Peter swings from hero-level faithfulness to getting called a name by Jesus, again. In this instance, Jesus calls him “little-faith.” Is Jesus being mean? Or does the look on his face and the tone of his voice reveal this to be an affectionate nickname?

After hearing the bad news that John the Baptist was beheaded at Herod’s banquet, Jesus throws a banquet of his own, complete with miracles, teaching, and food. Jesus gives God what he has and what the crowd has, and God multiplies it. In this excellent sermon, Kelly Chewning helps us ask the question: Can we trust that what God has for us is enough?

Decades after his death, another Brit who uses initials for his official name carried on a conversation that C.S. Lewis had begun with his imaginary friend, Malcolm. N.T. Wright, New Testament scholar and theological auteur, wrote,

“… love is not our duty; it is our destiny. It is the language Jesus spoke, and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food they eat in God’s new world, and we must acquire the taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing, and we are called to learn it and practice it now so as to be ready when the conductor brings down his baton.” - Surprised by Hope

Love and prayer go together. We pray for those we love; and we pray to the one we love above all. Yet this expression of love does not always come easily. Wright’s words are a nice summation for Lewis.

If we were perfected, prayer would not be a duty, it would be delight. Some day, please God, it will be. The same is true of many other behaviours which now appear as duties. If I loved my neighbour as myself, most of the actions which are now my moral duty would flow out of me as spontaneously as from a lark or fragrance from a flower. Why is this not so yet? Well, we know, don’t we? Aristotle has taught us that delight is the “bloom” on an unimpeded activity. But the very activities for which we were created are, while we live on earth, variously impeded: by evil in ourselves or in others. Not to practise them is to abandon our humanity. To practise them spontaneously and delightfully is not yet possible. This situation creates the category of duty, the whole specifically moral realm.

Duty is not a bad thing, but it can degenerate into legalism. We can use the language of “doing our duty” to manipulat. It can become a weapon we wield against one another and even ourselves.

The simple act of showing up is an act of love. Showing up in prayer, showing up in friendship, showing up when it’s just easier not to. Are moments like that duty? Maybe. But they are also foretastes of the kind of love which N.T. Wright describes as our destiny.

And in those moments of duty, or just showing up, God speaks. Often by surprise, he speaks in places and through faces that we wouldn’t anticipate. God delights in a holy ambush.

I have a notion that what seem our worst prayers may really be, in God’s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling contend with the greatest discinclination. For these, perhaps, being nearly all will, come from a deeper level than feeling. In feeling there is so much that is really not ours—so much that comes from wealth and health or from the last book read. (or podcast?) One thing seems certain. It is no good angling for the rich moments. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard. Our preparations to receive Him sometimes have the opposite effect. Doesn’t Charles Williams say somewhere that “the altar must often be built in one place in order that the fire from heaven may descend somewhere else”?

‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

The Gospel is not the news that we can receive Jesus Christ into our lives; the Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ has received us into his! He has gone out to find us. He has paid big money, all the money that he has, to find us. I can’t get over the old Michael Card song that says, “He cannot love us more, and he will not love us less.”

But can you hear that message? Or does that story need to haunt you a little bit? Does it need to sit in the back of your mind for a while, let it sink in, let it seep in, through the corners of your imagination.

Sometimes we have to sit with the parables, meditate on them, ruminate over them. But more often, we need to sit in the parables so that they will work on us.

FTLOL is a collection of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. Enjoy!

Not everything Christians have done, or believed, has been good (or reasonable). Some weird things that have been a part of our practice need to be restored, while others, well… good riddance!— 5 Strange Christian Beliefs That Time Forgot

Win Collier, Eugene Peterson’s biographer, tells us about how the man we like to call a saint was an “imperfectly steadfast” spokesman for Jesus Christ.

Theologian and Psychologist, Richard Beck’s “hot take on The Odyssey:”

“The movie is a Christianized version of Homer’s poem because the world has been so thoroughly Christianized that the only story Nolan could tell that would morally resonate with audiences is, at its core, a Christian one.”

PBS explores the modern take of this ancient poem — “Why The Odyssey Still Resonates Today” (video)

Here is the Bulwark’s review — ‘The Odyssey’ Review

The author of the children’s books, A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Turning Planet, was not interested in making her work “safe” for children. L’Engle’s books stand the test of time, and they are not just for children. — Not Safe

A friend of Wheatland, Cameron Combs, helps us understand what “Theology is For” by drawing on the mildly obscure theologian, Robert Jenson. It’s a great listen — What Is Theology For?

Jason Micheli, a great preacher himself, speaks of Karl Barth’s preaching in hyper-political moments. — “Not in His Wrongness.”

Priest and professor Maggie Dawn provides us a brief reflection and overview of Jesus’ parables. Depending on when you read this, it is either a preview or a review of the weekend’s sermon from the parables of Matthew 13. — What is a Parable?

What does the research reveal about what American Evangelicals think of Israe? This article is a mixture of theology, culture, politics, and weirdness. Attitudes are changing. — Beyond the End Times: What Evangelical Support for Israel Really Reveals

Hey LOTR nerds! Enjoy this conversation with Malcolm Guite, who explains why neither of these fascinating characters did what many readers and viewers of LOTR assume they should have.

It was a joy to hear Kelly Chewning speak about how hope comes to us in the person of Jesus the Gardener, exploring how all creation is restored in Christ. Give it a listen!

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

It’s one thing to assert, as all Christians do, that God is the creator. But what does it mean for God to be in relationship with creation, and how does he do it? We are a part of creation, how does God relate to us?

C.S. Lewis takes a stab at this in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, when he says,

Creation seems to be delegation through and through. He (God) will do nothing simply of Himself which can be done by creatures. I suppose this is because He is a giver. And He has nothing to give but Himself. And to give Himself is to do His deeds—in a sense, and on varying levels to be Himself—through the things He has made.

In Pantheism God is all. But the whole point of creation surely is that He was not content to be all. He intends to be “all in all.” (Chp. 13)

Pantheism is the philosophy that all things are God. God is made up of all the material in the universe and not distinct from it. In pantheism, God is impersonal, not in relationship.

Christians understand that God relates to creation, and thus separate from it. Prayer, worship, and service, (what Lewis calls “delegation”) are all ways we respond to the one who is first reaching out (relating) to us.

In the next chapter, Lewis says something similar,

The higher the creature, the more, and also the less, God is in it; the more present by grace, and the less present (by a sort of abdication) as mere power. By grace He gives the higher creatures power to will his will (“and wield their own little tridents”): the lower ones simply execute it automatically. (Chp. 14)

The planet, the tides, the ladybugs in the garden, the whales in the sea, along with our neighbor and the person behind the counter are all God’s creation. God is present to the planet, the tides, and the ladybugs in a way that he is not present to us. They do God’s will without having to consider it. (Col 1:17, “in him all things hold together.”)

God interacts with us through grace, allowing space for our freedom, slowly bringing us into alignment with His will. Through a relationship of grace and freedom God brings us, over time, to “execute” what he wants more naturally. This means that we end up “bumping into” God. We work against the grain of his will. Though frustrating, and difficult, it reminds us higher creatures that it is his grace that makes life work at all.

Bemused and besotted as we are, we still dimly know at heart that nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges, that it should be resistant, should be itself. Dream furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang you knee. You and I have both known happy marriage. But how different our wives were from the imaginary mistresses of our adolescent dreams! So much less exquisitely adapted to all our wishes; and for that very reason (among others) so incomparably better. (Chp. 14)

The “sharp corners and rough edges” remind us that God takes us seriously. He dignifies us by saying no. We are the pinnacle of his creation, and, as its stewards, our cooperation with his work is not something he just assumes. His yesses and nos are means of grace and invitations to go “farther up and further in.” (HT to Narnia)

Isaiah 55:11 says,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Those largely unknown people who have assembled our schedule of weekly readings have included Isaiah 55:11, with Jesus’s Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, where the Word of the Kingdom (Word of God in Luke’s version) doesn’t take root in the soil of some hearts. Is this a conflict? A contradiction? Has God’s Word failed?

But the Parable of the Sower has more to say about God, and the fact that he cannot not communicate, than it does about our ability to receive or reject it. Jesus is what God wants to say.

For the love of links includes items that are profound, profane, and everywhere in between. Read at your own risk, and enjoy!

Liam Neeson and Miroslav Volf have something to teach us about justice and the wrath of God. Volf’s book Exclusion and Embrace is now a classic text addressing this issue and A.J. Swoboda provides a brief take on that important work.

One of the many fun side-effects of the World Cup is getting to know some of the more colorful personalities associated with it. One of those is Erling Haaland, the giant Norwegian, whose diet is getting as much attention as his play. — The 6000 Calorie World Cup Diet

The best words are often the most dangerous. It appears that “sticks and stones do break bones, and words will often hurt me,” and move me to hatred and exclusion. I’m still mulling over this post about the way good words, important words, get hijacked. From Jason Clark. - Why “Hope Not Hate” Usually Means More Hate

Wheatland has long made the point that the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are “faithful and succinct reflections of the basic truths of Scripture.” The Creeds don’t say everything that Christians need to know or believe. But what they do say is at the heart of our faith. This discussion from Christianity Today is an important reminder to protestants like us. — How the Nicene Creed Became Cool Again

This is a few days late, but better late than never. Russel Moore illustrates how what’s best about America is found in two very different individuals. Neither was elected to office, nor could they be. — The Colonial and the Country Star

Carmen Imes is a youn -Old Testament scholar (see what I did there?) who contributes to Admirato. You can take an online course of hers for free. If you like that, you might check out her class on Old Testament Violence. She’s thoughtful, conscientious, and a lover of Scripture. — Old Testament Law: A Holistic Interpretation

Russel Moore’s “Office Hours” is a near-weekly reflection on some of the artifacts found in his office. This wee,k it is some words from the enigmatic Thomas Merton. — Office Hours: Prayer of Thomas Merton

Why does God grant some of our prayers and not others? Should we pray for God to change things? Do we ask God to heal a loved one with cancer? Dare we ask him to save a marriage, change someone’s heart, or stop a war?

What do we make of the fact that some prayers are answered and others aren’t? How and why do we keep praying when this is the case?

C.S. Lewis experienced the pain of un-granted prayers. He reflects on the loss of his wife in a conversation with his imaginary friend. Malcolm’s son, “George,” is in dire straits and Lewis owns up to the fact that,

The distance between the abstract “Does God hear petitionary prayers?” and the concrete “Will He—can He—grant our prayers for George?” is apparently infinite. (41)

Lewis says what we all know, to be human is to live in a world that is unpredictable. This unpredictability makes prayer an absolute necessity and, something often hard to do.

We may find consolation in the fact that Jesus’ prayer in the garden was not granted. His experience in those moments is much like ours, though more intense and with greater stakes. Lewis continues,

Jesus could not, with whatever reservation about the Father’s will, have prayed that the cup might pass and simultaneously known that it would not. That is both a logical and a psychological impossibility. (42)

With Christ as our model, we can hopefully continue to pray, and not just pray that we be changed but that God will actually change those things in the world that need it. As we continue to pray for God’s action, Lewis reminds us that petitionary prayer is more than getting what we want. God is no genie. Prayer is not a mechanical means of getting what we want.

It is relational. At its core, it is the interaction of God with his people and has always been more than simply getting what we want.

To think of our prayers as just “causes” would suggest that the whole importance of petitionary prayer lay in the achievement of the thing hoped for. But really, for our spiritual life as a whole, the “being taken into account,” or “considered,” matters more than the being granted. Religious people don’t talk about the “results” of prayer; they talk its being “answered” or “heard.” Someone said, “A suitor (as in a lawsuit) wants his suit to be heard as well as granted.” In suits to God, if they are really religious acts at all and not merely attempts at magic, this is even more so. We can bear to be refused but not to be ignored. In other words, our faith can survive many refusals if they really are refusals and not mere disregards. (52)