Thursday, October 29, 2020              (today’s lectionary)
How long, O Lord?
David asks in Psalm 13. Along with countless others, the Sons of Korah plead with God in Psalm 88. Now Jesus, prophet priest and king, asks again. He mourns outside the city of Jerusalem, but not today’s Jerusalem of AD 30 but the mountain of Zion, the City on the Hill, the Jerusalem of all God’s hopes and dreams. Jesus mourns the foolishness of its inhabitants, every one of them from the beginning until the end.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under its wings, but you would not!
If you do these things in the green wood, what will happen in the dry?
Jesus here today, yesterday and forever … Jesus Christ con-substantial with the Father (Constantine coined that word and was proud of it, despite its drifting definition), Jesus with God in the beginning, through whom all things were made … Jesus does not just arrive now at this moment near Jerusalem. He has always been there.
It is impossible that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem. I must continue on my way.
Can you “settle” into liminal space, where nothing is decided, nothing is stable, and everything is both fascinating and terrifying because nothing is safe? Jesus’ confidence in the “third day” is really confidence that he will die. And that quiets his soul. His “death,” like ours too, has no sting. His “death” opens far better doors than it closes.
Put on the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit with all kinds of prayers and requests.
I saw my friend John Auten’s body yesterday resting quietly in a casket at Lux Memorial Chapel in Rantoul, Illinois, awaiting transport to his cemetery plot in Havana, where his gravestone is already in place and which reads, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last.” A couple of years before his death he prepared a number of postcards, complete with postage and addresses which read “I am NOT sorry to inform you of my passing.” He left the date (Wednesday, October 21, 2020) blank. John died a week after his 78th birthday, smack in the middle of our COVID-19 circumstance.
Be strong in the Lord and in  his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you may be able to take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
I had not seen him since January 16, when we had our usual monthly two hour conversation about God and the angels, our circumstances, our thoughts about life, death and eternity, about the Holy Spirit and the armor of God.
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
John was a Knox College scholar and politician, then an attorney, community college vice president, accountant and  pastor. He pastored churches in Maui and Santa Barbara and founded a church in Champaign. For years he facilitated fascinating Saturday evening interviews on Champaign’s local radio station 90.1 WEFT. He created and for several years coordinated a popular men’s conference in Champaign-Urbana. He played tennis. He moved around from church to church. And always he prayed.
He moved around, yes, but returned again and again to his native, preternatural Pentecostalism. Sometimes he prayed up a storm. His tongue-talking was legendary. He taught me the “art” of cleansing and protecting homes and people from demons. Usually, he took all of it a bit more seriously than I did, but we were on the same page and we both had a sense of humor. Serious stuff, with a spoonful of sugar. We laughed heartily with each other, time after time.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Once he spent months walking each day around Champaign County, praying for the land and the people around him. For awhile he called himself an apostle; he cherished his relationship with God and felt comfortable expressing all his feelings, many of them negative and critical, to his Father.
Yes, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then.
John prayed about everything, to that point that practical me told him he should make some decisions on his own once in a while. But when he prayed for me, as he did each time we met for most of thirty years, I knew I’d been prayed for. My hands, covered with eczema, healed up and have stayed healed up. And that was just on the outside.
So I’ll miss my bud. After talking with Leslie at Lux for fifteen minutes or so, I said something like, “John hasn’t moved a muscle.” She agreed, and we left him to himself. Not just himself, of course, but to God, to his Father in heaven, and to whatever is behind the better door.
(Ephesians 6, Psalm 144, Luke 19, Luke 13)
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