GLENORCHY AND BRIDGE OF ORCHY
10 am MORNING WORSHIp 27 April 2008
Theme: prayer 'talking with god'
murdoch mackenzie
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Call to Worship: Psalm 46:10 ‘Be still and know that I am God
Hymn 76 (Repton): Dear Lord and Father of Mankind Prayer and Lord’s Prayer Children’s Talk: Candles or what else ? Hymn 488: Jesus bids us shine Old Testament: 1 Samuel 3:1-9 Hymn 123: Hushed was the evening hymn New Testament: Matthew 6:5-15 Hymn 47: New every morning is the love Sermon: Prayer – ‘Talking with God’ Offering Prayer: Intercession Hymn 457: Fill thou our life, O Lord our God Blessing |
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Talking with God Matthew 6:33 ' But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. ' BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD In Psalm 46:10 we read: ' Be still and know that I am God. ' That's where we start in prayer - with stillness and with being. It may be that we have difficulty these days with prayer because we find it difficult to be still. Mother Teresa, though she was a great activist, said: ' Silence leads to prayer, prayer leads to faith, faith leads to love, love leads to service. ' In the 16th century, St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists said: ' Every Christian needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when he (or she) is busy. Then (s)he needs an hour. ' It was Tennyson who said: ' More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. ' Or listen to Mahatma Gandhi: ' Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied it is the most potent instrument of action. ' In 1990 a friend of mine called Priscilla, stayed in an Indian home in Madras. One morning she had to leave at 6 am. Her hostess was there to see her off and hearing Priscilla say: ' O, you shouldn't have got up so early. ' replied: ' I am always up at 4.30 am. How else would I find time to spend an hour in prayer ? That visit changed Priscilla's life and now back in Birmingham she prays every morning having learned that the Psalmist knew a thing or two when he passed on the message: ' Be still and know that I am God.' SPEAK LORD, YOUR SERVANT IS LISTENING When the boy Samuel encountered God in the Temple he said; ' Speak Lord, your servant is listening. ' Too often in our prayers we say the reverse: ' Listen Lord, your servants are speaking. ' Prayer is really a conversation with God which takes place all the time. As human beings we cannot talk about God, as though God somehow wasn't there. We can only talk with God. Thus the most authentic theologies are in the form of prayer, as, for example, The Confessions of St Augustine. We cannot live without God. We can only live with God, the God who is to be loved and obeyed, not ignored and disobeyed. And that obedience begins in silence. As George Bernanos said in The Diary of a Country Priest : ' To wish to pray is a prayer in itself ' and that wish begins in the silence of our own hearts and minds, in the practice of the presence of God. The doubts and problems that people have about prayer in western secular society seem to arise from the scepticism and cynicism expressed in the words of the limerick: |
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There was a young man who said; 'God
must think it exceedingly odd to find that this tree continues to be when there's no-one about in the quad. |
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Such people are those who possibly have never been silent long enough to listen to the words of the reply:
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Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd.
I'm always about in the quad and that's why this tree continues to be since observed by Yours faithfully, God. |
ALL LIFE LIVED AS PRAYER BEFORE GOD
All of life is in the form of prayer because all of life is lived in the presence of God. For Christians, prayer and life are not two separate things. This is illustrated by the well-known Latin tag ' Laborare est orare ' ' Work is prayer. '
Prayer is much more than meditation although that itself is the prelude to prayer. Meditation requires withdrawal from the world, whereas prayer means being thrust out by the Holy Spirit into the world, as we were reminded by Mother Teresa.
It was John Bunyan who said: ' The best prayers have often more groans than words ' thus echoing St Paul who wrote; ' Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. ' Carlo Carretto put it another way in The Desert City : ' Prayer takes place in the heart, not in the head. ' which is similar to Bunyan's : ' When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words be without heart. ' In The Cloud of Unknowing we read: ' God wants us to pray and will tell us how to begin where we are.' St John Chrysostom in the 4th century, one of the four great Greek doctors of the Church, wrote: ' No-one should give the answer that it is impossible for a man occupied with worldly cares to pray always. You can set up an altar to God in your mind by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft.' Afrahat, the first Syriac Father of the Church, said: ' Give rest to the weary, visit the sick, support the poor; for this also is prayer. ' And again it sounds rather like Mother Teresa, doesn't it ?
WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT PRAYER
' But,' you may say: ' This is all very well. We don't just want to hear what other people have said. What did Jesus say ? ' Jesus teaching on prayer is contained partly in The Sermon on the Mount and in some ways it is simple. He says: ' Don't do it at the street corners. Don't make it a religious exercise whereby people will think you are pious and holy. Don't go to the prayer meeting to dominate or to impress other people. Pray not to other people in the group but to God. ' Jesus then says: ' When you pray, go into your own room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. ' One definition of religion is what a person does when she or he is alone. Jesus valued solitude with God, as is evidenced by his regularly going off into a lonely place to pray as in his forty days in the wilderness. Jesus also said that prayers should be short and to the point. He says: ' Do not heap up empty phrases like the gentiles. ' An endless mantra of prayers and choruses is likened by Jesus to what the pagans do to a god needing to be implored but not the kind of prayers to be offered to the living God who knows what we need even before we ask him.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Finally, in response to the request of the disciples: ' Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.' Jesus gives them The Lord's Prayer. The theme of The Lord's Prayer is summed up in our text: ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. ' In other words: ' Be still and know that I am God. ' As with the Ten Commandments, in which the first five are about God and the second five about us, the first half of the Lord's Prayer is all about God - 'hallowed be THY name', 'THY kingdom come', 'THY will be done, and only then does it say: ' give US our daily bread ' , ' forgive US OUR debts as WE forgive OUR debtors ', ' lead US not into temptation but deliver US from evil '. Not only did Jesus teach the prayer, he lived the prayer. His whole life was about seeking to do God's will on earth, even in Gethsemane: 'Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. ' Daily he was feeding the hungry, forgiving the sinner, resisting temptation. His prayer was his life and his life was his prayer.
PRAY WITH YOUR EYES OPEN
And so it can be for us. Try keeping time for silence which can lead to prayer, to faith, to love and to service. Don't keep prayer as an add-on, an extra to life. Allow it to be life itself. Corrie Ten Boom once asked: ' Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tyre? ' Surely, it's meant to be the steering wheel, a continual conversation with God, as you visit a friend or neighbour, as you seek to call a minister, as you send the children to school, drive the car, or cook the lunch, turn on the computer, or prepare the sermon !
Finally, pray with your eyes open. Just look at the world around you, the rising sun, the waning moon, the autumn leaves, the lichen on the rocks, the television screen, the bank statement, the death notice, the bus time-table, the steepness of the brae, the five-pound note, the cup of water, the hazel-nut in your palm, , the OXFAM poster, the birds of the air - and pray in the presence of the living God who cares about all these things. Use your Bible, a Psalm, a candle, use pictures, a liturgy or a prayer book, make a list of relatives and friends, of neighbours and church members, of the sick, the dying and the bereaved. Pray at meal-times, pray on doorsteps, in supermarkets, in country lanes, at bus stops, in busy traffic and in bed. Pray without ceasing. Practice the presence of God. Wherever we are let us practice the presence of God , seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness - because that is prayer - and then we will find that not only Glenorchy and Bridge of Orchy - but the whole world and everything else will be ours as well.
And to God's Name be the praise and the glory.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie
All of life is in the form of prayer because all of life is lived in the presence of God. For Christians, prayer and life are not two separate things. This is illustrated by the well-known Latin tag ' Laborare est orare ' ' Work is prayer. '
Prayer is much more than meditation although that itself is the prelude to prayer. Meditation requires withdrawal from the world, whereas prayer means being thrust out by the Holy Spirit into the world, as we were reminded by Mother Teresa.
It was John Bunyan who said: ' The best prayers have often more groans than words ' thus echoing St Paul who wrote; ' Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. ' Carlo Carretto put it another way in The Desert City : ' Prayer takes place in the heart, not in the head. ' which is similar to Bunyan's : ' When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words be without heart. ' In The Cloud of Unknowing we read: ' God wants us to pray and will tell us how to begin where we are.' St John Chrysostom in the 4th century, one of the four great Greek doctors of the Church, wrote: ' No-one should give the answer that it is impossible for a man occupied with worldly cares to pray always. You can set up an altar to God in your mind by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft.' Afrahat, the first Syriac Father of the Church, said: ' Give rest to the weary, visit the sick, support the poor; for this also is prayer. ' And again it sounds rather like Mother Teresa, doesn't it ?
WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT PRAYER
' But,' you may say: ' This is all very well. We don't just want to hear what other people have said. What did Jesus say ? ' Jesus teaching on prayer is contained partly in The Sermon on the Mount and in some ways it is simple. He says: ' Don't do it at the street corners. Don't make it a religious exercise whereby people will think you are pious and holy. Don't go to the prayer meeting to dominate or to impress other people. Pray not to other people in the group but to God. ' Jesus then says: ' When you pray, go into your own room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. ' One definition of religion is what a person does when she or he is alone. Jesus valued solitude with God, as is evidenced by his regularly going off into a lonely place to pray as in his forty days in the wilderness. Jesus also said that prayers should be short and to the point. He says: ' Do not heap up empty phrases like the gentiles. ' An endless mantra of prayers and choruses is likened by Jesus to what the pagans do to a god needing to be implored but not the kind of prayers to be offered to the living God who knows what we need even before we ask him.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Finally, in response to the request of the disciples: ' Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.' Jesus gives them The Lord's Prayer. The theme of The Lord's Prayer is summed up in our text: ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. ' In other words: ' Be still and know that I am God. ' As with the Ten Commandments, in which the first five are about God and the second five about us, the first half of the Lord's Prayer is all about God - 'hallowed be THY name', 'THY kingdom come', 'THY will be done, and only then does it say: ' give US our daily bread ' , ' forgive US OUR debts as WE forgive OUR debtors ', ' lead US not into temptation but deliver US from evil '. Not only did Jesus teach the prayer, he lived the prayer. His whole life was about seeking to do God's will on earth, even in Gethsemane: 'Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. ' Daily he was feeding the hungry, forgiving the sinner, resisting temptation. His prayer was his life and his life was his prayer.
PRAY WITH YOUR EYES OPEN
And so it can be for us. Try keeping time for silence which can lead to prayer, to faith, to love and to service. Don't keep prayer as an add-on, an extra to life. Allow it to be life itself. Corrie Ten Boom once asked: ' Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tyre? ' Surely, it's meant to be the steering wheel, a continual conversation with God, as you visit a friend or neighbour, as you seek to call a minister, as you send the children to school, drive the car, or cook the lunch, turn on the computer, or prepare the sermon !
Finally, pray with your eyes open. Just look at the world around you, the rising sun, the waning moon, the autumn leaves, the lichen on the rocks, the television screen, the bank statement, the death notice, the bus time-table, the steepness of the brae, the five-pound note, the cup of water, the hazel-nut in your palm, , the OXFAM poster, the birds of the air - and pray in the presence of the living God who cares about all these things. Use your Bible, a Psalm, a candle, use pictures, a liturgy or a prayer book, make a list of relatives and friends, of neighbours and church members, of the sick, the dying and the bereaved. Pray at meal-times, pray on doorsteps, in supermarkets, in country lanes, at bus stops, in busy traffic and in bed. Pray without ceasing. Practice the presence of God. Wherever we are let us practice the presence of God , seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness - because that is prayer - and then we will find that not only Glenorchy and Bridge of Orchy - but the whole world and everything else will be ours as well.
And to God's Name be the praise and the glory.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie
