Prayers and Grace by Menno Simons

Prayers for Mealtime

Een christelijcke benedictie voor, een gracias na den eaten

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 

I Corinthians 3.11

Courtesy Herald Press, Scottdale, PA (1984), Menno Simons, Author (c. 1557), Leonard Verduin, translator (1955), H. C. Wenger, editor (1955), The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, c. 1496-1561, p 955-958, Herald Press.

This Is a Christian Grace Before Meals, Together with a Prayer of Thanksgiving After Meals – Intended for all Genuinely God-fearing Folk, and Moreover Intended to Be Taught to Their Children from Childhood on, in Order That They May Learn to Fear the Lord, May Learn to Know Him, and to Walk in His Commandments All Their Days, to the Praise and Glory of the Lord and to the Salvation of Their Souls.  Amen.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

I.       A CHRISTIAN GRACE BEFORE MEALS

    O give thanks unto the Lord, said David, for He is good.  For His goodness and mercy endureth forever.  O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.  O fear the Lord, ye His saints, for there is no want to them that fear Him.  The rich He sends away empty, but they that fear the Lord shall have lack of nothing.  He giveth food to those that fear Him.  He remembers His covenant forever. 

    Thou shalt eat the labor of they hands; happy shalt thou be and it shall be well with thee.  They wife shall be as a fruitful vine in the innermost part of thy house; thy children like olive plants round about thy table.  Behold, thus shall the man be blest that feareth the Lord.

    I have been young and now I am old, says David, and have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread, even as Thou hast, O Lord, demonstrated to the children of Israel.  Thou hast given them bread from heaven and water out of the flinty rock in the wilderness forty years long.  O Lord, Thou hast fed Elijah with flesh and with bread byt eh ravens morning and evening – also by the widow of Zarephath in that the meal did not diminish in the jar nor the oil in the cruse for a long time, according to the word spoken by the Prophet Elijah, the Tishbite – and by the angel of the Lord, with bread and with water under the juniper bush when he fled before Jezebel.  O Lord, Thou has fed Daniel in the den of lions in Babylon by the angel of the Lord, and by the Prophet Habakkuk with the victuals which he had prepared for his reapers.  Habakkuk spoke saying, Daniel, Daniel, take of the food which God has sent to you.  And Daniel spoke saying, And, Lord, Thou art ever mindful of me and dost not forsake those that call upon Thee and love Thee.  And he rose up and ate.   O Lord, Thou has so wonderfully, and unexpectedly, and, according to the Word of the Lord spoken by Elisha the prophet of the Lord, fed those of Samaria when the hunger was so great that the women (by nature quite pitiful, as Lamentations has it) did sod and eat their own children, even as at Jerusalem.

    O Lord, Thou hast with five barley loaves and two fishes fed about five thousand men, not counting women and children – twelve basketfuls remaining – by the power of Thy prayer of blessing and thanksgiving.  What is impossible with men is possible with God.  This , Lord, Thou Thyself hast declared.

    Therefore, Thou has in the Gospel taught Thy children that fear Thee saying, Take no thought for thy life, what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, nor for the body what ye shall put on.  Is not the life more than food and the body than raiment?  Consider the birds of the heaven.  They sow not, neither do they gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them nevertheless.  Are you not much more than they?  Which of you can add one cubit to his stature by being careful for it?  And why do you take thought for raiment?  Consider the lilies of the field how they grow.  They toil not, neither do they spin – I ay unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into oven, would He not much more do such for you, O ye of little faith!  Therefore, do not be filled with care saying, What shall we eat?  Or, What shall we drink?  Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  After these things do the Gentiles seek but your Father knows that ye have need of all these things.  Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.  Be not therefore anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  It is enough that every day carries it own burdens, as Christ says.

An On-Line Conversation re Baptists and Anabaptism

änlijch woare

Bruce Hiebert • My frustration with the term "Anabaptism" stems as much from its use as a political slogan in contemporary Mennonite institutional and social power struggles as it does from its ties to a specific historical movement that the Baptists can claim, violence and all, with as much integrity as the peace oriented Mennonites. In point of historical fact, we are descendents of Menno Simons' version of Anabaptism, not Anabaptism per se. We need to face up to and respond to that reality, not pretend that by sloganeering to the broader movement of which he was a part we have avoided the Mennonite history that comes afterward. Plus, Mennonite history, pitfalls and all, is who we are. It runs deep in our bones. If someone wants to be an Anabaptist, apocalypticism, violence, medieval anthropology and everything else that goes with it, then I welcome them to it. But let's not pretend that was a movement of peace or that it has more than the weakest connection to the contemporary Mennonite life.

Steven Wall • As I have said before, I do not understand this new Baptist claim to be connected with the Anabaptists. While there were a very few English Anabaptists, and significant interaction intellectually between English Quakers and Continental Mennonites, both the English and Scandinavian Baptists descend from completely different historical tracks than do Anabaptists. According to most authoritative church historians, the Anglo-American Baptists are actually Protestants.

Reserving the right to be wrong, especially in an area with scarce resources i.e. Minnesota, my understanding is that the Baptists were a "free church" movement that sprang from similar political and social concerns but with completely different spiritual foci. The Baptists fit in nicely with Troeltsch's historical Protestant church schematics... Anabaptists and Quakers do not, as he himself indicates.

Generally, I think we should celebrate common beliefs and learn to build bridges using those commonalities but saying that Baptists are Anabaptist because we share an adult baptism is no more pertinent than to claim that Anabaptists are Maronite Catholics because we encourage a married clergy.

Are Evangelicals Cult-hero Worshippers? (Part 3 of 3)

Steven Wall with Rev. Randy Smart 
with contributions from Anne-Marie (Goertzen) Wall

    Traditional Mennonite Evangelicals maintain a consensus-style, congregational intellectual process that is antithetical to the concept of hero-worship.  

    The EMB have always been on the intellectually engaged side of Mennonite culture.  The historic Brüderthaler often assumed leadership roles in establishing schools in pioneer North American communities.  Isaac Peters, the senior Bishop of the EMB, is commended by P. M. Friesen and Delbert Plett for his intellect, his scholasticism and for his understanding and valuing of traditional Mennonite intellectual sources.  John Funk befriended Peters and enticed him to repeatedly contribute to Herald der Wahrheit.

    In Peters’ shadow, the EMB were noted for pursuing intellectual careers as educators, missionaries, pastors, nurses and writers, rather than farming.  Lacking a school of their own, they adopted and contributed to the success and growth of Moody Bible Institute, Grace University and Briercrest Bible College.  In 1911, Evangelical Mennonites established der Evangelisationsbote as the universal intellectual organ for Mennonite Evangelicalism.  Early EMB conferences were attended by the intellectual leadership of both Russian and American Anabaptism and much of the impetus behind the failed Evangelical Mennonite Conference of the 1950s was an attempt by EMB intellectuals to cure a shortage of available pulpits and possibly found a united Evangelical Mennonite seminary.

    Unlike other Mennonite groups which depend on conference schools and seminaries for educational development and leadership, the engines of the Mennonite Evangelical intellect are, and have always been, the Sunday School, congregational dialectic, the unified conference and workshops, and arguably, the pastoral library.  From our Kleine Gemeinde roots, we also retain a strong sense of Pietist reflection on the everyday and the lessons God places within the simple living of simple lives.  Outside resources such as newspapers, literature and books of science and politics circulate freely and commonly amongst congregations and between churches, informing both personal studies and group dialogue.  Intellectual fellowship is definitive of the culture and a constant activity.

Are Evangelicals Anti-intellectual? A Response to Tom Airey (Part 1 of 3)

Steven Wall and Randy Smart

    Are Evangelicals anti-intellectual?  Are we, as Tom Airey of California recently claimed, overly susceptible to cult-hero-worship?   Are we naïve thinkers content to follow the path of least resistance in a struggle to maintain backwards, redneck theologies and opinions?

    Both raised in traditional evangelical Mennonite (EMB), or Brüderthaler, communities and churches, Rev. Randy Smart, currently of Winkler, Manitoba, and I, originally of Lustre, Montana, hardly know where to begin in answer to Airey’s very simplified world of clean cut definitions and judgments.  Clearly, Airey finds little of value within the Mennonite Evangelical tradition.

    To review, Airey criticizes Evangelicals for being:  suburban, white, anti-big government, anti-crime, anti-gay, anti-abortion, etc., etc.  He quotes Cornel West that evangelical conservatism is a back-lash against Civil Rights and Dr. King.  Seemingly, Airey, a “post-evangelical church leader,” or Emergent, has it all figured out.

    Smart and I had difficulty determining whether to address the simple historical inaccuracy of Airey’s perspective or to focus on his charges of cult-hero worship, naïve thinking, and anti-intellectualism by indicating how current practice does not easily conform to Airey’s convenient definitions against Evangelicalism.

Pfefferneusse

en Päpanät Re'ssapt

Peppernuts  Flaten – Wall, from Mountain Lake, MN / Lustre, MT / Salem, OR / Falcon Heights, MN

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1 cup lard or Crisco™

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

4 cup flour

    Heat milk and sugar over medium heat.  Remove from fire and add lard or Crisco™.  Set aside to cool.  Sift dry ingredients or combine spices and baking powder, mixing well.  Add to flour and sift with whisk.  Add to cooled mixture.  (We poured liquid mixture slowly into dry ingredients while mixing.)   

    Chill overnight (traditionally, many Mennonites keep the dough in the entry, garage or car during the winter).  Next day, roll into pencil-thin strips, or the size of a thick crayon.  Cut into ½ -¾” pieces and bake in 400⁰ oven until a light brown. 

    Peppernuts are eaten with coffee or soaked in hot chocolate.  I find that their spicy flavor can also sensationalize a rich red or fruity white wine.

    Peppernuts, pfefferneusse, papanuta, however you choose to spell their name, peppernuts are a holiday tradition that unifies Mennonite generations and the international diaspora of Prussian and Russian Mennonites into a single cultural identity, at least for those holidays.

    Karen and I made these for Christmas out of a collection of family recipes, mostly relating back to the Kleine Gemeinde of Nebraska and the Bruderthaler of Minnesota.  Enjoy!

Steve Wall's 1994 essay on Peppernate's:

The Beauty of Clouds in the Morning Sky (2010)

Patriarchs of time and cyles, brute strength pushing me forward when all I want to do is to rest for a while and be still, to contemplate and adjust, not move on and forget.

After the fact I look up.  Feminine shades of hue outline billowing puffs of compressed fog smiling into the rising sun.  Stillness, stillness, they greet the rising masculine one, but for this moment, all I have to do is to look, and see, and be.

Despite the lightness of the beauty, my heart is heavy, troubled.  She will never again be part of this stillness.  There will be no more morning coffees in quietness.  No longer will blankets shelter us from the outside cold, the outside time.  No more pancakes steaming on the grill.  Still, quiet moments of being are found, remembered -- time pressures in, erasing them one by one. 

Yet, if I stay quiet, and turn my back to the rising sun, all I can see is beauty, and stillness, and quietness.  My soul rushes up to Thee, I cannot remember, slowly I forget.  The sun warms my arms, my shoulders, my neck.  My coffee is almost gone.  Memory evaporates into light.  I’ve got more important things to do.  I’m awake.  I’m awake.

~ sdw