A few days back I was sitting at dinner, making a terrible hash out of explaining why I wanted to do my work within what I knew sounded to my dinner partner like the desperately narrow confines of Biblical revelation. Trying to understand me, he gently suggested that I was probably one of those people who liked ideas to be fairly tidy, that being, I think, the most charitable psychological profile he could imagine for someone who would describe themselves as an Evangelical Christian. I doubt that anyone who knows me well thinks of "tidiness" as either one of my virtues or vices, but I wasn't doing a very good job that evening of being transparent.
Still, the suggestion stuck with me, and made me ponder who I am, who I think I am called to be, and who I believe we are all called to be as Christians; what my prayer is for myself and the people that I walk with. This is the song that grew. I put in links to the Biblical passages I am referencing, for those who might not already recognize them. Neat and tidy isn't really part of it. We are following a God whose Spirit sent the one he called his Beloved Son out to fast and pray in the wilderness for forty days, and then brought him to the place where he died on a cross. This isn't a safe or an easy God to follow, but the adventure quotient is pretty high. I'm not in the place this song describes, but this is where I want to be, and what I think that God wants to do in me and in us.
And finally, because there is a little piece of me that likes accuracy, let me take a moment to point out that while in the time that the New Testament was written, the scuzz place, the place where the dregs of society could be found was outside the city--today, for many of us, it is in the hearts of the city. I went with the picture in the New Testament, but let me acknowledge that I am aware that the prayer to go "outside the gates of the city" could send us straight into the cities from our nice and tidy suburbs.
Make us a People
Father, make us a people
Who will walk on the water
Looking to Jesus
Climbing out of the boat.
O Lord, make us a people
Who are baptized in fire,
And just a little drunk on the
Word of Your love
Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.
Father, make us a people
Who will sing when we’re captured
Whose songs of praise break down
All the prison walls.
O Lord, make us a people
Who are born of your Spirit,
Blown by the Wind
of Your grace and Your love
Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day.
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.
Father, make us a people
Hungry to be righteous
Longing to make peace
And to see the face of God
O Lord, make us a people
Whose lives are our love for You
Who give You our lives
Both to spend and to send.
Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.
Father, make us a people
Make us Your people, Lord
Still, the suggestion stuck with me, and made me ponder who I am, who I think I am called to be, and who I believe we are all called to be as Christians; what my prayer is for myself and the people that I walk with. This is the song that grew. I put in links to the Biblical passages I am referencing, for those who might not already recognize them. Neat and tidy isn't really part of it. We are following a God whose Spirit sent the one he called his Beloved Son out to fast and pray in the wilderness for forty days, and then brought him to the place where he died on a cross. This isn't a safe or an easy God to follow, but the adventure quotient is pretty high. I'm not in the place this song describes, but this is where I want to be, and what I think that God wants to do in me and in us.
And finally, because there is a little piece of me that likes accuracy, let me take a moment to point out that while in the time that the New Testament was written, the scuzz place, the place where the dregs of society could be found was outside the city--today, for many of us, it is in the hearts of the city. I went with the picture in the New Testament, but let me acknowledge that I am aware that the prayer to go "outside the gates of the city" could send us straight into the cities from our nice and tidy suburbs.
Make us a People
Father, make us a people
Who will walk on the water
Looking to Jesus
Climbing out of the boat.
O Lord, make us a people
Who are baptized in fire,
And just a little drunk on the
Word of Your love
Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.
Father, make us a people
Who will sing when we’re captured
Whose songs of praise break down
All the prison walls.
O Lord, make us a people
Who are born of your Spirit,
Blown by the Wind
of Your grace and Your love
Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day.
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.
Father, make us a people
Hungry to be righteous
Longing to make peace
And to see the face of God
O Lord, make us a people
Whose lives are our love for You
Who give You our lives
Both to spend and to send.
Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.
Father, make us a people
Make us Your people, Lord
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