BEMA Episode Link: 24: Creating a Space
Episode Length: 55:22
Published Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 01:00:00 -0700
Session 1
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings consider the implications of the story of the Tabernacle in our own pursuits of God.

Creating a Space Presentation

Discussion Video for BEMA 24

Walter Brueggemann, “An Alternative Way” — The Work of the People

The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren

Transcript for BEMA 24

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

Review

• G-d gives us a new narrative.
  • He finds a new family in the person of Avraham.
  • The narrative of G-d begins in Exodus.
    • There are two kingdoms that oppose each other, Empire and Shalom.
      • Empire is a narrative of fear, coercion, a particular kind of imperial power, wealth, security, fame.
      • Shalom is a narrative of invitation, trust, open hands rather than closed fists, a narrative that runs counter to what the world offers us.

The Tabernacle

• Filling spaces
  • Lesson’s from Ray
    • In the creation story, G-d created a space and told man to fill it when he said to “be fruitful and multiply” which did not work out so well.
    • In the retelling of creation with the Tabernacle, G-d says I want YOU to create the space and I’ll fill it.
  • Marty took from Ray’s lesson, “If you create the space, G-d will fill it.” This is not directly from scripture but is one that Marty believes.
    • He may not fill the space in the way that we would like him to fill it, but he will fill the space nonetheless.
    • Re: when G-d feels distant, “If we’re not going to create a space for G-d, I don’t know how in the world we can be upset when G-d doesn’t fill our lives.”

Spiritual Disciplines

[Timestamp]

• One of the ways we create space is with the practice of Spiritual Disciplines.
  • Mentors
    • Steve: Taught Marty how to love people in deeply impactful ways.
    • Bill Westfall: The President of Impact Ministries before Marty.
      • Bill was spiritually present where ever he was at and Marty was too busy to pick up on this.
      • Bill once said to Marty, “I had a challenge for you but you know… nevermind. I don’t think it’s for you.”
        • This caught Marty’s attention and Bill challenged Marty to take a sack lunch to a lake and sit in silence for 8 hours.
        • It wasn’t until about the 5 or 6 hour mark that Marty was able to actually empty his mind of the busyness and settle his mind.
  • “[Impact Ministries] pursue G-d by pursing the spiritual practices.”
• When we think about the Tabernacle and the fact that G-d’s people created a space and then G-d filled it, we can do the same thing in our lives and G-d gets to fill it.
  • We talk about two spiritual disciplines more than anything else in our culture, Bible Study and Prayer.
  • Both of these practices are incredibly important but we often stop there.
  • While the goal is not to do every single one of these, here is a list of additional spiritual disciplines.

Prayer Disciplines

[Timestamp]

• Prayer Journaling: Keeping a journal of prayers. Sometimes people get hung up on the language. The point is to see what G-d is doing in your life over the course of time, especially during certain seasons of life.
• Fixed Hour Prayer: An alarm goes off at a specific time every day, or on an interval throughout the day, and when that time comes, or that alarm goes off, one stops for 30 seconds to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
• Contemplative Prayer: There is a mystic hiding in some people.
  • One of the most famous contemplative prayers would be the Jesus Centering Prayer, “Jesus Christ, Son of G-d, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
  • After a while, centering prayers begin to speak back to you.
  • This form of prayer is great for getting your heart right before an event that requires it.
  • Marty says the same blessing after every breakfast because the prayer beings to speak back to him.
• Praying the Text: Many Jewish prayers come straight out of the Text. The Jewish tradition can teach us that G-d has already spoken and we don’t always have to create something new to pray.

Disciplines of Presence

• Solitude, Sabbath, and Silence:
  • This is what Bill was teaching Marty: “Creating a space to become more aware of the love, grace, and companionship of G-d than the companionship, demands, and duties of life and others.”
  • Creating a space of solitude in silence to let go of the busyness and hear from G-d.
    • There is an image of a person holding on to a handful of balloons and slowly letting go of one balloon at a time until the person is left with a single, solitary balloon that G-d wants them to hang on to.
• Practicing the Presence of God: Learning to become aware of G-d as a constant companion. When we are doing the laundry and shoveling snow, can become spiritual work when we acknowledge and become fully aware of G-d’s presence.
  • The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
    • This is not a modern book and will be a little different to read that we are used to.
• Simplicity: Resisting the pull of complexity, acquisition, consumption and hurry through the intentional pursuit of a simple life.
  • Examples of this is Lent, transportation, technology, food, etc. It’s creating a space for G-d to fill and to work.

Lifestyle Disciplines

• Generosity and Secrecy: Sometimes these go together and sometimes they don’t.
  • Doubling tips for a period of time, for instance.
  • Tell yourself before entering a season of Generosity,
    • When I see a homeless person, I’m going to say yes.
    • If someone asks, “can I?” the answer is going to be “yes”.
    • If someone asks, “do you have?” the answer is going to be “yes” if I have it.
    • I’m going to double my tips.
    • I’m going to give twice as much.
    • I’m going to do whatever I can do to practice generosity.
• Submission: Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation were we disagree with those around us about non-ethical or -moral issues and these are great opportunities to practice submission.
• Gratitude: The Jewish community tries to say 70 blessings a day.
  • Try saying “thanks” 70 times a day.
  • One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
• Meditation and Memorization: To be able to meditate on the scripture by being able to put it inside of you.
  • We like to study, read, and learn about the Bible but often stop there.
  • The Qumran community of walking the path.
  • A fun discipline is writing the Text.
  • A difficult discipline is memorizing the text.
  • How do we get the text IN us in as many ways as possible?
  • How does Ray memorize?
    • Marty had an image of stacking and being able to recite an entire book all at once.
    • Ray instead taught Marty of memorize a weekly portion and at the end of the week, put them away and move on to the next portion.
      • “You’ve done your part now let the Holy Spirit do his part.”
• Spiritual Mentor: Pick a spiritual mentor that you know and trust, who you believe knows you in a unique way that most people don’t and who you will listen to when they tell you that you need to do something new or to remove something from you life.
• Fasting and Self Denial: Going for a period of time without food or water.
  • Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren

    “Fasting does not create space where we are supposed to be more spiritual, fasting connects us to our humanness.”

  • Marty would get so angry when he fasts because when he would get hungry, we would become obsessed with food when he felt like he was supposed to be incredibly spiritual.
  • Anyone who has fasted past the three day mark knows that fasting connects you to the brokenness and the ugliest parts of their life.
  • Often in the Text, when people fast, G-d critiques it.
  • Marty doesn’t fast regularly but will fast when he becomes prideful to remind himself of his humanity.
  • Brent: “Fasting reveals our weakness in a way that creates space for G-d to be strong in our life?”
    • Absolutely.
    • We often use fasting like a vending machine to get answers from G-d.
    • With the exception of two times, fasting happens for two reasons in scripture: humility and mourning.
    • When we want answers, a lot of the wrong things go to work inside of us. We remind ourselves of who we are and look to G-d out of the appropriate perspective and in that we often do find the clarity that shows us the answers that were really there the whole time. We just needed the space to be able to see it.
• Feasting and Celebration: Some of us are incredibly frugal and need to learn how to celebrate.
  • Talmud (NOT the Bible) teaches that “man will have to answer on Judgement day for every permissible deed he did not partake in.”
  • One one hand, I need to know when to say no and on the other hand, I need to know when to indulge because it’s time to celebrate.
  • The calendar helps us do this.
    • Lent invites us to fast. Celebration Sunday invites us to celebrate.
    • Advent brings us down and invites us to frugality of our spirituality. Christmas then invites us to celebrate.

Summary

• All of these practices help us create a space. If we create a space for G-d to work, he will fill it and he will produce the fruit that he wants to produce.
• Brent realized that he actually mixed the “fixed hour” disciple with scripture memorization instead of prayer in the past.

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