Feb. 10 Reflection: Deliver Us From Evil
Dear Holy Covenant Community,
This week, we conclude our worship series on the Lord’s Prayer. Over the last weeks, we’ve explored the ancient words Jesus taught us to pray and how they speak fresh to us today. As I mentioned on Sunday, biblical scholar N.T. Wright writes that the Lord’s Prayer is something we breathe in and then breathe out. We breathe in God’s holiness, experiencing intimacy and awe; we inhale the promise of God’s kingdom, when pain will be no more and justice rolls down like waters; we consume the daily bread of God’s abundant provisions; and we receive God’s unconditional forgiveness.
When we breathe in the prayer, we can’t help but breathe it out, sharing it with the world: living relationally with God; actively building a more just and peaceful community on earth; sharing material and spiritual bread with others; and forgiving our neighbors.
On Sunday, we’ll explore our final phrase together: Deliver us from evil. How do we breathe in this final phrase of the prayer, and then breathe it out? It’s easy to believe that evil is all around, from the things we can’t control, like cancer and natural disasters, to human made injustices of war, poverty, and oppression. The question of evil looms large in our theological imaginations, and the realities of evil hit home in the particularities of our lives.
As I wrestle with evil this week, and God’s role in the world, I have many, many questions. I’m sure you do, too. As we prepare for Sunday, I encourage you to read part of our Scripture from Romans 8, below. Sit with it. Argue with it. Meditate upon the words. Breathe them in, and then breathe them out:
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What questions do you have about evil? God’s deliverance? The love of God that will not let us go?
Join us on Sunday as we delve deep into our hearts and the heart of God, who promises to always be with us, in love.
See you then, and think about who you can bring with you.
Grace and Peace,
Kate
