Haunted by a Heresy, Part 2

February 3, 2015

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

The response to last week’s Mid-Week Message suggests that my description of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) really resonated with many of you. For those of you who missed it, it is available online here.  MTD asserts that God is knowable only from a distance, rarely intervening in our lives unless we are in need of something.  It describes God as a cosmic butler, requiring little more of us than simply being nice to others.  It is a stealthy and pervasive modern day heresy, and last week I admitted my own inadvertent contributions to its spread.

So today, I want to offer an antidote.  It is no silver bullet by any means, as something so widespread as MTD requires more than just one solution.  But the heart of the Wesleyan faith contains one key to countering it, as expressed in the most famous prayer John Wesley ever wrote.   

It begins with these words:

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Forget anything that MTD suggests about a God who is simply there to serve our needs.  Forget any viral egocentricism that has infected your Christian belief and practice.  Like Copernicus’ discovery that the earth is not the center of the solar system, this prayer fundamentally shifts our focus Godward, so that our primary interest is not in what God can do for us, but in what we are created to be in God. 

Here is the whole prayer:

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

The Wesley Covenant Prayer knows nothing about a God who is distant, only intervening when necessary.  Instead, God is perpetually engaged in every aspect of our being, wanting nothing less than our complete surrender to whatever fits God’s best purposes for the world.  Forget about only wanting God to serve our needs.  This prayer says, “God, because I belong to you, I am willing to go through suffering.  I am willing to be laid aside for you.  I am willing to be brought low for you.  I am willing to be empty.  I am willing to have nothing.”

“And in those moments when life seems blessed beyond measure, when I am full, when I have all things, when I feel useful and active and exalted … then I know it is simply because you own me, and all I have and all I am is yours.”

Each line is a couplet of extremes, covering the entire range of life’s complexities.  Sometimes there are hills, and sometimes there are valleys.  After every triumph, there seems a tragedy lurks around the next corner.  Some days are great, and others are not.  And while MTD would suggest that such randomness can be explained by a God who is distant from our every day existence, the Wesley Covenant Prayer takes this evidence to prove the exact opposite: since our lives belong to God, we do not have the right to chart our existence according to our own wishes.  God has always had – and always will have – a bigger picture in mind.

The prayers pulses like a heartbeat, drawing energy and sustenance straight from the Source of all Life.  It challenges us to recalibrate our relationship with God to make it less about what we need and more about who we are called to be.  Like branches are to a vine, we cannot exist apart from God, and God demands nothing less than our fullest participation in the life of God in the world. 

That’s why it ends the way it does:  I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

Try this for the next several weeks.  Memorize the prayer.  Commit it to memory.  And until you do, read it every morning as one of the first things you do when you wake up.  Remind yourself of whose you are, and consciously dismiss every suggestion that God is simply here to meet your needs.  And pledge to spend every moment, to the best of your ability, to allow God to use you – or not use you – in the best ways that God sees fit.

And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org