| 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, EASTER 4
John 10: 22-30
(Sermon
1: “WOW!”)
Revelation 7: 9-17 (Sermon
2: “Is Faith an Absurdity?)
Acts 9: 36-43
Psalm 23
PREPARATION
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed.
The living
Lord is my Shepherd,
I shall not
want.
Hear what
the Good Shepherd says to us as we gather for this celebration:
“A new
commandment I give you: that you love one another, even as I have loved you”.
Love is not just a matter of words, but is deeds of
justice and mercy.
Let us worship God with a love that grows larger the
closer we come to each other,
and which grows more inclusive
the closer we come to God.
Amen! Praise
and thanksgiving be to our God forever and ever!
Amen!
OR -
Jesus lives,
the generous Host by whose
generous invitation we gather here today.
He prepares a
table before me, in the presence of my foes,
he anoints my head with oil,
and my cup overflows.
Jesus lives,
the Shepherd who knows each
member of God’s flock by name.
Blessing and
glory and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honour and power and might
be to our God for ever and
ever.
Amen!
PRAYER OF APPROACH
Most Holy
Friend, your are the source and thrust of all that is
bright and good and loving.
Please give
to us an unabashed delight in the love of your true Son, Jesus.
Let us so
revel in his company, that we may be intoxicated with his attitude and actions,
and
discover for ourselves that golden vein of happiness
which delights more in giving than getting.
In your honour and to your praise and glory.
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Dear
Friends, Jesus our Shepherd and Saviour, has asked us to love each other with
his kind of love
Sometimes we
have gone close to doing just that, but usually our love has been selective
and
veined with self-interest. Therefore let
us seek forgiveness and renewal.
Let us pray.
Whenever our
compassion evaporates, and our feelings become as arid as the Stony Desert;
Lord Jesus, rebuke us and have mercy on
us.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Whenever we
harbour resentments, and our words are as piercing as
a wild prickly pear;
Lord Jesus, rebuke us and have mercy on
us.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on me a sinner.
Whenever we
allow worship to dry up, and our prayers become like an empty water hole;
Lord Jesus, rebuke us and have mercy on
us.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Loving God, please renovate our feelings, re-order our
thoughts,
and re-condition our world-weary wills.
May hope enlarge our goals, faith enliven our
prayers,
and love endower our relationships and deeds.
Through Christ our Saviour.
Amen!
ASSURANCE
My friends,
it is good to be here in the flock of Christ Jesus, where saving grace abounds,
and our cup is full and running over.
Here we “fear no evil’ for God forgives our sins and
“restores our soul and leads us in the paths of right living for his name’s
sake.”
In his name
I declare the forgiveness of sins and the renewal of your true humanity, made
in the very spiritual image of God.
Thanks be to God!
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Jesus
Our Shepherd
Dear Lord Jesus,
like a shepherd you love us,
like a shepherd you lead us,
like a shepherd you know our
names,
like a shepherd you were willing
to give your life
that we might be saved from
evil.
For us just to say thanks is not enough!
No word is big enough!
Please, God, let us make our whole lives -
all that we are now as children
and all that we will become as adults-
into one big, happy song of
thanks and praise.
Amen!
PSALM: 23
The loving God is my highland guide,
there is nothing else that I need.
He shows me green banks on which to rest,
he leads me beside still lakes.
He restores my flagging spirits,
in his name I tread the best tracks.
Even though I must go through death gully,
I will
not be afraid of the darkness.
For you, my guide, are with me,
the click of your staff calms me.
You prepare a meal for me
in the presence of my fears.
You anoint me like a messiah,
my cup is full and overflowing..
Your goodness and sturdy love follow me
all the days of my journey,
and I will stay on in your house
throughout ages to come.
© B.D. Prewer 2000
OUTSIDE CHRIST’S HAND?
John 10: 28
Outside my
hand
there are many slick folk
caught up in the
rush;
always on the take
in Sydney or the
bush
going around
frenetically
without a
destiny.
Outside my
hand
there is left not one soul
who asked for my
grace;
none are let
fall
into a dark
place
to drag around
fearfully
without a
destiny.
From out of
my hand
no
thief can snatch away
those who are my
own;
for them night
becomes day
never going it
alone
moving ahead
cheerfully
caught up in
destiny.
© B.D. Prewer 2000
COLLECT
Most loving God, please stir that part of our brain
where hopes are renovated and visions created, that we may have a faith that is
open to wherever you wish to take us. In the name of Christ Jesus, the good
shepherd of our lucky flock.
Amen!
SERMON 1: WOW!
John: 10: 28
I give them [my sheep] eternal life. They shall never perish. No one shall steal them out of my hand.
Sheep. Stupid creatures.
We citizens
of the twenty first century do not take kindly to being likened to sheep. In
Australia in earlier generations, we had ridden economically on the sheep’s
back, but that was where our respect ends. The wool cheque was welcome but not
a preacher who makes a comparison between us and those woolly imbeciles.
Therefore, I will not be so odious as to make the comparison; I’ll leave it to
you.
Actually, if
you have ever had a pet lamb, you will know it is easy to become quite attached
to them; rather like the shepherds of Jesus’ day who lived with them, knew them
individually, and would risk their life to save them. It was a natural thing for Jesus, like the
writer of the most famous Psalm in the Bible, to see the men and women who
followed him as a new flock of sheep which he had gathered together.
THE SHEPHERD’S PROMISE
To this
flock, looking small and vulnerable among the powerful “wolves and bears” of
the Roman Empire, he made a promise:
I give
them [my sheep] eternal life. They shall never perish. No one shall steal them
out of my hand.
What does
eternal life mean? Sadly, some people get the idea that it
just means us living on forever. Let me say, that if that is all it means, I’m
out of here. I do not want to be trapped in the limitations of this life, as I
now have it, forever. If eternal life means just going on, and on , and on, then a permanent death, oblivion, sounds like a good option for me. Just
continuing ad infinitum seem an intolerable prospect; I could feel common
ground with the agnostic poet:
Don’t
bother me now, don’t bother me never,
I want
to be dead for ever and ever.
But the God
of Jesus of Nazareth offered something infinitely better. Eternal life (zoe aionios)
is the fullest possible life, life of the limitless new age, the kind of life
humanity has dreamed about. It is awesome life, unlimited life; unbounded in
every way. No walls, no barriers, nothing to stop us going further. It has new, infinite horizons, new depths,
new heights; new joy and awe and love beyond anything we thought possible. I
get close to defining it when I say: “Wow!” Eternal life is wow life! Life with an exclamation mark. Not life with a comma or a tired semi-colon;
not life with a question mark or life in parenthesis. Certainly
not life with a full stop. It is exclamation stuff: Wow!
The timeless
dimension, immortality, is just one of the many facets of eternal life. To be
liberated from this time and space, is merely one of the wonders of its amazing
abundance. Of course this is important. I am not trying to minimise this
element. For example, when I see a child
wither and die from say, leukemia, I find profound
comfort and encouragement that her life-force, her soul, is not terminated; as a person she has
opportunity to still be and grow and love.
Eternal life includes this facet of unlimited future .
But please,
don’t limit your vision of eternal life to this one element. It is only one
among a kaleidoscope of opportunities. Eternal life is gloriously expansive,
opportunity beyond measure, a level of bliss and growth that no number of
earthly words can possibly describe.
ETERNAL LIFE
COMMENCES NOW
The next
important thing I want to try and express is that this “wow life” life begins
now. The disciples already have
commenced eternal life. To trust Jesus and His God is to begin that life now. Today we taste and see that God is good. Those
who believe have already passed from
death to life. As Paul says: If anyone is in Christ there is new
creation, old things have passed away, all things have
become new.
Caught as we
are in the limitations of the here and now, eternal life is only a small
foretaste, but it is the real thing. Our bodies and minds limit us, the social
and political structures of the world limit us, but in Christ Jesus we begin to
explore the unlimited dimension--- that for which we were created and
redeemed. We begin to experience the
awesome “WOW!” which flows around us from the Holy Heart of all things.
When I look
back upon my own little life, scratchy and patchy though it still is; when I
remember how the dimensions altered and grew from the moment I threw my lot in
with Christ Jesus, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. One is not aware of it
coming all at once. The enlargement takes place bit by bit. Often I have been impatient, sometimes I have lost the plot, but my God! It
has happened! Even to me! Wow life!
Eternal life
is now. The next sentence I will speak is pathetically inadequate, but let me
try to express eternal life this way:
It is as if with Christ at our side we
are surfing the wave of eternity here in time;
all around us
are the many limitations of time;
but on that wave
with Christ we are riding for free on the wave of the unlimited;
the wave of
eternal life.
(By the way,
if I picture myself as a woolly Merino, standing on the surfboard with Christ,
getting a ride I could never get under my own ability,
I have a
cartoon that is a wonderful affirmation of Wow Life!).
The most
significant joy of eternal life is love. Love, love and more love. It is no
surprise that John’s Gospel, which is the one that favours the words “eternal
life,” is also the one that most forcefully speaks of the primacy of love. As does also the first Letter of John. Any man or woman who thinks they are surfing
the wave of eternal life but are not caught up in greater love-- divine and
human-- is fooling themselves. Love is
the only valid test. Love of God, love of each other.
I have no
doubt that love is a far more important ingredient of eternal life than is the
fact of surviving death. Without it, surviving death would be a nightmare.
SHALL NOT
PERISH
The promises
of our Christ
do not end here.
He assures
us that none of his flock will perish. I
give them [my sheep] eternal life. They shall never perish. Here we once
again encounter that vivid word “perish”. Flowers wilt and perish, fruits
perish, blue Ulysses butterflies perish, leaping red kangaroos perish, our
personalities can be corrupted and perish, our bodies perish. But not the soul-being of those who Christ has already transferred
to eternal life. The flock of Christ shall not perish.
He goes on. No one shall steal them out of my hand.
We are always at risk. We
are at risk from the robbers around us who tempt us, give false promises and
seek to corrupt us. We are also at risk
from the negative, destructive influences around us in the jungle of this
twenty first century - the bears and wolves that
harry the flock. With the passing of the centuries, the life of faith has not
grown any easier than it was in the Roman Empire. It was a precarious adventure
then, it is so now.
As long as
we entrust ourselves to the God of Christ, nothing shall snatch us from him.
What matters in times of crises is not our grasp on the Lord but his grasp on
us; not our belief in him but his in us.
It is by grace that we will make it, not our own skill or cleverness. When we think we can go it alone, then
we are in trouble. But with Christ we will make it. Knowing that his is the
stronger grasp is a part of the Wow!
Just look at
me! You are looking at one surfing Merino who is at times afraid of himself but
never of his shepherd. As one member of the flock said way back in the first
century: I know the one in whom I have
believed, and I am convinced that he is able to look after that which I have
committed to him until the great day of graduation arrives.
Wow!
SERMON 2: IS FAITH AN ABSURDITY?
Revelation, 7:
9-17.
I did something silly while I was in a day-dream the
other day.
Things unfolded like this:
At the same time as I was thinking about a
soon-to-come vacation, I took a pair of kitchen scissors off their hook to cut
a small side branch off a large bunch of grapes. Completing
this small task. I found myself trying to hang the rest of the grapes
back on the hook where the scissors belong! My day dream had temporally
diverted my attention from reality.
Is Christianity a silly day dream
that diverts attention from the
rugged reality of this world?
More than that, is our faith just another absurdity?
Is life devoid of ultimate meaning? Is our devotion
to love and truth a waste of effort? In the final analysis, when the last sod
is placed on our grave or our little urn of ashes sprinkled under a rose bush, is
the universe and whatever lies beyond it oblivious to our value? Are all the
discipline embraced, all the deeds and prayers done in the name of the loving
Jesus an absurdity? At the end, is a
dead person absolutely on par with a dead snail?
A TIME OF SUFFERING: THE BOOK OF REVELATION:
The questions are valid. But the answer does not
have to be a dismal one.
Turn to the Book of Revelation, chapter 7: 9-17.
Here we read majestic, poetic words purporting to be
a vision of the ultimate destiny of all who love and serve Christ ¾
After this I
saw a vast crowd, which no one could count, from all tribes and every nation,
of all races and languages, standing in front of the throne [of God] and the
Lamb. The immense crowd were all clothed in white and had palm branches in
their hands. Together they cried out with a mighty voice: “
Salvation’s joy belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the
Lamb!”
Then a little later, in verses 16-17 ¾
They shall
never again hunger or thirst. The sun shall not strike them nor
any scorching heat. For the Lamb who is at the heart of God’s throne will
forever be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water. And
God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.
Isn’t that
beautiful? I mean, really beauty-full?
Yet I remind you of the terrible situation in which
these wonderful words were forged. Violent persecution.
Horrible, unrelenting persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire.
John most likely penned this document to the seven
churches of Asia Minor
during the reign of the Emperor
Domitian, 81-96 AD. Domitian was a
taciturn and paranoid despot. Everywhere Christians were under threat of
torture and death. John
was one of the luckier ones; he was banished and left isolated on
the Agean island of Patmos. But many of his friends
were not so fortunate. Thousands of his fellow believers were imprisoned.
Thousands executed; some slowly and agonisingly. It was an awful time for the
young churches. Morale must have been gravely undermined.
Many a Christians would have asked: Is it worth it?
Is our faith fact or fiction? Is it glorious to
suffer and die for the sake of Christ or is it completely absurd? Has the
eternal world of God and interest in this brutal, mortal world? Could God be really concerned for the beliefs
and fate of small group of the followers of Jesus who were thinly scattered
across the mighty Roman Empire?
How many
Christians were tempted to forsake the faith and bow down and worship Domitian,
we do not know. But many did.
JOHN’S BELIEF UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE
John on the Island of Patmos really knew how bad
things could get.
Yet he saw further than the present sufferings. He
saw beyond the persecutions right in the heart of final Reality. He had
visionary experience, revelations, in which he saw what was ultimately true:
Jesus! Jesus was right! Gloriously right! God was real and nothing would pluck
loved ones out of the Divine hands. Jesus Christ was at the very centre of
heaven. He, the Lamb that was slain, was on the throne. No absurdity here
for John.
John tried to express what he saw with colourful
word pictures.
Many of those word pictures are foreign to our
contemporary mind-set. He used the extravagant language, the metaphors of the
then popular Jewish apocalyptic writings. His readers could decipher it.
In prosaic speech I might try to put what John saw
this way ¾
Nothing done with or for Christ is ever a waste of
effort. No deed of compassion is lost
between the cracks in existence. Nothing loyal, costly, loving, merciful, or
brave, nothing spontaneously exuberant or faithfully dogged, is ever devalued
or forgotten in God’s kingdom.
John likes to call Jesus the “Lamb.”
Not a word we would naturally use today. But it’s an important image for John and his
scattered flock.. Jesus is the Lamb that was slain for
our rescue and healing. In his use of that word “lamb” there is always the
picture of the Crucified. That gets to the core of some of our deepest fears.
Does God care?
“Yes !” sings John, “God
cares.”
God has placed the Crucified Christ at the centre of
all things, at the very throne of God. The cross was not a noble but vain waste
of life but the ultimate success. Not absurdity but the consummation and
victory of saving grace!
THE FACES GATHERED AROUND THE THRONE
There is a large crowd gathered around the throne
and the Lamb.
John looks out over this vast host of faithful
Christians. They are wearing their white baptismal robes and they wave palm
branches, just as some did on Palm Sunday. They are celebrating the rightness
of Jesus, the success of Jesus, the ultimate truth of his word and way.
After this I
saw a vast crowd, which no one could count, from all tribes and every nation,
of all races and languages, standing in front of the throne [of God] and the
Lamb. The immense crowd were all clothed in white and had palm branches in
their hands. Together they cried out with a mighty voice: “
Salvation’s joy belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the
Lamb!”
Let me now confess something that happened as I was
preparing this sermon.
I found myself doing an odd thing. I looked into the
faces of some of that immense crowd with the white robes. And I recognised
some.
I glimpsed Mary Magdalene and Simon of Cyrene.
I saw Martha and Thomas, the Woman of Samaria, Paul,
Lydia and Timothy. I saw Martin of Tours, Brigid of Kildare, Hilda of Whitby, Julianne of Norwich.
I spotted Kate Luther, John Huss, Susanna Wesley,
William and Catherine Booth, Martin Luther King,
some nuns murdered in East Timor, an Archbishop of Uganda, and my late friend,
George the plumber.
( “George who?” you may well
ask?
George Davison.
Plumber by trade, server of humanity by practice,
lover of God’s Spirit by creed.
George was one among the special, wonderful, ordinary Christians from
the parishes where I have served. George, like others, ministered to me as I
tried to minister with and to him.)
They shall
never again hunger or thirst. The sun shall not strike them nor
any scorching and will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe
away all tears from their eyes.
You and I are never out of the picture.
In the inclusive arms of God and his Christ, and
through the energy of the Holy Spirit, is established for ever established the
preciousness of every adoring soul, and the value of their glad deeds of love.
None are ever discounted, nothing is ever written off. All comes to fulfilment
before “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne.”.
Is our Christian faith an absurdity in this
capricious and cruel world? No way!
And with the crowd of saints who gather around the
throne we shout our gratitude:
“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom,
thanksgiving and honour, power and might, be to our God forever and ever!”
THANKSGIVING
We thank
you, Loving Friend,
for encouragement and fellowship far beyond our dearest expectation.
At morning,
noon and night, you are perfect grace and joy,
You are
compassion,
our cup overflows.
You are our
hope,
our cup overflows.
You are our
truth,
our cup overflows.
You are our
life,
our cup overflows.
You are our
freedom,
our cup overflows.
You are our
happiness,
our cup overflows.
At morning, noon and night, you are perfect grace
and joy.
Holy and
most wonderful is your name,
far above all other names on earth or in heaven;
and
by your grace, holy is our gratitude,
through Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Amen!
INTERCESSIONS
# For 2 voices.
God of
boundless energy and unqualified love, help us and all people to enter into the
joy of your purposes, not limiting our expectations to past failures but
opening up to the optimism of eternal life.
We pray for
your blessing on those who are physically or mentally handicapped, yet who live
a full and creative life.
We pray for the salvation of those who appear sound
in body and mind yet are handicapped by a selfish, cramped, and boring outlook.
We pray your
blessing on those who extend the
boundaries of love, forgiving and liberating those who sin against them.
We pray for the salvation of those who lose the zest
for life under the sour influence of anger, jealousy, resentment and
bitterness.
We pray your
blessing on those who know Christ as a profound happiness to be shared by deed
and word through all the common scenes of life.
We pray for the salvation of those who have fallen
into pious exclusiveness, becoming self righteous and judgmental.
We pray your
blessing on those who in grave illness still believe in providence, and through
deep sorrow continue to believe in life.
We pray for the salvation of those who, when ill or
injured are in fear, and when in sorrow, are in despair.
We pray your
blessing on those who on those politicians who, when in government, sincerely
pray to be led by your Spirit of truth.
We pray for the salvation of those who, wanting to
rule others, sell their souls for power and prestige and grow shameless in
hiding the truth.
We pray your
blessing on devoted Christians around us in this congregation for whom abundant life
has long been a reality .
We pray for the salvation of those who for reasons
they cannot understand, are haunted by doubts and
anxieties that inhibit the life of faith.
To you,
precious Source of eternal life, to your gracious wisdom we bring these meagre
but sincere prayers.
Through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Amen !
SENDING OUT
Go out from
this place, surfing on the wave of eternal life with Christ. “
Watch carefully, keep your footing in faith, be daring, be strong. Let
everything you do be done with love.”
The grace of
our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
will be with you
from this time forth , even forever more.
Amen!
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