Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

• John 8:2-11

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

• Acts 3:1-6

After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.
On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“‘Why do the nations rage
    and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
against the Lord
    and against his anointed one.’

• Acts 4:21-26

About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.

• Acts 10:9

“The Bible is not a rule book or a set of directions; it’s a love story—a romantic, courageous love story we’re invited to believe. We see that whole story captured in a single scene when Jesus defends and dignifies a shame-covered woman thrown into the dirt at his feet, but we can see it just as clearly when we zoom all the way out to the metanarrative that God has been authoring since hanging the stars in the night sky.
The biblical story begins with perfect love at the center of the plot, and the conflict introduced by sin is a twisting and warping of that love into something lesser. The hinge point at the story’s center is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The wound opened up by infidelity is mended by a love that will never give up. Jesus, on the final night of his life, says this to his followers: ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.’ The whole sixty-six-book anthology becomes resolved, not in a catastrophic apocalypse, but at a wedding banquet—Christ united to his bride for all eternity. Human infidelity repaired by divine fidelity. …
“Like love, prayer comes easy at the first and at the last, for sinners and saints, but all the years in between are the important ones. Prayer is about relationship, and that means fidelity is the only container within which it can truly flourish.”

• Tyler Staton, Praying like Monks, Living like Fools

Rev. Staton makes the statement that the Bible is a Love Story, but then he states that we must be disciplined.  We must live like monks, part of the book title, “Praying like Monks.”

But if we are to think of the Bible as a love story, wouldn’t he use John 3:16?  Would he not quote from the book of 1 John?  Would he not use 1 Corinthians 13?

No, he uses the story of the woman caught in adultery.  After all, it is the juxtaposition of the world’s idea of “love” and God’s idea of love.  There was a law that people caught in adultery were to be killed.  The people who brought the woman to Jesus had stones in their hand, ready to do her in, but they wished to trap the leader of this rag-tag new movement into making a mistake.

But if the woman was caught in adultery, the man she had been with was nowhere to be found.  The old saying of it takes two to Tango comes to mind.  Where was the guy?  No, it was just the woman.  The guy had gotten a free ride.  They were picking on the woman, the seductress … No, the weaker of the two partners.  Either that or the guy was influential and rich and could pay his way out of a death sentence.  Jesus dismissed them by saying that anyone without sin should cast the first stone.  Each dropped his stone and left.  Just giving the male of this adultery behind could be considered a sin.  They may have stubbed their tow earlier in the day and said a dirty word.  But the point is that there was no one left to accuse her.  Jesus forgave her, but he admonished her to repent and turn from her life of sin.

There was forgiveness, Mercy, Grace.  But there was something that is forgotten in the story that must follow, repentance.  I just started reading Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.  I had read a series of devotions based on the beginning of the book, Bonhoeffer’s complaint about “Cheap Grace” and how the church is moving that way.  I wanted to read the origin, at least the original English translation, to see if I missed something.  In the nearly one hundred years since Bonhoeffer wrote the book (1937), the church seems even more leaning upon cheap grace as the pews become even more empty.  They claim it is an after effect of the COVID lockdown.  We survived without church for a while, so …

But in his definition of cheap grace, Bonhoeffer says that cheap grace was forgiveness without requiring repentance, etc.  In the end, cheap grace was grace without Jesus Christ.

So, here, in John 8, we see the world’s idea of love (sex, love making, whatever you wish to call it) versus forgiveness and repentance.  One gives a moment of pleasure.  The other provides a lifetime of inner Joy and Peace.  One may carry with it a sexually transmitted disease or an unwanted pregnancy.  The other carries eternal life with the One who saved us from sin and destruction.

But then Rev. Staton spends the rest of the chapter talking about prayer, continual, constant prayer, like the monks.  What is up with that?!

How do we maintain contact with that giver of Love, Hope, Peace, Grace, and Mercy?  If we cut off the lines of communication, even for a moment, the world quickly replaces the image in our mind with something worldly desirable.  It could be a scantily clad person of the opposite sex or a decadent piece of chocolate cake.

As Homer Simpson does something stupid…  Wait a second.  No, he usually does something stupid more than once each second, but he says, “Doh!!”  He blinks a couple of times, “Doh!!”  He begins to drool, “Donuts!”

The point is, we all have our weakness, and it does not take long.

The Apostles had power because the Holy Spirit indwelled them, just like the Holy Spirit does with each of the believers on earth.  But the Apostles went to God in prayer for everything.  Maybe not the choice of the glazed donut versus the Boston Crème, but …  Nope, probably with that decision also.  I was about to say “too” but then “too” gave me the idea of eating both donuts.  Doh!  Donuts…

Rats, I have no donuts, and now all I can think of is donuts!

See, even while writing about prayer and keeping the lines of communication open, temptation can strike.  We all are in a spiritual battle.  Those who do not think so are the ones losing their battle.  And the source of power in fighting the battle comes through prayer.

Lord, guide me. I need guidance.  Even dreaming up an illustration to illustrate how sin creeps into our lives can become a distraction.  Help me to keep the communication lines open.  The power to resist such things comes from You, Lord.  Without praying, I distance myself from Your power.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.