So after the paint starts to crack, you’re left with what you had all along: an entitled diva wannabe, whether the high-powered corporate kind or the trailer park variety.

We don’t know enough to know our own ignorance. We have too much to care about any of it. Our sensory experience has inflated until we can feel neither sobriety nor awe. Ennui is the spirit of the age: glutted with our cornflakes, we have starved out desire for anything else.

Part of the tragedy of the average is that it isn’t universal. There are people in my generation and beyond who have been forced to face the deeper realities of life under the sun. They are a lonely lot, these. I spoke once with a young man who had endured a terrible heartbreak. He confided in me how difficult it is for him to talk with anyone his age, because all they care about is the latest greatest pop band. It would never cross their minds to ask him how he’s really doing; nor would they have the attention span to hear him out, or wisdom to offer the slightest comfort. Pity these souls who, along with their peers, have left the innocence of childhood, but who have crossed the lonely threshold of maturity, while their peers remain happily stupefied in adultescence, cheerily enjoying the privileges of grownups without any burden of wisdom or responsibility.

“There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth. There are those – how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift! There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.”

The progression is telling: from rejection of authority, to pride and complacency, to indifference and cruelty. We just don’t care about anything bigger or better than ourselves.

I know, this probably qualifies as a “rant,” and a pretty cynical one at that. But diagnosis is not prognosis. Even in my generation in North America, there is still something called the kingdom of God, and those within it who fear the Lord their God and possess the beginning of wisdom. It remains true, however, that we must wake up to some things if we would serve the purpose of God in our own generation (Acts 13:36). We might begin by listening to our fathers and mothers.

“I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of Me in their hearts, that they may not turn from Me” (Jer 32:40).

Often when I pray as our Lord taught us to pray for my household and congregation, I cannot get past the first petition, Hallowed by Thy name. Everything else flows from this. For one who hallows God’s name, God is never in the margins. The reality of His existence, the riches of His self-revelation, the bounty of His love, and the wholesome demands of His law constantly impinge upon the consciousness of such a person. This is not a dreadful thing (in the sense of dreading harm), for the fear of God, which is much the same as hallowing His name, is the fear of a child beloved of the Father. There is deep awareness of His authority, a yearning to please Him, and a sense of awe at His presence, but all of this attracts rather than repels, precisely because God’s name to us is Father. The one who fears God’s name trembles before Him because He is great and good – because He deserves that His creatures should tremble before Him, and the heart does so willingly – not because He is fearsome and terrible to His little ones. The chick beneath the wings of the hen knows the power of its mother, and her terrible wrath against those who would harm her offspring; and it trembles with gladness, not with dread.

But how, oh how, in this distracting world, shall God’s people be brought to fear Him? What will birth and nourish this fear in their hearts, so they need not constantly be hedged in by admonishments from without, but may from within bring forth fruits of true faith? The answer, of course, is that God Himself must do it; the first petition itself bears witness to this. So fulfill Your promises of the New Covenant to us, O Lord. Put Your fear in our hearts, that we may not turn from You. Fill Your ordinances with the power of Your Spirit, and by them inscribe Your glory on the tablet of our hearts.

You can tell a lot about a person’s theological maturity by how he or she responds to unfamiliar ideas. Calm, gracious, appreciative, analytical listening is the mark of theological depth; what is desired is full understanding, a due weighing of complexities and implications, before a careful response is given (Prov 18:13). The immature are not so, but are known by their hasty alarm, by a hermeneutic of suspicion that insists on shibboleths and spooks at buzzwords, by a dismissive rush to dogmatic judgment. I’m thinking of myself in early seminary years, and blushingly crave to think I have grown up a bit since then.