| 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. |
YEAR C, 2ND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
John 1: 1-18.
(
Sermon 1:” The Embodied Word”)
Ephesians 1:3-14 (Sermon
2: “The Richest Person on Earth”)
Jeremiah 31: 7-14
Psalm 147: 12-20
CALL TO WORSHIP
Words are often cheap;
but not Christ, the living Word
of God.
This Word is infinitely valuable,
it is worth far more than the
whole universe!
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
And also with you.
OR—
The joy of the Lord, the very Word of God
as one of us, be with you all.
And also with you.
In the beginning the Word already was,
and the Word was with God and
the Word was God.
And the Word
became human flesh,
and lived among us, full of
grace and truth.
Hallelujah!
ADORATION
Let us
pray.
In the beginning , you God,
just you; the Source and End of all things.
You are the Mystery we cannot penetrate,
the Power we cannot manipulate,
the Love we cannot measure.
In the beginning
just you,. God: The mind-blowing, awesome, loving
Author of all.
We bow in awe
and adore you.
Yet you have spoken one ultimate, living Word to
planet earth.
In Mary’s Child you become embodied, and have
revealed yourself
to the poor and the meek, the
foolish and the weak.
In Christ
Jesus, your invaluable Word has come among us, and we have seen his glory.
We bow in awe
and adore you.
God the holy Love-Mystery,
we adore you.
Christ Jesus, the Divine Word who became human
flesh,
we adore you.
Holy Spirit, Light which can never be smothered,
we adore you.
You were and are and ever shall be, life and love
and joy without end!
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Let us repent, not only our evil deeds, but also our
foolish words, and seek the mercy of the Living Word. Let us pray.
For covering our ignorance with slick speeches and
whitewashing our sins with the sick chatter of self justification, forgive and
save us.
Forgive and
save us, holy Friend.
For rushing in with prattle when silence and awe are
the only appropriate responses to your Living Word, forgive and save us.
Forgive and
save us, holy Friend.
For trying to cramp your Word within the cages of
our many denominational biases or theological fashions, forgive and save us.
Forgive and save
us, holy Friend.
Most holy God, we can fool others sometimes, we can
fool ourselves often, but we can never fool you. There is not a word on our
tongue or a thought in our head, but you know it altogether. Please pity our
foolish stunts and correct us, pity our wilful sinfulness and redeem us.
Confront us with your incarnate Word: Surround us with it, capture us with it,
enthral us with it, wrap us up in it and reshape our lives by it. In the name
of Christ Jesus, we pray you.
Amen!
ASSURANCE
It is written: “To as many as receive Christ Jesus,
he gives the authority and the power to become children of God.”
Trust him, and you will receive pardon and a new
beginning.
Thanks be to God!
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
(A ‘dialect’ prayer).
Dear God, I ‘ope yoos lisnin,
‘cos
I got sumpin ‘portant to
tell yer:
Not all the guys ‘round ‘ere are smart ‘nuff to luv yer.
Sum of ‘em
luv only ‘emselves.
Sum not even that.
That makes it ‘ard fer us to luv ‘em.
Y’ know?
Please ‘elp ‘em to get smart and luv yer,
and ‘elp
kids like me to be more luvin to ‘em.
Like Jesus wos.
Y’ know?
Amen!
PSALM 147:
12-20
Note: It feels strange reading this
Psalm about winter in the mountains
at
a time when Australia is sweltering in summer. Therefore I have repeated
the
second and third sections in our context; see the bold print below.
Praise God, everyone!
Hallelujah!
We praise you, Lord of the eternal city of peace!
We praise you, God of the church universal!
For it is you who strengthens our gates
and blesses the children under
our care.
You bring peace within our borders
and feed us with the finest
bread.
You send orders across the landscape
and your word moves faster than
light.
You carpet hills with fleeces of snow,
and in valleys scatter frost
like white ashes.
You shape icicles into fairy sculptures.
yet at your word ice melts and
streams flow.
You have spoken and called your people,
you have given us the ground
rules of love.
You have not treated us like other creatures
for they cannot know you or
sing your praises.
You bring
peace within our borders,
and feed us with the finest
bread.
You send
orders across our continent
which move faster than the speed
of light.
At your word
the summer winds blow,
searing hot from the outback
deserts .
The grasslands
and lawns turn crisp,
things come to a standstill in a
heatwave.
Yet at your
word the temperature drops,
the winds gust in from the
Southern Ocean.
You have
spoken and called us by name,
and given us the ground-rules
of love.
By your grace
we are a lucky country,
unlike those who have nothing to
sing about.
Praise God
everyone!
Hallelujah!
Let everyone
praise the Lord!
LIBERTY WORD
This Primal Word
is not cramped in tombs
or trapped in hoary creeds,
but moves untamed, free
to raise up prophets
from barren wombs.
This Living Word
shapes its own law,
forever saving
a fractious world
and preparing ways
untrod before.
This Loving Word
seeks a new-age Eve,
graces young Mary
with a task and Gift
the strong and proud
could not conceive.
© B.D. Prewer 1993
COLLECT
Most loving God, in Christ you speak
a Word that can never become obsolete. Please renew
the force of your living Word in our lives, that
without evasion or qualification, we may accept this living truth and serve it
with the joyful abandonment who have known that in losing life for his sake, we
find it more abundantly. In the name of the Creator, Saviour and
Inspirer.
Amen!
SERMON 1: THE EMBODIED WORD
John 1:14
The Word
became human flesh, and lived among us, full grace and truth
And we have
looked upon his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. John 1:14
God’s Word, the ultimate message that God had to
give to humanity if we were to be liberated and healed —
was embodied in the Child of Mary, wife of
Joseph the carpenter.
.
Millions of words tumbling from our mind and lips, could never be enough. Billions of words in libraries
fell short. Trillions of words stored in our most powerful computers could not
contain what God had to say.
God’s final Word was too heavy and complex, and yet too simple, for our
words to handle.
The brave questions of Socrates and the philosophies
of men from Plato to Aquinas to Heidegger, would
ultimately leave us empty. The most choice words of poets and singers would not
satisfy the human soul.. The visionary words of seers
and prophets were pitifully inadequate. The disciplined, scientific words and
mathematical formulae of, physicists and astronomers,
would never be the final answer.
God had to put human flesh on the one Key Word —Embodied in a human life; Jesus, the Jew whom we name the
Christ.
DE-INCARNATION?
A Question:
Am I just crazy (don’t answer that.!) or am I right
in thinking that the church often seems to be in the business of deincarnating the living Word; of turning the real Jesus,
the flesh and blood Jesus, back into words?
Am I as a preacher a part of the sorry business of trying to disembody
God’s True Word.?
Am I able to give an answer? I’m not sure. Maybe the
answer is the kind which would make a barrister in a law court very testy.
Maybe the true answer is “yes and no.”
YES! DE-INCARNATION
Let’s try the ‘yes’ bit first.
Yes, we do risk reversing the incarnation whenever
we make words about Christ more important than the deeds that express his
loving reality.
De-incarnation happens ¾
Whenever speaking about Christ is more important
than following him.
Whenever the exact phrases used in creeds become
more essential than caring for one another.
Whenever denominational
emphases override our common love of Christ.
Whenever the actual
performance of liturgy means more than the event of spirit-worship.
De-incarnation t sadly happens¾
Whenever preaching sermons, and fluent oratory,
becomes a preacher’s substitute for doing the Gospel.
Whenever the especially-Protestant habit of sermon
tasting (including grammar checks,
doctrine savouring, and much mental muttering) overrides the desire to hear in
a sermon the next thing that God wants us to do.
The travesty of de-incarnation happens¾
Whenever in church
committees and councils, winning an argument and forcing our will on others,
displaces a passion for seeing and serving Christ in the living body and blood
of those who around us.
Whenever we reckon we have framed a smart “mission
statement” for our congregation, and have it written on all our church
bulletins and correspondence, yet fail to show the dogged courage and self
sacrifice necessary to put the statement into practice.
Yes indeed, the answer is yes! Far more often than
I want to think about, we may have been agents of deincarnation:
and so “the flesh becomes words, and waffles on among us, full of wind
and----and----- Well you know what I mean!
NO! TO DE-INCARANTATION
On the other hand, No!
We don’t reincarnate the Living Word. In fact I glory in the knowledge that the
Word is often embodied by ordinary Christians in every walk of life.
Sometimes
our Gospel is indeed incarnate in individual efforts.
At
other times it is expressed by the church as a community the body of
Christ.
In many parishes where I have tried to serve Christ,
I have found numerous Christians cropping up here and there in the community,
among the various service clubs, welfare organisations, political lobby groups,
civic structures, social justice agencies, and voluntary emergency services.
In fact, if all committed Christians were withdrawn,
the fabric of many communities would collapse.
Today I want to salute these ordinary Christians who
without the tooting of trumpets make Christ visible. The Word takes flesh and lives among us, and we see his glory, full of
grace and truth.
I also wish to testify to the quiet influence of
people in their work places. Men and women who by their attitude to workmates,
the quality of their work, the way they handle themselves in difficult situations,
and their integrity in business dealings, witness to the holy Incarnation.
Praise God for Christ’s —
gardeners who see their work as a calling,
for magistrates who care deeply for those brought before
them,
welders whose joints won’t crack,
physiotherapists who see their hands doing Christ’s work,
teachers who share love as well as knowledge,
mothers who baptise their children with both cuddles,
discipline and prayer,
bus drivers who pray for skill and patience as they take
their place behind the wheel,
farmers who know they are co-workers with God
and many, many more.
The Word
becomes flesh and does live among us.
Without this host of ordinary Christians, the
preacher’s task might be vain indeed. Every act of Christ-love, small or large,
puts body into the Gospel.
At this point I was about to give you some examples
from some of the choice Christians who have enriched my experience.. But I have changed my mind.
You already have examples in your own experience. Those special people, some of them (perhaps all of them) who may be
insignificant in terms of national or international affairs, yet whose lives
have put flesh on the Word of God for you.
Take a moment to call them to mind.
Savour
their influence, relish their memory.
I
give you a silent minute to bask again in the light of their love.
( silence)
It is good. You have glimpsed the beauty of Christ in them, the acceptance
and mercy of Christ in them; the compassion of Christ, the courage of Christ
and the wisdom of Christ, the tenacity of Christ, the anger of Christ, the joy
of Christ, the self-sacrifice of Christ in them.
DO WE WANT TO EMBODY CHRIST?
And now back to us.
Gently but firmly I ask you:
Are
we among those who really want to embody
Christ?
Or
are we among those who are content to make keep him disembodied in pious
wordiness?
You will notice that I said those who want to embody Christ. I did not say those who always make a major
success of it. But those who try, who give it their best shot! Are we amongst
the ‘fair dinkum’ triers?
The truth is that if we truly want to try, with an
open heart and mind to Christ, then God can take care of the rest. God can make
even our sincere failures, and our embarrassing blunders, a
source of fruitfulness.
If that were not true, I would not be standing
before you at this moment.
SERMON 2: THE RICHEST PERSON ON EARTH
John 1:14
And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth. John 1: 14.
I dedicate this sermon to the richest person on earth.
Texts don’t come more simple, and yet more complex,
than this one.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth. John 1: 14.
Paul expresses some of the same awesome glory in a
few more words than does John:
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who in Christ
has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Ephesians 1:3
To speak of a Word as a living person, may sound
somewhat odd, or clumsy expression, or maybe a highbrow notion to common folk.
Maybe it even sounds odd to some members who have travelled many years on the
Christian road? Could be?
Let’s admit that “words” in our society come by the
truck load.
Words are little printed signs; things in a
dictionary which we string together like beads in order to communicate. Words
are sounds made with air from our lungs, that easily
fly off our tongues in voluminous quantities.
The atmosphere is stew of billions of words. Many of them repetitious and light-weight or deceitful words.
WORDS; THEIR SHAME AND GLORY
What is more, because many people are devious,
therefore we have rightly become suspicious of words.
We dare not take on face value the chatter
of politicians, financial
institutions like banks, sales persons at our door, marketeers on our phone
just a we sit down for dinner, TV adds and newspapers, wonder cures for every
ailment, religious or environmental zealots, or those shrewd entertainers who
claim to talk with our dead loved ones from the great beyond. The truth is that
too many people are not present in their own words. There is a gulf between the
person and their words. We have the right to be suspicious.
To our shame, we have all devalued words.
Some people who have read billions of such words,
and heard billions of words, spoken millions of words, marinate in billions of
words, yet they remain illiterate and in gross spiritual poverty.
In absolute contrast, from the Bible point of view,
God and God’s word are inseparable. No gulf. They are the same ultimate Reality¾ spelt with a very big R! The Word of God is
always personal in the Bible. God’s Word is a Person. The Word is God. The Word
is the Holy One personally active in creating and shepherding the world and its
people.
THE ORIGINS OF JESUS
Where does Jesus of Nazareth fit in?
For God, one ultimate Word is crucial.
All 4 Gospel writers are Evangelists,
who commence their story by
asserting the remarkable family roots of Jesus of Nazareth.
Matthew and Luke take us back to his birth: Matthew
has a family tree going back to Abraham. Luke’s family tree goes back to Adam,
and then one step beyond that; the Creator..
The roots of Jesus are in God.
Mark starts when Jesus is about 29-30 years of age.
He presents the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan
River, with the doors of heaven opening, the Holy Spirit alighting on Jesus
like a dove, and God speaking: “You are my much-loved Son; with you I am
very pleased.”
John pushes us further and even deeper.
He thrusts us back to the start of creation and
beyond the beginning. Before time and space. These
days we might well say: “before the Big Bang.”
John deliberately echoes those opening words of the
Bible in Genesis:
“In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth.”
John
majestically announces—
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
And we looked upon his glory, glory belonging to the only Son of the Father.”
John leaves us no doubt as to the awesome roots of
Christ Jesus.
Nor about the inestimable wealth that God bestows in
him. He has no hesitation in saying why this Jesus is worth more than anything
else. He is the very true Word of God.
THE ULTIMATE WORD
Here is the ultimate and richest Word.
It became visible in our midst. Nothing is more important than this Word.
Nothing in the future can be ever become more important than this humble Word
that became embodied and lived among us Full of grace and truth.
This Word marked by the utter truth.
No more empty words here. No more misleading words.
No more exploiting words. Truth. Living
truth. Liberating and healing truth.
It is also marked by the wealth of grace.
Grace: the unexpected, unstoppable, bonus-love of
God; mercy beyond measuring. Oveflowing, saving love. Liberating and healing
grace.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who in Christ
has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Ephesians 1:3
The ultimate Word is for us, unconditionally
pro-human. For you. For me. True for all time and eternity. Any person
who knows this and trusts this, is the richest person on earth.
“In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
And the word
became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
THE ONE WORD GREATER THAN ALL BOOKS
While still a young minister,
I was once in a seminar where one lovely pastor, in
his fifties, sincerely lamented the fact that his time was running out and
there was so much more that he would like to read. “If I live to be eighty and
read three books per week for the rest of my life, I will still have only read
another 3,900 books! That leaves an enormous number unread!”
I have a passion for books myself.
Although not as much as that
dear man.
I found his statement moving and loved him for his obvious passion.
Yet if I lived to be ten thousand years old
and read most of the words in
the books of all the libraries of the world, I would have nothing better to say
than this — The Word became flesh.
“Trust this
one living Word that wears our human flesh..
Bet your one
life on it. Stake your all on Christ Jesus.”
I am the richest man on earth. But that is not all.
I also know that no matter how much of this fortune is shared by others, my own portion does not diminish by one cent. You
too can inherit this same wealth.
You too can be the richest person on earth.
A CREED-PRAYER
We believe, praise and thank you, loving God, for
you have visited and redeemed your people.
In the fullness of time your Word shared our human
frailty, living as a baby, a child, a youth and an adult in this remarkable,
yet at times crazy, world.
We believe that in Jesus we have been shown what you
are always like; that his light is
your light, his truth the divine
truth, his peace and love is the peace and love that lasts forever.
We believe that in childhood you are our closest
friend, in teenage years the inspiration of our dreams, in mature years the
guide and counsellor, and in the eventide you are the deathless companion.
Because of Christ Jesus, the living Word, in our
laughter you are our joy, in sickness our healing, in turmoil our serenity, and
in our grief, you
are that sweetest peace which this busy world cannot give.
We believe in you, we trust you, and we worship you, God most wonderful!
Amen!
INTERCESSIONS
God our holy Friend, by the Word of your supreme
love in Christ Jesus, enlarge our vision so that we may pray with ample faith
and hope.
Speak to your church, busy at worship and service
around this planet. Especially we commend to you those branches of the church
about which we are most ignorant, and those with whom we seem to have least
common ground.
Jesus, Word of
God, make your
church truly your body, with love to the world.
Give your Word of hope to all outcaste and
dispossessed people; those who have been made outsiders in the own country, and
those who are trying to establish themselves in a new land.
Jesus, Word of
God, encourage the least among these your sisters and brothers.
Speak to the leaders of our nation, states and
territories. Cut through the propaganda of their ‘minders’ & media
advisers; deceits which our leaders themselves start to believe in. Set free
that basic integrity and compassion with which most began their political
careers.
Jesus, Word of
God, make us an unselfish and hopeful nation.
Give your Word to all the weakest members of our
community, and to those brave souls who assist them in making their voices
heard and their needs known. Lift them up; encourage, guide, befriend and
embolden these precious children of yours.
Jesus, Word of
God, call their names place your own confidence within them..
Speak to people who are at wits end; those who are
bereaved today, the drug addicts who despairs, the newly maimed and
handicapped, those youths who see no future worth having, and those elderly
folk who live in the past because the present seems unbearable.
Jesus, Word of
God, continue to be the rest and reviver of all who
are weary and heavy laden.
God our holy Friend, you know own personal needs
long before we frame the words of prayer; please do not give us what we think
we want but bless us with whatever gain or loss is best for us.
Through Christ Jesus, your dearest and strongest Word.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
Outside these doors opportunity awaits you;
far more opportunity than most
of us realise.
My friends, hear and open
your soul to the living Word of God.
Jesus is our
light and salvation.
Take up your right to be both called the children of
God,
and receive the power to live
as the children of God.
We have seen
his glory, and pray for the power to serve him gloriously.
Abundant grace, mercy and peace,
from the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit,
will certainly be with you now
and always.
Amen!
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