| 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, SUNDAY 23
4-10 Sept
Luke 14: 25-33
(Sermon
1: “Jesus the Extremist”)
Philemon 1-21
Jeremiah 18: 1-11
(Sermon
2: “A Visit to the Pottery”)
Psalm 139: 1-6 & 13-18
PREPARATION
The light and joy of Christ Jesus be with you all.
And also with you.
Let your chief delight be in the Almighty, and lift
up your face to God.
This is the
day which the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be
glad in it.
We are never alone; in God we live and move and have
our being.
We have seen
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
OR—
Grace to you and peace,
from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
How precious to me are your thoughts, loving God.
How immense is
the number of them!
If I could count them, they would outnumber the
sand.
When I wake up
each morning, you are still with me.
I will praise you, for you are awesome!
Wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful, are all your works!
PRAYER OF APPROACH
Holy Friend, close in on us; cut off distractions
and dissipate our worries. Gather anything that is true and holy within us into
one theme of loving praise. Give to us a few precious moments when we can feel
and anticipate that wholeness of Spirit who is our true nature and destiny.
From the awesome perfection of a brief time with you, enable us look to the
future with a serene confidence. Through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
God, who is our Awesome Friend, is more than ready
to listen as we confess our sin.
Let us pray.
God of all life, ever creating and recreating, come
with the saving grace of Christ Jesus into the unruly kingdom of our lives.
Deal radically with our tarnished souls which were meant for brighter things.
Reach into the
bank of our memories, down into the spring of our feelings, deep into the
tender places where faith and hope struggle towards more light, liberty and
joy.
Forgive all
that you find fallen, reclaim that which is rebellious, expel that which is
alien, and strengthen that which is sane, loving and beautiful.
By your Spirit living within us, enable us to become
in reality as well as hope and intention the true sisters and brothers of the
Son of God. This we pray in his name.
Amen!
GOD IS MERCIFUL
Here is a saying that you can trust without any
hesitation:
“The
Son did not come to condemn the world
but that the world through him might be saved.”
My sisters and brother,
embrace that word and you will be free indeed.
Thanks be to God.
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Putting
Jesus First
Loving God,
We’re sorry that we often put ourselves first,
well ahead of Jesus
and the things he wants us to
do.
Please cure us of our silliness
and our selfishness.
Let Jesus so live in our hearts
that his way will become more
natural
than our old way.
Amen!
PSALM 139
See ‘Australian Psalms’ by B.D. Prewer
POEM: DISCIPLESHIP
It’s easy in the morning sun,
when youth is awash
with hope and ideals,
to take the vows of saints
and get high on the thrill
of tackling dragons and giants.
Much harder in midday heat,
when perennial set-backs
take their wearisome toll,
while dark questions rise up
and insinuate angst
into the crevices of the soul.
Later comes the evening light,
the landscape softens
and lines blur a little,
we limp where once we ran
and wonder what’s achieved
in one’s brief life-span.
Great Source of life and
time,
stay close through all the hours
of this one fleeting day,
that
we may still stay true
to what we have commenced
and leave the finish up to you.
© B.D. Prewer 1993
COLLECT
God most wonderful, please cure us from the dis-ease of divided aims. Give unto each of us a
single-minded devotion to Christ Jesus, so that his Spirit may be in us
forever. Then may our dealings with other people reflect a larger measure of
his truth and grace. For your love’s sake.
Amen!
SERMON 1 : JESUS THE EXTREMIST
Luke 14: 26
If anyone
comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children
and brothers and sisters, yes, and even hate his own life, they cannot be my
disciple.
It does not get much more extreme than this!
Question: Was Jesus a religious extremist? Was he a
fanatic?
Some critics say yes! A Hindu may well say “That Jesus may well be
one of the many incarnations, but he sometimes disappoints me! He is so self
important. He puts himself ahead of everyone else.”
Maybe such a strong reaction from a person of
another faith, touches the edges of something many
Christians may have felt but never dared say aloud. Maybe Jesus was an
extremist. To “hate
one’s father and mother, sisters and brother”? What is going on
here? To cut across one’s loyalty to family, sounds a very extreme thing to do.
NOT AN EGO TRIP
First let us clear up one thing. Jesus was not on an
ego trip. To be a disciple of Jesus was not putting Jesus in top position, but
God. The burning passion of Jesus was God: God’s purposes, God’s truth, God’s
compassion, God’s love. He focussed his message on the kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is among you, turn
around and believe.
So when he says: “If
you are going to follow me” he is saying : “If you
are going to share my passion for God..... my
enthusiasm....my task.....my reason for living.....the true love of my
life.” To put God first means not only
putting God before loved ones but also putting God before your own life.
It is not self importance but God importance that
inspires Jesus to make his extremist claim.
WHAT ABOUT THAT WORD ‘HATE”?
But why did Jesus use that offensive word “hate”?
There is a possibility that we have a mix up in
translation here. Jesus taught in the Aramaic language of the common people. In
Aramaic the words for “hate” and “forsake” are very similar. It is certainly
possible that later writers, translating Aramaic into Greek, got the
translation wrong.
For my part I don’t mind either way. “Forsake”
soften things a little, but it is still rather extremist. I am happy to stay
with “hate”. For me it sounds like yet
another example of Middle Eastern hyperbole.
(I know I have commented on this previously, but let
me underline it. Hyperbole is exaggerated language to express strong feelings.
It is very common in the Middle East. For that matter, it is not uncommon in
our culture. For example, a teenager describes a concert he has been to: “The whole
town was there!” Or a woman looks in her
wardrobe and says: “I have nothing to wear!” In both of these cases we don ‘t take them literally, do we? It is hyperbole.)
When Jesus says his followers must if necessary be prepared to “hate”
loved ones and “hate” our own lives. he is trying to
convey the utter primacy of God. He is
not a half-bored philosopher reading a carefully prepared paper to students.
Jesus is a passionate man caught up in a vision of God’s new world, yet already
aware that it will cost him loved ones, friends and life itself.
THINK BEFORE YOU SAY YES
Please notice that unlike many hyped-up evangelists,
he does not attempt to rush people into making such a decision.
This young rabbi from Nazareth warned them against
hasty decisions. He wanted them to make sure they were willing to take the
plunge and see it through. It is an extreme commitment that he is asking them
to consider. Therefore they should think carefully before jumping in.
The two little parables that follow are not the
words of a slick, religious salesman wanted quick converts.
First there is the man setting out to build an
impressive tower. First sit down and calculate the cost. Can you afford
it? Don’t start something you cannot
finish.
Secondly the parable about a
king going to war. First sit down and work out whether his army is large enough to win
against the enemy. Don’t start something you cannot finish.
Becoming a disciple of this Messiah who has an
absolute passion for God is a costly venture. Count the cost. The disciple must be ready to go the whole
way with the Master.
MISUSE OF THESE SAYINGS
It is unfortunate that these passages have been
misused by numerous sects. They drag in
converts in a flush of enthusiasm and then start warning them about the rift
with families. Any hostility from the family is taught as proof of their true
faith.
It is also unfortunate that some religious monastic
orders have not only insisted on a total severance from loved ones but have
also encouraged a literal hating of one’s body. There is nothing Christlike
about despising and whipping one’s own body. Self flagellation is not a saintly
virtue but a sickness.
Jesus never engaged in artificial self punishment.
The authentic cost of discipleship is that suffering that naturally results
from being faithful to Christ. If you become a Christian and remain close to
your loved ones, that’s wonderful! But
if they should try and tear you away form God, then it may mean an unhappy
severance.
THE DANGER OF SLIPPAGE
In our society the lines between Christ and
godlessness are not always clearly drawn.
For us the danger is one of slippage; we slip almost imperceptible into
losing our first loyalty. A whole host of little decisions or indecisions, and
we find ourselves at a distance from Christ.
These small matters may not at the time seem worth
making a stand on. But accumulatively they amount to a betrayal of the God who
counts more than all else. The years go by and faith slides into sentimental
religion, or what is as bad, into apathy.
Is there anything more pathetic than the soul that
has spent its substance, not like the
prodigal son ‘on riotous living’, but
on the trivia of a thousand mini disloyalties? When this
happen the early enthusiasm is replaced by a dull indifference towards things
of the spirit.
Jesus will not have that! The extremist Christ still
calls us to give everything. That’s what his exaggerated language is about. He
felt so keenly about the importance of this that he used dramatic hyperbole--
the language of ‘hating.”
Australian poet David Foster has these lines in his
poem “The Fleeing Atlanta”:
Don’t give
everything.
How many times
have you heard them say
Don’t give
everything.
You would
think that they
Had given
everything and lost, but hardly
A thing could
be further from the truth.
They lost
because they did not give everything.
“They lost
because they did not give everything?”
Jesus says:
“If anyone
comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children
and brothers and sisters, yes, and even hate his own life, they cannot be my
disciple.
SERMON
2: A VISIT TO THE POTTERY
Jeremiah
18:1-11
We live in a throw away society.
But we do not worship a throw away God. Our God
loves everything “his hands have made” and does not want anyone to lose their
way and end up on a junk heap.
Jeremiah (626-585 BC) employs pictures like the
other remarkable prophets.
He saw parables of God in the common things of life.
Through them God’s word spoke to him. In today’s OT reading, he saw one in a
potter working at his wheel.
The word of
God came to Jeremiah: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you
hear my words.”
So I went down
to the potter’s house, where the potter was working at his wheel. The soft clay
vessel he was shaping in his hands went wrong. So he started again and shaped
another vessel, exactly in the shape he wanted it.
The word of
God came to me saying: “House of Israel, surely I can do with you just as this
potter has done? Just as the clay is in his hand, so are you in my hand, family
of Israel.”
This was yet another stern warning from God.
A warning that the prophet felt compelled to convey
to his clayish people, even though they would mock him and abuse him. Jeremiah
declared that God would not hesitate to stop the wheel, seize the misshapen
clay, squash it back into a shapeless lump and start all over again. That is,
if the “chosen people” must be brought low before they could be redeemed, then
so be it.
A COMPARISON; WOOD TURNING
Maybe you have stood and admired potters at work.
So have I. But I have never attempted to learn the
craft. It is entrancing to watch skilful hands shape something beautiful out of
such unpromising material.
My only similar skill has been in wood turning.
I have never been a top craftsman, far from it. Yet
to shape a piece of timber spinning in the lathe has given me times of
considerable pleasure. Some of my most rewarding efforts have been taking
rough, unmilled wood, and finding what beauty lies hidden inside.
It has been a joy to rescue a rough piece wood, say
a length of Tasmanian wild cherry from a firewood
stack and turn it into a chalice. A hunk
of olive root from a friend’s hedge, became two candle
holders. While camping in the spectacular Flinders Ranges I salvaged from
beside a fireplace two pieces of native pine.(That
small tree that grows ever so slowly in harsh conditions. By the rings I could
estimate 150 years of growth) I turned them both into lamp bases which, if I do
say so myself, are articles of beauty. I have never been a star at the craft,
but I have managed a few memorable creations.
The potter has one major advantage over a wood
turner.
If things go wrong the potter can return the clay to
a lump and start over again. With wood turning, a mistake or an unsuspected
flaw can be disastrous. Some things,
even after hours of work, can end up on the trash heap.
Not always though. Redemption may be possible.
I have know situations
where either a hidden flaw has turned up, or I have made a grave error, forcing
me to alter my design. The end product has sometimes been superior to the one I
first envisaged. Just imagine if I were a master wood turner! The possibilities
of redemption from mistakes would be much greater.
GOD IS THE SUPREME POTTER
God is the Sole Master in the craft of people
making.
In God’s hand the common clay of earth can be
transformed into something truly remarkable.
There is, however, in this Divine craft, one
particular difficulty.
It’s a difficulty not faced by either potter or wood
turner. God has granted the clay free will. Think about it? Think about making
a vase from clay that has a will of its own! [Some of you might want to tell me
that the only time you tried throwing clay on a potter’s wheel, it did have a
mind of its own! That is an illusion I assure you!] A will of
its own? That takes extraordinary skill. Sometimes the production
reaches a stage where things go very wrong, and the only thing God can do is to
break the clay down into a lump and start again.
This is what Jeremiah warned his people about.
Because of their wilfulness and avarice, because of
their arrogance and toleration of injustice and idolatry, God would need to
break them down, otherwise they would never reach
their potential. God would demolish them, not to throw on the rubbish heap but
to start once more from the basics.
It is okay be broken down by God.
Though not a comfortable experience, even in such
loving hands. It had to happen to Israel as a nation, and it happens to many of us as individuals. We do need to be broken down
by God, and to let the Master start again. Starting again requires repentance.
Our repentance is only the beginning.
Even after our repentance, it takes the remarkable
skill and wisdom of God to reshape us. It all cannot happen overnight. I marvel
at the faithful, careful, strong fingers of God as they take our rough clay and
bring something new into being.
THE AMAZING PATIENCE OF GOD
I could never be a master wood turner.
Apart from obvious faults in my design ability and
turning skills, I do not have sufficient patience. Patience is a necessity,
especially at certain points in the exercise of creating a vessel of beauty. I
guess it is the same with a potter.
Our God has unspeakable patience.
Think of the patience required over the millions of
years to painstakingly shape humanity from creatures such as roamed the ancient
rift valley of Africa until the first Adam and Eve (creatures who knew right
and wrong) could stand on this planet and pray to their Creator.
Think of the patience required to draw humanity
onwards to Abraham, and Sarah. And the patience necessary to
lead the fractious Jews from those first pioneers of faith to Micah, Hosea and
the noble Jeremiah. Then more patience.
Painstaking patience, waiting
until the time was exactly right for the Messiah, our Lord Jesus
Christ.
There is no adequate word to describe the patience
of God.
That’s why a moment ago I referred to God’s
“unspeakable patience.” It makes us
dizzy just to think of it. Divine patience from time
immemorial. Wow! And that may be only half of the story! How many
thousands of years, indeed how many millions of years, there may still be to
run before God’s astounding project is complete, and every woman is like a
Christ to her human sisters, and every
man a Christ to his brothers.
WHEN THINGS GO BADLY WRONG
There is one final severe word I must speak. It is a
warning.
Jeremiah, living centuries before Jesus, wavered
between hope and despair.
In today’s passage he speaks of God returning the
misshapen pot to formless clay and starting all over again. That is hope.
In the following chapter 19, Jeremiah has a grim
warning, verging on despair.
He buys a finished pot, goes out to the valley of Hinnom (which was the rubbish tip for
Jerusalem) and completely shatters it. It is now worth nothing. Unlike
malleable clay, a pot that has been hardened in the kiln cannot ever be
repaired. It is almost useless. I say “almost useless” because I dare not put an final limit on the mercy and ingenuity of God.
Even our loving, optimistic Christ, knew that things
could go fatally wrong.
If people chose to use their free will to defy the
divine hands that wanted to shape them into something wonderful, if they
completely hardened their hearts, then ultimately they would sentence
themselves to the rubbish tip. Jesus warned of Gehenna. The word is a form of Hinnom, that garbage dump in the valley where fires smouldered
and maggots crawled and fed on organic refuse.
For Jesus, God does not give up on us.
But tragically, some people use their free will to
give up on God. God does not discard them, they discard God. They chose a
misshapen existence and repudiate their high destiny. The trash heap becomes be
their chosen end; Gehenna.
BACK TO THE MAIN THEME
That warning given, I return to the creating and
re-creating God of Jesus; God is not a ‘throw
away” Creator. God is also Redeemer. And also
Regenerator.
God does not reject us, but seeks to start again.
God is not like an impatient potter who hurls a misshapen
clay out the window, to lie on the ground and return to dust.
God seeks to start once more, redeeming us from
evil.
No matter what our age may be, or what the cause of
our variety of ugliness, God wants to save us.
God is a not a throw away God, but a redeeming God.
A CREED
I put my trust in God.
I believe that we live constantly in the presence of
an Eternal Lover,
whose patience never wearies and whose blessing is
inexhaustible.
I believe that this world with all its grandeur and
beauty, its fertility and fruitfulness,
is the gift of the Eternal Lover whose Holy Spirit cherishes
and sustains all things.
I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only
authentic Child of the Eternal Lover,
and that in his life, death and resurrection there flows a
saving grace
which cannot be
defeated..
I believe that in life and death this God believes
in me,
and God’s faith shall not be in vain.
I put my trust in God.
Amen!
I put my trust in God!
INTERCESSIONS
“God’s mercies are over all his works.” For our
sisters and brothers around the globe,
let us pray.
Loving God, please deal mercifully with those who
have only toyed with faith, and with those who have slipped away from the
commitment they once had.
Deal mercifully with those who are afraid to make
vows lest they might not fully keep them, and with those intellectual snobs who
are too proud to trust the humble son of a Galilean carpenter.
Deal mercifully with those who feel too oppressed,
overworked, abused, hungry, or forsaken to even think about issues of faith.
Deal mercifully with those who have not found the
kind of healing they expected for loved ones or for themselves, and who today
are angry with their God.
Deal mercifully with those who are plunged into deep
grief and fear that nothing on earth or in heaven can ever heal their broken
heart.
Deal mercifully with those who have been ensnared by
religious sects or secular idols that hold them in a state of emotional
bondage.
Deal mercifully with the church when it
prevaricates, or forgets its first love or dilutes the gospel to make it more
palatable.
You are God the most merciful. We know you have
heard our prayers before we even expressed them. In your mercy please use them
for the healing of ills and the righting of wrongs. In the
name of Christ Jesus our Redeemer.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
As you prepare to go your separate ways, take
encouragement from an old Gaelic prayer:
May God make safe to you each step,
May God open to you each door,
May God make clear to you each road.
May God enfold you in loving arms.
Grace mercy and peace, from the Creator, the Saviour
and the Counsellor, will be with you now and always.
Amen!
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