Morning Worship on the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Times
This is the sermon for the Morning worship on the 24th of July 2022.
The seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time and our preacher was James Strong.
James Strong is a member of All Saints PCC, Synod rep and is discerning if God is calling him to train for Priesthood.
The readings for the lectionary that week were:
Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
Through Christ we are a new creation, people who can approach you through our prayer and praise.
May the meditations of my heart draw us closer to you.
Amen
The Lord's prayer is said in churches across the globe each Sunday, said privately or collectively in Daily Prayer, and used more widely as part of people’s prayer lives in all manner of ways.
It is wonderful to have this prayer that unites us across all denominations and creeds, a prayer that has formed the base of what our prayer lives look like, an exemplar which we can hold to in trying times and a liminal space for us to enter into prayer from.
Although the Lord's Prayer in Luke is a traditional Jewish petitioning prayer, in that it is a list of things we ask God for or to do, it contains within it the four types of prayer we often refer to. Those namely, confession (saying sorry), praise (worship), thanksgiving (as it is on the tin), and petition (asking God to do something for us, to intercede).
And alongside these four ‘types’ of prayer there are innumerate ‘methods’, silently praying alone, singing, writing in a book, mantra prayer, meditation, praying the rosary, painting, reading the prayers of others and making them our own, poetry, Lectio and Sensio divinas, the list goes on and on.
Just as each person’s relationship with God is unique, so are our prayer lives, we each have our preferred methods of praying, which will, most likely, have shifted and changed over time.
As with our relationships with God, our prayer lives will ebb and flow, what was working once will no longer, what used to give us joy and a sense of God will feel dry and distancing, and something that never helped us to encounter God will suddenly bring us closer to God than we have ever experienced.
I have recently started sporadically praying Morning Prayer before work, I open up the window and have a time of quiet with God before I start my day. Growing up in a free church, praying someone else’s words was quite alien to me when I joined the Anglicans, but I have found they are working for me, giving me the space and handrail to settle my mind and open myself to God. I urge you to think about whether it is time to try something new in your personal rhythms of prayer.
There is an affirmation in our Colossians reading which describes how, due to the presence of Chris within us, we do not need to follow prescribed methods of prayer or ways of encountering God. We look to grow with a growth from God, and that is all that matters.
As I pondered this sermon and arrived at this point, I stepped back and thought, but what is prayer? After a bit of reading and pondering, the shortest sentence answer I could find is that prayer is us deepening our understanding of God through an encounter with the divine.
Our prayer starts with us encountering God.
So where can we encounter God? What/where are our touch points?
We believe in an incarnate God, a God who was there in the beginning, a Christ who through whom all things were made, is made, will be made. A God who took on flesh and was born amongst humanity, just like us.
Whenever I hear that God is present with us in creation, I immediately think back to this lovely bit of silver birch woodland in the Peak District where I often went walking as a child. It is a quiet place, a place where it is easy to stop for a while and feel connected to the complex, beautiful ecosystem around you. To feel part of a balanced, interdependent web of distinct personalities. It is easy to feel close to the triune God. It is a thin place, where our world and the next are close.
But God isn’t only in the wildernesses of the world or the quiet places. God is all around us, in everything. God is in this place, God is in our homes, and God is in the people around us.
Although many of us find it easier to encounter God in the quiet moments and places of the world, that is only because there are fewer distractions, please don’t all take yourselves off to a forest and pray if that is not what works for you! Touch points are everywhere, we just need to know where and how to look and be in the right place to meet God when we get there.
And how do we recognise these touchpoints? – what I think is a much more key question considering God is all around us, in us and everything!
In Rowan Williams’ book Being Christian, he summarises an early father’s view on the ‘three-step plan to learning to pray, rather than paraphrase I will read you the short passage from the book about Origen’s pattern.
‘Out of all this that begins to emerge a model that becomes very popular in the early church, a threefold pattern of learning to pray. You start with the practical in quotes life: learning ordinary self-awareness, the common sense of the Christian life, recognising when you are being selfish and stupid, and acting instead with an increasing degree of generosity. You move on from that to the freedom to see God in the world around you. When you've got your ego and all its fussiness a little bit in its place, then actually you see more; The world is more real and more beautiful. You see order and pattern in it, and your heart and your imagination expand into let last you arrive in third level, and what Origen rather unpromisingly cause theology and quotes (by which he does not mean a degree in register these!). The intensity and clarity of what you see in the world around you trigger the sort of quote leap in the dark - or rather into the light - and into God. Your vision is clarified; your actions had gradually disciplined; the divine life slowly transforms you; and, to use one of the best expressions that Origen comes up with, we move into a condition where “the whole of our life says, Our Father”.’
Therefore, the key element to prayer is preparing our hearts, minds, and souls in preparation to meet God. Similarly, how we pray, and how we undertake that journey will be unique to each of us and deeply personal. I would hazard a guess that the methods we employ will be quite similar and a good place to start!
In a busy, noisy, and chaotic world, creating peace and stability within ourselves to open our souls to God and the world around us is very very difficult. I am dreadful for it. just having the space to think about how to find the space is difficult. And even then, few people experience God in a ‘physical way’, few of us hear that heavenly voice or the touch of a hand. Many of us will feel discouraged when a new practice doesn’t bear fruit straight away.
I confess, that I am yet to deeply encounter God through my private rhythm of prayer, I am still journeying and discerning my spiritual discipline. This is a long journey but it is well worth the effort.
Touching the divine through prayer has a twofold impact on us.
We will both gain a deeper understanding of God and will also become more Christlike/more in tune with the trinity.
Whenever we spend a lot of time with someone, we pick up their mannerisms, their accent, and their habits.
It is the same with God. We follow a God who is love, and spending time with God will help us become more loving. If we follow a God who is patient, we will become more patient by spending time with God. Opening ourselves to God through prayer makes the space for God to work in us.
It will also create the space for God to work through us. One of the touch points that is often found is at the death bed, or the place of suffering. Being open to God in those moments and situations allows God to bring love, and comfort to those people.
A final encouragement, as we read in the second part of our gospel reading, if we approach God, God will answer, God is the friend at midnight who will always be there. When we reach out to God in prayer, God will be there to meet us.
Living God,
Who is incarnate in all things, thank you that we can encounter you in everything.
Help us to reach the point where we can see and encounter you in our contexts and lives.
Help us to deepen our understanding of you.
Help us to open our souls so you can work in and through us to further your kingdom.
Amen