历史学者回顾美国这一年，会认为是一场金融海啸。成千上万的住屋法拍，无数人破产或失去工作。美国政府好像也竞相扬弃资本主义的基本原理，砸钱给银行、投资公司、大保险公司，企图恢复市场信心，并且遏止资金流动。
在这段极其动荡不安的时间，有个星期全球股票市场狂跌七兆美金，我接到《时代杂志》(Times) 编辑的电话，问我说：「您写过关于祷告的书。请问，在这样的危机中要如何祷告呢？」谈话间，我提到祷告的三个阶段。
第一个阶段是简单、直觉性的呼求「救命啊！」面对裁员、健康问题，或是眼睁睁看着退休金缩水，祷告是这些人发出恐慌与焦虑呼声的一个途径。我一直学习克制自己想要修饰祷告，好听起来更成熟更优美的习性。我相信上帝希望我们以真实原貌来到他面前，不论自己感觉多么幼稚。知道每一只麻雀掉落的上帝，当然知道惊恐的金融危机会带给脆弱人类什么样的冲击。
其实，祷告是我们交托恐惧的最佳去处。我以耶稣在客西马尼园的夜晚，作为在难关中祷告的典范。他三次倒在地上，汗珠像血滴，感觉「忧伤到要死。」然而，在痛苦挣扎之际，他的祷告从「将这杯挪去」转为「照你的意思成就。」在接下来的受审场景，耶稣是座中最平静的人。他的祷告时刻使他解除焦虑，重新肯定对慈爱天父的信靠，并且有勇气面对即临的惨剧。
如果我祷告的时候同时倾诉并且聆听，就能够进入祷告的第二个阶段，亦即默想与反思的阶段。嗯，我的毕生积蓄就这么没了，那么我从这场灾祸体会到什么呢？看这些财经新闻，有一首儿童诗歌不断浮现于脑海：
那聪明人把房子盖起来…
那聪明人把房子盖在坚固磐石上。
那愚笨人把房子盖起来…
那愚笨人把房子盖在松松沙土上。
危机时刻是个好机会，审视自己究竟以什么根基建构自己的人生。如果我觉得金钱保障或是政府有能力解决问题最可靠，结果当然是眼看地下室淹水，或是墙垣倒塌。
我在芝加哥的朋友比尔․莱斯里 (Bill Leslie) 以前常说，圣经就金钱发出三个主要问题：(1) 你是怎么赚来的 (合法公正？还是剥削得利？)；(2) 你用来作什么 ？(奢华宴乐？还是帮助穷人？)；(3) 对你起什么作用？耶稣有些最犀利的比喻就是直探最后一个问题的核心。
当分析家在金融废墟中拣拾残余，他们开始擦拭一些尘封的过时字眼：贪婪、中庸、诚信、正直。当作总裁的牺牲员工与股东来填满自己的荷包，当银行明知不太可能还钱却借贷，当贷款的人利用善意的合约逍遥法外，金融体系就崩塌了。一个发挥功能的经济体是以微弱的诚信网脉所维系 (如果你有所怀疑，不妨去一个送红包才能办事，买东西找钱马上要数清楚的国家去看看。)
全球财富缩减了七兆美元的那个星期，辛巴威的通货膨胀率高达两千三百一十万的百分比。换句话说，你如果礼拜一还有一百万辛币存款，礼拜二就只剩下一块五毛八！这个凝重的现实让我想到在难关中祷告的最后，也是最困难的阶段，就是我需要上帝帮助，眼目从自己的问题转移，才能以怜悯关注那些真正赤贫的人。
耶稣教导我们祷告「愿祢的旨意行在地上，如同行在天上」，而我们知道天上没有无家可归、穷苦或挨饿的人。当股票市场坠入未知的深渊，我不由自主地想起私立大学、宣教机构、以及其他非营利组织，它们都极其倚重捐助人的慷慨解囊。
如果在这一年，基督徒能捐助更多，为穷人盖房子、与非洲的爱滋病抗争、向一个耽溺、唯名人是从的文化社会宣扬天国的价值观，会是何等美好的见证。这样的反应有违一切逻辑与常识――除非，我们认真看待主耶稣讲的把房子建在磐石上的简单故事中的寓意。 | .. | Historians will look at the year that just ended as a financial tsunami that left in its wake millions of foreclosed homes, bankruptcies, and lost jobs. As if competing to abandon the basic tenets of capitalism, governments threw money at banks, investment companies, and huge insurers in an attempt to restore trust and stanch the flow of capital.
During one of the most volatile periods, a week in which global stock markets declined by $7 trillion, I received a call from an editor at Time. "You wrote a book on prayer, right?" he said. "Tell me, how should a person pray during a crisis like this?" In the course of the conversation, we came up with a three-stage approach to prayer.
The first stage is simple, an instinctive cry: "Help!" For someone who faces a job cut or health crisis or watches retirement savings wither away, prayer offers a way to voice fear and anxiety. I have learned to resist the tendency to edit my prayers so that they sound sophisticated and mature. I believe God wants us to come exactly as we are, no matter how childlike we may feel. A God aware of every sparrow that falls surely knows the impact of scary financial times on frail human beings.
Indeed, prayer provides the best possible place to take our fears. As a template for prayers in crisis, I look at Jesus' night in Gethsemane. He threw himself on the ground three times, sweat falling from his body like drops of blood, and felt "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." In the midst of that anguish, however, his prayer changed from "Take this cup from me" to "May your will be done." In the scenes of trial that followed, Jesus was the calmest character present. His season of prayer had relieved him of anxiety, reaffirmed his trust in a loving Father, and emboldened him to face the horror that awaited.
If I pray with the intent to listen as well as talk, I can enter into a second stage, that of meditation and reflection. Okay, my life savings has virtually disappeared. What can I learn from this seeming catastrophe? In the midst of the financial news, a Sunday school song kept running through my mind:
The wise man built his house upon the rock …
And the wise man's house stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand …
Oh, the rain came down, and the floods came up.
A time of crisis presents a good opportunity to identify the foundation on which I construct my life. If I place my ultimate trust in financial security or in the government's ability to solve my problems, I will surely watch the basement flood and the walls crumble.
A friend from Chicago, Bill Leslie, used to say that the Bible asks three main questions about money: (1) How did you get it? (Legally and justly or exploitatively?); (2) What are you doing with it? (Indulging in luxuries or helping the needy?); and (3) What is it doing to you? Some of Jesus' most trenchant parables and sayings go straight to the heart of that last question.
As analysts began picking through the ruins of the financial collapse, they started dusting off old-fashioned words: greed, moderation, integrity, and trust. When executives line their pockets at the expense of employees and shareholders, when banks make speculative loans with little likelihood of payback, when borrowers walk away from good-faith contracts, the system collapses. A functioning economy is held together by a thin web of trust. (If you doubt that, visit a country where you have to pay bribes to get action and must count your change after every purchase.)
The same week that global wealth shrank by $7 trillion, Zimbabwe's inflation rate hit a record 231 million percent. In other words, if you had saved $1 million Zimbabwean dollars by Monday, on Tuesday it was worth $158. This sobering fact leads me to the third and most difficult stage of prayer in crisis: I need God's help in taking my eyes off my own problems in order to look with compassion on the truly desperate.
Jesus taught us to pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and we know that heaven will include no homeless, destitute, or starving people. As the stock market dove to uncharted depths, I couldn't help thinking of private colleges, mission agencies, and other nonprofits, all of which depend heavily on the largesse of donors.
What a testimony it would be if, in 2009, Christians resolved to increase their giving to build houses for the poor, combat AIDS in Africa, and announce kingdom values to a decadent, celebrity-driven culture. Such a response defies all logic and common sense — unless, of course, we take seriously the moral of Jesus' simple tale about building houses on a sure foundation. |
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