Monday
Morning in the Preacher’s Study
First
thoughts about next Sunday’s sermon
(10th Sunday
after Pentecost, July 28, 2013)
Maylanne Maybee
In the Gospel readings of the
last two Sundays, Jesus’ disciples had been given fresh insight into the law of
loving neighbour and God. Now, they
observe Jesus’ intimate communion with God as he sets his face to Jerusalem and
prepares to walk a dangerous and uncertain path. Just as Mary had sat attentively at the feet
of Jesus, so now Jesus himself sits attentively in prayer at the feet of his
Abba.
“Lord, teach us to pray,” they
ask, as John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray.
And so Jesus teaches them a
prayer—a good rabbinic prayer that draws from familiar passages of scripture
and selected quotations from the Psalms, knit together in an integrated picture
of God’s responsibility toward us and ours toward God: God is as near to us as
a father is to his child; God’s name is sacred; God’s kingdom is at hand; God
gives us enough bread for each day. We
in turn ask for that bread; we ask for forgiveness of sins, for the will to be
generous to those indebted to us; we ask for wellbeing and safety.
As a deacon, I prepare
intercessions Sunday by Sunday, inviting God’s people to ask for these very
things: for the necessities of life, for relations to be made right with those
we have wronged and who have wronged us, for a restoration of what has been
borrowed or taken, for healing and safety.
The asking is as much an expression of our relationship with God, a
relationship of trust and vulnerability and gratitude, as it is of our needs
and wants and desires.
If I were preaching on these
readings, I would choose to dwell on the verses that follow Luke’s version of
“The Lord’s Prayer”, and what they say about being in a trusting relationship
with God. I would choose to reflect on
the cost and paradox of authentic prayer, on what it means to receive and live
out what we ask for, starting with Jesus’ own example.
For the depth and cost and
paradox of Jesus’ teaching about prayer come to light in the events and stories
in Luke that lead up to his entry in Jerusalem, his trial and crucifixion.
We learn that God’s kingdom
comes like a mustard seed or a lump of yeast.
We learn that the door will be closed to many who seek entry. We learn that seeking is like going after a lost
sheep or looking high and low for a lost coin; it means that fellow heirs to
the kingdom might not be among friends or family, but “in the streets and the
lanes where you will find the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.”
“Save us from the time of
trial,” says the Teacher. “Ask, and it
shall be given.” Yet when Jesus reaches
Gethsemane and asks for the cup of suffering to be removed, what he asks for is
not granted. There is indeed cost and
paradox to prayer.
If I were preaching, I might
also try to link these reflections on prayer with the lessons of Hosea or Colossians,
by studying what each has to say about who God is and what God commands.
In the Hebrew scripture, we
read how Hosea takes a life lesson from his wife Gomer and the children she
bears. The prophetic message he
proclaims is about the limits of what God can offer to a people who refuse to
be loyal. Yet taken in reverse, we learn
that the God to whom we pray is a God who is grounded and fruitful (Jezreel), a
God of maternal compassion (Ruhamah), a God of fierce love for God’s own people
(Ammi).
In the epistle to the
Colossians, we read how baptism immerses us into the life and death of Christ,
in whom God makes us fully alive through the strong gift of forgiveness, a
nonviolent response to evil, and the disarmament of the oppressive rules and
authorities of this world.
“Your kingdom come.”
Maylanne Maybee, a member of APLM Council, is an Anglican deacon serving
in the Diocese of Rupert’s Land. She is Principal of the Centre for
Christian Studies, a national theological school based in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada, that prepares women and men for ministry in the diaconal tradition of
the Anglican and United Churches.
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