| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
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| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
2-8 October
Matthew 21: 33-46 (Sermon 2: “The Delusion of Ownership’)
Philippians 3: 4b-14
Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20 (Sermon 1: “Are the Ten Commandments
Just for the Elderly?”)
Psalm 19
ENTRY INTO
WORSHIP
God says:
I am the Holy One, your God,
who has
rescued you from living in bondage.
You shall have no other Gods besides
me.
Jesus says:
The very stone that the builders rejected
has now
become the corner stone.
This is our God’s doing
and it is
marvellous in our eyes.
OR
The heavens declare the glory of God,
the Milky Way reveals God’s handiwork.
Yet I would mark all
things down as a loss,
compared to knowing the perfection
of Christ Jesus my lord.
The stone which builders once rejected
has now become the corner stone.
This is God’s own
doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes.
Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart:
Be acceptable in your
sight,
O God, my strength and
my Redeemer.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
Holy, holy, holy are you most
beautiful and mysterious God.
Holy, holy, holy are you, Christ
Jesus, the very radiance of God.
Holy, holy, holy are you, True
Spirit, the joy that lives in our hearts.
God our Friend, please do not
allow familiarity to dull our awareness of your unspeakable love. May worship
be the holiest aspiring and the dearest pleasure of our souls.
In the name of
Christ our Lord.
Amen!
CONFESSION.
LITANY FOR DELIVERANCE
THEME: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Save your people, God of truth and mercy,
from the chaos of divided loyalties
and the worship of many gods;
Save
us, God of truth and mercy.
From making God in our own likeness
and the slavery of self-centredness;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
From using God’s name trivially
and claiming him for our prejudices;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
From neglecting sabbatical quiet times
and being obsessed with busyness;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
From ignoring or despising the elderly
and over-indulging the new generation;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
From glorifying armaments and war
and wishing our enemies dead;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
From watering-down love and marriage
and the exploitation of sex;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
From the legal robberies of the stock exchange,
and the cunning thefts of tax evasion;
Save
us, God of truth and mercy.
From TV programmes that twist the facts,
and cruel gossip in supermarkets;
Save
us, God of truth and mercy.
From those who preach greed as a virtue
and possession-lust which is never satisfied;
Save us, God of truth and mercy.
O Jesus Christ, Saviour of all who lose their way,
O Healing Spirit, Power who renews the world;
We
need you, God of truth and mercy! Amen!
From
“Prayers For the Twenty-First Century” page 124.
©
Bruce Prewer and Open Book Publishers:
PRAYER FOR
CHILDREN
Loving God,
I wish I could be brave
like the Lord Jesus.
He stood up against baddies
and told them the truth
even though it got him
into big trouble.
But I am a chicken;
when I see a kids being bullying,
or doing other bad things,
I often just keep quiet
and say nothing.
I hope that’s not
how it’s always going to be?
As my body and mind grow,
can you make my courage
grow big also?
It would be cool
if you could?
Amen!
PSALM 19
The Southern Cross signals God’s glory;
the Milky Way gleams with holy handiwork.
Every new day tells a divine story;
at night-time God’s skills are displayed.
All nations and tongues know this language,
the message which saturates our planet.
See “Australian Psalms”
revised. P 26-27
© Open Book Publishers and Bruce Prewer 1998
TENANTS AND STEWARDS
Matthew 21: 33-46
A besetting sin
of stewards
or trustees
is that they begin
to think the place is theirs.
Most caretakers seem
meek when they first
take up the post,
but in a short time
all humility is lost.
Likewise the trustees
of a church
or public hall
soon start to put on airs
and think they own it all.
Unhappy the house
where tenants
call the tune,
they soon resent the owner
and treat it as their own.
They scheme and plot
to retain tight
their stranglehold.
Some would even kill God
to keep their stolen world.
;
© B.D. Prewer 1995
COLLECT
Gracious God, our Holy Friend,
remind us each morning that we are trustees of everything we have. Remind us
each evening of the love that can both bless the day’s achievements and forgive
the misuse of your gifts. In success or failure, may we honour you by the
cheerful way we accept your discipline and praise you by the loving way we
trust your commandments. Through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen!
SERMON 1: THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS?
Genesis 20: 1-17
The Ten Commandments? What do we make of them?
Somewhere I heard a 1950’s story about an old tribal elder in the highlands of New Guinea. A missionary, who happened to be very strong on the Old Testament law, and maybe not so keen on New Testament love, had tried to convert this old man to Christianity. A number of times he had recited the Ten Commandments to the wizened elder. But the fellow remained unconvinced.
Then on one visit the Elder said to the missionary: “You say if me come-get christianfella, I no longa stealem yams from neighbourfella. I no take neighbourfella pig or woman. I no cheat when makem deal, I no hide in bush and kill enemyfella he come by?”
The missionary nodded: “Yes that’s right. You cannot do those bad things.”
“Ayeehah! Ayeehah” wailed the old man. I no more do them bisness. I big old. No strongfella. No more can do them stuff. To be christianfella likem old-old; they same sorryfella. Ayeehah!”
It’s a good yarn and highlights the danger of allowing one’s Christianity to be submerged by the Old Testament law. It is a grave distortion when law takes primacy over love.
Does this mean that the Ten Commandments are no longer important? (Except maybe for the ederly?!) Would we do better to forget about them and concentrate on the New Testament?
“No way!” is my response! Like the ethical preaching of the great prophets, the Ten C’s have much to offer. I have four points to make on their value and place within Christianity.
1. AN ETHICAL GOD
The first thing that the Ten C’s point us towards is an ethical God. a God who is most concerned about the way we treat one another. A God who calls us to a high code of dealing with each other. Even the validity or otherwise of how we worship God is correlated with how we treat our fellow human beings.
At the time when Moses introduced this ethical concept, it was a revolutionary idea. Most gods had little ethical content. What those gods demanded were certain rituals, sacrifices, and festivals, and observance of taboos. Different gods had different requirements. If you were to keep in the good books of the gods, you had to be both wily and quick footed. What pleased one might make another one angry. Pleasing or placating the gods was a demanding exercise; often a balancing act.
In a real sense, life was chaotic because of the whims and fancies of the gods. There was no ultimate sense of right and wrong. It varied depending on which god’s territory you happened to be on, or with which god’s holy day you were in.
Into this religious confusion came Moses with his revolutionary message that there was only one God in heaven and earth to whom we were responsible. Moreover, the chief demand of this one God was an elevated moral conduct. Out of the chaos came the radical worship of one God who was most concerned with how we treated wife and parent, friend and neighbour, alien immigrant and slave, servant and even our enemy.
I am the Lord your God; you shall have no
other gods beside me.
You shall not make idols out of
anything.
You shall no use my name lightly.
Observe a day of rest-- and that
includes your servants and slaves.
Honour your father and mother.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not tell lies about another
person.
Do not last after any possession
your neighbour has.
Later the prophet Micah was to sum up the true worship of this ethical One-God:
What does the Lord require of you,
except to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God
2. COMMANDMENTS ARE FOR HUMAN HAPPINESS.
The second this we need to understand about the Ten C’s is that they were for our happiness. They are intended to give us a good quality of life.
They were not, as many have feared, an arbitrary burden laid on human shoulders. No at all! They are meant to lighten the load on our shoulders. They are a blessing not a leaden duty.
These Ten C’s direct us towards a higher level of happiness in community life. They are intended to help us get on together and to be fulfilled. I must stress this! They are concerned with the maximum good of all, not for ego-trips of a few powerful individuals who want to do things their way no matter how many other lives they trample on. The ethical equivalents of post-modern individualism, ethical relativism, rampant selfishness, were banned. The commandments are for the blessing of life in community.
As Jesus was later the express it: The commandments are made
for man, not man for the commandments.
A community that honours and cares for the elderly, is less anxious and happier than one that despises old age.
A community that takes a day off from work to enjoy God’s creation is healthier than one built on unceasing labour.
A community where individuals do not steal or kill is a relaxed place in which to live.
A community that is not built on lies and deceit is a secure environment.
A community that puts store on fidelity in marriage and raises children in security is one that fosters the well being of all.
Much of the unhappiness we see around us today is the inevitable result of losing a once-honoured ethical framework. When common ethical standards are tossed out, misery comes in.
3: JESUS AND THE COMMANDMENTS.
How does this relate to our lives as Christians? As followers of Jesus, do the Ten C’s have an absolute claim over us?
I would have to say no. Jesus came not to enforce the law but to fulfil it.
Many devoted Jews in strictly observing the law with admiral zeal, also revealed the serious limitations of law. Zealous observance spawned more and more laws to cover changing circumstances. By the time of Jesus there were an additional 5,000 regulations to be observed. Yet at the same time the cunning worked hard at finding ways to get around the laws; keeping them by the letter but denying its spirit.
Jesus on occasions seems to have broken the religious law. Jesus was not a legalist. When the law came between him and helping other people, he appears to break it. For example, he defended the right of his hungry disciples to reap and eat some heads of barely on the Sabbath.
To be accurate one must say that Jesus went beyond the law. What I have called breaking the law was in fact going to the heart of the matter and fulfilling it. That is why he asked his disciples to exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Best known of all is his summary of the essence that lies behind the OT commandments. Love God and love others as you love yourself; this is the fulfilment of the ethics of both Moses and the prophets. Love becomes the litmus test.
Some critics think that this is too permissive. They miss the point. Far from being permissive, to live by love leaves no loopholes at all through which the cunning can extricate themselves from morality. All situations are subject to Christ’s test of love.
4 WHAT THEN IS THE USE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?
The Ten Commandments re not for old men who no longer have the energy to do bad things.
The Ten Commandments remain a brilliant practical guide for people in the full vigour of life. They guide us to discern what it means to be a loving person. Without a practical guide, love can be turned into some abstract notion or into some sentimental mush.
The Ten C’s anchor things in real life. To me they are like guide posts along the side of a highway. It is wise to drive within those guideposts. Drive outside them and you may soon hurt yourself and others.
However, there may be exceptional circumstances when to be truly loving, you may need to go beyond the guideposts. For example, there may be times when for love’s sake you must tell a lie: for instance, if a psycho-path with a gun in his hand asks where my son is, I am not likely to tell him the truth. Or if you are a prisoner of war, watching a mate die, and have the chance to steal some antibiotics from the guard house. These are the exceptions when love overrides the Ten C’s.
But for most of us, most of the time, the truly loving course to take will be the way of the Ten Commandments. They are a very practical guide for loving in a complex world. They were given for a benefit, not burden. They are a blessing from a most loving God.
MOTIVATION?
In all this, one’s own motivation becomes extremely important. Do we humbly seek to follow the high ethical ground out of love or out of fear?
Far too often the law of the Bible has been observed out of fear. People have kept the Ten C’s because they feared divine retribution if they didn’t. They have kept the law like an oppressed people living under the iron heal of a dictator.
I must admit that fear is a powerful emotion. It will usually achieve quicker results than love. An orator who preaches a fierce divine judgement on law breakers, who elaborates on terrible punishments and damnation, will gain a powerful influence over some. Such preachers gather around them fanatical converts who work for the cause like slaves. But fear does not change the heart, it does not give liberty and joy. Fear is not the Gospel of Jesus.
Love changes people. It changes our motivation. To have love awakened within us by God’s most beautiful love in Christ Jesus, is to find a resource that bubbles up like a limitless spring. It reshapes the way we think, it changes the things we want, and it alters how we see one another, and transforms how we treat each other. Love may be slower than fear, but it is a liberating power that is inexhaustible.
Out of love, in true liberty, we can delight in the commandments and follow their guidance for the well being of those around us and for the fulfilment of our own happiness.
SERMON 2: THE
DELUSION OF OWNERSHIP
Matthew 21:33-43
My aim in this sermon is to encourage you to recognise the delusion ownership. Whether or not you find encouragement, may well depend on how much a slave you have become to the delusion. Delusions don’t often yield easily to a dose of reality.
Let me commence with this statement: This world, and everything in it, is meant to be one, glorious unity. When we know our own place within that unity, we are a blessing to the earth. When we refuse to accept our place, become a curse on the earth.
THE PARABLE FOR TODAY
Jesus told a parable about a vineyard, the tenants, the owner and his only son. I summarise.
A man planted a new vineyard. He planted a hedge around it to protect thew vines form fierce winds. He constructed a wine press and a storage tower. Once it was established he put it in the care of agents (perhaps more like what we call “share farmers”) to tend the vineyard pick the crop, crush the grapes and bottle the wine. Then they were to pay the agreed percentage of profit due to him.
It was all a perfectly reasonable expectation.
But the tenants became big-headed, and they started to act as if they were the true owners. They fell into the delusion that it all belonged to them now. When the owner sent servants to collect his dues, they beat them up, and stoned them. The owner tried again, with the same deplorable result.
So the owner had to take more drastic measures. He sent his only son, saying: “Surely they will respectfully deal with my son.” But those tenants, mad in their delusion of ownership, seized and killed the son.
The parable ends with the destruction of those deluded tenants, and the vineyard being Handed into the care of other stewards.
In Matthew this parable of Jesus is aimed at the religious leaders in Jerusalem. They had become deluded about their own importance in the scheme of things. The reckoned they owned the religion of Abraham and Moses, not God. They would even kill God’s only Son. Therefore they would face destruction (as in the fall and devastation of 70 AD) and the sacred mission for the healing of the world would be handed over to the followers of Jesus. They would be the new Israel, stewards of the light and love of God.
If that remains what it means to us today, then it is apposite. We have a mission to fulfil. Yet we do not own either the church or the mission; God alone is the owner; we have to give account of our stewardship. Delusions of ownership will only lead us into a new destructive schemes.
WHAT ELSE MIGHT THIS PARABLE SAY TO US?
But maybe there is more to be said?
Parables have a way of speaking to different generations in different ways. IN this age the parable can speak to us all about the issue of our place in the environment. The bottom line of the parable is clear: God is the owner who has built up this world from nothing. There is no other owner. It belongs solely to God. We are only like tenants, or share farmers, or stewards within this vulnerable creation. Note that word “within.” We are not above the creation, or beyond it like gods. Ours is a lowly but most important position; a part of it, serving within this complex and beautiful scheme of things.
Whenever we forget our significant yet lowly position, we are in trouble and so is the vineyard. If we puff ourselves up and get sucked in to the delusion that we are masters of this world, then we become a destructive force. No longer are we a blessing but a blight on the
the earth.
Once deluded, we will exploit the vineyard without thought of God or the future. WE will despise God’s prophets who come as messengers to warn us, and if push came to shove, we would do away with the very Son of God is he came among us today. In fact, we do get rid of him, not physically but spiritually. Those with an ownership delusion no not wan to have anything to do with the unsettling, confronting Son of God.
By rebelling against God’s claim on them, the tenants chose the way of destruction. When they become murderers of God they also destroy themselves in the process. Should we reject or abuse the holy Source of all unity and fruitfulness, we bring disaster on ourselves and on those around us.
So you see, this parable becomes very much our story. The story of the world as we know it today. Wanting to possess, wanting to dominate, wanting to exploit for immediate and maximum profit, we embrace the delusion of thinking we are god, and that we have the right whatever we want without fatal consequences.. The curse of the parable falls on us.
NOT AVOIDING RESPONSIBILITY
What I am trying to express is not that we should devolve ourselves of responsibility. We are not throw up our hands in despair and leave it all to God. The tenant or steward does continue to have the responsibility to make decisions, plan for the future, and to try and produce the best vintage that this earth can provide
Riding on a Melbourne tram I saw one of those mini-sermons which some churches display on their notice boards. It read, “Divine power cannot work until human power stops working.” I chewed that over and rejected it. It regarded it as faithless. We cannot throw down tools and leave it all to God. We have unique opportunities as God’s stewards. We are chosen and called for this role. Kangaroos were not chosen, nor chimpanzees, nor the great whales.
We are placed here as the tenants, the privileged share farmers, the stewards of God. Not to dominate the earth but to cherish and care for it.
Therefore we must use all the discipline and insights of modern science, all the appropriate technology which we have at our disposal, in order to better understand and more carefully care for our precious environment and its fruits.
REPENTANCE IS IN ORDER
The world is not ours but God’s. Perhaps the delusion of human ownership will only be dislodged by repentance. But that radical about-turn is costly to human pride. Repentance hurts. One English preacher in middle of the last century (D.R. Davies) likened repentance to be skinned alive before healing could come.
Am I preaching to the converted? Maybe, maybe not.
All of us here (and I meant “all”) have been at least partially brainwashed by the ownership lie. All too frequently we live by the delusion rather than by the reality as revealed by the Galilean Teller of Parables. Our conversion should and must be a continuos process. The more we let both the word and the spirit of Jesus into our thinking, feeling, planning and working, the more we will find ourselves on the path to healing and at the same time bring some healing to a torn and sorry creation.
This is a most beautiful, yet fragile, vineyard in which we live our days. And there is a remarkable owner who comes among us with amazing love. This transforming love is free for all who turn to this blessed and holy One in faith and love.
THANKSGIVING
Most loving God,
thank you for giving us life along with all the creatures that fly and swim and
crawl and walk. You have elected
humanity to rise even higher; you have shaped the human soul in your own
likeness, and given us the responsibility of being your stewards on earth. You
have entrusted us to care for the weak, bring order out of chaos, and create
new possibilities.
When we became too full of
ourselves and started to act with careless arrogance, you came after us. You
called out to us through Moses and the prophets, and enlightened us through the
seers and poets. Yet still we wandered.
You pursued us down the centuries
and when time was ripe, you came among us in Christ Jesus your holy Child. In
him we have received the costly treasure of the Gospel. By his love we are born
into the family of your church, and made heirs of eternal life.
By your Spirit you are with us
always; the Friend sharing our happiness, the Comforter in our pain and grief,
the Encourager when weary or depressed, and the agent of new birth when we
become deadened by our trespasses and sin.
Most generous God, most holy
Friend, our hearts sing with gratitude for the blessings that extend through
every hour. May we sing a love song to you each morning,
and in the evening sleep peacefully with the light touch of your hand upon our
shoulder. You are our health and happiness, the perfection that outshines our
thanksgiving as the sun outshines a candle. May you live among loving hearts
for ever and ever. Through Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
PRAYERS
FOR OTHERS
Holy Friend, health of the sick, comfort of the sad, rebuke of the oppressor,
judge of the greedy, hope of the repentant, friend of the downtrodden;
in prayer we lift up to you this world with its outrageous injustices
yet also its outpouring of human kindness from ordinary people.
Loving God, let your blessing be upon those
who serve their neighbours without thought of reward,
who forgive their enemies seventy times seven,
who care for broken strangers as if they were dearest friends,
who weep with the bereaved as if they were sisters,
who heal the diseased not counting the risk to themselves
Let your blessing encourage those
who work for peace when the only result seems to be more violence,
who preach and live the Gospel in the face of persecution,
who feed the hungry although their efforts get misinterpreted,
who stand up for the downtrodden in spite of public scorn,
and who maintain the church when those around belittle it.
Holy Friend,
please
reach out your hand over each of us gathered here now,
that our faith may be enlarged and fortified,
our vision
enlightened and extended,
and our
compassion refreshed and widened.
Through Jesus of Nazareth,
whose love was good enough for the simple,
too much for the proud and powerful,
and absolutely amazing for all who shared his cup.
Amen!
THE SENDING OUT
What does the Lord require of you,
except to do justice,
and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.
Love mercy and peace,
from God the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit,
will
be with you now
and evermore.
Amen!
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