Tag Archives: prayer

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Our Father

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 20-minute message. Or watch the video recording on Facebook here (the message starts about 30 minutes into the service).

Today we read Jesus’ instruction to his disciples on how to pray (Luke 11:1-13). It is a rich and invaluable teaching. Prayer is not easy for many of us, and Jesus’ template for prayer is worth using. Today, we focus on two words from the Lord’s prayer: “Father” and “daily”.

Father

Jesus starts his prayer with “Father”. Not “Our Father”. It is an indicating of his intimacy with God the Father, and the invitation to us to be similarly intimate and close with God. It also speaks of an informality that we can have in our communication with God. We’ve not all have good experiences of fathering – referring to God as our ‘Father’ might not be comforting for everyone. But in this passage, Jesus emphasises the goodness of Father God.

In Luke 11:11-13, Jesus describes God as a good parent, who gives his children good things. He reminds us that even if we did not have good fathering and even if we (who are fathers) are not good fathers, we all have a mental picture of a ‘good and loving father’. We many not have experienced it ourselves, but what we do know what it is. Jesus emphasises in this passage that God lives us to our ideal of good fathering.

Colossians 2:13-14, another of today’s readings, also emphasises the good God, who takes away our sin, who wipes us clean, who accepts us in love.

And even in Genesis 18:23-25, also one of today’s readings, we see Abraham reminding God of who God is – righteous, loving, forgiving, patient, tolerant.

God is a good parent and we are invited to be intimate and informal with God in our prayer.

Daily

In Luke 11:3, Jesus prays, “Give us each day our daily bread”. We are encouraged to bring our every day needs to God – our need for bread, a staple of life. God is not interested only in big challenges and global issues; God is also interested in the daily struggles of life. We are invited to bring everything to God.

We’re also invited to come to God every day in prayer. This verse uses ‘day’ or ‘daily’ twice. The bread we ask for is daily bread. We do not buy it in bulk for the month – we buy it fresh each day – it is daily bread. And we come every day (‘give us this day’ or ‘give us each day’) to God to receive it. God invites to come daily to God to pray for today’s needs.

Later in this passage (Luke 11:9-10), Jesus invites to ask, to seek and to knock. He reassures us that we we do so, we will receive and find and the door will be opened. Although we have all had experiences of prayers not answered, Jesus encourages us to continue asking, seeking and knocking. We don’t need to be shy in coming to God with our needs.

Luke 11:5-8 also tells the story of a man who comes to his neighbour in the middle of the night asking to borrow some bread, as he has unexpected visitors. His neighbour is not interested in getting up so late at night to give him bread. But Jesus tells us that the persistence of the man will eventually get his neighbour out of bed. He encourages us to persist in prayer. My NIV uses the phrase “shameless audacity” to describe this persistence – just keep on knocking and knocking, keep engaging with God.

We see this shameless audacity in Abraham in Genesis 18:26-33, as he haggles with God for mercy on the people of Sodom. He starts with 50 righteous or innocent people, and negotiates God down to just 10. Actually, Abraham shows a great deal of trepidation and caution, as he recognises he’s bargaining with the Creator. But he persists and is indeed audacious in the way he negotiates with God for mercy.

Engaging the Father daily

In many ways, this is the crux of our readings for today. God wants us to engage with him, persistently, shamelessly, audaciously. He is our Father – it gives him joy when we engage him. And he invites and encourages us to come daily into his presence. There is nothing too big or too small, too shameful and terrible to bring to God. He is the good parent who loves to engage with us.

Father, give us each day our daily bread.

Featured image from https://www.catholicherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/mans-hands-in-prayer_WEB.jpg
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The battle

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 13-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below. Or read the text summary after that.

Covid-19 has been spreading at an alarming rate in recent weeks. We have more new cases and more deaths than we had at the height of the first wave back in July and August 2020. And we hear of whole families infected with Covid and even dying of Covid. We ought to be greatly concerned about Covid. Let us think of Covid as the enemy of humanity and an agent of the devil. Covid does everything that is the antithesis of God and works against God’s vision for humanity.

We draw on Exodus 17:8-13 for today’s message:

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.” So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Let us think of the Amalekites as Covid – our common enemy. Everyone is working to fight off this enemy:

Joshua and his soldiers are like those who are fighting Covid directly – frontline health workers, those developing vaccines and the President and his team.

Moses, together with Aaron and Hur, are up on the hilltop praying for Joshua and his team as they battle the enemy. Let us imagine that we are Moses, Aaron and Hur.

We can and ought to be praying against Covid. Prayer is not just a psychological thing that we do. It is real engagement with God and has a real impact on the real world. Prayer is hard – Moses struggles to keep his hands above his head holding the staff of God. We have to persist, to persevere in prayer.

And as Moses struggles, Aaron and Hur come alongside him. They help him to sit and then each help him hold up his arms, so that Moses can continue his work of prayer. Aaron and Hur work together to support Moses, who prays on behalf of Joshua.

In a similar way, we need each to do our part in supporting our collective efforts against Covid. These are quite simple: wear a mask, maintain physical distancing and avoid large gatherings. When we each do our part, we make a collective difference and contribute to the common good of all humanity.

And finally, let us take heart that God is present also in this collaborative effort: Aaron and Hur work to support Moses as he prays to God to enable Joshua and his team to fight off the enemy. There is no ‘let go and let God’ in this narrative. Each member of Israel had a role to play – each did their part. Together, working collaboratively, working in partnership with God, they were able to win the battle.

Dear friends, let us pray for God’s salvation and let us each do our part to support and protect each other, so that we win the battle against Covid.

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Journey with Jesus

Click here to listen to the audio of this 12-minute message. Click watch the video below, or read the text thereafter.

Between Easter and Pentecost we focus on people’s encounters with the risen Christ. Last week we reflected on Thomas’ encounter with Jesus some days after the resurrection. Today, in Luke 24: 13-35, we reflect on the two disciples who met Jesus while they were travelling from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They don’t realise that it was Jesus until the very end. Their journey has three phases:

  1. They initially fellowship with Jesus, sharing their story of Jesus with this stranger and commiserating about his untimely death.
  2. Then Jesus teaches them about the Christ, drawing on the whole of the First Testament, explaining who the Messiah was prophesied to be and how these prophecies were fulfilled in the Christ. But still, they did not recognise Jesus.
  3. Finally, they shared a meal with Jesus – they broke bread together. And as Jesus, took, blessed (or gave thanks), broke and gave the break to them, their eyes were opened and they finally recognised him.

In hindsight, they realised that they had encountered Jesus: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

Ultimately, it is in the taking, thanking, breaking and giving that they recognise Jesus. This is what Jesus did in Luke 9:16, when he fed the five thousand. And also just a few days before at the Last Supper in Luke 22:19. This celebration of the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper, Communion, Mass, Divine Liturgy) was the clincher, following fellowship and teaching, that reveals Christ to them.

This narrative follows the same pattern of the early church in Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Now, our passage in Luke 24 doesn’t mention prayer, but prayer is (essentially) talking with and listening to Jesus. Prayer is just conversation with God. And this is what the two disciples were doing, even though they did not realise it, during the long walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, as they journeyed with Jesus: they were talking with God.

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Featured image Emmaus Road, by Chinese artist He Qi. https://alfayomega.es/106963/emaus-de-la-decepcion-a-la-alegria

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Waiting for God

Click here to listen to this 7-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below, or read the text that follows.

The Saturday in Easter Weekend is one of the most peculiar days in the Bible and in the Christian Calendar. There has been a huge and distressing build-up to Good Friday. And then tomorrow, Easter Sunday, is a huge celebration of life over death. But the day in between seems to be a non-day. A day on which time is suspended and the universe holds its breath. Even the Gospel stories are almost entirely silent on this day:

  • John entirely skips the Saturday Sabbath, making no reference to it at all.
  • Luke tells us that the women “went home and … rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.”
  • Mark simply says, “When the Sabbath was over”.
  • Matthew is the only one to say something substantial about what happened on Holy Saturday. Matthew recounts that Chief Priests and Pharisees went to Pilate on Saturday, asking him to seal the tomb to prevent the disciples from hatching a hoax that Jesus had risen on the third day. Bizarrely, in doing so, they broke the Sabbath Law that was so important to them.

It seems the Gospel writers felt as we do that Saturday is a between-times in which time seems suspended. We wait with bated breath to see what God will do in response to our murder and execution of the Son of God. We wait to see if Jesus will rise on the third day as he promised. We wait to see if there is life after the death of the Messiah.

We wait: silent, hoping, praying, anticipating…

For this reason, I have taken to referring to this day as
Silent Saturday.

A prayer for today:

Lord Jesus, I wait in solidarity with you
and pray for your triumph over death. Amen

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Fast of the heart

Click here to listen to this 14-minute message.

Lent, which kicks off on Ash Wednesday (26 February this year), is usually associated with fasting, and this, together with prayer and giving to the needy, is the topic of the first half of Matthew 6 (part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount). In this passage Jesus differentiates between fasting that is done for public approval and fasting that is done in secret and for God. It is this latter fasting (and prayer and giving to others) that Jesus esteems. It is this fasting, done in secret, that Jesus says “your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” And we know that this reward is eternal, in heaven, as this is where Jesus encourages us to store up our treasures.

For those of you who are fasting during this Lent, I encourage you to fast for yourself and for God, and keep your fasting secret and hidden. It is in this fast of the heart that we allow ourselves to experience discomfort and difficulty. And this reminds us of the discomfort and difficulty Jesus faced as he journeyed towards the cross.

Have a blessed Lent.

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Featured image from here.

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Turning towards God

Click here to listen to this 11-minute message.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Lent is the period of 40 days of fasting and prayer that leads up to Easter. It is a time of preparation for Calvary.

We have three key readings today:

  1. Matthew 6:1-16,16-21. Jesus emphasises that when we do things like giving to the needy, praying and fasting in a way that draws people’s attention to ourselves, our reward for doing it is people’s attention. God is no much impressed. But when we do these things quietly, secretly, then God (who sees what is done in secret) will reward us with treasures that last for eternity.
  2. Psalm 51. In this Psalm, David acknowledges his brokenness and comes before God with empty hands. He does not pretend that he is something when he’s not. And he is honest about his sinfulness. He concludes that God will not despite or reject a broken spirit or a broken and contrite heart.
  3. Isaiah 58:1-12. This passage (titled ‘true fasting’ in the NIV translation) emphasises that our fasting my (1) be wholehearted, not merely a performance or duty, and (2) must be matched with how we live out our faith in deeds of justice, compassion and rightness. When we just go through the motions, God will not answer. But when we are sincere and ‘walk the talk’, and call on God, he will say, “Here am I”.

In light of this, I make four key recommendations for prayer and fasting during Lent:

  1. Turn to God – quietly and privately.
  2. Repent of your sins – sincerely.
  3. Align yourself with God – wholeheartedly.
  4. Act on this alignment – purposefully.

Finally, I recommend a prayerful reading of Psalm 51 (NRSV).

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgement.
5 Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.

6 You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast [fling] me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased.
17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Or listen to Bach’s Cantata based on Psalm 51 (music adapted from Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater)

 

Featured image from https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/ash-wednesday-beginning-lent-5548

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