{"id":95,"date":"2016-02-21T20:47:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T01:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=95"},"modified":"2021-02-27T20:57:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T01:57:19","slug":"whos-in-charge-here-learning-to-pray-the-lords-prayer-lent-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2016\/02\/21\/whos-in-charge-here-learning-to-pray-the-lords-prayer-lent-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Who&#8217;s In Charge Here? &#8211; Learning to Pray the Lord&#8217;s Prayer, Lent 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/40daysLent-1024x615.jpg?resize=300%2C180&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"40daysLent-1024x615\" class=\"wp-image-81\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/40daysLent-1024x615.jpg?resize=300%2C180&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/40daysLent-1024x615.jpg?resize=1024%2C615&amp;ssl=1 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br \/>by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor<br \/>Second Sunday in Lent \u2022 February 21, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/whos_in_charge_here_2016.02.21.m4a\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>A fisherman and his wife lived in an old dirty hut alongside a lake in Bavaria. Every day the fisherman went out to the lake and every day he returned with his catch. One day, the fisherman\u2019s net caught a golden fish. The fish spoke to him and said, \u201cIf you throw me back, I will grant you any wish you desire.\u201d<br \/>The fisherman thought about it, and being of simple means he could think of no want, so he let the fish go. Upon returning to the dirty old hut that night, he told the tale to his wife.<\/p><p>\u201cYou should have asked him for a nice cottage,\u201d she said. \u201cI would love to move out of this filthy hovel.\u201d<br \/>So the next morning, the fisherman approached the lake and called out for the fish. The water bubbled and the fish surfaced. It asked, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s not for me, but my wife. She would like a nice cottage to live in.\u201d<br \/>\u201cYour wish is granted. Go home and see.\u201d<\/p><p>The fisherman returned home, and sure enough their filthy hut was replaced with a nice cottage.<br \/>The next morning his wife said, \u201cGo back and ask that fish for another wish. I want to be the Princess of Bavaria and live in a fine castle!\u201d<br \/>The fisherman said, \u201cOh no, wife. That is too much. Do not make me ask the golden fish for such a thing. Let us be happy in our nice cottage by the lake.\u201d<br \/>But his wife insisted and persisted, and eventually he agreed to ask the golden fish for this wish.<br \/>He went down to the lake, and the water was choppy. He called for the fish and its head appeared above water. It said, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s not for me, but my wife. She wishes to become Princess of Bavaria and live in a fine castle.\u201d<br \/>\u201cYour wish is granted. Go home and see.\u201d<\/p><p>The fisherman returned home, and sure enough the cottage was replaced with a castle. There were battlements and guard towers and soldiers all around. His wife greeted him splendidly dressed as a princess.<br \/>The next morning his wife said, \u201cGo back and ask that fish for another wish. I want to be Empress of Prussia and live in a grand palace!\u201d<br \/>The fisherman said, \u201cOh no, wife. That is too much. Do not make me ask the golden fish for such a thing. Let us be happy in our Bavarian castle.\u201d<br \/>But his wife insisted and persisted, and eventually he agreed to ask the golden fish for this wish.<br \/>He went down to the lake, and the water was boiling and turbulent. He called for the fish and its head appeared above water. It said, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s not for me, but my wife. She wishes to become Empress of Prussia and live in a grand palace.\u201d<br \/>\u201cYour wish is granted. Go home and see.\u201d<\/p><p>The fisherman returned home, and sure enough the castle was replaced with a grand palace. It was larger, with more soldiers, more battlements, and more guard towers.<br \/>He went in to see his wife and said, \u201cSurely you are happy now. There is nothing greater than being the Empress of Prussia, and no palace greater for you to live in.\u201d<br \/>She said, \u201cWe shall see. I want to sleep on it and discuss it on the morrow.\u201d<br \/>In the morning, she roused the fisherman and said, \u201cGo back and ask that fish for another wish. I want to be the Pope, and live in the grandest palace of all.\u201d<br \/>The fisherman said, \u201cOh no, wife. That is too much. Do not make me ask the golden fish for such a thing.\u201d<br \/>She said, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<br \/>\u201cWell, for one thing, they only let men become popes.\u201d<br \/>But his wife insisted and persisted. He said, \u201cLet us be happy in our Prussian palace!\u201d<\/p><p>But she said, \u201cI want to become like God, and order Nature to do my bidding, and tell the sun and moon when to rise and command the stars in the sky above!\u201d<br \/>She extolled and cajoled, and eventually he agreed to ask the golden fish for this wish.<br \/>He went down to the lake, and the water was dark and roiling. He called for the fish and its head appeared above water. It said, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019s not for me, but my wife. She wants to become like God.\u201d<br \/>\u201cGo home. She is sitting in your filthy old hut.\u201d<\/p><p>So the fisherman returned home, and all was as before. He and his wife cleaned the old hut, and lived out their days in peace.<br \/><em>There are many versions of this story, the one here was taken from<\/em><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/edbok.com\/2014\/07\/the-parable-of-the-fisherman-and-the-golden-fish\/\">The Story of the Golden Fish<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What did you think while you heard this story? Did you sympathize with the fisherman or the wife? Can you imagine just wanting more, like she did, more space, finer things, more power? Did you know from the beginning how it would end? I went searching for stories of people who wanted to be in charge this week and there were so many I was overwhelmed. I knew from the beginning in each how it would end. So did you, I expect. Here\u2019s my question: if we know how it will end, why do we keep doing it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Bible has stories of people like this. One is right near the beginning, but we often remember it wrong. Adam and Eve are newly created, without anything covered. They live in a beautiful garden doing a little weeding here and there, taking care of it and in the middle of the garden there\u2019s a tree they\u2019ve been told not to touch. One day a serpent points out the tree to Eve and Eve, who is the first theologian, expounds God\u2019s Word regarding the tree. But at the end, Eve takes the fruit from the tree and shares it with Adam. Why? It\u2019s not clear from the story exactly. But we all know don\u2019t we? I told this story to a group of children once. One of them said, \u201cWhy did God tell them not to take that fruit, it just makes you want it more when someone says don\u2019t eat it.\u201d Yeah: she had it right\u2014we just want more, until like the woman in the story we have so much that we have nothing. We fall. We live in the midst of the storms of life, and we think if we just had more, more power, more money, more something we could still the storm and sail safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\fTheologians have names for this: \u201coriginal sin\u201d is one, \u201ctotal depravity\u201d is another. Those are deep dark concepts, caves that take some time to explore, you need to put on a head light and have some equipment to go spelunking there. But you don\u2019t need all that to know what we\u2019re talking about; you really just have to look in your own heart. You just have to think about why we buy powerball tickets when the prize gets over a hundred million dollars. You just have to look at how we run things when we\u2019re given the chance. Look at our own history. The Puritans are kicked around England until they finally leave and come to Massachusetts. \u201cThey came for freedom!\u201d, our happy history teaches us. Truth is, once they got settled in, they turned around and started kicking other people out, sent them to Rhode Island. Yes, we want to be king and sometimes even that isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus lived in a highly structured society, a hierarchy where wealth and gender and where you came from mattered. It mattered that you were male; it mattered that you had money. It mattered whether you were Roman or Jewish or Samaritan. All these things and many more were set against the human desire for more and the competition was often bloody and violent. It was a time of peasant revolts, it was a moment when Roman soldiers crucified thousands up and down the roads around Jerusalem. So we read these words in the Lord\u2019s Prayer, \u201cThy kingdom come\u201d, calmly, quietly. But to Jesus and to the ones who first heard them, these were fiery words, fighting words, scary words. For kingdom is a political term and kings that will tolerate wandering preachers take action when the preaching turns to kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Jesus doesn\u2019t seem to be raising a political movement. Instead, as he does so often, Jesus is speaking beyond politics to the deeper reality of human souls. Living in a moment when the Roman empire was worshipped as a God, he calls his people back to this one fundamental reality: we are here to serve God, praise God, worship God. All the human agencies, all the human divisions, everything human is nothing compared to the majesty of God\u2019s rule. That\u2019s part of the lesson in the story of the fisherman. A poor couple are given an unbelievable chance to better themselves. Imagine them waking up in the nice cottage described at the beginning: running water, a beautiful setting. But it doesn\u2019t satisfy. So the places get bigger and better: a castle, a palace. The drive focuses on power, as it always does. What is more? Be a queen, be an empress, until finally it ends with the desire to be God. We are back to the garden at that point: seeking the thing that will make us not just more but most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus calls us back from this journey to destruction. \u201cWho\u2019s in charge here?\u201d, he implicitly asks. Is it the relentless drive for more?\u2014or can we choose to understand ourselves in a different way? \u201cThy kingdom come\u201d says first and foremost that we are not living on our own; we are living in the realm of a greater power, subject to a greater command than our own desires. To honestly pray \u201cThy will be done\u201d is to say my own will, my own desire is not the most important. And in that moment, all those human things matter less than that one fact, that one will, God\u2019s will. What is God\u2019s will? That\u2019s easy, it\u2019s written all over the scriptures, all over the religious traditions of thousand years. \u201cLove God, love your neighbor as yourself.\u201d All the human categories of Jesus\u2019 time and ours fall apart before this great command. Gender, money, celebrity, race and where you came from\u2014they mean nothing compared to this one great command and the desire to live not from our own wills but from the will of God. It\u2019s hard to live this way. Yet this is the choice Jesus puts before us: live from yourself, in the world where differences matter and the great drive is more, or live in the realm of God\u2019, the kingdom of God, asking every day, \u201cThy will be done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week I saw a movie that expressed this thought fully. It\u2019s called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Finest_Hours_(2016_film)\">The Finest Hours<\/a> and it tells the story of a group of four young Coast Guardsmen in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, who were charged in a great storm to go out into the North Atlantic and rescue men on a ship that was sinking. I\u2019m a sailor; I stay home when the waves mound up, when the wind blows beyond a certain point. \u201cSmall craft warning\u201d means stay in port. But I\u2019m just sailing for myself; these men had a higher calling. So knowing they are risking their lives, they go out into the terror of the sea to redeem the lives of strangers they\u2019ve never met. \u201cThey say you have to go out, you don\u2019t have to come back\u201d, is an old Coast Guard mantra. These are people living from a greater ethic than more; they know what it is to give your life to a greater cause. In the event, they were successful; 32 men were saved that day. They were saved because four men lived not from what they wanted but from what they were called to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThy kingdom come,\u201d Jesus prays and invites us to pray: \u201cThy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.\u201d The transition is clear and critical. For it is when we live from God\u2019s will, when this prayer condenses into lives that bits of heaven become evident on earth. When we lives out this prayer, we are making heaven on earth. For the true heaven comes not from miracle fishes or bigger and better palaces, not from more, not from us at all. Heaven comes when the kingdom of God appears. This is the mission of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Mark says it all:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, \u2018The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.\u2019 [Mark 1.14bf]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus comes to bring heaven to earth by proclaiming God\u2019s rule, living from God\u2019s rule. And his words and his life confront us with this choice: will we make his prayer our lives? This morning we read the story of a storm he stills. We all face storms; they blow into our lives and challenge us and ask, \u201cWho\u2019s in charge here?\u201d When we pray, when we live, saying indeed, \u201cThy kingdom come, thy will be done\u201d, the storms are stilled; heaven is brought to earth.<br \/>Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Rev. James Eaton, PastorSecond Sunday in Lent \u2022 February 21, 2016 A fisherman and his wife lived in an old dirty hut alongside a lake in Bavaria. Every day the fisherman went out to the lake and every day he returned with his catch. One day, the fisherman\u2019s net caught a golden fish. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,3,2],"tags":[21,17,18,20,5,19],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent","category-sermon","category-worship","tag-commitment","tag-kingdom-of-god","tag-lords-prayer","tag-movetheir-finest-hour","tag-sermon","tag-story-of-the-golden-fish"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}