| 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. |
 |
| 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, EPIPHANY 4
Sunday
4, Jan 28-Feb 3
Luke 4: 21-30..
(Sermon 1: “Jesus was
Catholic”)
(Sermon
2: “Knowing Our Limits”)
1Cor. 13:1-13...
Jeremiah 1: 4-10...
Psalm 71: 1-6
PREPARATION
The love of Christ Jesus be
with you all.
And also with you.
Once again, God offers us an hour of special
opportunity;
We are in the presence of an amazing
grace.
We have been called together by Jesus of Nazareth.
He is the Host in this house of
prayer.
Here all distinctions of age, sex, race or class
mean nothing.
Here our oneness in Christ means
everything.
OR—
Love! Just love!
Above all other gifts, there is love.
The source and goal of Christ’s
worship and ours..
Love. The ground and guide for
our dealings with one another.
The heritage and
hope of all races and nations.
Love. The delight and destiny of
those filled with the Holy Spirit.
Above all else there is love.
Let us worship God, the fountain of love.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
God of incomparable love, you have shown us in Jesus
of Nazareth that all people are embraced by your graciousness. Enable us to
relax ourselves in that universal fellowship which flows from sincere worship.
Living closer to you and to one another, may we touch the pulse and purpose of
existence, and be enabled to live lovingly and bravely as brother’s
and sisters of the one Saviour.
Amen!
CONFESSION
All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory God
has shown us in his true Child, Messiah Jesus.
Let us pray.
With confidence we come before you, loving God, for
your goodness can display its glory in the midst of our spiritual bankruptcy.
Have mercy upon us, O God, for we have all sinned
and fallen short of that glorious humanity displayed by Jesus Christ. Holding
nothing back, we make our silent confession to you:
---silent prayer--
You understand our corrupted nature much better than
we do, and you precede us with light and hope. Grant us the grace of
repentance.
Grant
us your peace.
You anticipate our need for forgiveness and provide
a way of healing which is open to every sincere soul. Grant us the grace of
repentance.
Grant
us your peace.
You have tireless patience, relentless mercy, and
refuse to be put off by our repetitive sins and stupidity. Grant us the grace
of repentance.
Grant us your peace.
Please continue to deal with us, loving God, not in
the way we want but the way we really need. Wipe out our shame and restore us
to the joy of your holy friendship.
Through the saving grace of your true Child, Christ Jesus.
Amen!
ABSOLUTION
“The love of Christ Jesus is patient and kind. His
love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. His love will never end.”
My friends, secure in the saving love of God, I
declare to you that your sins are thoroughly forgiven, your guilt is wiped
away, and your highest hopes are restored.
Thanks be to God!
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Plant
Your Smile in me
Dear Lord Jesus,
your smile is much nicer than my
grumpiness,
and it is far shinier than even
my best smiles.
Please print you smile deep within me.
Then, no matter what happens,
I shall have a happiness
within me
which even the nastiest thing
can’t squash.
Will you do that, please?
Thanks.
Amen !
PSALM 71:1-6
In you alone, Holy Friend, I seek asylum,
never let me be dismayed or
disgraced.
In your justice, rescue and liberate me,
hear my prayers and heal me.
You are the bedrock on
which I stand,
the Uluru at the centre of my
salvation.
Deliver me from the hands of rogues,
from the grasp of ruthless injustice.
For you, God, have been my sure hope,-
my true Friend from my
childhood.
From the hour of birth you have carried me,
supported me from my mother’s womb.
Always you have been there for me.
I will never stop singing your praises!
Ó B D Prewer 2003
UNTIL
Luke 4: 20-28
And all spoke well of him
and of his gracious words
until he called their bluff
and demanded much more
for the outcaste and poor;
then they got rough.
And all spoke well of him,
“A nice bloke, Joseph’s son”;
until he stepped outside
their polite comfort zone
where brave souls walk alone;
then they deride.
And all spoke well of him,
an honour to their town;
until he made it clear
that those of alien race
also received God’s grace;
then they showed fear.
And all speak well of him,
from Broome to Airlie Beach,
until he invites the sad
pros and junkies to share
in his house of prayer;
then they get mad.
© B.D. Prewer 2000
COLLECT
You have called us, holy Friend, not because we have
earned it, but because you are a gracious God. You heap bonus upon bonus, and
the profound complexity of your ways exceeds all human comprehension. Please
increase in us the desire to respond to your call, and the capacity to love as
you would have us love. In the name of Messiah Jesus our
Redeemer.
Amen!
SERMON 1: JESUS WAS CATHOLIC
Luke 4: 28-29
When they
heard this, all those who were in the synagogue became furious, and they went
for Jesus, to eject him from their town. They hustled him to the brow of the
hill, on which the town was built, in order to fling him over the cliff. Luke 4: 28-29
There is a persistent furphy [in Aus lingo “furphy”
= rumour, or misleading story] doing the rounds of many religious people. It
says ¾
If
we do the right thing by God, we will become successful and popular.
It is extremely difficult to eradicate this furphy,
this false expectation. Christians should know better. Yet it persists.
At the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus was
rejected and threatened with murder, by being thrown from a cliff top.
Why? Why was Jesus rejected by his own people, in
his home town, where he had been raised since a child? Why did they get angry
enough to want to kill him?
Among explanations given, the most common is that
good citizens of Nazareth were angry because Jesus quoted a prophecy from
Isaiah and then applied it to himself. They were appalled by his apparent claim
to be God’s Messiah. To them is was a disgusting
blasphemy.
RACISTS?
I don’t buy that explanation. I think it had more to
do with racism.
If we look again at the Gospel passage we see that
after Jesus made his announcement, Today this Scripture
is fulfilled in your hearing, they were all excited and very proud of him. We
read: All commented favourably, and
marvelled at the gracious words which flowed from his mouth; and they said:
“Isn’t this our Joseph’s son?”
At this stage in the episode, Jesus was popular.
Yet a few minutes later he was rejected and
outcaste.
What made the difference?
Looking carefully at the text, we discover that
Jesus went on to talk about God’s grace towards despised Gentiles, those
non-Jews who were regarded as unclean and hardly human; despised and unfit for
the company of decent Jews. Created to be “fuel for the fires
of hell” as one rabbi suggested.
(Uncomfortably close to how many European colonists
of the nineteenth century treated the indigenous people of this continent. Instead of the old English fox hunts, they
indulged in what they called “boong” hunts.”)
Jesus spoke of the legendary prophet Elijah, who in
a time of famine did not precipitate a food miracle for Jews, but did so for an
alien widow in the Phoenician province of Sidon. Jesus drove home his message
by also reminding them of the case of the prophet Elisha, who although there were
many lepers in Israel, was used by God to heal a leper called Naaman; a man
from hated Syria.
That did it. Their good mood turned foul. Praise
turned to scorn and anger. I quote: When
they heard this, all those who were in the synagogue became furious, and they
went for Jesus.
[Not so unusual. As recent as the 1970’s, I knew
some church ministers were rejected and almost “run out” of country towns when
they sided with aborigines]
This was the crunch. It appears that it was Jesus’
declaration that God loved Gentiles as much as he loved Jews,
that enraged the people of his home town. He had stirred the bile of
racists.
They had no time for his inclusive message, it
disgusted and infuriated them. What had seemed a kindly congregation, basking
in the glory of one of their own “making good,” turned into a wild mob bent on
lynching this upstart who dared to challenge the presumption of God’s
favouritism towards the Jews.
JESUS WAS CATHOLIC.
You may wish to say to me: “Hold a moment. Jesus’
mission was to the Jews, wasn’t it? He did not go to the pagans, the Gentiles?”
Well that is partly true. He did not go to Greece
and preach, or to Egypt or Rome. He stayed in his own familiar territory,
smaller than the State of Tasmania.
Yet his mission remained a universal, inclusive one,
and he proved this by including in his outreach the hated Roman and the mongrel
Samaritan, the Greek and Phoenician. As well as this, he made sure he included
all those disgraced Jews, the outsiders who would no longer have been welcome
at the synagogue.
If the word catholic means “universal,” or “for all people” then
then Jesus was catholic in belief, attitude, word and deed. His love was
inclusive.
This inclusiveness even shaped the selection of the disciples.
Think about it. Didn’t he choose some disciples with Greek names like Philip
and Andrew? What good, pious Jew would give his sons Greek names? And what was
Matthew, a tax pimp for the Roman occupation force, doing among the Christ’s
disciples?
Also within the land, especially in the Galilean
region, some cities had become so influenced by Greek and Roman culture that
orthodox Jews black-listed them as Gentile territory. The towns of Tiberias and
Tarichaea on the shores of lake Galilee, Scythopolis
south of the lake, Sepphoros close to and just north of Nazareth were among
those black-listed by the pious. (Nazareth itself was an orthodox town.) Yet
Jesus moved freely among those black-listed towns of Galilee.
Jesus refused to classify people or racist,
cultural, or any other lines. He did not categorise folk as either
pure or impure, righteous or unrighteous, worthy churchgoers or the
unworthy outsiders, Israelites and pagan Gentiles, God’s people or the unwashed
mob. His love was radically inclusive.
That is what appears to be what “got up the noses”
of his fellow citizens in Nazareth. He arrived at orthodox Nazareth from among
the black-listed towns.
[It is significant that it is Luke who tells this
story. Among the Gospel writers it is Luke who especially emphasises the
inclusive mission . In common with Paul, that
once-uptight Jewish bigot who was rocked to his foundations and converted to
Jesus and his ways, Luke delights in the inclusive love of God]
God’s grace in Messiah Jesus did not discriminate.
He embodied the catholic spirit. That led to his own rejection, even by those
kindly folk with whom Jesus had grown up in Nazareth. He refused to classify
people, so they angrily classified him as an impious trouble maker.
LET ‘S TEST OURSELVES
Our faith and service and worship must be always
catholic; that is universally inclusive, or it is not Christianity. Yet we tend to slip into the exclusive mode without hardly noticing it. Let’s test our attitudes?
-What kind of people do we
seek out and talk to in those informal throngs which gather after our church
service is over?
-Who among congenial
neighbours or work colleagues would we prefer to haveas fellow members of our
church?
-How cherished and respected
would left-wing unionists be if they wanted to be membersof our congregation ?
-How many ordained,
indigenous ministers in Australia have been “called” to care forwhite
congregations?
-Would repentant ex-prisoners, or
prostitutes ,or gamblers or be really welcome within our denomination?
-How eager are we, or even
willing, to include drug addicts, alcoholics, or the unwashed homeless among
those we call fellow members?
-Can gay people or the
long-term unemployed, the illiterate or the politically radical student, really
feel they belong with us?
-In times of inflamed
national patriotism, how respectful and loving are we of those in our midst who
sincerely oppose aggressive politics of our government towards other nations?
My fellow Christains, I have and uneasy feeling that
if Jesus should come among us in the flesh today, challenging our church to
embody God’s free grace for all types of people, we might find it expedient to
edge him out? (You will notice I say “edge” not “throw” because we these days
may be too “nice” to use physical thuggery. “Nice” people are usually more
subtle in their rejections).
Am I wrong in fearing that we might not willingly
surrender our opinion of ourselves as respectable citizens, or put the
reputation of our church at risk, for the sake of those whom Jesus would
include?
Jesus was not a popular success at Nazareth. Doing
the right thing led him to be pushed to the edge of a cliff by the good people
of his home congregation. True godliness, does not directly lead to acceptance
and praise. In fact, “Woe unto you when all men speak well of
you.”
MORE THAN “MATESHIP”
Here in Australia, in spite of our myth of
“mateship” and an egalitarian “fair go,” the faithful church, or faithful
minister, might not be marked by booming congregations and community
admiration any more than Jesus and his disciples were.
Inclusive love, when it moves beyond mere religious
sentiment into nitty gritty truth and action, remains a scandal. It will offend
some. Those who once spoke well of us, can quickly turn on us and reject us
when the truth of Christ starts to bite.
To love and follow Jesus is a risky way to go. Yet it is the only way that leads to
abundant, exponential life and light and holy joy.
SERMON 2: KNOWING OUR LIMITS
Jeremiah 1:6
Then I said: “Ah, Eternal God! Look, I am
just a youth and I don’t know how to preach.”
Luke 4: 23
The congregation were surprised at the
gracious words that came from his mouth; they said: “Isn’t this just Joseph’s son?”
You now how it goes? When we are asked to accept
some new responsibility, sometimes we may swiftly respond by saying: “I’m
afraid I can’t help. I do know my limitations.”
But do we ? Do we clearly
know our abilities or lack of them? Is our estimate of ourselves valid? Do we
truly know our limits?
MY RECENT EXPERIENCE
Recently I paid a visit to my home state, Tasmania. Including my home town, Launceston. One part of me loves
returning to the beauties of Tassie, with its numerous mountains, clean air and
kindly people. And it is very good to catch up with relatives and very dear
friends.
But I have a confession to make. Another part of me
finds the experience discomforting. Whenever I visit the city of Launceston, I
seem to shrink! Not physically, of
course. But as a person.
I shrink back into the self-image of childhood and
youth. I shrink back into what seems like the iron yoke of my family’s social
status in that community. I become just Cliff Prewer’s son; the boy who daily
rode his bike, not to one of the elite schools, but to the technical college.
The person who for pocket money was a delivery boy for a local butcher, with
the big meat basket tucked between the handle bars of his bike. The teenager who was shy outside his close circle of friends and
incredibly immature in his dealings with girls.
I shrink. I really do. I start seeing myself as I
saw myself then
TWO FORCES AT WORK
There are forces at work that would severely limit
us. Negativities inhibiting our full development as children
of God. There are two on which I ask you to focus. These two factors
contribute to my discomfort when I am back in my home town.
The limitations which we
impose on ourselves.
The limitations which others
project on us.
A limiting view of
ourselves.
We can underrate our abilities, and inhibit our own
development as Christian citizens. When challenged to attempt greater things
for God, we hesitate, not necessarily because we don’t want to serve God but
because we see ourselves as inadequate. This is not humility but a genuine
inability to see ourselves as God knows we could be. Self imposed limitations.
Others can try to constrict us.
They have their own expectations. Family members may
try to impose limited roles
on us. Neighbours, friends, work colleagues
join in, keeping us “in our place.” Even our church congregation can try
to impose on us limitations that are not of God, and confine us to roles that
do not stretch our capacity or foster our growth. Limitations are imposed by
others.
WHAT ABOUT JEREMIAH AND JESUS?
Jeremiah
Jeremiah, when called by God to be a prophet,
struggled against his self-imposed (and maybe family or community imposed)
limited self image.
Read
verses 1: 4-6: briefly expand on this
theme..............
Jeremeih
did not know his limits; God saw something much greater.
Jesus
With Jesus, it was the home community and home church .
They projected their limited view back upon to
Jesus. He would not have got into trouble if he had stayed within their view of
him.
Read
verses 4: 21-33 expand.........
Note
also the added details in Matthew 13: 55-56
Jesus
knew his limits were not what others thought they were.
Us
It is unfortunately common that our own stunted
self-image conspires
with the low expectation of
other people to keep us in captivity.
BEWARE OF THE LOW EXPECTATIONS OF OTHERS
We need to be on guard. Not only when I am back in
the scene of my childhood and youth, do I need to be aware of the danger of
allowing others to project on me their limiting views. It can happen anywhere,
anytime. As God’s children, and a joint heirs with
Jesus, we can’t permit ourselves to be put in little boxes by some group or by
a dominating individual.
Beware of the generalisations¾
National culture “We Australians
are.....................
Professional
: “We
teachers, builders, nurses, home-makers, farmers, doctors, plumbers,
students, taxi
drivers, ministers, are...............................
Religious: We Baptists,
Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Uniting Church, AOG’s, Anglicans, Churches of Christ,
Salvation Army, Society of Friends
are.....................
Family:
We McPhersons, we O Reilleys, we Norton-Smiths, we Rigonis, we Goldsmiths,
Johansons, Stravinskys, Georgios, Cordells, Schimdts,
Garibaldi’s are............................
Sweeping generalisations like these will, if we
allow them, inhibit our development.
On top of that, there are specific opinions and
attitudes that make us “shrink.” Dominant characters may try to impose their
view of us. Religious discussion can often turn into one of the discussers
trying to brow beat the other into submission.
Warning! Sometimes those whom we respect most, and
those whom we love most, can in fact be the very ones (often unawares) who
project constricting frames on to us.
SOME OF THE SELF LIMITATIONS ARE INVALID
Many a self image is our of
touch with reality.
The opinion we have of ourselves, an amalgam of the
image projected on to us plus self-spun image, may become comfortable yet may
be actually damning. They are often not objective assessments, but fictions.
Perhaps we prefer to say “I know my limits” because
it suits us. It is in our comfort zone. To confront the fact that we may be
able to be and do far more than our past, is threatening to our settled existence. Change and
growth always involve some travail. Therefore some of us embrace stunted
self-definitions rather than face the pain of growth.
Be on guard against the following type of
generalisation ¾
I
am just a dumb blonde.
I
am a respectable citizen.
I’m
a born loser.
I’m
a victim.
I’m
an incurable joker.
I’m
no good at public speaking.
I’m
trapped.
I’m
not an intellectual.
I’m
not an emotional person.
I’ll
never amount to much.
I’m
too old to start learning new tricks.
I’m
a born sceptic.
I’m
a mediocre
Christian.
Jeremiah did not clung
stubbornly to his limited self image. If he had not allowed God to stretch him,
the world would have missed one of the greatest prophets that has graced human history.
Jesus had to break free. If Jesus had conformed to
the image his home town had of him, it would have been a tragedy of universal
dimensions.
SETTING VALID BOUNDARIES
One proviso: beware of overestimating.
Although many of us underestimate ourselves, there
are some who overestimate themselves. It is also a curse to have an inflated
opinion of one’s capabilities. Overreaching is as dangerous as
under-reaching. We need to seek a
realistic assessment of ourselves. This is not easy. We need to set realistic boundaries, that are neither selling ourselves short nor
lusting for the impossible. How do we do this?
Suggestion 1: Start with the Bible.
Set your potential first by taking to heart
the affirmation that in Christ you are a child of God. You are loved and
treasured by an incomparable Lover.
Take
seriously the Bible
teaching about gifts. We have God given gifts of which we are
stewards. It’s a damnable thing deny these gifts, or to bury (metaphorically) these gifts in the
ground. Gifts are given to us, not for self adulation, but for the building up of the faith
community; for the expression of love.
Trust
God’s Spirit to sharpen, discipline, direct our gifts to where they are
most needed. We never undertake new venture alone.
Suggestion 2: Take counsel.
If
you still are in doubt about accepting new responsibilities or taking new
directions while following
Christ, consult with other Christians. Don’t think you can sort
out everything in isolation. Independence is a good thing up to a point, but it
can also became a grave folly.
Open
your heart up to your pastor or to those members in the congregation with whom
you feel affinity. To be realistic about your capabilities, we all need outside
assistance.
I suspect that most of us set the boundaries too
narrowly.
We like to set them well away from the possibility
of failure, and therefore under-perform as God’s children. Maybe the boundaries
need to be set in the risk zone, where we might succeed sometimes and fail at
other times. Christians who know that they don’t have
to earn God’s favour, can afford to take risks and sometimes fail to the glory
of God!
SUMMARY
Remember Jeremiah:
A mere youth called to be a prophet to the nations.
Reluctantly yet faithfully he accepted the call of God in spite of all his
doubts and fears, and became a giant among prophets.
Remember Jesus:
The son of a village tradesman, defying the low
expectations of his family and community and daring to go out and fulfil his
potential with sheer glory!
God is the loving shatterer of limitations.
By grace we can be the always-growing children of
God, for whom surprising things are possible if we dare to believe.
THANKSGIVING
Holy Friend, we give thanks for those open hearted
people who are channels of your love in our personal pilgrimage.
For those who gave us birth,
and in the
weakness of infancy
nurtured
and treasured us,
sheltered
and guided us..
Thanks for friends who bear our faults and affirm
our strengths, and the those both young and old who
share our tears and laughter.
For those who at every stage
teach us
trust by trusting us,
who enable
us to love others
because we
have first been loved.
Thank you, loving Friend, for people of daring,
dazzling faith who stretch our understanding and enlarge our capacity believe.
For those who gladly include us,
and
especially those choice souls
who taught
us warmly love you
rather than
being afraid of you.
God of welcoming love, for the knowledge that we are
yours without conditions,
and that
the best is yet to come,
we praise
your holy Name.
© B.D. Prewer 2012
INTERCESSIONS
Loving God, please continue to embrace this world
with your inclusive judgement and mercy.
We pray for humanity with all its fear and division, self deceit and
injustice.
For bigoted groups who feel so sure of themselves
that they exclude from their fellowship all other races, cultures and
religions;
And for those
who are so unsure of themselves that they are constantly pulled this way and
that without any security or peace.
For some churches that have turned in on themselves,
shutting out all other opinions and behaviour;
And for those
churches that in trying to be open to the world are in danger of losing their
basic integrity of faith.
For country folk who having endured the shrinking of
their towns and the loss of key services, and now strongly resent the cities;
And for urban
communities who have been hit by the closure of industries, and the take-over
of companies, and imagine that rural people have it easy.
For arrogant and powerful nations who seek to
manipulate, dominate and ruthlessly exploit other countries;
And for
smaller nations that have much to offer the world community but are too
reticent or afraid to stand up and be counted..
For workplace situations where cliques and power
groups manipulate or bully others for their own personal prestige and profit;
And for those workplaces where employers and employees work together in
good humour for the common good.
For those fortunate people who, though ill or
injured, have swift access to the best doctors, clinics, hospitals and surgery;
And for those
less fortunate who remain on waiting lists, or spend long, painful hours on
trolleys in casualty wards..
For any in this congregation today who have found
their faith strengthened, their hope uplifted, and their love deepened;
And for any
who may still be feeling barren of soul, or anxious and depressed about the
future.
God of our salvation, please draw all your children
closer into your inclusive arms and to one another, that we may experience the
healing of Christ and enjoy the freedom of the Spirit.
For your love’s sake. Amen!
SENDING OUT
Because God loves Gentiles as much as Jews, and sinners as much
as the saints, you and I will never walk alone.
There is no fault in our lives that is beyond God’s
power to remedy, nor
any gift that is too small for God to celebrate and use.
God is in the business transforming plain or warped
things into a beauty exceeding our holiest expectations.
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory, through Jesus Christ.
May God, Jesus and the Spirit bless your ways;
God bless the ground beneath your feet,
God bless the road or which you travel,
God bless the friends with whom you stay,
Each day and night, each
night and day.
Amen!
(From an old Celtic prayer)
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