Luke 18:9-14

Continuing in my "not satisfied with the answers" strain of thought.

Another question, which the answerer received beforehand (so knew was coming), was this: If God is up in heaven, why do look down when we pray?

The answerer said first that he doesn't believe that God is only in heaven, but everywhere. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I was okay with him saying so. I might think about that some other time.

I think he put something in there about how if you do something wrong, and are going to your parents about it, you don't look them in the face. This was good and I wished he had continued in this strain. He didn't.

He finished by talking about how God is really really awesome and we're not so awesome. So it's just an admission of how awesome God is. But I don't think "not so awesome" really describes us at all.

I mean, we see lowered heads for prayer in the bible. Jesus talks about it a lot. So if something we practice goes back to the bible, is that not a good enough explanation for why we do it? And furthermore, isn't it a good opportunity to get kids looking to the bible for answers?

It reminds me of Jim's (excellent) sermon on Sunday. He talked about how he was looking for a sermon illustration on google and youtube, something like the story of Lot's wife. And then he was like--oh! the story of Lot's wife! I could use that as a sermon illustration! Who would have thought we could use scripture to illuminate scripture? (Unfortunately I think many missed that he was taking a stab...even at other things that had happened that night).

But anyway. Let's have a look at the bible.

Luke 18:9-14

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

So--Jesus honours the act of looking down during prayer. But what does it mean? It's clear here that "it's because we're not so awesome" just doesn't cut it. When we look down, it is an admission that we are not worthy of God's attention. When we look down, it is an admission that we have rebelled against a holy God. When we look down, we are being humble and admitting what we are.

And if we admit that we are no good, God will exalt us in the end. Jesus didn't come to save the not so awesome but kinda awesome. Jesus came to save sinners, which is what we are.

I think I will make one more post about answers I was unsatisfied with--there was one about--oh, I can't even remember. If I do I will write it down.

It saddens me that the answerer did not even open a bible on Friday night.

I also want to post about what we looked at at bible study this week, so hopefully writing it here will make me commit to it. And I like writing about sermons too.

I'm also listening to a Japanese audio bible. Very exciting. But I don't really understand very much but an ocassional word... the reader saying the chapter and verse numbers... yeah.

Luke 10:18

He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven".

That line is starting to sound very Blade Runner to me. But moving on.

I've been thinking a lot lately about this one legend I knew. It started when a good friend was asking whether Satan is actually an angel - a good question. I don't know where that belief comes from. We can see from the verse above that he is from heaven, and he is a fallen being, but it's not angels alone that occupy heaven.

This legend I know goes something like this: God created Adam and Eve. And he said "hey my head angels, come check out what I did. Pretty cool huh. Now bow."
And Gabriel and Michael were all like "yay God! Your creation is awesome and we will bow to it!"
But Satan took offense at this abomination that was created after him, and refused to bow to it. Michael was all like "hey Satan maybe you should be careful... I mean, God told us to bow" and Satan was like "I don't care what God tells us to do!"

Hence the fall happened.

I don't know where I learnt this. It's a rough approximation of Islamic scripture, as I found out today - you can find out more about it here, here and here.

Like I said, I've been thinking about this passage a bit. Even more so with reading Luke 10:18, and Peter repeating it in his sermon on Sunday. The fact that it's of Islamic origin kinda makes my following musings farfetched, but bear with me. It's interesting.

Jesus was obviously around when Satan fell, yet the fall was pre-humanity (that is, Jesus's humanity). And we believe that God is all-knowing, right? So for Satan to refuse to bow down to created man - the form that Jesus would take upon himself - would be a refusal to bow down to God.

I think I would like to know about how Satan feels about Jesus. Because if the above scenario did touch on truth (unlikely; it has no founding outside the Qu'ran and I just came to conclusions myself) then it reveals one of the biggest mistakes in history. A lack of awareness of the things God has planned, a refusal to do his will, to trust him. I don't think an omniscient Satan makes sense. How could you know you were going to lose and still rebel? (Sounds a bit like Norse religion, ne?)

But that's as far as those musings get me. Interesting, nonetheless.

On a side note, seeing I've brought up Norse mythology--

Today one of my friends corrected someone in class for saying B.C. and A.D., as it is now officially (really? not sure. think it depends on the organisation really...) B.C.E. and C.E. for the purposes of avoiding religious slanting. But if we rename our dating system--should we not also rename the days of the week, lest we appear to be aligned with Norse gods? Thor's-day? Odin's-day?

What do you think?